Just last week Google announced the release of a reviews-focused algorithm update.

Their official documentation on how to write high-quality reviews, which they linked to in the above Twitter announcement, can be found here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/specialty/ecommerce/write-high-quality-reviews

There has been a lot of talk of huge ranking shifts recently, with some big winners and some initial losers as well.

Thanks to our tracking of 165 independent affiliate sites we’re in the perfect position to tell you if there are any correlations with sites that are now ranking better than ever, or worse than before.

We're just waiting for things to be a little less volatile, then we’re going to run all of the numbers again for our exclusive report and share our findings inside the training. 

Stay tuned for an update on that at the end of this month / early May. 

Glen’s Thoughts on AI? A Sneak Peek of What’s to Come

In recent weeks a lot of people have reached out to me to ask my thoughts on AI and its impact on search and content creation going forward.

It’s a hot topic, so it’s not surprising people want to be prepared for what’s next, but my answer up until now has been some variation of, “I have 15 pages of notes and I’m writing a big report on all of my thoughts”.

That's still the case. This is an important topic and I want to share a well-researched piece (and I was also hoping Google's Bard would be more present in search results by now). That said, a recent post in our Facebook group did get me to share some initial thoughts...

You can find what's behind the 'See more' link text over here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/seoblueprint/posts/1174729786548491/

Want to Share What You’re Working on And Connect With Other Blueprint Members?

You might not know this but when we first launched SEO Blueprint, we had no plans for a Facebook Group, Slack community or any other type of forum.

We were worried that having comments under every video and a Facebook Group would be too much for us to keep up with, and that we would find ourselves answering the same questions over and over again.

Luckily enough people convinced us to start a Facebook group, as our /gold/ page wouldn’t exist without it.

One of the first posts that went live in our group was a thread where people could share what they were working on so they could connect with other members on the same journey.

We’ve just started a brand new thread for this in 2023, so if you want to connect with fellow members, please do go and share your story over here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/seoblueprint/posts/1173842983303838/

Our First Software Test Was a Success: New Tools Coming Soon

As I hinted at in our group a few weeks ago, we’ve been working on a number of tools to help you with keyword research, getting insights from search results and much more. 

Something I want to make clear is that I’m not building these tools to make money from you. You'll either be able to plug in your API keys from other software or I'll just give you as many free credits as I can. They'll never include any kind of payment option to us.

The first tool will just be me giving you free credits to use with it.

The slight technical challenge has been integrating what is essentially a brand new software project into our current Blueprint membership system.

I would rather not make you have to sign up for something again to enjoy all of the additions, so we've tried to make things work with your current login.

I’m happy to report that the first tests integrating the two were a success, so I just need to make things a little prettier to match our style and I’ll be sharing the first one very soon.

We’ve Been Updating a Number of Videos for 2023

One thing I’m really proud of regarding SEO Blueprint is that it’s not something we recorded once and then just try to promote forever.

The doors to this training are very rarely open (usually just two weeks per year, on average) and we’ve made dozens of updates in each of our four years since launching.

Most individual updates aren't significant enough to send emails about, but I promise they are happening behind the scenes.

For instance, we recently updated our videos on Finding the Most Important Pages on Competitor Websites and How You Can Use InTitle: to Give New Insights to Even the Smartest of SEOs.

The original videos were fine in that they made sense and the ideas inside them still worked, but when Google have made two design changes since the original video, we don’t want things to look dated when they’re working as well as ever.

We have a new system on the way if you want to see every tiny detail we've been changing, though we will of course continue to share any significant changes here as well. 

I'm Not A Fan of Hyping Up the Future, But More Exclusive Reports Are on the Way

If you’ve been following my work (Glen) for any decent length of time then you’ll know that this year - at least in the world of SEO - we’ve published more content than ever. The Detailed blog has not only had a massive design overhaul but lots of new content has gone live as well. 

As we’ve been planning a lot more content for the Detailed roadmap (there are at least a dozen articles / reports in the works) we're pretty settled on the idea that we want to share a lot of value in public, but also keep some really specific insights as exclusives for SEO Blueprint members. 

This means that over the coming months, you’re not only going to see us sharing new marketing concepts and ideas at Detailed, but as SEO Blueprint members you’re going to get exclusive additions to most of the articles that people won’t see on the site.

We’ve already done one report in this way - our deep-dive on successful independent affiliates - but we’re going to be focusing on a lot more than just affiliate sites going forward.

I prefer not to talk about things before they’re ready, but also want to make sure you know your Blueprint access comes with lifetime updates, and I can’t wait to share what we have coming up.

Thank you for being here!

- G