#i may have started answering these and forgot about them in the drafts hence why it took so long

[sustainably-du-mortain]

f0r the dear siIIy rabbit: Côme:

6, 7, 17, 18, 25, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49

N0 pressure t0 d0 aII 0f these and PLS feeI free t0 rambIe t0 y0ur hearts c0ntent!

I'm having so much fun rambling about these, so thanks a lot for these!!

6. What were they like at school? Did they enjoy it? Did they finish? What level of higher education did they reach? What subjects did they enjoy? Which did they hate?

Teacher either didn't like having them in their class or they were their favorite students. They can't sit still and get distracted easily, so classes could get really boring for them if they didn't like the subject.

They did good in science related classes, biology and chem being their favorite and barely managed to get passing grades in the other subjects, especially stuff like literature or arts where you have to read between the lines and get abstract.

They have a Masters in chemistry and minored in biology.

7. Did they have lots of friends as a child? Did they keep any of their childhood friends into adulthood?

They had lots of friends as a kid because they were the kid who knew lots of cool stuff, was friendly with everyone and was very funny, but this changed as they grew up. The things people loved about them started being the things they found annoying, so while they were just as friendly, people just didn't stick with them anymore because they grew tired of their rambling, their bubbly personality, the fact that they were oblivious to their surrounding. So no, they haven't kept any of their childhood friends.

17. Do they like to take photos? What do they like to take photos of? Selfies? What do they do with their photos?

They love taking photos but most of the time forget to take them. Côme gets very absorbed by what they're doing and when they see cool things, their first instinct isn't to take their phone out and take a picture. They just enjoy the moment. Although they tend to regret it because they would have loved having a picture to remember the moment.

When they think about it, they take pictures of: cool rocks, little creatures they find in the forest, Felix, the sky, cool plants and trees, funny-shaped clouds, Felix, their current kintting/crochet projects, stray cats/dogs, Felix...

They keep their pictures in carefully organized folders, or if they really like the photo, they print it and put it in a frame or stick it on a wall

18. What’s their favourite genre of: books, music, tv shows, films, video games and anything else

Favorite book genre: Côme doesn't read much because they struggle to stay focused, but I'd say sci-fy, fantasy and non-fiction, mostly in audiobooks format. They'll listen to books related to science, archeology, mythology, anything they're interested in at the moment. Also mangas, graphic novels or comics, not too much text and pretty fast to read so they love it.

Favorite genre of music: classical. Remember that video of a dude absolutely vibing to classical music that was going around a little while ago? That's Côme. They put on some classical music thinking "just a little background music so that the house isn't so quiet" and end up having their own dance party.

Favorite shows/films genre: Pretty much the same as books. Animes (HQ, JJK, Sk8...) and cartoons (Mystery inc, Ben 10, Voltron...) are cool because they're not too lenghty. They're a big fan of the spidey movies.

I'll have to ponder a bit more about video games...

25. What do they find funny? Do they have a good sense of humour? Are they funny themselves?

They're a sucker for dad jokes and puns, but literally anything makes them laugh. It's so easy to make them laugh people often wonder if they're being genuine. They are, always.

They laugh about pretty much anything except for offensive jokes and dark humor isn't their cup of tea either.

They're hilarious, but it's either accidental or 100% intentional. They let out the best joke because they're just being honest or they've been thinking about a pun for days and waiting for the perfect occasion to deliver it. They're also really clumsy and trip on their feet at the worst times.

41. What’s their sexuality? What do they find attractive? Physically and mentally? What do they like/need in a relationship?

They're pansexual (maybe demiromantic, I'm still pondering on that). They find confidence attractive. Someone with a bright smile who laughs a lot and who doesn't apologize for existing is very sexy to them.

In a relationship they need someone who is going to make them feel like they were the first and only choice. They need someone who won't judge them for all the rambling they do and someone they feel comfortable around and they absolutely adore when their partner feels at ease around them and rambles back. They like when someone is comfortable with pda, lots and lots of pda.

46. Do they make a good first impression? Does their first impression reflect them accurately? How do they introduce themselves?

Honestly, I'd say it'd depend on the type of people they're meeting. They know that their personality can be a lot to take in, so they try to tame it down a notch when first meeting someone but they tend to forget about it halfway through. So yeah, they first impression are often very accurate. They'll be really polite and friendly when introducing themself, to the point unless something distracts them during their introduction.

47. How do they act in a formal occasion? What do they think of black tie wear? Do they enjoy fancy parties and love to chit chat or loathe the whole event?

They hate black tie wear. They love bright colors, so black tie attire is the pinnacle of boring to them. Here's an example of what they wear for formal event. (I have a whole folder dedicated to formal attire for them if you want more)

They're a social butterfly, so fancy parties where you have to chit chat with people are right up their alley, although they often ask Verda or Tina to follow them around so that they don't digress too much.

48. Do they enjoy any parties? If so what kind? Do they organise the party or just turn up? How do they act? What if they didn’t want to go but were dragged along by a friend?

They pretty much enjoy any kind of parties. Put them in an environment with good music and nice people and they're thriving. They spend the night on the dance floor, meeting new people. They're not a big fan of organizing parties though, there are too many things to do and think about, they'd much rather help someone who is organizing or just show up.

If they were dragged to a party they didn't want to attend, although they're usually the people dragging people to parties, they'd probably try to make themself discreet, find a couple people to talk and try to spend a chill night away from all the attention. Or they'd probably try to sneak out of the party.

49. What is their most valued object? Are they sentimental? Is there something they have to take everywhere with them?

Their dino plushie, Ellie. It's the yellow triceratop that sparked their obsession with dinos. They take Ellie everywhere they go, and it's probably going to stay with them forever.

Another thing they valued a lot was an amethyst geode Rebecca got them on their birthday when they started being into rocks and gems. But they lost it in the process of moving to uni and they'd gove everything to get their hands on it again.

They're a tad sentimal, but not too much either. The only things they hold on are things that have a story behind them or things that remind them of one particular person/moment. But even then, they don't really hold on things of the past, memorabilia of old friendships, etc, unless they're really important memories.

Detailed OC asks

[isshuns]

the progression of things - discarded scenes

this is a dump post for scenes that were in the original draft, but never made it to final version of the fic. they bear no connection to the final version of "the progression of things”, but i liked them enough that i couldn’t bear just deleting these scenes (TPOT underwent a lot of editing and rewrites) ;_; they were part of the original premise where I wrote Miyano as ace/demisexual, but in the end it didn’t work out ;_;

click on the “read more” link if you’d like to read them, but take note, they’re were part of the rough draft, hence are extremely unpolished. 

