Maverank Adult SEO kindly agreed to an interview on the topic of search engine optimisation for independent sex workers.

Here is our conversation.

Oz > Thank you for agreeing to speak with me today.

Maverank> Thanks for having me! Excited to get started 😁

Oz > So for my Oz website, for SEO, I blog regularly, use Yoast and follow all their recommendations, keep images small and try to encourage backlinks, do link exchanges, get lots of links every month by doing Elust etc. I have Ahrefs and have tried to follow their recommendations too but find that all quite complicated. I'm curious how your SEO audit works and would love to hear your recommendations. I'm very curious about your audit. Is the Maverank SEO audit your own invention or a third party site?

Maverank> Audit's a standard agency process. I'd usually ask for GA4/GSC logins if you have them but for SW discretion this is something you will only want to grant once the contract is signed.

So the whole point of SEO should be to drive and build your audience toward your key service offerings, ideally from most to least margin.

For SWs I'd balance that with from least to most annoying as an overnight/FMTY can be lucrative but intense.

Oz > Agreed. My preferred services are duos, couples, cuckolding and forced bi so those are the terms I target.

Maverank> My SEO auditing style starts by looking at your existing content strategy, identifying gaps, and creating a content plan to address the gaps in line with the point of SEO and your own business goals.

I also always ask at a minimum: are there any particular services you'd like to grow, locations to target, or buyer personas you have in mind for your business?

Oz > For now the search terms above are my main target but I'm working on trying to get a payment processor to work with sexworkersear.ch so if that works out I'll set up credit card payments on ozinlondon.co.uk too and then I'll be looking to work on keywords related to selling video clips.

Maverank> Excellent, let's start there. You mentioned forced bi on your homepage but ideally you'd have a dedicated service page for each of your main services. This can be as simple as incalls and outcalls, or as niche as sounding or ABDL.

Whatever the service, a keyword is a keyword but spamming your site with keywords won't cut it with Google's current algorithms. You want to methodically break down said keyword into all the relevant queries your client may have about your service. Off the top of my head, this would include:

• location and disabled access
• discretion and privacy
• kink shame and anxiety
• kink safety and training
• rates and special offers

To organise all this info you need to use

H1s, H2s and H3s tags.

These are topical headings like you'll see in Wikipedia, word or a mommy blog (they look sweet but they don't play about their SEO).

Oz > That's a good idea. Currently I just have categories within the blog for those services so each post on a topic eg cuckolding is tagged and clicking the tag returns a list of all previous posts tagged with that word. But I like the idea of having them as menu items too.

Maverank> You should have blogs around each service page and they should crosslink to demonstrate expertise and detailed coverage of your niche.

The same can be done with location/FMTY pages (Tyler Badwolf does this quite well) as well as any industry pages of you're an non SW adult business (i.e. sex toys for adults venues, sex toys for party planners).

Oz > I've neglected internal linking in the past. Just getting into the habit now of including at least a few internal links in each post.

Maverank> Internal linking is important because it tells search crawlers which parts of your site you want to pass link juice (ew) to.

Link juice (ew again) is essentially your recommendation of that content. For SWs this is why publishers like VICE use nofollow so this does not happen.

Adult sites tend to be seen as less reputable by Google search, though I'd argue part of this is poor SEO optimisation.

As an aside, there may be parts of your own site you don't want to rank or that aren't as important. In these cases, you can use nofollow on certain internal links (though this is almost never necessary) or no noindex and disallow to stop the pages appearing and being crawled by google.

Oz > I'm looking at moving my sites to headless wordpress with astro soon so that should improve page load speeds and hence SEO too?

Maverank> In terms of load speed, I'd argue that the hosting platform (generally) doesn't matter so much as content. Same with backlinking- Google has deprecated their status as a ranking factor.

The main thing is to ensure that you keep plugins to a minimum, that APIs are well connected and that any direct uploads to your site are done at the minimum filesize. Usually this means:

• embed, don't upload videos (i.e. pornhub/YouTube)
• make images jpg or webp
• reduce/eliminate animations and any autoplaying audio

Oz > I always use webp and no videos or gifs directly uploaded just a few embedded in posts. Good point.

Do you know what the algorithm looks at as most important factors now?

Maverank> The main focus is content, and technical and links to a lesser extent.

For content, focus on:

• whether you have a unique or more extensive take on the given topic you want to rank for
• the logical structure and flow of this information;
• niche but high intent related keywords in addition to larger volume keywords;
• adherence of writing style to Natural Language Processing (how machines read and understand text). While you're writing for your client, it's more like telling a gossipy friend who then tells your client for you

Oz > Thank you. That's really interesting. The last point especially. I hadn't thought of that. I want my posts to be appealing to humans and as I understand it, the algorithm knows whether people stay on page and read posts start to finish so holding their attention is important. But I also want my posts to work with natural language processing too.

I do use ChatGPT a lot and find it invaluable but I wouldn't publish whole paragraphs written by AI. I use it more for research and editing. And image generation.

Maverank> You can definitely use AI to plan and write your content calendar but I'd recommend hand finishing each blog because we have the lived experience that brings granular context. Remember, you always want to be saying more than the competition or the same with a different take.

