Author: Dave

North Wales explorer

How to Buy a House in Italy for 1 Euro [step by step guide]

On By DaveIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Depopulation, has some potential benefits for property investors!

Buying a house in Italy for 1 euro is a great opportunity, promoted by several towns aiming to revive declining populations and renovate old properties.

Here’s a step-by-step guide tailored for a UK resident:

Step-by-Step Instructions:

Research and Choose a Town: Several Italian towns have offered homes for 1 euro. Each town has different terms and conditions. Here are some notable ones:

  • Sambuca di Sicilia
  • Ollolai, Sardinia
  • Mussomeli, Sicily
  • Bivona, Sicily
  • Laurenzana, Basilicata

    Visit the Official Websites: Each town usually has an official website or a dedicated page for the 1 euro house initiative. Here are some URLs:

      Understand the Conditions: Each town has specific conditions that buyers must meet, such as:

      • Committing to renovate the property within a specified timeframe (usually 3 years).
      • Paying a deposit (often around €5,000), which is refunded after renovations are completed.
      • Using local contractors for the renovation work.

        Contact the Municipality: Send an email or call the municipal office to express your interest and get detailed information.

          Plan a Visit: It’s highly recommended to visit the town and view the properties. Contact the municipality to arrange a visit.

            Prepare Your Documents:

            • Passport
            • Proof of income
            • Proof of funds for renovation

              Sign the Preliminary Agreement: During your visit, if you decide to proceed, you will sign a preliminary purchase agreement (compromesso).

                Open an Italian Bank Account: You will need an Italian bank account to handle transactions and utility payments. Many banks offer services in English.

                  Hire a Local Notary (Notaio): The notary will handle the legal aspects of the purchase, ensuring the property is free from debts and encumbrances.

                    Finalize the Purchase: After the preliminary agreement, you will sign the final deed (atto di vendita) before a notary. This completes the purchase.

                      Commence Renovation: Begin renovation work as per the conditions. Ensure you adhere to local building codes and regulations.

                        1. Enjoy Your New Home: Once renovations are complete, you can enjoy your new Italian home!

                        Useful Resources:

                        This is a general guide, so make sure to get detailed information from the specific municipality you’re interested in. Good luck with your house hunt in Italy!

                        eCommerce Structured Data

                        On By DaveIn seoLeave a comment

                        E-commerce Example for Structured Data Carousels

                        Below are step by step instructions

                        You will need:

                        • A “summary” or “Product Listings Page” with structured data
                        • Structured data on the product pages themselves

                        At the time of writing, this feature is only available in EU countries.

                        Step 1: Choose and Implement a Summary Page

                        Create a summary page that lists multiple products, each linking to a detailed product page.

                        For example, a category page that lists “Top 5 Winter Coats.”

                        Step 2: Add Required Properties to the Summary Page

                        Add the ItemList structured data to your summary page. Here’s an example in JSON-LD format:

                        <html>
  <head>
    <title>Top 5 Winter Coats</title>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
      {
        "@context": "https://schema.org",
        "@type": "ItemList",
        "itemListElement": [
          {
            "@type": "ListItem",
            "position": 1,
            "item": {
              "@type": "Product",
              "name": "Puffy Coat Series by Goat Coat",
              "image": [
                "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
                "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
                "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
              ],
              "offers": {
                "@type": "AggregateOffer",
                "lowPrice": 45.00,
                "highPrice": 60.00,
                "priceCurrency": "USD"
              },
              "aggregateRating": {
                "@type": "AggregateRating",
                "ratingValue": 4.9,
                "reviewCount": 50
              },
              "url": "https://www.example.com/puffy-coats"
            }
          },
          {
            "@type": "ListItem",
            "position": 2,
            "item": {
              "@type": "Product",
              "name": "Wool Coat Series by Best Coats Around",
              "image": [
                "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
                "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
                "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
              ],
              "offers": {
                "@type": "AggregateOffer",
                "lowPrice": 189.00,
                "highPrice": 200.00,
                "priceCurrency": "USD"
              },
              "aggregateRating": {
                "@type": "AggregateRating",
                "ratingValue": 4.7,
                "reviewCount": 827
              },
              "url": "https://www.example.com/wool-coats"
            }
          },
          {
            "@type": "ListItem",
            "position": 3,
            "item": {
              "@type": "Product",
              "name": "Antarctic Coat by Cold Coats",
              "image": [
                "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
                "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
                "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
              ],
              "offers": {
                "@type": "Offer",
                "price": 45.00,
                "priceCurrency": "USD"
              },
              "aggregateRating": {
                "@type": "AggregateRating",
                "ratingValue": 4.9,
                "reviewCount": 1290
              },
              "url": "https://www.example.com/antarctic-coat"
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

                        Step 3: Validate Your Code

                        1. Rich Results Test: Validate your structured data using the Rich Results Test.
                        2. URL Inspection Tool: Use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console to ensure your page is accessible and not blocked by robots.txt or noindex tags.

