- [Instructor] Ranking templates
with Google Sheets and Google Docs
(with an upfront warning).
Parasite SEO, if you're unfamiliar with the term,
is the act of "leaching" off the authority
of another website to stand a better chance of ranking.
Often this is done in a kind of automated and spammy way,
or at least the link-building tends to be pretty spammy,
usually to promote products and get affiliate commissions,
so you might search for coupon codes for specific products,
and sometimes the top-ranking results
are kind of leaching off other websites.
They're not always done in a spammy way,
but they can be taken advantage of.
Now what you might be surprised to know,
is that Google's Docs subdomain picks up
around one million visitors per month from, well, Google.
Here's a little stat of that from Ahrefs,
ranking for around four and a half million keywords.
There are a lot of branded terms in there,
but not all of them are.
So around six months ago, one of our clients
let us know they wanted to rank
for a really competitive term in their space,
and I checking it out, doing some analysis,
and I noticed that a Google Sheet
was consistently in the top three results.
And it had actually picked up quite a few links,
and my theory about that is because
people don't really see it as a website.
They're just like, "Oh, go check out this Google Sheet,
"go check out this resource."
And they're happy to promote it.
And of course they can be really valuable,
as I'm about to show you.
In the last video, we talked about
ranking for PDF queries,
and I had a slide that looked like this.
And there was one specific query
that I talked about, because I didn't really
understand it, but it was very niche
and very specific to the game "Dungeons & Dragons,"
and that was "D&D 5E Item Card Template PDF."
And I said how, if you were in the industry,
if you have a website about tabletop games,
or even "Dungeons & Dragons," that might be
something you want to try and rank for.
That PDF related query gets around
450 searches per month in the US.
But there's an interesting phrase
with more than double the search volume of that.
Here it is, "D&D 5E Character Sheet Google Docs."
That gets around 1,100 searches per month.
And that's only for that specific phrase.
That's not including all of its
very closely related variations.
And what ranks really well for that query
is this specific Google Sheer.
Any time I check it out, it seems like there's
a lot of people happily using it.
So the main idea behind this video is that
Google Docs and Google Sheets can and do
rank very well in Google.
Now, about that upfront warning.
Before you stick Docs.Google.com
into your preferred keyword research tool,
to see what phrases and terms
that subdomain is ranking for,
I have to warn you that there's a lot of
not safe for work content ranking well on that subdomain.
As people can put whatever they want
on Docs and Sheets, they do.
There are also a lot of docs getting traffic
that are incredibly suspicious.
So please, even if you see something
ranking well, I would advise that
you do not click on it.
I can't tell you for certain,
as I didn't click on the links inside them,
but it seems that the pages are offering one thing,
and more than likely they are sending people
to something completely different.
And that's a bit of a shame,
because if you really do your research,
if you really dive in, you can find
some really interesting Sheets ranking well,
such as for the query, "Rocket League Prices,"
this sheet ranks really well.
It doesn't look like much,
though we will see the proper version in a second,
and this is the version ranking,
this sheet, not talking about search queries,
this actual sheet receives, actually gets traffic to it,
around 1,400 visits per month from Google.
Rocket League is a game, I don't really know it,
I've only played it one time in my life,
but this looks like a pretty valuable resource.
This is the version that this one is linking to.
There's always a lot of people with it open,
and it seems like they've put
a lot of love and care into it,
it's pretty well-organized and structured.
So there are some really cool anomalies
and examples that you can find,
but just to be on the safe side,
I would purely stick to guide and template
related queries for your own research.
I'm not trying to be condescending or babying you,
or anything like that, there is just
a lot of dodgy stuff there, I promise you.
But with a template focus, you can find
some really cool stuff, such as,
"Lesson Plan Template Google Docs."
Gets around 1,200 searches a month,
and the sheet that shows up looks pretty valuable.
Another one, "Certificate Template Google Docs."
Gets around 1,700 searches a month.
This time we have a Google Slide ranking,
and it looks like what people would be looking for.
"Menu Template Google Docs."
Gets around 2,300 searches per month,
and once again seems like a pretty valuable resource.
So I'd really do your own research into this
if you're interested, but just some example queries
that come up in the world of templates,
"Wedding Guest List Template Google Docs,"
"Balance Sheet Template Google Docs,"
"Expense Report Template Google Docs,"
"Business Plan Template Google Docs,"
"Google Sheets Weight Loss Template."
There are so many different queries
that people are looking for that relate
to so many different industries.
I'm sure you can find something related
to what your website is about,
or the website that you're working on for a client.
Now when it comes to your
keyword research priority list,
there are undoubtedly things that should
take priority over this, but there are
a few good reasons why you might
wanna put some energy into this angle.
First of all, you can create goodwill in your niche.
I have seen Sheets go viral on Twitter,
especially when you allow other people
to share their thoughts and collaborate,
maybe sharing their recommendations
for where to go in a particular city, and so on.
I've seen these do really well on Twitter,
go viral, and just be really valuable.
So on a really simple level,
putting together a Sheet or a Doc
that helps people in your industry
can create some goodwill towards
your brand in your niche.
Another potential benefit is that you may
push down a competitor, who might already
be ranking for similar terms.
Because you control the Sheet,
there's an opportunity to include branding.
I would do that in a subtle way,
but you can get more people over to your website
after they've seen your Sheet or your Doc.
And at the very least, just doing the keyword research,
you could get ideas for lead magnets
that can encourage more people
to opt in to your newsletter,
and whatever it is that you're promoting.
But most importantly, to me, is that
people are actively searching for
these items on Google Docs.
They're not just saying, "wedding guest list template."
They're saying, "wedding guest list template
"Google Docs, or Google Sheets."
Your dream customer might be making
those exact same queries,
so as a great example here, "Wedding Guest List,"
seems like a really nice resource,
and they haven't been too overboard about it,
they've been pretty subtle, but you can find out
who put this together, if you find it valuable.
Another one, this is a weekly budget worksheet
for your finances, tends to have
people using it quite a lot.
It ranks very well in Google,
and they haven't been overboard
about their branding, but it is there.
They do have a link that takes you to their website.
Another good example, a call sheet template,
I assume this is used in video production,
movie production, they've created
a really valuable document, and then they're pretty subtle,
but it is there, they do mention who put it together.
So as I said, don't make this some huge priority
for you and what you have going on,
but just doing the keyword research
alone might spur some great ideas
for what kind of content
you want to be producing next.