Miyano remembers being fifteen, his school bag heavy on his shoulders, but his heart heavier in his chest. Every day he looks at the mirror in his bathroom and wonders why he was cursed with such feminine features, a smaller build than the rest of the boys in his school; everything on his face seemed wrong as though nature forgot to switch its genetic code back to “MASCULINE, MALE” when constructing his face.

He couldn’t blame his parents, they never had any say in what he’d look like when he was born, and his mother would be heartbroken to hear that her son, bearing such resemblance to her looks, actually hated his own.

But as slightly estranged as he was from his middle school classmates when his looks came up as a topic of conversation, Miyano still heard Things whispered amongst his peers, seen Things even, when his classmates included him in their weekly get-together to ogle at printed materials meant for a demographic way beyond their age.

In the flush of youth, where the boys in his class pondered over their body anatomy, fascinated with nature, and looked to adult magazines (stolen from their older sibling’s stash) for enjoyment, Miyano pondered over the harsh reality of his feminine features, upset but resigned with nature, and looked to fashion magazines (taken with permission from his mother’s collection) for pointers on how Not to appear even more like a girl.

(His father’s copies of Business Weekly helped a little too, even if only to remind Miyano how top businessmen in the country dressed for a business photoshoot with the press – suit, tie and expensive watch peeking from the cuffs.)

When the passage of time came and went and Miyano entered high school, he discovered the world of Boys Love manga and dedicated his free time to understanding the intricacies of this fascinating genre. Being a minor, the type of print he could obtain were fairly sweet and innocent, nothing too explicit save for some scenes that took place on a bed, the protagonists’ modesty preserved with a flimsily drawn blanket over their nude bodies.

Occasionally, a book or two with explicit content would make their way to his collection. The internet was also a place full of wonders and possibility, and once or twice Miyano would (secretly) look up the famous series promised with rave reviews, but somehow, Porn Without Plot never really stuck to his repertoire.

Even after becoming of age, Miyano still finds himself gravitating towards the safety that comes with the PG-13 books. There is a strange sort of comfort in consuming fiction that depicts love as something simple and uncomplicated, straightforward and representation that love– intimacy did not necessarily come hand in hand with sexual acts. Intimacy could exist with or without sexual acts and vice versa, whatever floats your boat, really.

For Miyano, it was always the build up leading to that ultimate confession scene (at the rooftop, under the cherry blossom tree by the school yard, the back of the school gym, endless options) that grabbed him by the feels and punted him into the sun. That’s where the highlight is!! He once told Sasaki, unable to hold back on his excitement that twinkled in his eyes.

And identifying all the event flags leading up to that very moment of their first kiss? Unparalleled. Truly the best of all scenes there is. Peak romance. The bedroom scenes (few and rare in his possession) are really just a bonus.

So, while his peers continued to chat about going through the motions in bed, the closest miyano could ever try to relate to during those conversations was the intimacy that came along with the idea of sexual intercourse.

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

The moment Miyano is done with the last of his midterms and bids his notes goodbye (for now), Sasaki magically appears beside him and whisks him away to the nearby izakaya for a celebratory dinner.

“For getting through the first midterm week of your life~” His giant baby boyfriend coos, ever so sweet like the cakes he bakes.

Miyano pretends to be exasperated, shoulders dramatically slumping over the sticky izakaya table, but his heart knows better. It’s been one month since he’s started college (the one Sasaki also so happens to attend, not a coincidence at all), and the privilege of having more time to spend with one another makes Miyano giddy with happiness.

Gone are the days Miyano can only meet his favourite senpai for a handful of hours after club activities until the reality of their courseload slaps them in the face; gone are the days they have to rely on telephone calls and text messages, where the minutes and seconds flashing across the screen serve as an unforgiving reminder of the time they have left before they have to part ways.

It’s all gone now. Sasaki sits before him, in the flesh, and Miyano has always felt that seeing Sasaki’s smile in person would always be different from seeing it on screen. The grainy pixels on his phone can never do those handsome features justice, nor can it the warmth blooming behind his breastbone whenever Sasaki threads their fingers together and walks him all the way back to his dorm.

The freshmen all share a common dormitory block separate from the rest of the college students, something about building connections and getting to know each other better, so Sasaki insists on walking Miyano back to his room before he makes the trek all the way back to his own. The night is young, the dorms are peacefully quiet, and everyone is probably still out in town having a good time.

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

Loathe as he is to do so, Miyano makes the executive decision to drop by the bookstore one afternoon to try and consult a few adult BL manga. It’s the worst idea he could ever come up with, he hates comparing his own relationship to silly BL manga tropes, but nothing short of an apocalypse would push him to ask the people around him whether it’s normal to… not think about sex in a romantic relationship. While the internet is a wondrous place full of answers and possibilities, Miyano figures it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a peek at how society tackles his questions through the lens of BL manga.

Hurriedly, just before his date with Sasaki, he randomly picks up one of the highly rated R-18 series, heads over to the payment counter quickly, and bolts out of the store the moment the cashier bags his purchases. He makes sure to stuff the damned volumes deep beneath his bag, out of sight, before he heads over to the café to meet Sasaki for lunch.

And when he’s finally back in his own dorm later that night, his roommate blissfully unaware and asleep, Miyano retrieves the book from his bag, cautiously peels away the plastic wrap before he settles down for the night to take notes.

His efforts are all for naught. Halfway through the series – one Junjou Romantica –, it takes Miyano all but 3 volumes before he calls it quits and and promptly closes the book. Guess there’s no way he can redeem his money now, unless Sasaki is into dubcon…? Well, that’s a thought for future Miyano to ponder on. Current Miyano just wants to sleep and wash the images out of his mind with bleach.

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

he has no care for sex, but nothing compares to the tender happiness that comes along with partaking in something sasaki enjoys and yearns for. sasaki’s language of love has always been touch and spending time partaking in activities of common interest.

today, sasaki has picked a soothing lo-fi playlist as their background music. they’re seated on the bed, warmly nestled against each other as they browse through their respective manga

his eyes may be on inked pages, but his heart is long gone. he discreetly observes his boyfriend, the curve of his jaw, long lashes almost curling against the high of his cheekbones as his honey-gold eyes flit across pages and pages of content.

the fingers flipping through each page is steady, long, and miyano suddenly wonders how it would feel to have them splayed across his body, touching him in places his own hands have never ventured before.

“what’s wrong, myaa-chan?” sasaki smiles at him, eyes impossibly fond and kind.

well, fuck it, there’s no going back now.

“senpai, what do you think… about… BL with explicit content?”

sasaki blinks. miyano tampers down the urge to kiss those parted lips.

“you mean books with sex scenes in them?”

“yeah.”

