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Back Backlink tracking template Optimize your link-building strategy with a downloadable free backlink tracking template. Turn competitor pages into opportunities and generate quality links. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this backlink tracking template to: Turn broken competitor pages into link-building opportunities Understand how to generate links from niche sites Create an outreach plan for earning quality backlinks Track hard-won links and ensure that they’re protected Ashwin Balakrishnan Head of Marketing, Optmyzr LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Ashwin Balakrishnan is a B2B SaaS marketer specializing in organic growth, backlinks, and content SEO. He leads the marketing team at Optmyzr, where he hosts the Search Marketing Academy podcast. His personal backlink profile includes gaming, Lego, and electronic music. More about this topic Read this post, Backlinks 101: What they are and why they matter for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Back Site keyword mapping worksheet Optimize your content strategy and ensure effective keyword utilization with this detailed keyword mapping worksheet. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this worksheet to: Plan redirects Determine page content hierarchy Identify content gaps Reduce keyword cannibalization Build content clusters Chris Green Senior SEO Consultant, Torque Partnership LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Chris Green is an SEO consultant and trainer of over 10 years. A lover of all things digital and uses spreadsheets for more of his life than he really needs to, Chris specializes in migrations, auditing, reporting, training and standing up new processes for teams. More about this topic Read this post on the elements of advanced site migrations for SEO , or this article about keyword mapping for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Does AI content rank on the SERP? Can you count on AI content to rank in the future? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter investigate the place of AI content in Google’s ranking algorithm. Join them as they take a deep dive into how successful websites are delivering their content and what others in the SEO community think about AI-generated content. Listen as special guest John Wall, host of the Marketing Over Coffee podcast, guides you through creating AI content that DOES rank with his generative AI for marketers framework. Please rank responsibly, as this week, we delve into Google’s evolving approach for ranking AI content here on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Back Does AI content rank? Does AI content rank on the SERP? Can you count on AI content to rank in the future? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter investigate the place of AI content in Google’s ranking algorithm. Join them as they take a deep dive into how successful websites are delivering their content and what others in the SEO community think about AI-generated content. Listen as special guest John Wall, host of the Marketing Over Coffee podcast, guides you through creating AI content that DOES rank with his generative AI for marketers framework. Please rank responsibly, as this week, we delve into Google’s evolving approach for ranking AI content here on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 80 | March 27, 2024 | 53 MIN 00:00 / 52:35 This week’s guests John Wall "John J. Wall writes and practices at the intersection of marketing, sales, and technology. He is the producer of Marketing Over Coffee, a weekly audio program that discusses marketing and technology. John is also a partner at Trust Insights and has been cited by CBS Evening News, The Associated Press, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, The Boston Globe, DM News, and Featured Apple Podcasts." Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO Podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already overseeing the SEO brand here at Wix and I'm joined by the ever-constant, the ever-ranking, the ever-green. I say green because you have a plant in your background now. Head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: This is an audio-only experience. The people don't know that I have a green thing behind me. Mordy Oberstein: You do. You have a green... I like it because it's not green green. It's sage green. Is that the name of the green? Is that right? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's actually only green because it's a fake olive tree. Mordy Oberstein: Ah, I should know that because I have an olive tree right next to my house. Crystal Carter: This is true. But my grandma used to have an orange tree in their backyard. That was nice. Mordy Oberstein: You want to hear a crazy story? I used to live in an apartment and it had a garden. Crystal Carter: That is crazy. Mordy Oberstein: Yes, that is crazy, right? Living is crazy. It had an olive tree. And the way the garden was laid out, it was right next to a staircase, a publicly used staircase that went down to the next street. You can imagine the next street was a level lower, you had to go down the staircase. And the branches extended over the fence onto the staircase. And we come home one day, and the olive tree, all the branches are cut down. Some maniac, I guess, got upset that the branches were overhanging onto the stair- Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And cut down almost the entire olive tree. Crystal Carter: Just from that side? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, he must've climbed over the fence a little bit and... Crystal Carter: Whoa. Wowza. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Psycho, right? Crystal Carter: So I used to work for the parks department for the city, and legally, if it's over your side, that part of the tree is yours. Legally speaking, that side of the tree is yours. So I used to also... Really telling everybody my business here. This is totally relevant, but not. Anyway, basically, I used to forage for free apples and stuff around. And basically, if the apple tree was hanging over the sidewalk, those apples are mine. I can have those apples. They're mine and I'm going to eat them. So that's what I'm doing. You don't like your apples being in the public domain, get your tree out of the public domain. Mordy Oberstein: How do you like them apples? Crystal Carter: Basically. So yeah, it's very complex, trees. Mordy Oberstein: Trees are complex. They are complex. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also use our AI meta tag-creator to spit up title tags and meta descriptions in no time flat because time is not flat, time is round. Also, I don't write meta descriptions anymore. I let the AI do it every time because when it comes to meta descriptions, I don't care. Why? Because AI content ranks. And also because meta descriptions, whatever, who cares, right? I'm saying that as Crystal's looking at me like, "Why are you saying that?" Because I don't care. I don't think they are impactful. One of my least important SEO tasks are meta descriptions. I guess it might help with clicks if Google didn't rewrite half of them. I'm real salty about meta descriptions, but you can use your AI meta tag writer to write them. How's that for a pitch? Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay, that's cool. Okay. So let's just clear this up. I have time for meta descriptions because I've seen them work, right? I've seen them work, but I don't think that you should be hand crafting them artisanally. I don't think- Mordy Oberstein: No, there's no reason. Either way, there's no reason. Just let the AI write that. Crystal Carter: Right. And if you're not using AI, you don't necessarily have to use AI. You can also just do programmatically. So in Wix, you have the option for both. You have the option for either the programmatic setup where you insert keyword for this- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Or take product description, make it meta description. Crystal Carter: Right. This is the title of the product, brand new, et cetera. You can set the template for it so that the template does the work for you. That I am all here for and following best practices, et cetera. But I have seen for good pages for your big money pages, putting a good CTA on there. Mordy Oberstein: No. It could be impactful for conversions. Fine. Yeah, I'm with that when Google's not rewriting them 99.9% of the time. I agree. We all agree to disagree. One thing we do agree on is that today we're talking about AI content and does it rank? Insert dramatic music. Why understanding if AI content ranks matters? Why understanding of AI content ranks on the SERP is just the beginning? And will AI content continue to rank on the SERP? Assuming it already does, but I feel like I'm giving it away there that we're telling you that it already does. Because we surveyed you, the SEOs, to see what you think. So y'all are our guests today, but also our guests that'd be Marketing Over Coffee's host, John Wall, who will talk about when and when not to use AI for content generation. Plus we have the Snappy SEO News for you and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social media. So get out your best AI prompts and put on a funny little cone hat like you went to a birthday party as episode number 80 of the SERP's Up Podcast plays in the AI content on the rankings. Crystal Carter: Okay. Thank you for that exciting introduction. So let's just talk about why we're talking about this. Mordy Oberstein: Exciting introduction. Wow, sarcasm much. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Okay. All right. Mordy Oberstein: I was hallucinating because I was using AI. Crystal Carter: Okay. So why are we talking about this? The reason why we're talking about this is because it's been very up-and-down. When AI was in the backburner, Google was like, "Don't use AI, don't use AI everyone. I know you've heard about all these tools, but don't use AI. Be good little SEOs, don't use AI." And then ChatGPT broke virally, it was way more accessible. And then they were like, "Okay, you can use AI as long as it's helpful. You can use helpful AI. If it's helpful, that's fine, we won't penalize you. It's fine." And there's been up and down. People have been testing AI content for years, testing pretty much unedited AI content for years. There's a few people who've been doing a lot of experiments around this. Mark Williams-Cook has a very well-documented experiment that he's been running on this content as well. And for a while, people were saying, "Oh, yeah, it doesn't really rank," or "It ranks for a while and then it will completely tank." And that's something that people have said. However, it's my opinion and it's something that I've observed that basically, if people remember back around this time of year or around the spring of 2023 when Bing was like, "Yo, we have new Bing. We are putting AI in the SERP." And Google was going, "Oh, we also have AI," and they were trying to catch up, I've started to see a lot more content that is AI-generated being openly AI-generated and ranking. And so I'm going to share a couple of examples of that. One is a big example, which is LinkedIn's advice folder, which has been going gangbusters pretty much since they started doing it. They built this up in the springtime of 2023, and they've seen some incredible activities for