                        Step 4: Deploy Your Page

                        1. Deploy your summary page and a few detail pages.
                        2. Use the URL Inspection tool to request indexing of your new pages.

                        Step 5: Submit a Sitemap

                        1. Create a sitemap including your summary and detail pages.
                        2. Submit the sitemap through Google Search Console to ensure Google knows about all your pages.

                        Step 6: Follow Guidelines

                        1. Ensure compliance with Search Essentials.
                        2. Adhere to general structured data guidelines and specific requirements for carousel rich results.

                        Example Detail Pages

                        Each product linked from the summary page should have its own detail page with structured data. For example:

                        <html>
  <head>
    <title>Puffy Coat Series by Goat Coat</title>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
      {
        "@context": "https://schema.org",
        "@type": "Product",
        "name": "Puffy Coat Series by Goat Coat",
        "image": [
          "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg",
          "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg",
          "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg"
        ],
        "description": "A stylish and warm puffy coat perfect for winter.",
        "offers": {
          "@type": "Offer",
          "price": 45.00,
          "priceCurrency": "USD",
          "url": "https://www.example.com/puffy-coats"
        },
        "aggregateRating": {
          "@type": "AggregateRating",
          "ratingValue": 4.9,
          "reviewCount": 50
        }
      }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

                        That should be it!



                        Deleting White Space from Excel Cells

                        On By DaveIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

                        I had to use the VBA method at the bottom to remove whitespace from a Screaming Frog custom extraction:

                        Method 1: TRIM Function

                        The TRIM function removes all spaces from text except for single spaces between words.

                        1. Suppose your text is in cell A1.
                        2. In another cell, enter the following formula:excelCopy code=TRIM(A1)

                        Method 2: CLEAN and SUBSTITUTE Functions

                        If there are non-breaking spaces (which TRIM doesn’t remove), you can use the SUBSTITUTE function to replace them with regular spaces first.

                        1. In a cell, enter the following formula:excelCopy code=SUBSTITUTE(A1, CHAR(160), " ") This replaces non-breaking spaces with regular spaces.
                        2. Then, apply the TRIM function:excelCopy code=TRIM(SUBSTITUTE(A1, CHAR(160), " "))

                        Method 3: Find and Replace

                        You can also use the Find and Replace feature to remove extra spaces:

                        1. Select the range of cells you want to clean.
                        2. Press Ctrl + H to open the Find and Replace dialog box.
                        3. In the “Find what” box, enter two spaces (press the space bar twice).
                        4. In the “Replace with” box, enter one space.
                        5. Click “Replace All.”
                        6. Repeat the process until no double spaces are found.
                        7. For leading and trailing spaces, you can remove them manually by replacing leading spaces with nothing and trailing spaces similarly.

                        Method 4: VBA Macro

                        For more advanced cleaning, you can use a VBA macro:

                        1. Press Alt + F11 to open the VBA editor.
                        2. Insert a new module by clicking Insert > Module.
                        3. Copy and paste the following code into the module:

                        Sub RemoveSpaces()
    Dim cell As Range
    For Each cell In Selection
        If cell.HasFormula = False Then
            cell.Value = Trim(WorksheetFunction.Clean(cell.Value))
        End If
    Next cell
End Sub

                        1. Close the VBA editor.
                        2. Select the range of cells you want to clean.
                        3. Press Alt + F8, select RemoveSpaces, and click Run.

                        By using these methods, you can efficiently remove unwanted whitespace from your cells in Excel.