“oh.” sasaki turns away, the hand that’s not rested on miyano’s shoulder has found a place on top of sasaki’s mouth. he’s embarrassed, miyano realizes, and somehow that makes him feel ten times more endearing than usual.

sensing that this was a topic his boyfriend wasn’t going to let go any time soon, sasaki clears his throat and returns miyano’s gaze head on.

“i’m fine with it. why do you ask?”

“i… well.” while miyano struggles for words, sasaki hand starts moving up and down his arm, soothing him.

“are you starting to read rated manga? it’s normal, at least, ogasawara’s girlfriend says so. so there’s no need to be shy, myaa-chan! if you want to recommend any, you know I’ll read anything you lend me. no judgment here.”

it should have been reassuring, but the thought that ogasawara’s girlfriend discussed with sasaki about explicit BL manga like it’s the fucking weather has miyano choking on his spit. what the actual fuck.

do people actually talk about these things? is miyano the abnormal one instead for never entertaining the thought of doing things with his significant other?! has he been missing out on some code of relationship couples ought to follow?! the BL mangas he read never said so!

“myaa-chan? are you okay?”

“you- you talk with ogasawara senpai about these things?”

sasaki’s cheeks colour a lovely shade of red. from his looks, he’s starting to catch up with where miyano wants the conversation to go. that’s a relief, because miyano honestly doesn’t know how to tactfully broach the topic without sounding like a dumb dumb about these things.

“yeah, i do.” sasaki admits, “but only once or twice, because ogasawara needed to vent about things. sorry, does that weird you out? i can stop. i don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“no, no, it’s fine. totally fine, senpai.” it must be a common boys topic that somehow eluded miyano and friends during high school. at this point, miyano’s face must be burning with the hot flames of embarrassment and shame, he’s pretty sure sasaki’s fingers can feel the heat all the way from where they are, stroking his cheek absently.

“what brought this on, if you don’t mind me asking?” sasaki asks a moment later, when the weight of silence in the room gets a little too much to bear.

“just… some friends talking about it the other day.”

“friends.”

“yeah… fine, classmates.”

“are you… thinking about it?”

at miyano’s surprised expression, sasaki backtracks immediately.

“forget i asked.”

“to be honest, i don’t know what to feel about it.”

“it’s okay, we don’t have to do what you don’t want to do.”

it’s so painfully awkward yet endearing at the same time.

“do you think about it, senpai? about us… doing those things?”

sasaki’s lack of an answer is extremely telling. the shade of red coloring his cheeks is probably bright enough to rival miyano’s own face.

“does it matter? i am happy with doing whatever myaa-chan wants to do.” sasaki finally says, but his eyes have shied away from miyano’s gaze, and something within miyano snaps.

“of course it matters. it’s you, sasaki-senpai. i want you to be happy too. i want to do things that you want to do too.”

something akin to hope blooms across sasaki’s eyes (surprisingly moist).

“thank you, myaa-chan. that thought alone makes me happy enough. let’s leave it here for now and let things progress as they naturally would, how about that? we don’t need to rush into anything. i’m really happy with where we are now.”

he knows that sasaki has caught on to his sexual orientation, no doubt. it’s been a year since he became of age, and yet the BL manga he still buys have never ventured into the explicit genre. briefly, he wonders if sasaki actually keeps his own stash of porn somewhere below his bed, like normal boys would do.

they aren’t in high school anymore. it’s been years, and yet until this point, the thought of doing something more than kissing and cuddling has never crossed miyano’s mind. he wants to cry at how respectful his boyfriend has been all this while.

“myaa-chan? myaa-chan? oh no, yoshikazu, don’t cry. i’m sorry if i said something wrong-”

oh fuck.

miyano has always been uncomfortable with displays of affection and attention, preferring to bask in the comforting arms of his daydreams and fantasies, but his love for sasaki burns greater and he will do anything he can to ensure that sasaki receives equal, if not more, affection and care than the amount his boyfriend showers him in.

scene ends with sasaki hugging miyano tightly, reassuring him and planting a kiss at the side of miyano’s temple. but it does nothing to seep away the frustration gnawing at his bones.

END

[leapyearkisses]

Director’s Cut Commentary - Orbs Are Bad News Part 2

Second part of me blathering my thoughts all over this old story per the request of a very nice anon! I am still sleep-deprived, so yay~ Sorry, this commentary is probably way less interesting, since this part is just the sexy stuff, but if you have any particular questions, please send me another ask!

Happy to do any of my stories or just answer asks, whatever. I clearly enjoy reading myself talk XD

Comments in bold below the cut! This part is NSFW. Well, it’s all kinky but there’s also sex.

I forgot to mention this in Part 1, but the title of this story is because the homebrew campaign I ran for my friends involved magical evil crystal orbs. Hence they are bad news.

"Are you ever going to stop sneezing?" Remembrance asked.  At the same time, Cordes said, "One thousand blessings, Llewellyn, one for each."  The two of them were several yards ahead on the road, and only Cordes was looking back over his shoulder.  Right now, the four party members were the only travelers on this particular stretch, although as they got closer to civilization, they'd started to pass the odd wanderer, farmers with wagons, even a merchant or two.  The woods here were broken up periodically by stretches of arable land, clear-cut several decades ago and now waving with wheat, flax, or various vegetable leaves.  The fields were golden in the late sun.  Their shadows stretched behind them like taffy, rippling on the cobblestones.  The day was vanishing quickly, and Gerrit could sense his companions' impatience to move on even as he stopped again himself, drawing out his handkerchief in a now very familiar motion.

 Stick your people in a world. That’s my advice. Don’t have them just floating around in a no man’s land of generic scenery. (Also why I like period/historical snzarios and fantasy stuff, because reading about plain people in an apartment somewhere is boring to me.)

Llewellyn, for his part, could not answer them, face buried in his elbow as he ducked with another reluctant outburst. "Hahktschiu!  Hahh- happtsch!"

"Bless," said Gerrit, and he stepped in front of the elf to shield him marginally from view.  He laid one warm hand on the back of Llewellyn's neck and lifted the handkerchief with the other, capturing the next sneeze in the flannel folds.  He settled his fingers firmly around Llewellyn's nose.

This was an arrangement that had been born out of necessity three days ago when the party had raided a bandit camp's plundered stores.  Along with a good stash of gold and gems, they'd found a blue crystal orb, cursed perhaps, that had summarily become attached to both of Llewellyn's hands, rendering the sorcerer unable to do most anything... including take care of his cold on his own.

 On the last episode of Orbs Are Bad News...