this. If you haven't seen this, basically you haven't been on LinkedIn. And basically, when you go on LinkedIn, LinkedIn will ask you questions, "What do you think about this? What do you think about that?" And they call them collaborative articles in the folders under advice and things like, "What does a production coordinator do? What is regression testing and why is it important? What are the best practices for this?" Now, the way I stumbled upon this wasn't actually through LinkedIn; it was actually through a featured snippet. I found a featured snippet. It was talking about a technical SEO term, and it actually didn't have any contributions. But at the top of every article, it says that this article was created by AI and the LinkedIn community and they're doing incredibly well. So they started building up this folder around March 2023. They peaked with their traffic at 2.8 million globally in about 2023 September. And it went down a little bit, but it's got down to 1.7 million according to Semrush's stats. And I take that traffic. I'll take that. If that's where we're dropping back to, that's fine. And they're not the only ones. Another from a smaller example is a site called Wellnite.com, which is a site that's actually working more in the YMYL space. So they are something that talks about counseling and they've got lots of articles. One of them is bottling up emotions, how to let go, acknowledge your emotions, peaceful mind practice and things like that. And at the bottom, it says, "PS, this blog was created with AI software as a tool to supplement the author accompanied by Wellnite staff overview and supervision." And that is an example of a website that had been going, ticking along through 2020, 2021 at getting around global traffic according to Semrush of about 400 or so. There are lots of blogs that are like that, lots of company blogs that are like that for smaller websites. And theirs started ticking along. But then in 2023, they started adding in these AI-generated contents, and they were able to increase the number of articles that they were ranking. And they've now been able to double their traffic monthly because of that. And again, it's still fairly small traffic, but compared to where they were, that's a very significant jump. And the amount of traffic that they've seen increased between the start of 2023 and where we are in 2024 is significant. It's the most significant growth they've ever seen across their domain. So to my mind, AI content is doing just fine and there's lots of evidence to show that, but there's a few things that people can do to make it better. And I think the people who are doing it well are taking advantage of some of those elements. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. I think very much, it depends. The linked articles I think are a great case. First off, the linked articles are from LinkedIn, so you are not LinkedIn. So that's one thing to be careful of. But the second thing is the linked articles are interesting. I actually like them because they make me think because I don't like the answers. I don't like the content that they offer. I find I comment on them, so I get a little badge thing on LinkedIn because I'm being like that. And most of my takes are like, "Nah, that's not how you should actually think about it." But interestingly enough, and I wonder if this plays into it or how it plays into it, you're actually getting first-person experience on those articles in the comments themselves. And that's my point that it all depends with this kind of thing. For example, Mark Williams-Cook has an article on Search Engine Land where he talks about LLMs generating content. And when he ran an experience, he created 10,000 URLs on unsupervised AI. And you see it ranks and it just gets killed off. And there are a bunch of examples like that. So it's using this or thinking about, "Does it rank unequivocally?" The answer is it depends what you mean by that. If you're just spinning up random content or unsupervised content, the answer is it'll rank for a while. I think it's very much spam content in general. It ranks for a while, and then it falls off. So I was reading in Traffic Think Tank recently, was Andy Chapa talking about a case where I think someone all of a sudden got... They must have bought tons of links. And you see this, people buy tons of links, they start ranking for a while and then Google eventually figures it out and gets rid of it. I think it's very similar to that or any other kind of spam practice. If you're using AI in a spammy kind of way, you'll rank two, three, four months and then it'll fall off. And that's been a lot of the consensus around what's been shared in the SEO community about this. And we actually asked the SEO community on January 29th, "Does Google consistently regularly rank AI content?" And out of 120 so votes, 82% of people said yes, and around 70% of people said no. And then the comments are filled with these anecdotes. For example, Kristine Schachinger said, "It does and then it will not." And I think what she's talking about are those kind of cases where what Mark did, where you're just unsupervised, this doesn't make any sense, it's not good content, it's not helpful, it'll get killed off, which is what Google's saying. I think there's a lot of politics behind what Google's saying also, but whatever. We'll leave that aside. It's not for this podcast. Darth Autocrat, Lyndon NA. He wrote, "Yes, but it's kind of skewed due to the sheer volume of it and the overall scope of AI content. Even if you utterly ignore the spammer flood, legitimate networks are always, if not partially using, so it shows for news, et cetera." So that's a really good point, how you use it, how you go about using it, it's really important. Pedro Diaz wrote, "I anticipate the answers are all going towards experience people had and seen recently within their search bubble," which I think is a very good point to having broader views in a wider spectrum of experiences. And I don't think I've seen a wide study on AI content ranking. And I think that would be fascinating to see to address that point. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that there's so many different variations in the ways that people are using it because the other thing is that there's lots of people who aren't ranking with AI content. But there's also the case that, and we've seen this with the AI tools that we have in Wix, we've used AI tools to help people do things like the meta descriptions, for instance. We talked about those. And what we've seen with that is that there's a lot more people who have accessibility, with lowercase a, to some of these techniques because they don't have to worry about the barriers to entry regarding grammar, for instance, or regarding even sometimes the ideation. So that Wellnite website is a classic example. They were publishing occasionally, but they were able to increase the rate of publishing because they were using some of these AI tools. So I think that there's going to be a lot of people who are getting more access to these things, who are able to articulate themselves better with the help of some of these tools. And that I think is a win. I think that's a good thing that people who were previously not able to understand or use meta descriptions at all, for instance, are able to engage with that content. I think that's a benefit, and I think that that's something that will affect which pages are ranking and will affect how many pages are ranking. However, there's going to be a lot of people who are just putting out junk, but those people were putting out junk anyway before in lots of other ways. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. That's what I was going to say. It's really a matter of mindset, and we'll talk about it with John later on that how do you go about building the content utilizing AI and expediting your processes? Because at the same time, I think something very important to keep in the back of your mind when you're using AI to create content, which you should certainly be doing the right way, is where's Google trying to go? And this speaks to a lot of the Reddit controversy on the SERP at the moment as we're recording, and who knows if it'll fixed by the time we're done recording. But there's been a lot of pushback about the amount of Reddit results Google's showing on the SERP. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that Google's trying to push for first-person, first knowledge, experience-based content and Google's having a lot of issues with this. But you see this trend keep coming up with things like Reddit ranking, Gisele Navarro put out an interesting post about product review websites and how folks like Rolling Stone have jumped into the product review space. And one of the things that they're doing to rank is relying on first-person experience in a way. I'll put a little caveat, a little asterisk on that, by using first-person expressions, like I, we, our, which I've personally seen a huge influx of folks doing that over time. So we take the same product review page now, and you put it in the Wayback Machine, the amount of our, we, first-person language has increased exponentially. And there's a recent study that Cyrus Shepard did that shows, and again, it's a correlation study, so no one freak out like, "Oh, no, it's correlation." But correlation sometimes can point you in the right direction and correlation does mean something. And one of the things that he noticed in websites that are winning is the usage of first-person pronouns: me, we, I, that sort of thing. The direction where Google is trying to go kind of contradicts a lot of the things that people are doing with AI content. So when you're building AI content, you need to keep in mind where the ecosystem is shifting and leverage AI the right way within that context. Crystal Carter: Right. So I think that the first-person experience is super important for that. And there's a couple of reasons why writing... Whenever I'm doing content evaluations or making content recommendations, particularly to blog-facing content or customer service attributions and things, I very often say that people should speak in the second person, like, "You should do this, you can do that, you could do this. We do this for you because it is good and you will like it," and that sort of thing. And the reason why is because a lot of people are on their mobiles, and that is a one-person situation. That is a one-person thing. Even if you share that with somebody, even if you will share it to their mobile and they will read it personally on their mobile phone, individually. So it's like, "Hi, I am talking to you," it's very much an individual situation. So users are going to be responding to that in lots of ways. And I think that when we think about AI content, I don't think that AI content is necessarily opposed to that. I think it's a way to organize that sort of thing. One really good example that I saw in terms of product reviews was Spruce Pets. They had a great product review of dog carriers, and clearly they had people who were testing it with their dogs. They were like, "Here I am with my dog, here is my dog in the dog carrier," that sort of thing. But then here's where you use the AI. The AI is where you pull in how to organize all the product detail between the different ones. How you say, "Okay, this one has a carrier, this one has a pocket, this one has a thing for