                        Categorising Data – By Colour – In Excel (Using an IF statement)

                        On By DaveIn Excel, seoLeave a comment

                        Had to categorise some keywords, if there’s a quicker way of doing it – please let me know

                        • Paste keywords into column A
                        • In column D – Paste all relevant words for a category.
                          For example – I pasted all the words I could think of relating to gardening – such as “tree”, “fruit”, “garden”, “bush”, etc. – There were 18 words in total
                        • In cell E2 paste the formula:
                        =IF(SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH($D$1:$D$19,A2)))>0, "Contains value from range", "Does not contain value from range")
                        • Now drag the formula down
                        • Filter column E to “contains value for range”
                        • Colour in the keywords green – or a chosen, relevant colour
                        excel conditional formatting with If Statement

                        Add another list of relevant words – for example, above I have added sports, to highlight sports netting keywords.

                        Drag formula down and repeat

                        netting-usa-categoriesDownload

                        I found a quicker way – use Chat GPT and the prompt:

                        “please can you group these keywords by theme or words containing – e.g. keywords containing “golf”.

                        Please include the search volume.

                        The list is set out with a keyword – then a comma, – then the search volume for the keyword, – then a second comma – before the next keyword is listed

                        funny polo shirts , 170 ,
                        funny polo shirt , 30 ,

                        “

                        replace “funny polo shirts” with a list of your own keywords.

                        Change a URL into a String of Words in Excel

                        On By DaveIn ExcelLeave a comment

                        Put URLs into column A – Find and Replace – enter domain to find and replace with nothing

                        in column b – add a heading in B1 of “string of words”

                        in cell b2 enter the formula:

                        =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2, "/", " "), "-"," ")

                        ^The formula will find and replace forward slashes with spaces and hyphens/dashes with spaces.

                        I used this, to then use the Google Sheets formula DETECTLANGUAGE to check URLs where in French / Dutch

                        url-string-words-convertDownload

                        Screaming Frog – How to Save & Load a Custom Crawl Coniguration

                        On By DaveIn Screaming Frog, seoLeave a comment

                        Handy if you have loads of custom extractions set up etc.

                        • Saving Custom Config File:

                        Under the Configuration Menu – go to – Profiles>Save As

                        • Importing The Custom Config File

                        Configuration > Profiles > Load…

                        SF custom Config File Import
                        • Save as default

                          Also worth knowing – if you use a similar setup each time you run Screaming Frog – let’s say, you exclude anything with “account” or “customer” in the URL, you can save your setup/config as default:

                        Which can be a nice time saver too!

                        I pretty much always add the following to the excludes ‘file’, so it’s easier to keep it in the default setup:

                        ^https?://[^/]+/customer/account/.*
^https?://[^/]+/checkout/cart/.*

^.\?.

.js$

.css$

                        How to Improve the Relationship between SEO & Developers [Breaking Down Silos]

                        On By DaveIn javascript, seoLeave a comment

                        If you work in SEO –

                        Walk into the developers office/pit/den

                        Say the following:

                        “Look, it’s not my fault you were bullied in school for being a bunch of gimps, and if I get another passive-aggressive comment or tut from you bunch of pizza-munching wankers, I’ll drag each of you outside one by one and beat the fuck out of you using my own technical skillset. Now stop being finger-pointing, arrogant pricks and start communicating properly”

                        Job done

                        How to Automate a Crawl & Populate a Report with Screaming Frog [Like DeepCrawl but 99% Cheaper]

                        On By DaveIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

                        Screaming Frog is the greatest SEO tool of all time. Possibly the greatest tool of all time, closely followed by the George Foreman grill.

                        There’s a free version  and if you have massive ecommerce website, with thousands of URLs, the posh paid version is well cheap too – if I remember rightly, is only about £200.

                        Absolute bargain.

                        Scheduling a Report / Crawl

                        Before you start – create a crawl config file.

                        I usually go with default settings, plus exclude cart pages and follow redirects.

                        You’ll also need to create a Google Drive and Looker Studio Account.

                        Schedule a Screaming Frog Crawl

                        File > Scheduling:

                        click “+Add”

                        Give the scheduled crawl a name and set the time and date you want the first crawl to run

                        Also choose the frequency.

                        Note —> if you have a computer with a decent processor, that runs fine when you are crawling with Screaming Frog and you’re still able to do you work, then just set it for a date and time when you’ll be in work and on your computer.

                        However, if you have a slower computer, and running Screaming Frog at the same time as trying to do your normal work slows the computer down too much, you’ll probably want to set the crawl overnight, or at your lunchtime.

                        You can set windows computers to “wake up”, as long as they are plugged in. So that you’re able to run a crawl before or after work.

                        Although your IT department might not like it – computer running unattended with a battery etc could be in theory a fire harzard etc.