Llewellyn blew his nose into the handkerchief, wetting the cloth and dampening Gerrit's fingers through it.  Originally quite opposed to such a display outside of the most private circumstances, the elf had been forced to put his pride aside and let Gerrit help him.  His fever had abated the previous day, but the frequency of his sneezing had increased, as if his body was insistent now on ridding itself of whatever illness remained.  It was a horrific prospect to Llewellyn to catch the resulting mess every time in the sleeve of his robes... so he suffered Gerrit to hold the handkerchief, even though they were walking along the road where any might see them.

Despite some initial teasing, Remembrance and Cordes had quickly grown accustomed to the practice and now cared not at all, except to complain.  "We're going to have to camp again," grumbled Remembrance.  "Five miles from Veigh and we're going to be stuck without a bath!"

 Is five miles a realistic figure here? No fucking clue! I frequently engage in excessive and specific research for my stories, but I didn’t look up how long one might hike for in D&D. Oh well.

"Is there anything I could do for you?" Cordes asked, somewhat exasperated.  The priest had made several herbal concoctions for Llewellyn over the past few days, but none had helped the elf's nose much.  Cordes's specialty was unfortunately not the curing of disease but the mending of bones and flesh.

 I will take any opportunity to make up an excuse as to why the snz cannot be contained. You’re welcome lol

"Ndo," Llewellyn growled, as fed up as the rest of them.  "I'm beyond heh- help. Hngtschiu!"

"Bless you, arimelda," said Gerrit, trying to keep his voice even.  He shifted the handkerchief so that Llewellyn could have a drier spot, trying to ignore a glimpse of slickness on the elf's face.  "Remembrance, Cordes, why don't the two of you go on ahead?  Find an inn, get a room, take a bath, whatever you want.  It might be prudent also to send a message ahead to the Mages Guild about the orb.  Will you do that?  Llewellyn and I will join you when we arrive."

 An elvish word appears! I researched this but not walking.

Cordes nodded.  "Yes, I'll draft a letter as soon as- Hey!"  Remembrance had grabbed his arm and was rushing ahead already.

"Let's go, man!" she said.  "Everyone loves a damn priest; you're my ticket to a good room, so may your god help you if you dawdle."  Her pointed tail swished as she practically jogged down the road.  Cordes spluttered but could no more stand up to her as to a tornado, so off they went.  It was a remarkably short time before the two of them were out of earshot, disappearing around a bend.

 And again, removed so that the main characters can bang, lol.

Gerrit sighed but turned his attention back to Llewellyn, who was blowing his nose again.  The handkerchief was running out of clean corners this late in the day, but the elf leaned back this time when he was finished.  "All set?" Gerrit asked.

"Yes."  Llewellyn rubbed his eyes on his upper arm, wiping away a spare tear from the effort.  "...My apologies."  He cleared his throat, refusing to meet Gerrit's gaze.  "We may arrive after dark."

"You're ill," said Gerrit, trying to fold the flannel in a way as to avoid his pocket getting wet.  "We'd move faster if you let me carry y-"

"No."

"Then I don't mind taking a more leisurely pace."  Gerrit smiled.  Even after everything, Llewellyn was stubborn.  Honestly, since they weren't really in a rush, he didn't really care when they reached Veigh; they'd only detoured here to try and remove the orb.  If Llewellyn, the most inconvenienced, didn't want to give up his pride and piggyback on... well, Gerrit found his noble hauteur inexplicably cute.

 Me too, buddy. Don’t worry, you can carry your elf later.

He also wasn't in a particular hurry because it was awfully uncomfortable to make any sort of time with his arousal pressed flush to his thigh.

A reminder that sex is usually going to be involved in my stories. The snz is not enough by itself.

Llewellyn coughed into his elbow and then started walking again.  Gerrit had pulled back his hood for him in the morning and braided his hair, and the crown of plaits caught the afternoon sunlight like an obsidian.  Gerrit tried not to let his eyes linger on the sorcerer's pale nape.  Or any other part of him.  He and Llewellyn had been travelling together for close to three years, working for their current patron in the capital, and in that time Gerrit had felt himself growing closer to the elf.  Wanting to be closer, anyway.  

Llewellyn shot a glance at him and caught him looking.  Gerrit flushed and turned his gaze back ahead to the road.

"You've been very accommodating during all of this," the elf said, tone carefully neutral.

Gerrit shrugged.  "It doesn't bear mentioning.  We're comrades."

"Comrades," Llewellyn repeated, an edge to his voice that Gerrit couldn't quite place.  "Is that all it is?"  He kicked a stick that had fallen to the cobblestones, sending it into the brush. Somewhere to the right, bumblebees droned over a meadow.

 Llewellyn is kind of a asshole and not super great at communicating with any level of affection, although he does get better.

Gerrit swallowed.  "Yes?  You and I, we've helped each other before.  I consider you to be a steadfast companion."  Eyes on the road.  Eyes on the dappled play of shadowed leaves and light on the ground.  "Why do you ask?"

"So shy," Llewellyn exclaimed, a tad mockingly.  "You've never been shy about taking me to bed, Gerrit."  Despite his short height, the elf seemed to find it easy to look down his nose at the much taller fighter.  "Has something changed?"

 Height difference is also personally sacred to me.

"Changed?"  Eyes on the road.

Llewellyn stopped walking.  "You called me 'arimelda.'  'Dearest.'  Did you think I wouldn't hear you over my sneezing?"  He couldn't cross his arms with his hands trapped by the orb, but the set of his jaw was determined and his firm brows were arched.  "I wasn't so distracted then as you seem to have thought."

Gerrit shoved his hands in his pockets.  He stopped walking but didn't turn.  "Apparently not," he muttered.  "Look, we can set it aside.  Doesn't have to mean anything – doesn't have to change anything.  I know a highborn elf like you wouldn't consider an official relationship with a half-elven bastard, and I've known that from the start.  For my whole life.  So... I care about you.  But it can just be as comrades, or whatever you want it to be."  Llewellyn was quiet, and after a long minute, Gerrit did turn on his heel, desperate to know what kind of reaction he'd provoked.

 The angst of the half-elven existence! Gerrit is a very typical half-elf in terms of D&D characterization, lol. Despite that, I do find these different-lifestyle pairings interesting, so they keep happening, cliche or not. There is a definite pathos in the elf/human relationship because of the different lifespans, of course - most famously depicted through Arwen and Aragorn, probably, although he’s not the exactly typical human. Anyway, it kind of varies how people like to determine elven and half-elven lifespans in D&D depending on the PHB and your DM’s weary forbearance lol, but Gerrit and Llewellyn will expect to live similar lengths because I’m a sap.

He saw Llewellyn standing with his eyes closed and head titled back, lips parted.  The elf's nostrils flared as he gasped.

"Are you going to sneeze again??" Gerrit asked.  He threw up his hands, then went for his handkerchief once more.  They ­did have an arrangement.