treats," all of that sort of stuff. That's what you use the AI for. And you maybe use the AI to pull out some of the common threads of some of the first-person things that you're using. So I don't think it's necessarily opposed, but I think you should use it to clean up some of the qualitative information. Mordy Oberstein: Well, that's part of the problem with the discussion is that when you look at a zero-sum, either there's AI content or not AI content. So I'll tell you one of the things that I'm a big proponent of is what I'll call situational content writing. So one of the ways you can actually show expertise in a real way, other than just loading in the page with we, I, me, which anybody can do, an LLM can do that if you trick it to do that for you, it is actually predicting the situation the consumer's going to face and then writing about that situation. Because that actually demonstrates you actually know what the heck you're talking about and have actual experience. Because you can't predict the next scenario unless you have some kind of situational experience. However, if you're talking about let's go with a pet carrier thing, situation. How to get your pet into the pet carrier if they don't want to go in? You'll predict as someone who has a pet, you can try this. If that doesn't work, then try this. But the general like, "What is a pet carrier?" Let's say you wanted to put that there, but you probably don't need, but let's say you did, then you can have an AI spin out like, "What is the pet carrier?" Sure, go ahead and write that part. It's not a zero-sum. So let the AI save you time and let it make you more efficient in the right spots within the expert and the experience-driven content you want to create. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that it's also important to remember that there's going to be some content that people don't care what an AI thinks about it like, "Is your pet happy in the pet carrier?" for instance. That's something I don't really care what ChatGPT thinks about whether or not my Cocker Spaniel is happy in the carrier. If I hear from other people, "Yeah, my dog was really happy. He was wagging his tail, he kept sniffing my ear," or whatever, that sort of thing. That's something that I would like to hear first-person knowledge of and that's something that you should be aware of. And then that situational stuff is really important because that situational information is stuff that you can get from users, from real humans, from real human users and from real personal experience. And I think that you can use, again, if not zero-sum, you can use AI to help you collate and to help you organize some of the things that you're getting from user videos, user interviews, customer feedback reforms, that sort of stuff to help you bring some of that together. But you're going to be able to add value with a cyborg kind of approach, if that makes sense. Mordy Oberstein: And look, that's going to be the kind of content that ranks fundamentally. In fact, now at some point, Google's... Listen, there's two possibilities in my opinion. Either Google will figure this out to make sure that the content that has actual expertise and actual experience, which may be supplemented by AI ranks, or it won't be a search engine anymore that we'll go to. So either way, it doesn't matter. Okay. Well, since we're already talking about AI and content and ranking, I think it behooves us to talk about AI for content generation so that you know how to create the AI content that ranks and not the AI content that ranks, but really shouldn't rank. So rank responsibly. Please rank responsibly. To help us talk about this, we have a very special guest with the host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast, John Wall, as we move beyond SEO and into the great beyond. Hey John, welcome to the podcast. How are you? John Wall: Great, thanks. Glad to be here. Mordy Oberstein: So you're the host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast. You also work for Trust Insights and do a lot with AI. Now is the time on the podcast for you to pitch. John Wall: Yeah. So with Trust Insights, we've done a lot of stuff with generative AI. Our chief technologist, Christopher Penn, has been using AI in PR and marketing for over 15 years. So we already had a bunch of stuff that we were using AI for as far as attribution and predictive analysis for creating content calendars, things like that. And so yeah, generative AI has now spun up though and he is just in demand everywhere. In fact, he's speaking in London this week. Yeah, it's become huge. And so we actually have put together a framework of generative AI for marketers, stuff that you can do to create content, do better in SEO. There's a whole bunch of different avenues and strategies, everything just from the basic habit, my blog post, which is what you're talking about, stuff that comes out and is weak at best. And then, at the other end of the spectrum, you're trying to create stuff that nobody else is doing and actually has some novelty, and we'll get you to the higher amounts of traffic and positioning because it's quality stuff. Crystal Carter: I think that one of the things that stood out from that was you said you've been working in this space for years, and I think that that's one of the things that a lot of people don't realize. People say, "Oh, AI is new." Google's been using AI in the SERPs for years. But people like folks from your team have been using these tools for many, many years. And I think that that gives you particularly interesting insights on this. There's a lot of people who are just new to the game and just getting involved, but I think that there's going to be some things that you've tried and understand more than other people. John Wall: Yeah, I think it is very different than a lot of the other trends that come up through marketing. When we had cyber currency, it was a huge deal and NFTs and all this kind of stuff, they were created. But AI, as a concept, was created back in the 1950s, right? Crystal Carter: Right. John Wall: The academic community understood what this could do and where it was going, and it was just that the computing power wasn't there. Yeah. So idea of being able to figure out, "Identify the difference between human and AI, can you fool people?" And of course, there's always been turks, right? There's always machines that can make you think you're talking to a computer when you're really not, because there's still some human interaction in there on the back-end. But yeah, we're at least getting close to the point where ChatGPT could fool somebody for a little while for four or five prompts before you figure out that they're a person. But better customer service tools have already been able to do that to some point. They can get you there. But yeah, so now people have kind of jumped on the AI bandwagon and Gartner's peak hype right now where every product has AI attached to it. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my gosh. John Wall: My tires were rotated last week with AI over at the gas station. Mordy Oberstein: I have AI tires. Yours were rotated with AI. I have actual AI tires. John Wall: You have AI in the tires. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Do they tell you when you're in the wrong lane? Mordy Oberstein: No, they don't do anything for me whatsoever. They hallucinate and tell me I'm in a desert on the highway and where I'm really driving in my actual driveway. So I don't know what's flying. I'm going to use my AI tires. John Wall: Yeah, it is everywhere. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So if we're going to actually use AI in a real way, we're going to say, "Okay, let's create content and let's use AI." Is it carte blanche, like just go wild? John Wall: No, no. There's a lot of ways to go. In fact, I would even back up. I would not start with generative AI. We did and have done predictive models. So for example, we've done a bunch of stuff in the food space, and it's worked so well we had to come up with a sample for the rest of the world. So we have the cheese report, which is an annual report that comes out and it talks about, "Okay, which cheeses are most searched for every week of the year?" And so you can- Crystal Carter: It's cheddar, right? Mordy Oberstein: American. John Wall: Cheddar. We're just coming off hot cheddar with the Super Bowl here in America. That's very popular. Mozzarella surges as we get close to Christmas. Mordy Oberstein: Kraft singles, American cheese is not- Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's cheddar. Cheddar is your best cheese. It's good for almost every situation. John Wall: Cheddar is always ranking high. It's definitely top 10 most of the year. But look, for a content marketer, the big one now you'd look at is halloumi where you've got grillable cheeses will be popular June, July when that time of the year comes. So if you've got your content calendar, you should be starting to script out those halloumi videos and recipes and all that stuff now, so that you've got that stuff dropping in May and you're able to get some Google juice to that before peak search season in June, July. Mordy Oberstein: Some hot cheese right there. John Wall: Yeah, that's the hot cheese. And we have it for a whole bunch of other foods, but the brands that get those reports don't let us share that with anybody else. So we're not able to share our food insight outside of cheese, but that gives you an example of using some predictive AI to actually create content that is in demand. And that way, you've got your stuff all updated when you hit peak search. Crystal Carter: And I think is there a little bit of overlap for content like that, for instance? Let's say, if you're running a stats tool throughout the year or something, for instance, the Billboard Hot 100 changes every day or that sort of thing. If you're running a SaaS tool like that, how much is there crossover between programmatic elements and AI elements with creating content around that? John Wall: It completely overlaps. AI is not going to come up with anything new. That's really what it is. It's just you're applying programmatic strategies to figuring out what's going to be coming on and where it goes. And there's a ton of ways to apply that too. Another way we see it all over the place is with reviews or other huge libraries of content where instead of generating, have it do summarization or classification. And take a huge batch of reviews, have it come up with, "Okay, what are the five most common things that people like/don't like about this product?" And now that's a blog post that's based on your data, that's proprietary that somebody else using GenAI can't just come up with that post. You're the only one that can do that and it's going to be on target, but it's unique and it's your voice and it's probably going to be stronger across the board. Crystal Carter: I think that's great because with something like that, you can summarize and hit some of the key points with the keywords there. And also, it's got good user value because me, as a user, if I'm trying to decide whether or not I should use halloumi cheese or Havarti cheese on my cheeseburger, for instance, it might be like, "Yeah, this was a good cheese, but it didn't quite melt as much on the burger, for instance." And I can get that summary without reading 400 reviews that include like, "Oh, I dropped the cheese on the ground and