Oz > Agreed. Fortunately there's not much competition for cuckolding and forced bi but it pays to always aim for the best quality, highest authority posts. You've given me a lot of great ideas and things to think about. Thank you so much.

Maverank> Yes but SEO is also a game of oneupmanship- down the line someone may do competitor analysis on your site and outwrite you. It's partly why most sites no longer do keyword tags on their pages.

For low competition SERPS (first page search results) you want to outwrite what's already there. Before writing/editing any page:

• get the html page structure (heading structure) of the top 3-5 competitor pages
• read a few Reddit/forum posts in the SERPS to identify unusual queries and pain points you can cover in your content
• use keyword research tools (keysearch is cheaper but not as good) and ai to generate keywords that are relevant to yout page. Don't worry so much about keyword volume as relevance and interrelation

Oz > Thank you. That's excellent advice. I have Ahrefs now but it is expensive. I'll look at KeySearch.

Maverank> It's not as good but you won't get amazing data for SW related terms unless you're more of an e-commerce brand or fansite creator. You can also list down your keywords, use AI to generate related, and paste them all into your keyword research tool to get search volumes.

Oz > How would I know whether something I've written adheres to a style that natural language models rate as high quality?

Maverank> I mentioned on Reddit, writing for NLP is a bit like being questioned by a journalist if you're a SW. Or better yet, like you're an expert on the witness stand.

You want to give short but insightful answers, using or paraphrasing your keyword where it naturally makes sense. You want to use simple language, and keep paragraphs to 2 or 3 lines where possible.

You're essentially writing a YA novel (the wrong metaphor here but it's apt) for horny grown men.

Going back to internal linking, you'll also want to do external links to reputable sources (particularly anything YMYL such as finance or physical/mental health). Academic, peer-reviewed papers or compliance/chartering bodies work best. For SW I'd mix both SW and non-SW sources.

Oz > Understood. Sort of. Yoast is good at poking me in the direction of writing like this. I do my best to follow the directions while still producing a post that a human will want to read.

Maverank> As a general SEO workflow:

1. Setup Google search console, Bing webmaster, and (advanced) Google analytics and Google tag manager.
2. Determine your ideal services, locations and industries (5-10 per).
3. Search these in Google to identify competitors.
4. Get and collate their html page structures. Remix these with your own unique ideas and any missing context. Rewrite each title in your own way, considering who/what/where/why/when/how
5. Use keyword research tools to identify additional keywords.
6. Write, or tell AI, to write based on these page structures. If you've done the structures and write them right it should almost feel like an interrogative.
7. Index these in Google search console and Bing webmaster tools.
8. Repeat 2-5 for related blog topic.

Remember to create/edit pages from highest to lowest margin unless they're seasonal or time based.

For blogging cadence aim for 1-4 per month. They will each take about 4-6 hours to do in an SEO optimised way, half the time with the right AI prompt.

Excel/Google sheets will be your bestest friend to organise. Use a timer and take breaks if you have ADHD like me.

(re taking card payments on Oz and SWS) This is an amazing idea! The holy grail is a self-hosted fansite where you own the traffic, profit and audience (reducing trolls and other foolishness).

Oz > It's hard. I've spoken to dozens of payment processors that say they work with high risk merchants and they all said no. Most said they can't work with anything escort industry. One called ticklecharge said they might be able to help but they're asking for a lot of personal and business details from me so I'm going to get a lawyer to look at what they're asking for before I proceed.

Maverank> RE processors we know this changes hourly but Paxum and ccbill have been going for a while now.

Oz > Ccbill said no unfortunately. Paxum never replied to my email but that's a good call. I'll try to find alternate contact details and ask them again.

Maverank> It's such BS and it's choking the market with corrupt, entrenched and inefficient platforms.

I'm supposed to be professional though so I'll say that you may have more bargaining power if you can evidence major demand for your site, or use your network (particularly your SW friends who straddle the line between sex and tech) to lobby on your behalf behind the scenes.

The lawyer is an excellent idea, and should be one of the first things anyone attempting to setup a platform like this does.

Maverank> Thanks for having me on! I didn't cover everything but if anyone wants to find me they can email me on [email protected]. I'm a SWer too and I want to help my community!

Oz > This is a worthy goal! I really want to see sex workers succeed on their own terms building their own personal websites rather than just giving away money to directories and free content to hypocrite social media companies that make billions from our content and treat us like undesirables. Viva la SEO optimised independent sex worker personal website!

Maverank> I agree, the directories just don't cut it anymore, particularly if you're outside of a major city, and SEO will reduce your long term spend. This is why so many FSSWs leave the directories behind once they gain a decent following. That said, social platforms are capricious so it's very important you drive traffic to your own site where you can.

You should also capture traffic where you can with an email or text list, and backup this list regularly. This will future proof your site/socials in case of a van. You should regularly communicate here, even if it's just once a week, with content to maintain repeat sales and bookings.

Oz > This is the way. Thank you very much for sharing your time and valuable expertise. Have a good evening.

You too and thanks for having me on! It was fun.

If you'd like to work with Maverank, and would like a free SEO consultation, you can use their contact form or send an email.

Cover image courtesy of Dall E.