He strode back over to Llewellyn's side and tucked the cloth around his nose again, thumb and forefinger just resting on the elf's nostrils.  He started to rub Llewellyn's back.  "You have the worst timing, you know?  Here I am, spilling my heart to you and everything."  

 I laughed writing this part, too. You can’t always let things just be angst.

"Sh-hhuh-t up, I jh- just nih-" Llewellyn gasped again and gave in; he had no other choice.  "Hahktscht!"  He moaned and pressed closer into the handkerchief, thick congestion only aggravating the itch that remained inside.  "Hkktschtt!  Hngtscht!  Hahh- ah-- ankcxttschiu!"

 That sure is a bunch of letters crammed together!

"Easy... it's okay."  Gerrit massaged Llewellyn’s nose, tried to soothe the irritation.  He guided Llewellyn to the side of the road, and, in a moment of calm, settled him to sit on the grassy bank.  He followed, kneeling at the elf's side.  Llewellyn was tearing up again and his nose was twitching against the pads of Gerrit's fingers.  Gerrit felt electric all over.  He found himself wishing the handkerchief was gone so that he might touch the soft, heated skin of Llewellyn's septum, coax the elf to relax and loose his tension, sneeze into Gerrit's palm.  The mess didn't bother him; none of it bothered him.  He was supremely unbothered.  His cock was almost painfully hard.

It took several more minutes punctuated with more urgent expulsions before Llewellyn seemed to trust himself to speak.  His eyes were wet with unshed tears, eyelids tender and reddened.  His nose was brightly ruddy, running to chapped.  He had to take a shaky breath, collecting his thoughts.  "Gerrit."

 I’m a very visual writer. This kink is extremely visually-based for me. I wish I could draw as well as I want to so I could depict these scenes how I imagine them, but eh.

"Yes?"  Gerrit lowered the handkerchief, gently pinching as he did to clear any lingering moisture.  He wasn't ready to hear a rejection, nor did he feel particularly ready for a lecture or a tirade or even a logical exploration of why a relationship was a bad idea.  He wanted, if possible, to keep walking to Veigh, side by side, listening to the bees and dragonflies and songbirds settling in for the evening, feeling the light breeze on his face, replete with the scents of summer.  

"Kiss me."

Gerrit blinked, mental caravan bunching to a halt.  "What?"

 i am so funny omg

Llewellyn nudged him in the chest with the orb.  "Kiss me.  You're all worked up."  He cleared his throat.  "And judging by the state of you, you're not put off by my cold.  So?"  He tilted his head to the side, gently, closed his eyes.  "I want you to kiss me."

 An example of the B character not really forcing the admitting of the fetish but just kind of not caring. That is also okay, and I think it’s normal. People don’t just admit to all their kinks immediately upon entering a relationship.

Baffled, but feeling as though maybe all was not lost, Gerrit obliged, pressing their lips together.  His own eyes slid closed and he cupped Llewellyn's cheek, deepening the kiss, touching their tongues together, trying to convey how he felt.  Whatever had changed.  The kiss lasted for too short a time; Llewellyn broke away to breathe, eyes half-lidded, but he didn't lean away.

 I’ve never kissed anyone, but I consume media. I feel like I am pretty good at depicting things regardless of experience.

"I'm not going to dismiss you out of hand," he said.  "You or your feelings.  But I would ask for some time to think."  He looked up through his lashes.  "Are you feeling better?"

 Another thing I like in romance, even in kink short stories like this, is a more realistic portrayal of the confession than just “It was obviously meant to be~”

Gerrit could feel his pulse in every extremity.  "Not really," he managed, and he kissed Llewellyn again, this time sliding one hand under the elf's head and one at his hip and pressing him back to lay in the grass.  He moaned in his throat as Llewellyn kissed back, and when they had to break for breath, he started to kiss at Llewellyn's forehead, jaw, throat, wherever he could touch skin.  His hands roamed over the elf's body, smoothing over hip and thigh and belly until he could start to undo the buttons on Llewellyn's close-cut robes.

"Gerrit," gasped Llewellyn.  He moved the orb between them, jamming it into Gerrit's sternum.  "You are not going to sleep with me on the side of the damn road!  Get ahold of yourself!"

 He has standards!

Gerrit growled at the quick pain in his chest, then shook his head and leaned back.  He flushed deeply and pulled his hands away.  "Oh.  Oh, fuck, sorry.  I-"

"Pick me up."  Llewellyn lifted his arms.

"What??"  Gerrit's brain was having a hard time keeping up at the moment, all of his blood being elsewhere.

"There was a thicker copse of trees back about thirty feet, on the left."  Llewellyn waved the orb at him.  "Pick me up.  We can lay down there."

 His standards are NOT that high! But he does have them!

So.  So Gerrit ducked his head into the circle of Llewellyn’s arms and picked him up, holding him securely and setting off down the road again, back the way they’d come.  The elf was right; there, about twenty feet back from the bank, was a thick copse of pines, all grown together with wild geranium and maidenhead ferns.  Gerrit pushed through, shoulder first.  Despite its proximity to the thoroughfare, the inside of the stand was quiet and shielded completely from view.  This would do nicely.

 Told you you’d get to carry him soon.

He set Llewellyn back on his feet and made short work of undressing him, first freeing the sorcerer from his pouches and bags, then undoing the silver buttons on his robe from his collarbone to his crotch.  The rich fabric fell open appealingly.  Next, Gerrit freed the elf from his boots and leggings.  A long white shirt, woven from the finest of elven angora, still covered him, but Gerrit pushed the fabric up over Llewellyn’s belly, leaning in to kiss the elf again and touching him intimately.

Llewellyn moaned and nudged Gerrit’s hip with the orb.  “Now you,” he said.  “I want to see your body.”

Gerrit complied, making quick time shedding his cloak, pack, leather armor, breeches, boots.  Two daggers, two short swords, caltrops, a bow and quiver, a glaive, and a spiked whip followed.  He pushed them to the side as Llewellyn rolled his eyes.

This is another funny trope lol, like when a hero or assassin or someone has to go through airport security and the metal detector keeps beeping because they’re carrying 18 knives on their person. Fighters are proficient in every weapon, so why not have one of everything?

"You can't possibly have a use for all of those," the elf said, and then Gerrit captured his mouth again.

He laid Llewellyn down on the soft carpet of pine needles, using his cloak to cover the ground and double as a makeshift pillow.  The elf was beautiful in the shifting shade, skin flawless.  He had the orb resting on his chest and it glowed intermittently in the inconstant sunlight.  The gold chain netting that encapsulated both the orb and Llewellyn's fine-boned hands glimmered.  "You know," said Gerrit, smoothing a hand down Llewellyn's bare thigh.  "You'd look pretty good bound up in gold chain."