things. It's one star." It's like, "No, you dropped it. That's your problem." John Wall: That's like the Amazon classic of the products that suck because the box arrived destroyed. There's all these- Mordy Oberstein: Right. I love that. I don't care. John Wall: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Because you know who's going to destroy the box in three seconds anyway? My children. John Wall: That's just been part of the customer experience. Mordy Oberstein: But this is a similar point to something we discussed. We had a webinar with Mike King and Ross Hudgens where we talked about giving AI rules and confines to work within as opposed to, "Here's a very open, unconfined scenario. But if you give it parameters to work with, it does much better and it does what you want it to do. And that's where I feel like it can offer real insights and real ability to produce content for you that you couldn't have done otherwise or you couldn't have done otherwise as quickly." But again, it's giving an open prompt and just telling it to go without any borders or any confines, is probably a recipe for disaster. John Wall: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we even have a whole course that's seven hours of training, and a huge chunk of it is writing effective prompts. And so that's where some of the artistry is. And we have a whole framework, we call it the RACE Framework where for any prompt you want to do R-A-C-E. So you give it the role, you say, "Hey, you are an engineer that is working with stereo equipment. A, is for action. Your task is to come up with a list of whatever. "You give it context. That's the C, where you're saying that the audience is this level of professional. Is it engineers with 10 years' experience? Or is it people that have no experience with audio equipment? And then execute." You actually give it the instructions as far as how to write this. It should be at X grade level, it should cover X number of bullet points, have a summary. Basically, the best prompts, you have these huge paragraphs of stuff that you're using. Mordy Oberstein: That's the thing. AI is great. You have to shape it to what you want it to be. And I think the problem is that it's so easy and there's no barrier to entry that people think, "Oh, I can do this." To me, it's like picking up a baseball bat. Yes, you can pick up a baseball bat and you can swing it, but if you look at what the pros are actually doing, there's so much more that goes into it: managing the load, and where's your weight shifting? And when is your weight shifting? And where's your elbow? And how is your wrist turning? There's a million things that go into actually swinging a baseball bat the real way versus you just taking a whack at it with your wonky-ass swing. And it's very similar to AI. Yes, you could put in a prompt and yes, you can get an output but that's not actually swinging the bat. John Wall: Yeah. Another way to think of it, you have that thing, we've always talked about this in software is tools for experts versus expert tools. Look, right now, the state of AI, it's like a router. If you're a carpenter, who knows what the heck they're doing, you can do amazing things with this tool. If you are somebody who's just playing around, you could end up losing some fingers. Mordy Oberstein: That's okay. The AI will add the fingers and some back for you. John Wall: Man, I hadn't thought about how much that hits. Yeah. But thankfully, AI has tons of fingers that it can spread around liberally to everyone. I even saw that on Amazon, they have a fake plastic finger you can buy so that you can wear it around and then you can tell people, "Oh, no, that's obviously AI-generated, because- Mordy Oberstein: People are interesting, huh? John Wall: Yeah. I'm thinking I don't need to go through the work of making sure the finger matches. That seems like a lot of effort to perpetrate a fraud, so I'm not going to bother with that. Mordy Oberstein: You have to really take on the next load because let's say, I don't know, you're out at the beach and your fingers get tanned. You're going to have to have a tanned finger. Crystal Carter: Also, sometimes they think arms in different places that shouldn't be there. The arms coming out in the middle and you're like, "What is going on there?" But I've seen pop stars, there was a whole thing. I'm going to show myself here, but there was a whole thing on Nicki Minaj as a popular rapper and she had a new album art. She had a song she put out unannounced. And the album art she used for, it was clearly generated with AI, and it clearly had not gone through QA. And it was supposed to be police tape and it didn't say police all the way through, and the things had different arms and they had all of this sort of stuff. And even people who have the means... She's a multi-millionaire, and she has a PR team, and she has many people available. But even people who have the means aren't going through the QA. In terms of process, you have your prompting thing, you have your data thing, how much is the QA of the AI part of your process of getting good quality stuff? John Wall: Yeah. For us, that's a huge part of it. Really, in fact, there's nothing that can be released or put out there until it's been pounded on by experts who know what it should be doing and where it should be going. That's the real challenge of this. And then people don't get this either, is that you don't just build it and start using it. No, you build it, you run it and then you train it. And it needs to be constantly trained. Training needs to be a permanent part of your process. Mordy Oberstein: You mean, like anything else, it requires hard work? John Wall: You don't just hire it and then fire your whole marketing team the next day. Mordy Oberstein: You completely kill what AI means to me, and I am now completely uninterested in it. Crystal Carter: It's magic. Isn't it just magic? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. If it's not magic, I don't care. John Wall: Yes. In fact, it gets your coffee right in the morning and it will drive you home at the end of the day. Yeah. No, it doesn't do all the things. Mordy Oberstein: If it doesn't watch my kids, I don't care. Crystal Carter: I think it's important to remember the learning part of the machine learning because that's the other thing. For marketers, PPC, for instance, has had machine learning going on for years, for years and years. Facebook has had it in there. Google Ads has had it in there. And you had to do the machine learning part of it. You'd have to, and you'd have to train it and train the model and retrain the model and retrain your parameters and all that sort of stuff. So for people who just think you can set it and forget it and it will just do magic, it's just a rude awakening, I think. Mordy Oberstein: It's not the Ronco slow cooker, set it and forget it, which is my favorite- Crystal Carter: Hey, I love my slow cooker. My slow cooker is that. I just put all the things and then... John Wall: Set it- Mordy Oberstein: And then forget it. John Wall: One thing that we've been doing that is pretty interesting because of this idea that these models do read everything that's out there, we've played around with actually doing press releases again. We had originally abandoned press releases as a complete waste of time because they were just lost in the five million other press releases that came out today. But now we've been working with some copy that's optimized for large language models to scan and grab. So you can write about unique content. And it's funny, it's classic spammer stuff in that these press releases don't read that well. A human reads them, they don't make a lot of sense. There's some thread there, but the key is you've got 15 or 20 phrases in there that you ultimately want a large language model to think that you are the answer for. Crystal Carter: Right. And to come into the corpus of their knowledge on that particular topic. John Wall: Right. Exactly. Crystal Carter: So one of the things that we find interesting, particularly with large language models that are public-facing, like SGE and banks, Bing chat for instance. So one of the things that they're doing, because it's so expensive to answer questions with AI, it's so expensive for them to run, a lot of times they will truncate the answer. So you might write a really long question about, "What was the breed of dog that Dorothy had in The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland? What exactly? Which kind of breed?" So you might write all of that, but they will truncate the answer. So even if you ask a similar question that's not exactly the same on the LLM, they'll essentially distill it to, "Dorothy's dog in The Wizard of Oz," and they'll distill it and give you, roughly, the same answers. When you're creating a PR release with those kinds of phrases and things, are you thinking for those questions in mind, those lowest common denominator questions? How are you identifying the phrases you want to surface for? John Wall: Yeah. So our analysis on that has been just analyzing what we're getting from answers now, and seeing the format and types of stuff that it wants to see. But yeah, you've hit upon a whole nother area of this study that is a big deal, this idea of managing your tokens. And for a lot of these systems, if you go with the paid version now, suddenly, you get to send larger queries and get larger queries back and get more in depth of. So it's a different level of information and quality. The other one is, as you're building prompts, we find that it's much more effective to do long strings. You keep continuing to correct an ad. And so one trick with that is after you've done four or five prompts, have the model summarize what you've learned so far so that it can boil down your previous 10 queries into one paragraph. And then, when you do more research, you start with that one summarized paragraph and you basically get to skip the initial round. Because yeah, these all have moving windows of after four or five prompts, they start to forget the original stuff and they will start hallucinating again on things that you've walled in. Crystal Carter: So say I want it without the hat on it, and they're like, "With a hat?" And you're like, "No, that's not what I said." And you have to go all the way back to the beginning. Mordy Oberstein: All the way. I find that with images. Using Copilot or Gemini, I find that it loses its train of thought like my grandmother. Crystal Carter: You're like, "Come back, come back." And it's like, "Right over here." And you're like, "No, no. No, this way." John Wall: Yeah. Yeah, they completely start to run afield. And I don't know. And then really, for this whole space, there is this question of they are just doing an obscene amount of background computing that costs money. And sooner or later- Mordy Oberstein: So much. John Wall: Now, thankfully... Well, not thankfully for me, but thankfully for folks in AI, all of the MarTech and cyber currency VC money has dumped to AI for this next year. So there is a pile of cash there now to give everybody a free ride. But the question is how long is that going to last? Sooner or later... And the good news is it's free and they're looking at $20 a month kind of things, which is great. It doesn't cover the cost, but at least will probably boil down to two or three champions and then yeah, maybe we can finally open up that Alzheimer's window a little bit wider so that they can remember where the heck we're going. Mordy Oberstein: If people want to keep track of this by keeping track of you, where can they find you? John Wall: Oh, I'm always over at marketingovercoffee.com. And then for work stuff, we're at trustinsights.ai. We have a Slack group, Analytics for Marketers. If analytics is your thing, come on over there. We're always talking about it every day, and it's a great place to- Mordy Oberstein: Do you know how to use GA4? John Wall: Oh, we are all about GA4. Actually, the big news for us now is we've been doing GA stuff forever, but we actually offer Matomo in-house for people that are sick of GA4 already, which is 98% of people. And we do a bunch of work with Adobe too. So yeah, it's funny, we do all this cool AI stuff, but the reality is 98% of our customers have problem with the plumbing, and so that's the dirty work that we get done. Mordy Oberstein: Even imagined as toilets. John Wall: This is true. Crystal Carter: You should get an AI to clean the.. John Wall: Siri, clean my basement. What's happening? Crystal Carter: Whenever I think of AI, I always think of the housekeeper from the Jetsons. When is that coming? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, Rosey. John Wall: Rosey. Oh, yeah. Crystal Carter: When is Rosey coming to my house? That's what I'm- Mordy Oberstein: That's it. I need someone to watch my kids. Crystal Carter: She has a lot of sass though, but it's fine. John Wall: You want to read a crazy one, read about some of these disasters with the automated vacuuming machines. If the pet gets sick and then the machine hits it, and then spreads it around the whole house, fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: No, no, no. Okay. On that happy note, give John a follow and check out all the great stuff they're doing over there at Trust Insights and the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast. Give that a listen as well. John, thank you so much. John Wall: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: You know what I wonder? I wonder if there'll be some AI-related news in the SEO News. Crystal Carter: Maybe something about BARD or BERT. Mordy Oberstein: Or Ernie or Gemini or Scorpio. Crystal Carter: Or Elmo. Mordy Oberstein: Or Elmo or Barry Crystal Carter: Or MUM. Mordy Oberstein: Or Barry. Crystal Carter: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh! Mordy Oberstein: Is Barry a constellation? Crystal Carter: There should be a Barry algo. I think they keep- Mordy Oberstein: That would be amazing if Google, the most penalizing algorithm ever created, they called it Barry Schwartz. I think that would go over well. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: People already blame him for when they lose their rankings. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, all the time. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, ask him. When Barry- Crystal Carter: Okay. I would like to just make a public service announcement, Barry's not responsible for your rankings. Mordy Oberstein: No. Barry's just reporting on what happened. There appears to be an update that Google didn't announce. He's just reporting. But there have been many times, Barry's... Actually, I've interviewed him about this. Barry's gotten death threats. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, over rankings. He's just reporting, people. Crystal Carter: He's not in charge of it. Mordy Oberstein: He's not in charge. Crystal Carter: He didn't do it. Mordy Oberstein: You shouldn't threaten anybody with death. Crystal Carter: Barry's a nice man. You shouldn't do that. Mordy Oberstein: I wouldn't go that far, but yeah. No, I'm kidding. Barry's a gem, which brings us to the Snappy SEO News. In case you haven't realized, this is our time for the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. The update is over. No, not that one. Not that one. For Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land, the Google March 2024 spam update is done rolling out, the March 2024 core update is very much still alive, seeing a whole bunch of reversals in the second wave of volatility that came out. Treated it last week. If you want, check that out. But anyway, onto the spam update. It's done. After 15 days on March 20th, Google announced it's done, it's complete, it's rolled out. If you'll recall, Google announced there were three new elements that are being integrated into the spam algorithm. One of them is not hitting until May. And as part of these announcements, Google released the March 2024 spam update, which obviously heavily focused on the new things being integrated into its spam algorithms, which are scaled content abuse, expired domain abuse and site reputation abuse. Site reputation abuse, not happening until May. And that's parasite SEO. That's again where, I don't know, I want to push my content. I don't have a very authoritative website. I go to Sports Illustrated. I say, "I will buy a page on your website, write up an article, have nothing to do with sports and get traffic through that parasite SEO." The other elements, the expired domain abuse, where you say, "Hey, that domain, that used to be about whatever topic, which is I can get the domain, bring it back to life. Google will think, 'Oh, wow, it's so authoritative. That was such a great website way back when, and I can write whatever I want, whatever garbage I want, and it'll rank.'" So that and the scaled content abuse part of the algorithm is also live right now, and that's where basically you're just throwing up tons of just AI garbage, not curating it at all, not thinking about it at all. You're just pushing out content at scale without any thought whatsoever to essentially manipulate rank and users. So that was also in the March 2024 spam update, and we saw a lot of activity around that. Part of all of this were all of the manual actions, which we discussed on the podcast as well. Thousands of sites have seen manual actions. A lot of the examples being shared have to do with that scaled content abuse where Google's killing off the entire website because again, people are just spinning up random... Some of the cases I've seen, it's not even good AI. It's just bad garbage AI. It's nonsensical even. So those websites have been completely killed off. If you have been doing those kind of things, and you've seen your content and your rankings rather just falls to the bottom floor, that might be something you want to take a look at. If you are doing good, decent work, you shouldn't really be affected by a spam update. Now, one of the things that you're going to be thinking is, "How do I know if I was hit by the spam update or by the March 2024 core update?" Well, one way to know is if you're doing things like scaled content abuse or expired domain abuse, then it's probably the spam update. Again, if you're not doing these ridiculously spammy, absurd things and you're seeing a ranking loss, one, the March 2024 core update's still not done rolling out. Again, as I mentioned, I'm seeing tons of reversals. So don't do anything yet. As Google mentioned, be patient. If, after the March 2024 core update is done and rolled out and completed, and you're still trying to figure out was it the spam update or the core update, again, if you haven't been doing these ridiculously, overtly spammy... I don't even know how to... mind-boggling things, then it's probably the core update. That's my way of looking at it. Okay, onto article number two, again from Barry Schwartz, but this time over at Search Engine around it... By the way, got to say happy birthday to Barry Schwartz. March 22nd was Barry's birthday. I hope you got a lovely birthday cake. Anyway, Barry writes, "Google SGE feedback on affiliate results and Google News: Does This Interest You Pop-Up." Hope you all caught all of that in the headline. Let me explain. Google has done this for a while, but this is a different way of doing it. This one was picked up by a friend of the show, friend of baseball, Glenn Gabe, who saw that for an affiliate website ranking on the results, Google had a little widget there that says, "How helpful was the result above? One extreme being not helpful at all, the other extreme being extremely helpful." And you just selected the dot on the spectrum of how helpful you thought that it was. So that's really interesting to see that on affiliate stuff. Another example was within a Google News result. So there was a news card that showed up and there was a little pop-up thing that says, "Does this interest you? Thumbs up, thumbs down." Google has been doing these things for a long, long, long time. There's a bunch of iterations of this with feature snippets, "Did you find the feature snippet helpful? Yada, yada, yada." So this is not new to quote Barry, but it is interesting to see. Google, again, has done this many, many times in many, many different ways over the years. I think it's really interesting that it's happening now, especially for the affiliate result that Glenn showed. I just find it really interesting that you have all of these things going on in the ecosystem, the whole Reddit question, the spam updates, the core updates, the quality of results, AI content, SGE. And Google's now rolling out this little test of showing a widget, you can offer to your feedback to how helpful the result was. So I think that aligns to what's going on in the ecosystem overall and especially on something that's product review related or affiliate related. So definitely interesting to see Google doing that there. And that is this week's Snappy SEO News. It would be nice though if they had a Barry update, but it was one that was only helpful and rewarding to all websites that were good. Crystal Carter: And then afterwards everyone would go, "Thank you." Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. And they could say, "It's new. It's a new algorithm." Crystal Carter: Indeed. Indeed. You were saying, "Wouldn't it be nice?" And now I'm thinking of that Beach Boys song. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great song, actually. Crystal Carter: It's a great song. Mordy Oberstein: How did Beach Boys stand up? That's a good song. Crystal Carter: Generally, Beach Boys, they've got that good album. They've got one really, really good album. Mordy Oberstein: Right, Pet Shops. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's a great album. Listen to it start to finish. It's a great album. It's really well-produced. Great album. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You know what else is great? Our follow of the week. And our follow of the week is none other than Dale Bertrand. Crystal Carter: Dale Bertrand. If you've been following How to Rank with AI, then you must be following Dale Bertrand. If you're not following him, please do. He's very active on LinkedIn, and you can see him all over the place speaking all over in lots of different places. So he's a founder and president of Fire&Spark with over 15 years experience working out of Boston. And he talks and shares some great resources around AI and content and using it intelligently and using it in a way that really, really works. So highly recommend. Mordy Oberstein: And just a super nice guy, super nice. I met him in BrightonSEO in November in San Diego and he was super nice. Crystal Carter: Super nice. And he's very often at BrightonSEO in the UK. So yeah, he's a great speaker, great writer, great SEO marketer, so highly recommend. Great follow. Mordy Oberstein: We'll link to his profiles in the show notes. Now I realize, by the way, I completely botched... It was not called Pets Shops; it's called Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. What the hell am I talking about? I am ridiculous. Crystal Carter: Pet Shops. You're thinking of Pet Shop Boys. You hallucinated. Are you AI? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: I knew it. Mordy Oberstein: It explains a lot. Right? So I want to point out the irony of not saying we're not Beach Boy fans on a podcast built on surfing themes. That's not my favorite. I'll say another hot take, the Beatles aren't my favorite. Crystal Carter: Same. Mordy Oberstein: I enjoy the songs. I have Beatle albums or I had Beatle albums back in the day. Who has albums anymore? But they're historically super important. Crystal Carter: Sgt. Pepper's. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Even that, I don't know. I'm not... Crystal Carter: Come on. Their Come Together, that's a jam. Mordy Oberstein: They're not dark enough for me. They're too happy. All this music, it's just too happy. I need a little bit of an edge. I'm more of a Rolling Stones person than I am a Beatles and Beach Boys person. Crystal Carter: Okay, I can see that. Mordy Oberstein: I need sorrow in my music. Crystal Carter: They're good bands. I had a very long conversation on a car ride and we decided that Led Zeppelin was the best band. Mordy Oberstein: What? I like Led Zeppelin. Don't get me wrong. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of criteria that we went into. We discussed it for a very long time. Mordy Oberstein: It's just wrong. Crystal Carter: It's not wrong. It's not wrong. Mordy Oberstein: That's so Wrong. And I love Zeppelin. I actually saw Robert Plant live. Crystal Carter: Where? Mordy Oberstein: The lead singer of Led Zeppelin, I've seen him live. Crystal Carter: No, I know who he is. Where did you see him? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, where. At Madison Square Garden. He opened for The Who back in 2002. Crystal Carter: Oh, Zeppelin's definitely better than The Who. Mordy Oberstein: What? No, that's ridonkulous. Crystal Carter: Okay. All right. Mordy Oberstein: Were the godfather's of punk. All right. Anyway, we'll talk about this the second we end this podcast, which we're going to do right now, so we can talk about this because this is ballistically insane. I think you've been smoking too much AI, Crystal. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Aren't you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week as we dive into Building Strong Operations for SEO and Beyond. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn a little more about SEO? Check out all the great content, webinars and resources over on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Kristine Sachinger Cyrus Shepard John Wall Dale Bertrand Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube SEO Resource Center Google Knowledge Panel: How to earn one for your name or brand InLinks Entity SEO: Moving from Things to Strings News: Google Search Console Adds INP Metric In Core Web Vitals Report Google Clarifies Page Experience & Core Web Vitals Related To Search Rankings Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Kristine Sachinger Cyrus Shepard John Wall Dale Bertrand Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube SEO Resource Center Google Knowledge Panel: How to earn one for your name or brand InLinks Entity SEO: Moving from Things to Strings News: Google Search Console Adds INP Metric In Core Web Vitals Report Google Clarifies Page Experience & Core Web Vitals Related To Search Rankings Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO Podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already overseeing the SEO brand here at Wix and I'm joined by the ever-constant, the ever-ranking, the ever-green. I say green because you have a plant in your background now. Head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: This is an audio-only experience. The people don't know that I have a green thing behind me. Mordy Oberstein: You do. You have a green... I like it because it's not green green. It's sage green. Is that the name of the green? Is that right? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's actually only green because it's a fake olive tree. Mordy Oberstein: Ah, I should know that because I have an olive tree right next to my house. Crystal Carter: This is true. But my grandma used to have an orange tree in their backyard. That was nice. Mordy Oberstein: You want to hear a crazy story? I used to live in an apartment and it had a garden. Crystal Carter: That is crazy. Mordy Oberstein: Yes, that is crazy, right? Living is crazy. It had an olive tree. And the way the garden was laid out, it was right next to a staircase, a publicly used staircase that went down to the next street. You can imagine the next street was a level lower, you had to go down the staircase. And the branches extended over the fence onto the staircase. And we come home one day, and the olive tree, all the branches are cut down. Some maniac, I guess, got upset that the branches were overhanging onto the stair- Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And cut down almost the entire olive tree. Crystal Carter: Just from that side? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, he must've climbed over the fence a little bit and... Crystal Carter: Whoa. Wowza. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Psycho, right? Crystal Carter: So I used to work for the parks department for the city, and legally, if it's over your side, that part of the tree is yours. Legally speaking, that side of the tree is yours. So I used to also... Really telling everybody my business here. This is totally relevant, but not. Anyway, basically, I used to forage for free apples and stuff around. And basically, if the apple tree was hanging over the sidewalk, those apples are mine. I can have those apples. They're mine and I'm going to eat them. So that's what I'm doing. You don't like your apples being in the public domain, get your tree out of the public domain. Mordy Oberstein: How do you like them apples? Crystal Carter: Basically. So yeah, it's very complex, trees. Mordy Oberstein: Trees are complex. They are complex. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also use our AI meta tag-creator to spit up title tags and meta descriptions in no time flat because time is not flat, time is round. Also, I don't write meta descriptions anymore. I let the AI do it every time because when it comes to meta descriptions, I don't care. Why? Because AI content ranks. And also because meta descriptions, whatever, who cares, right? I'm saying that as Crystal's looking at me like, "Why are you saying that?" Because I don't care. I don't think they are impactful. One of my least important SEO tasks are meta descriptions. I guess it might help with clicks if Google didn't rewrite half of them. I'm real salty about meta descriptions, but you can use your AI meta tag writer to write them. How's that for a pitch? Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay, that's cool. Okay. So let's just clear this up. I have time for meta descriptions because I've seen them work, right? I've seen them work, but I don't think that you should be hand crafting them artisanally. I don't think- Mordy Oberstein: No, there's no reason. Either way, there's no reason. Just let the AI write that. Crystal Carter: Right. And if you're not using AI, you don't necessarily have to use AI. You can also just do programmatically. So in Wix, you have the option for both. You have the option for either the programmatic setup where you insert keyword for this- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Or take product description, make it meta description. Crystal Carter: Right. This is the title of the product, brand new, et cetera. You can set the template for it so that the template does the work for you. That I am all here for and following best practices, et cetera. But I have seen for good pages for your big money pages, putting a good CTA on there. Mordy Oberstein: No. It could be impactful for conversions. Fine. Yeah, I'm with that when Google's not rewriting them 99.9% of the time. I agree. We all agree to disagree. One thing we do agree on is that today we're talking about AI content and does it rank? Insert dramatic music. Why understanding if AI content ranks matters? Why understanding of AI content ranks on the SERP is just the beginning? And will AI content continue to rank on the SERP? Assuming it already does, but I feel like I'm giving it away there that we're telling you that it already does. Because we surveyed you, the SEOs, to see what you think. So y'all are our guests today, but also our guests that'd be Marketing Over Coffee's host, John Wall, who will talk about when and when not to use AI for content generation. Plus we have the Snappy SEO News for you and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social media. So get out your best AI prompts and put on a funny little cone hat like you went to a birthday party as episode number 80 of the SERP's Up Podcast plays in the AI content on the rankings. Crystal Carter: Okay. Thank you for that exciting introduction. So let's just talk about why we're talking about this. Mordy Oberstein: Exciting introduction. Wow, sarcasm much. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Okay. All right. Mordy Oberstein: I was hallucinating because I was using AI. Crystal Carter: Okay. So why are we talking about this? The reason why we're talking about this is because it's been very up-and-down. When AI was in the backburner, Google was like, "Don't use AI, don't use AI everyone. I know you've heard about all these tools, but don't use AI. Be good little SEOs, don't use AI." And then ChatGPT broke virally, it was way more accessible. And then they were like, "Okay, you can use AI as long as it's helpful. You can use helpful AI. If it's helpful, that's fine, we won't penalize you. It's fine." And there's been up and down. People have been testing AI content for years, testing pretty much unedited AI content for years. There's a few people who've been doing a lot of experiments around this. Mark Williams-Cook has a very well-documented experiment that he's been running on this content as well. And for a while, people were saying, "Oh, yeah, it doesn't really rank," or "It ranks for a while and then it will completely tank." And that's something that people have said. However, it's my opinion and it's something that I've observed that basically, if people remember back around this time of year or around the spring of 2023 when Bing was like, "Yo, we have new Bing. We are putting AI in the SERP." And Google was going, "Oh, we also have AI," and they were trying to catch up, I've started to see a lot more content that is AI-generated being openly AI-generated and ranking. And so I'm going to share a couple of examples of that. One is a big example, which is LinkedIn's advice folder, which has been going gangbusters pretty much since they started doing it. They built this up in the springtime of 2023, and they've seen some incredible activities for this. If you haven't seen this, basically you haven't been on LinkedIn. And basically, when you go on LinkedIn, LinkedIn will ask you questions, "What do you think about