                        More on how to wake up your computer, later…

                        Back to scheduling on Screaming Frog:

                        On the start options tab, enter the URL you want to crawl and select your config file

                        I didn’t choose anything for “auth config”

                        For crawl config – upload the config file you saved earlier

                        In the Export – choose a folder on your computer and your Google Drive account:

                        • Click the configure icon for “Export for Looker Studio” at the bottom.
                        • Click the 3 arrows to populate everything >>

                        By default, your crawl will go in a sheet in Google Drive at:
                        ‘My Drive > Screaming Frog SEO Spider > Project Name > [task_name]_custom_summary_report’.

                        When asked – choose Google Sheets as a data source:

                        Ensure the ‘use first rows as headers’ option is ticked and select ‘Connect’ in the top-right.

                        • Add the Data Source to Each Table in the Report in Looker Studio

                        You can probably do this in bulk somehow, but I went to each table/graph and added the Google Sheet as the data source:

                        • When the scheduled crawl, crawls – the template should be populated
                        • Youll now have a nice looking visual report that automatically updates each week, or month, or as frequently as you like

                        Waking Up Your Computer so the Crawl Can Run

                        Screaming Frog won’t run unless your computer is on.

                        You can ‘wake up’ your computer though.

                        Search for “Task Scheduler”

                        • Create Task…

                        • Click the General Tab and use the following settings:
                        • Click on the “Actions” tab and choose a program to run. Doesn’t really matter what program, I usually choose chrome. SF should run automatically
                        • Click the “Triggers” tab and click new

                        schedule the computer to wake up at the same time and frequency that you’ve set for the screaming frog crawls.

                        Then, that should be it.

                        The best way to run automatic crawls, is to sin up to Google cloud. At the moment you get $300 worth of credits free, and each crawl on an average ecommerce sure, will cost around a dollar a go.

                        Here’s the tutorial on how to set up Screaming Frog on the cloud ☁️:

                        https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/tutorials/seo-spider-cloud/

                        It’s a bit of a mission/long process, but worth it. I reckon.

                        Anyway, here is the report, in all her glory (well, 1 part of 1 page):

                        Helpful Core Update – March 2024

                        On By DaveIn seo1 Comment

                        Core Update and Helpful Content System:

                        • As the name suggests, Google’s March 2024 core update aims to prioritise useful information over content that seems optimized for search engines. In theory, spammy shite should be dropped in the rankings. In theory. Hopefully the twats at hydragun who keep robbing my MMA blogs content will get a spanking.
                        • The helpful content system is revamped and integrated into the core ranking algorithm to better identify genuinely helpful content and reduce unoriginal content.
                        • The guys in the know, expect the rollout to take a month, with significant ranking fluctuations during this period.
                        • Google aims to reduce low-quality, unoriginal content in search results by 40%. Not 100%, updates begin at 40.

                        Actionable To-Do List:

                        1. Review Content Quality: Assess your website’s content for originality and usefulness to real users, not just for SEO.
                        2. Write from experience, and in the first person.  Unless you’re a big brand, then do what you like.
                        3. Monitor Rankings: Prepare for fluctuations in search rankings as the update rolls out. Use this time to identify areas for improvement.
                        4. Update Content Strategy: Focus on creating high-quality, original content that addresses your audience’s needs and questions. Use forums and social media groups to identify your customers pain points and common questions. Your CS and sales teams can also provide insights. Also get chat gpt to put keywords into themes of different queries.
                        5. Avoid Spam Tactics: Steer clear of expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse, and site reputation abuse to avoid penalties.
                        6. Build your brand. Branded searches and search volumes, make a massive difference, in my experience (see what I did there?).

                        It generally helps, in theory, to write from experience rather than just giving an overview that anyone could scrape and rewrite from the internet. Include your own images, videos etc.

                        I don’t have any images of Google updates, see here’s a pic of my dog:


                        Big brands will still probably have a massive advantage regardless of what they do.

                        Spam Updates:

                        • Significant changes to spam handling will start on May 5, 2024, affecting sites through algorithmic adjustments or manual actions.
                        • New spam policies target expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse (especially AI-generated content), and site reputation abuse.

                        General Recommendations:

                        • Recognize the shift towards rewarding authoritative and genuinely helpful content.
                        • Anticipate a more significant impact from updates targeting spam and low-quality content.
                        • Understand that recovery from these updates may require fundamental changes beyond SEO, focusing on building a reputable and sought-after brand for quality content.

                        Image from BBC