"This isn't enough for you?"  He scoffed.

Gerrit laughed.  "It would be fun to tease you.  I love it when you fuss at me.  So cute."  He dodged Llewellyn's elbow and settled down on his stomach, hooked one of Llewellyn's legs over his shoulder, and nuzzled the base of the elf's cock.  "Ready, arimelda?"  His own cock was under him, pressed to his stomach in the confines of his shirt.  He could feel his pulse in the head of it, quickening with the scent of his lover.

"Yes, you prick," sighed the elf, and he moaned when Gerrit started to kiss him and lave his skin.  His fingers flexed on the orb, longing to wind into Gerrit's hair.

 Licking is kind of thing, and I love writing about fellatio so. Yay~

Gerrit took Llewellyn into his mouth eagerly, fingers curled over the elf's thighs, fingertips pressing at the sensitive inner surface as he sucked and teased and swallowed.  Like this, he could focus on Llewellyn's pleasure.  The noises the usually stoic and prideful sorcerer was making were enough to make Gerrit moan, mouth full, and rock his hips.  Nothing pleased Gerrit more than seeing Llewellyn undone, seeing the elf flushed and open and undone for him.  And he shivered, all over, when he heard the elf's breath catch and his tone go wavery.  He thought he could come from this, listening to Llewellyn sneeze while pleasuring him implacably with a heated, well-placed tongue.

 This is also VERY IMPORTANT. Caretaking to the point of like, partner worship idk. It’s good!!

"Aa, aa, ahh- ih- Gerrit, I-" Llewellyn drew his knee up, curling, heel drawing along Gerrit's back.  "I nih- need to snih- hh-"

Gerrit drew his head back, let Llewellyn's cock free for a moment.  He didn't loosen his grip on the elf's legs, though, wound up and desirous.  "Okay by me, melda, it's okay.  Feel all right?  Want me to stop?"  He was breathless himself, had to force the words past the distraction of his arousal, but he would abide.

 Consent is the sexiest thing.

"No, don't stop," Llewellyn groaned, then turned his head to the side.  "Hpptscht!  Hah- Haktschiu!"

"Bless, bless."  Gerrit kissed Llewellyn's thigh tenderly, then nipped it, drew his tongue over the hurt, sucked a bruise to mark its place.  He swallowed Llewellyn down again as the elf cried out in pleasure and then bent with another helpless burst.  Gerrit wondered if he could make Llewellyn come simultaneously with a sneeze and what that might feel like.  The fantasy set him alight.  His abdomen was tight, his cock like a brand on his stomach. He redoubled his efforts.

Gerrit felt it first, when Llewellyn came, in the tightening of the elf's thighs and stomach, then tasted the salt of his release.  His world narrowed down to taking it in, swallowing, milking with his mouth while Llewellyn cried out, going until the elf was pushing him away, keening, oversensitive.  He didn't wait to lift Llewellyn then into his lap, cradling him with one arm and stroking himself with the other hand, desperate to come as well.  Llewellyn pressed his face to the junction of Gerrit's neck and shoulder, tightly gripping the cloth of Gerrit's shirt as they rocked together.  The elf's nose was gently wet and he was panting, sniffling.  Gerrit came with a shout, holding him close, shaking with an overabundance of pleasure.  He let go of his cock and embraced Llewellyn fully.  He had enough presence of mind not to confess to anything, but he couldn't stop himself from murmuring how beautiful, how soft.

 okay. o__o There’s only so much I can say about writing the porn lol. I write what I want to read.

Gradually the world came back.  Birdsong, first, and the bees, the sounds of the trees swaying in the light breeze.  The lingering heat of the day, dampened by the shade and the growing dusk.  The musty smell of pine needles and the sharper hint of sap, the scents of sex, the pressure of Llewellyn astride his lap, the bite of uneven ground against his knees.  Llewellyn was touching his cheek, trying to say something sweet, failing because of his cold again.

 I tried to write this part so that it would not be immediately obvious to the reader, as it is not to the characters, that the orb is gone.

"Ah- hh- Ttschgktst!"

Wetness against his neck.  Gerrit wound his fingers with Llewellyn's and kissed his jaw.  "Bless you," he said.  "I'll find you a healer in Veigh.  We'll get you well again.  Right after we free you from the orb."  He laid his cheek against the back of Llewellyn's hand tenderly.  Then he paused. "Wait."  Straightening, he brought his hands between them.  The right was laced with Llewellyn's left.  "The orb is gone."

Llewellyn straightened also, looking down at his hands.  His hands with no orb.  He lifted them both, amazed.  And then wiped his nose on his wrist, sighing in pleasure.  Gerrit tried not to blush despite everything.

 Me too, buddy.

"Where did it go?" he asked, looking past the elf's shoulder.  "Why did it come off?"

"Who even cares at this point??"  Llewellyn had let go of him and was stretching, running his palms over his body, touching his own arms and face and cock, finally able to move and feel again after three days of magical bondage.  He wiggled his fingers and then clapped his palms together, raising a small flame with their parting.  "I have my freedom back.  I can cast spells again.  I can-" He smiled brilliantly.  "I can touch you, too."  He dropped his hands suddenly to Gerrit's lap, nimbly taking Gerrit's cock between them.

Gerrit lost track of the orb immediately.

 Me too, buddy.

---

It was dark indeed when the two of them made it to the inn in Veigh, but both were in high spirits.  Gerrit had relinquished handkerchief duty back to Llewellyn with a great internal mourning, but he could always fantasize about this again in the future (he did, frequently), and he knew that Llewellyn, despite his best efforts, would catch more colds on the road (he did, more frequently than he would like).

I would love to play a fetish-friendly D&D campaign, but it would be way too embarrassing, probably. My current PC has allergies, but I have never mentioned them in-game and probably never will lol. God help me if my DM ever remembers that I wrote them into my character sheet.

Remembrance and Cordes had only been able to secure one room, it seemed, with two beds.  Gerrit resigned himself, going up the stairs, to sleeping on the floor. But... it was apparent upon entering the small space that... well, their priest and thief had ended up taking up only one of the beds, together.  Gerrit and Llewellyn traded glances.

"I don't think I want to ask," said Llewellyn, going for the free bed.

"Sounds like a plan to me," Gerrit replied, joining him.

The untold story, lol

In the morning, Cordes, with great dignity sprung from embarrassment (the cause of which he did not volunteer) informed them that a letter had not been sent to the Mages Guild yet.  He was immensely relieved to find that one was no longer needed and quick to congratulate Llewellyn on his newly regained freedom.  Remembrance just chuckled from the bed and took her time buckling her armor back on.  

Already in Veigh, the party spent some time stocking up on medicines and liquefying some of the heavier treasures they'd liberated from the bandit camp.  Gerrit sent a message on to their patron to expect them back in the capital in a couple of weeks, barring disaster.  They purchased horses and set out, ready for the next adventure.

---

The orb lay still in the pine thicket, nestled like an egg among the ferns, waiting for the next hapless traveler. 

 Faust’s Orb of Rope Bondage. Make a Will saving throw [DC 15] upon touching the orb with any body part, wearing clothes or not. Upon a failure, the orb will find its way to adhere to the hand of the hapless adventurer. If both hands touch the orb, they will both be stuck. If two people fail the save, one of each of their hands will be stuck. The spell can be broken only if each attached party has an orgasm.

I GUESS

[jjpocketbook]

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.

Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)

Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.

Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.

Draft – writers submit their rough draft.

Draft review – editors review each draft.

Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).

Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.

Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

1.

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.

Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.

Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What’ll you want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

The post The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-tool-kit/ via https://neilpatel.com

The original post, The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time, has been shared from https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com/2020/06/16/the-seo-tool-kit-11-tools-thatll-save-you-time/ via https://imtrainingparadise.wordpress.com

[marketingcomcaio]

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.

Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)

Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.

Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.

Draft – writers submit their rough draft.

Draft review – editors review each draft.

Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).

Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.

Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

1.

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.

Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.

Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What’ll you want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

The post The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time appeared first on Neil Patel.

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time Publicado primeiro em https://neilpatel.com

[remelitalia]

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools Thatll Save You Time

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.

Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)

Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.

Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.

Draft – writers submit their rough draft.

Draft review – editors review each draft.

Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).

Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.

Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

1.

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.

Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.

Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What’ll you want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

The post The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/seo-tool-kit/ via https://neilpatel.com

See the original post, The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools Thatll Save You Time that is shared from https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home/the-seo-tool-kit-11-tools-thatll-save-you-time via https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home

[jimmyjohnsmnm]

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.

Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)

Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.

Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.

Draft – writers submit their rough draft.

Draft review – editors review each draft.

Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).

Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.

Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

1.

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.

Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.

Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What’ll you want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

The post The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://ift.tt/2YAJL0G via https://neilpatel.com The post, The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time, has been shared from https://ift.tt/2ULC7zh via https://ift.tt/2r0Go64

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The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time

email marketing list providers

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.

Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)

Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.

Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.

Draft – writers submit their rough draft.

Draft review – editors review each draft.

Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).

Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.

Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

1.

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.

Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.

Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What’ll you want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

Google

[reviewandbonuss]

The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time

When I first got into the world of SEO, you could literally optimize your site for any term and rank at the top of Google within a month or two.

But of course, that was ages ago.

Now with Google’s ever-evolving algorithm, it takes more time and effort to get results.

But what happens if you don’t have the luxury of time? Or you don’t have the financial resources to put in the effort that is truly needed.

What should you do?

Just forget about SEO?

Of course not. Today, I want to call out 11 tools that will help you get an edge over your competition. But unlike most lists, I am going to get very specific on the feature I want you to use within each tool to make your life easier and help you get results faster with less effort.

Let’s dive right in.

Tool #1: Ubersuggest Projects

You probably already know about Ubersuggest, but do you really have time to spend hours and hours each week to do your SEO?

Chances are you don’t.

So how do you improve your traffic with the least amount of effort?

You set up a project in Ubersuggest.

As you can see, it shows your SEO traffic over time. It will let you know if your rankings are going up or down, your link growth, and your SEO issues.

With so many things going on in marketing, you don’t have time to manually check your rankings or if things are going up or down or even what you need to fix.

Ubersuggest will do it for you all automatically and even notify you of what needs to happen through email. That way you don’t have to constantly check your SEO. Ubersuggest will do it all automatically.

More so, you’ll get notified of what you need to focus on each week to maximize your traffic.

All you have do is head to the dashboard and click on “Add Your First Project.”

It’s as simple as adding in your URL.

Then select the locations you do business in and want traffic from.

Then add in the keywords you currently rank for or want to go after.

And of course, set up your traffic preferences.

And then you’ll be good to go.

Then when things go great, you’ll be notified. And when things are going wrong, you’ll also be notified. Ubersuggest will even tell you what to fix.

That way you get the maximum results in the least amount of time.

Tool #2: Google Analytics Alerts

You have Google Analytics set up on your site, but how often do you log in?

And when you do log in, do you know what to focus on or what to look at?

And if you do, do you know what to do with that data?

Google Analytics is a great tool, but you don’t want to waste hours and hours looking at reports. Instead, you want to spend your time doing and getting results.

But if you set up alerts in Google Analytics, you can save tons of time.

If you watch from the 6:33 mark, it will show you how to set up alerts. I added the whole video as it will teach you how to set up Google Analytics in general in case you don’t have goal tracking set it place.

Once you set up alerts, you’ll again get notified when anything good or bad happens. I usually have alerts set up for only when things go bad, so I know when I need to focus on fixing my marketing.

Tool #3: Trello

You’re probably thinking how the heck is Trello a marketing tool. It really isn’t, but it is a good project management tool.

And with your SEO, you may have a team helping you out and Trello will help streamline the process, make you more efficient, and get your results faster.

I keep my Trello board simple by breaking it into 3 sections.

To do – what needs to be done over time.

Prioritized – what I need to be done now (tasks at the top are the most important)

Done – tasks that need to be double-checked to ensure they were done right.

It’s that simple. That way you don’t have to micromanage your team.

Some people have more complex Trello boards, but something simple like I have worked too.

If you want to create a Trello board for your content marketing, assuming you want to write lots of content (such as 10 posts a week), this process works well.

The columns I use for content writers are:

Topics – this is where writers add topics they want to write about.

Outline review – writers submit their outline before they write for approval.

Draft – writers submit their rough draft.

Draft review – editors review each draft.

Uploaded, prepared, and ready to review – this is where the editor adds the post to your CMS (like WordPress).

Scheduled – this is where you schedule the content to go live.

Done – the content is now live.

We’ve found it effective if you are managing dozens of writers at once.

Tool #4: Content Decay Tool

Can you guess how many articles I write each week?

1.

Seriously, that’s it. 1 article a week which is roughly 4 to 5 per month (depending on how many weeks in the month).

And can you guess how many articles my team and I update each week?

21.

That’s roughly 90 a month.

Just think about it… why would I have a team of 3 people updating 90 articles per month when I only write 1 a week.

It’s because updating old content is an easier way to get more SEO traffic than it is to create new content.

But what content should you update?

The content decay tool will tell you that.

It breaks down in order which articles you should update first, second, third… based on what will generate you the most traffic.

If you are wondering what is involved with updating content, just think of it this way:

Is there anything outdated within your post – if so, either update the outdated information and make it relevant again. If you can’t, then delete that part from your article.

Can you use media to improve the experience – do you need to embed videos, add more pictures, maybe even add an infographic? Use media to better tell your story and message.

Are you including the right keywords – a simple way to get more traffic is to integrate other popular related keywords within your article. Whatever your article is about, insert it into Ubersuggest and head to the “Keyword Ideas” report in the left-hand navigation.

Is there anything missing – try to poke holes within your content. What could you have done to make it better? What do your competitors talk about that you forgot to mention? What questions didn’t you answer that the reader might have? By asking yourself these simple questions, you’ll be able to make it better.

Tool #5: Ubersuggest Chrome Extension

If you haven’t installed the Ubersuggest Chrome extension, make sure you do so.

I’m not going to bore you with all of the features of the extension… instead, I am going to give you one thing that will save you time.

You know when you Google for information to learn more on any subject?

Chances are, sometimes you are Googling to learn something related to your space. And when you do, you’ll find that your site usually won’t be at the top of those search results.

And that’s ok.

But when you do a search, you’ll notice “monthly searches” in the Google search bar.

This shows you how often that keyword is searched.

So anytime you are looking up anything in your space, pay attention to that number. If you see a keyword with over 5,000 searches, it may be worth targeting.

And as you scroll down and start going through the sites that rank at the top, you’ll notice metrics under each site.

If you notice a web page with thousands of social shares and hundreds of links, it should reaffirm that you probably want to go after that term. And the listing that has thousands of social shares and hundreds of links is a good benchmark of a page that is high in quality and what people in your space prefer.

Ideally, you want to create something better than that one, as that is the main way you beat them over time.

Tool #6: Hello Bar

SEO is very different than paid traffic.

With paid traffic, you can drive people to a landing page with very little content, which makes it easier to generate sales or leads.

With SEO, Google prefers to rank content-rich sites.

But when someone lands on a page full of educational-based content, they are less likely to convert into a customer.

There’s a simple fix… Hello Bar.

Hello Bar has a lot of features, but I just want you to use the top bar like I do on NeilPatel.com.

And as you scroll it moves along with you.

That one little thing allows me to improve my conversion rate from my SEO traffic.

You can easily adjust what you show with a few simple clicks within Hello Bar or you can even show people different messages based on where they are coming from.

Although SEO traffic doesn’t convert as well as paid traffic, it is much cheaper in the long run and does have a better overall ROI. And that one little Hello Bar will improve your numbers.

It’s responsible for 9.4% of revenue from NeilPatel.com.

Every little bit adds up.

Tool #7: Mozcast

Google makes over 3,200 algorithm changes a year.

Are you really going to keep up to date with all of them?

If you followed the first tool and set up a project in Ubersuggest, you’ll get notified when your rankings go down.

And if you set up alerts in Google Analytics (tool number 2) you’ll also get notified when your traffic drops drastically.

What you’ll find is that it’s overwhelming to keep up with all of Google’s updates and it could be confusing to figure out what you need to fix to get your traffic back.

This report on Moz keeps track of all of the algorithm updates and gives you an overview of what has changed or what the update is about. On top of that, you’ll want to check out the Mozcast if you get a notification of ranking or traffic drops as this tool confirms if other people are also seeing changes from a Google update.

Keep in mind that Google doesn’t announce each update, hence you’ll want to cross-reference what you are seeing with the Mozcast.

That way you don’t have to spend hours researching each update.

Tool #8: Detailed

Link building is a pain. There are so many link tools like this one… but let’s not kid ourselves… you just don’t have the time to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing link building.

So, each minute you spend, you have to make sure it counts.

There’s a tool called Detailed that breaks down the best links for every industry.

All you have to do is select an industry and a site and it shows you all of the good links that are going to your competition.

You can then focus your efforts on reaching out to those sites to get links.

Sure, you will still need to have amazing content or a good product or service in order to convince those sites to link to you, but hey, if you don’t have any of that it’s going to be hard to do well in the first place.

So, don’t waste your time trying to search for links when Detailed will give you a list of hundreds of amazing sites to get links from within your space.

Tool #9: Site Speed Audit

Speed impacts rankings.

Google doesn’t want to rank slow websites anymore.

It doesn’t matter that technology has become better and you can now purchase satellite Internet. Not every location has blazing fast Internet.

For that reason, Google has an Accelerated Mobile Pages framework that helps with mobile load time.

But that’s not enough, you also need your website to load fast.

So, go here and put in your URL.

You’ll then be taken to a report that looks like this:

What’ll you want to focus on is site speed. That Ubersuggest report pulls from Google Lighthouse.

So, send that to your developer and tell them to get you in the green mark for both mobile and desktop load times.

As your speed goes up, so will your SEO rankings and traffic over time.

Tool #10: Supermetrics

Are you tired of having your data everywhere?

Why would you want to log into four of five different apps to get your SEO and marketing data when you could log into one.

And no, I am not talking about Google Analytics. I am talking about Google Data Studio.

If you haven’t used it yet, sign up for it… it’s free.

Google Data Studio is a business intelligence tool that will show you all of your data in one place.

So how do you get all of your SEO data into Google Data Studio? You use Supermetrics.

It passes all of your SEO data from different sources into Data Studio, so you no longer have to log into multiple tools, including Google Analytics.

My favorite feature in Supermetrics is you can automate your marketing reporting, so you no longer have to create your reports manually.

Tool #11: VidIQ

Google is the most popular search engine.

But do you know what the second most popular search engine is?

It’s not Bing… it’s actually YouTube, which Google actually owns.

If you haven’t done YouTube SEO yet, you should reconsider. Just look at how much search traffic I get from YouTube each month.

This article will break down how to do YouTube SEO if you want to learn how it works.

But to make things easier, install this Chrome extension.

Whenever you perform a search on YouTube it will show you what’s popular, what keywords are being searched that are related to each video, and which tags people are using to get more SEO traffic.

I wanted to end this post with VidIQ because it’s not competitive.

See, unlike traditional SEO, it doesn’t take months to see results. YouTube SEO is the opposite in which it isn’t as competitive (yet) and you can rank at the top within 24 to 48 hours of releasing a video (seriously!).

Conclusion

They say SEO is hard and time-consuming. And I am not going to lie, you won’t get results unless you put in some effort.

But who says it has to be as time-consuming?

By using some of the tools I mentioned above you’ll save time. It really is that simple.

I know there is a lot and it can be overwhelming. So if you don’t have time to use all of the tools it is fine… just start at the top and work your way down (I put them in order based on what will save you the most time).

What other ways do you save time on your SEO?

The post The SEO Tool Kit: 11 Tools That’ll Save You Time appeared first on Neil Patel.