this? What do you think about that?" And they call them collaborative articles in the folders under advice and things like, "What does a production coordinator do? What is regression testing and why is it important? What are the best practices for this?" Now, the way I stumbled upon this wasn't actually through LinkedIn; it was actually through a featured snippet. I found a featured snippet. It was talking about a technical SEO term, and it actually didn't have any contributions. But at the top of every article, it says that this article was created by AI and the LinkedIn community and they're doing incredibly well. So they started building up this folder around March 2023. They peaked with their traffic at 2.8 million globally in about 2023 September. And it went down a little bit, but it's got down to 1.7 million according to Semrush's stats. And I take that traffic. I'll take that. If that's where we're dropping back to, that's fine. And they're not the only ones. Another from a smaller example is a site called Wellnite.com, which is a site that's actually working more in the YMYL space. So they are something that talks about counseling and they've got lots of articles. One of them is bottling up emotions, how to let go, acknowledge your emotions, peaceful mind practice and things like that. And at the bottom, it says, "PS, this blog was created with AI software as a tool to supplement the author accompanied by Wellnite staff overview and supervision." And that is an example of a website that had been going, ticking along through 2020, 2021 at getting around global traffic according to Semrush of about 400 or so. There are lots of blogs that are like that, lots of company blogs that are like that for smaller websites. And theirs started ticking along. But then in 2023, they started adding in these AI-generated contents, and they were able to increase the number of articles that they were ranking. And they've now been able to double their traffic monthly because of that. And again, it's still fairly small traffic, but compared to where they were, that's a very significant jump. And the amount of traffic that they've seen increased between the start of 2023 and where we are in 2024 is significant. It's the most significant growth they've ever seen across their domain. So to my mind, AI content is doing just fine and there's lots of evidence to show that, but there's a few things that people can do to make it better. And I think the people who are doing it well are taking advantage of some of those elements. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. I think very much, it depends. The linked articles I think are a great case. First off, the linked articles are from LinkedIn, so you are not LinkedIn. So that's one thing to be careful of. But the second thing is the linked articles are interesting. I actually like them because they make me think because I don't like the answers. I don't like the content that they offer. I find I comment on them, so I get a little badge thing on LinkedIn because I'm being like that. And most of my takes are like, "Nah, that's not how you should actually think about it." But interestingly enough, and I wonder if this plays into it or how it plays into it, you're actually getting first-person experience on those articles in the comments themselves. And that's my point that it all depends with this kind of thing. For example, Mark Williams-Cook has an article on Search Engine Land where he talks about LLMs generating content. And when he ran an experience, he created 10,000 URLs on unsupervised AI. And you see it ranks and it just gets killed off. And there are a bunch of examples like that. So it's using this or thinking about, "Does it rank unequivocally?" The answer is it depends what you mean by that. If you're just spinning up random content or unsupervised content, the answer is it'll rank for a while. I think it's very much spam content in general. It ranks for a while, and then it falls off. So I was reading in Traffic Think Tank recently, was Andy Chapa talking about a case where I think someone all of a sudden got... They must have bought tons of links. And you see this, people buy tons of links, they start ranking for a while and then Google eventually figures it out and gets rid of it. I think it's very similar to that or any other kind of spam practice. If you're using AI in a spammy kind of way, you'll rank two, three, four months and then it'll fall off. And that's been a lot of the consensus around what's been shared in the SEO community about this. And we actually asked the SEO community on January 29th, "Does Google consistently regularly rank AI content?" And out of 120 so votes, 82% of people said yes, and around 70% of people said no. And then the comments are filled with these anecdotes. For example, Kristine Schachinger said, "It does and then it will not." And I think what she's talking about are those kind of cases where what Mark did, where you're just unsupervised, this doesn't make any sense, it's not good content, it's not helpful, it'll get killed off, which is what Google's saying. I think there's a lot of politics behind what Google's saying also, but whatever. We'll leave that aside. It's not for this podcast. Darth Autocrat, Lyndon NA. He wrote, "Yes, but it's kind of skewed due to the sheer volume of it and the overall scope of AI content. Even if you utterly ignore the spammer flood, legitimate networks are always, if not partially using, so it shows for news, et cetera." So that's a really good point, how you use it, how you go about using it, it's really important. Pedro Diaz wrote, "I anticipate the answers are all going towards experience people had and seen recently within their search bubble," which I think is a very good point to having broader views in a wider spectrum of experiences. And I don't think I've seen a wide study on AI content ranking. And I think that would be fascinating to see to address that point. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that there's so many different variations in the ways that people are using it because the other thing is that there's lots of people who aren't ranking with AI content. But there's also the case that, and we've seen this with the AI tools that we have in Wix, we've used AI tools to help people do things like the meta descriptions, for instance. We talked about those. And what we've seen with that is that there's a lot more people who have accessibility, with lowercase a, to some of these techniques because they don't have to worry about the barriers to entry regarding grammar, for instance, or regarding even sometimes the ideation. So that Wellnite website is a classic example. They were publishing occasionally, but they were able to increase the rate of publishing because they were using some of these AI tools. So I think that there's going to be a lot of people who are getting more access to these things, who are able to articulate themselves better with the help of some of these tools. And that I think is a win. I think that's a good thing that people who were previously not able to understand or use meta descriptions at all, for instance, are able to engage with that content. I think that's a benefit, and I think that that's something that will affect which pages are ranking and will affect how many pages are ranking. However, there's going to be a lot of people who are just putting out junk, but those people were putting out junk anyway before in lots of other ways. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. That's what I was going to say. It's really a matter of mindset, and we'll talk about it with John later on that how do you go about building the content utilizing AI and expediting your processes? Because at the same time, I think something very important to keep in the back of your mind when you're using AI to create content, which you should certainly be doing the right way, is where's Google trying to go? And this speaks to a lot of the Reddit controversy on the SERP at the moment as we're recording, and who knows if it'll fixed by the time we're done recording. But there's been a lot of pushback about the amount of Reddit results Google's showing on the SERP. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that Google's trying to push for first-person, first knowledge, experience-based content and Google's having a lot of issues with this. But you see this trend keep coming up with things like Reddit ranking, Gisele Navarro put out an interesting post about product review websites and how folks like Rolling Stone have jumped into the product review space. And one of the things that they're doing to rank is relying on first-person experience in a way. I'll put a little caveat, a little asterisk on that, by using first-person expressions, like I, we, our, which I've personally seen a huge influx of folks doing that over time. So we take the same product review page now, and you put it in the Wayback Machine, the amount of our, we, first-person language has increased exponentially. And there's a recent study that Cyrus Shepard did that shows, and again, it's a correlation study, so no one freak out like, "Oh, no, it's correlation." But correlation sometimes can point you in the right direction and correlation does mean something. And one of the things that he noticed in websites that are winning is the usage of first-person pronouns: me, we, I, that sort of thing. The direction where Google is trying to go kind of contradicts a lot of the things that people are doing with AI content. So when you're building AI content, you need to keep in mind where the ecosystem is shifting and leverage AI the right way within that context. Crystal Carter: Right. So I think that the first-person experience is super important for that. And there's a couple of reasons why writing... Whenever I'm doing content evaluations or making content recommendations, particularly to blog-facing content or customer service attributions and things, I very often say that people should speak in the second person, like, "You should do this, you can do that, you could do this. We do this for you because it is good and you will like it," and that sort of thing. And the reason why is because a lot of people are on their mobiles, and that is a one-person situation. That is a one-person thing. Even if you share that with somebody, even if you will share it to their mobile and they will read it personally on their mobile phone, individually. So it's like, "Hi, I am talking to you," it's very much an individual situation. So users are going to be responding to that in lots of ways. And I think that when we think about AI content, I don't think that AI content is necessarily opposed to that. I think it's a way to organize that sort of thing. One really good example that I saw in terms of product reviews was Spruce Pets. They had a great product review of dog carriers, and clearly they had people who were testing it with their dogs. They were like, "Here I am with my dog, here is my dog in the dog carrier," that sort of thing. But then here's where you use the AI. The AI is where you pull in how to organize all the product detail between the different ones. How you say, "Okay, this one has a carrier, this one has a pocket, this one has a thing for treats," all of that sort of stuff. That's what you use the AI for. And you maybe use the AI to pull out some of the common threads of some of the first-person things that you're using. So I don't think it's necessarily opposed, but I think you should use it to clean up some of the qualitative information. Mordy Oberstein: Well, that's part of the problem with the discussion is that when you look at a zero-sum, either there's AI content or not AI content. So I'll tell you one of the things that I'm a big proponent of is what I'll call situational content writing. So one of the ways you can actually show expertise in a real way, other than just loading in the page with we, I, me, which anybody can do, an LLM can do that if you trick it to do that for you, it is actually predicting the situation the consumer's going to face and then writing about that situation. Because that actually demonstrates you actually know what the heck you're talking about and have actual experience. Because you can't predict the next scenario unless you have some kind of situational experience. However, if you're talking about let's go with a pet carrier thing, situation. How to get your pet into the pet carrier if they don't want to go in? You'll predict as someone who has a pet, you can try this. If that doesn't work, then try this. But the general like, "What is a pet carrier?" Let's say you wanted to put that there, but you probably don't need, but let's say you did, then you can have an AI spin out like, "What is the pet carrier?" Sure, go ahead and write that part. It's not a zero-sum. So let the AI save you time and let it make you more efficient in the right spots within the expert and the experience-driven content you want to create. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that it's also important to remember that there's going to be some content that people don't care what an AI thinks about it like, "Is your pet happy in the pet carrier?" for instance. That's something I don't really care what ChatGPT thinks about whether or not my Cocker Spaniel is happy in the carrier. If I hear from other people, "Yeah, my dog was really happy. He was wagging his tail, he kept sniffing my ear," or whatever, that sort of thing. That's something that I would like to hear first-person knowledge of and that's something that you should be aware of. And then that situational stuff is really important because that situational information is stuff that you can get from users, from real humans, from real human users and from real personal experience. And I think that you can use, again, if not zero-sum, you can use AI to help you collate and to help you organize some of the things that you're getting from user videos, user interviews, customer feedback reforms, that sort of stuff to help you bring some of that together. But you're going to be able to add value with a cyborg kind of approach, if that makes sense. Mordy Oberstein: And look, that's going to be the kind of content that ranks fundamentally. In fact, now at some point, Google's... Listen, there's two possibilities in my opinion. Either Google will figure this out to make sure that the content that has actual expertise and actual experience, which may be supplemented by AI ranks, or it won't be a search engine anymore that we'll go to. So either way, it doesn't matter. Okay. Well, since we're already talking about AI and content and ranking, I think it behooves us to talk about AI for content generation so that you know how to create the AI content that ranks and not the AI content that ranks, but really shouldn't rank. So rank responsibly. Please rank responsibly. To help us talk about this, we have a very special guest with the host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast, John Wall, as we move beyond SEO and into the great beyond. Hey John, welcome to the podcast. How are you? John Wall: Great, thanks. Glad to be here. Mordy Oberstein: So you're the host of the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast. You also work for Trust Insights and do a lot with AI. Now is the time on the podcast for you to pitch. John Wall: Yeah. So with Trust Insights, we've done a lot of stuff with generative AI. Our chief technologist, Christopher Penn, has been using AI in PR and marketing for over 15 years. So we already had a bunch of stuff that we were using AI for as far as attribution and predictive analysis for creating content calendars, things like that. And so yeah, generative AI has now spun up though and he is just in demand everywhere. In fact, he's speaking in London this week. Yeah, it's become huge. And so we actually have put together a framework of generative AI for marketers, stuff that you can do to create content, do better in SEO. There's a whole bunch of different avenues and strategies, everything just from the basic habit, my blog post, which is what you're talking about, stuff that comes out and is weak at best. And then, at the other end of the spectrum, you're trying to create stuff that nobody else is doing and actually has some novelty, and we'll get you to the higher amounts of traffic and positioning because it's quality stuff. Crystal Carter: I think that one of the things that stood out from that was you said you've been working in this space for years, and I think that that's one of the things that a lot of people don't realize. People say, "Oh, AI is new." Google's been using AI in the SERPs for years. But people like folks from your team have been using these tools for many, many years. And I think that that gives you particularly interesting insights on this. There's a lot of people who are just new to the game and just getting involved, but I think that there's going to be some things that you've tried and understand more than other people. John Wall: Yeah, I think it is very different than a lot of the other trends that come up through marketing. When we had cyber currency, it was a huge deal and NFTs and all this kind of stuff, they were created. But AI, as a concept, was created back in the 1950s, right? Crystal Carter: Right. John Wall: The academic community understood what this could do and where it was going, and it was just that the computing power wasn't there. Yeah. So idea of being able to figure out, "Identify the difference between human and AI, can you fool people?" And of course, there's always been turks, right? There's always machines that can make you think you're talking to a computer when you're really not, because there's still some human interaction in there on the back-end. But yeah, we're at least getting close to the point where ChatGPT could fool somebody for a little while for four or five prompts before you figure out that they're a person. But better customer service tools have already been able to do that to some point. They can get you there. But yeah, so now people have kind of jumped on the AI bandwagon and Gartner's peak hype right now where every product has AI attached to it. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my gosh. John Wall: My tires were rotated last week with AI over at the gas station. Mordy Oberstein: I have AI tires. Yours were rotated with AI. I have actual AI tires. John Wall: You have AI in the tires. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Do they tell you when you're in the wrong lane? Mordy Oberstein: No, they don't do anything for me whatsoever. They hallucinate and tell me I'm in a desert on the highway and where I'm really driving in my actual driveway. So I don't know what's flying. I'm going to use my AI tires. John Wall: Yeah, it is everywhere. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So if we're going to actually use AI in a real way, we're going to say, "Okay, let's create content and let's use AI." Is it carte blanche, like just go wild? John Wall: No, no. There's a lot of ways to go. In fact, I would even back up. I would not start with generative AI. We did and have done predictive models. So for example, we've done a bunch of stuff in the food space, and it's worked so well we had to come up with a sample for the rest of the world. So we have the cheese report, which is an annual report that comes out and it talks about, "Okay, which cheeses are most searched for every week of the year?" And so you can- Crystal Carter: It's cheddar, right? Mordy Oberstein: American. John Wall: Cheddar. We're just coming off hot cheddar with the Super Bowl here in America. That's very popular. Mozzarella surges as we get close to Christmas. Mordy Oberstein: Kraft singles, American cheese is not- Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's cheddar. Cheddar is your best cheese. It's good for almost every situation. John Wall: Cheddar is always ranking high. It's definitely top 10 most of the year. But look, for a content marketer, the big one now you'd look at is halloumi where you've got grillable cheeses will be popular June, July when that time of the year comes. So if you've got your content calendar, you should be starting to script out those halloumi videos and recipes and all that stuff now, so that you've got that stuff dropping in May and you're able to get some Google juice to that before peak search season in June, July. Mordy Oberstein: Some hot cheese right there. John Wall: Yeah, that's the hot cheese. And we have it for a whole bunch of other foods, but the brands that get those reports don't let us share that with anybody else. So we're not able to share our food insight outside of cheese, but that gives you an example of using some predictive AI to actually create content that is in demand. And that way, you've got your stuff all updated when you hit peak search. Crystal Carter: And I think is there a little bit of overlap for content like that, for instance? Let's say, if you're running a stats tool throughout the year or something, for instance, the Billboard Hot 100 changes every day or that sort of thing. If you're running a SaaS tool like that, how much is there crossover between programmatic elements and AI elements with creating content around that? John Wall: It completely overlaps. AI is not going to come up with anything new. That's really what it is. It's just you're applying programmatic strategies to figuring out what's going to be coming on and where it goes. And there's a ton of ways to apply that too. Another way we see it all over the place is with reviews or other huge libraries of content where instead of generating, have it do summarization or classification. And take a huge batch of reviews, have it come up with, "Okay, what are the five most common things that people like/don't like about this product?" And now that's a blog post that's based on your data, that's proprietary that somebody else using GenAI can't just come up with that post. You're the only one that can do that and it's going to be on target, but it's unique and it's your voice and it's probably going to be stronger across the board. Crystal Carter: I think that's great because with something like that, you can summarize and hit some of the key points with the keywords there. And also, it's got good user value because me, as a user, if I'm trying to decide whether or not I should use halloumi cheese or Havarti cheese on my cheeseburger, for instance, it might be like, "Yeah, this was a good cheese, but it didn't quite melt as much on the burger, for instance." And I can get that summary without reading 400 reviews that include like, "Oh, I dropped the cheese on the ground and things. It's one star." It's like, "No, you dropped it. That's your problem." John Wall: That's like the Amazon classic of the products that suck because the box arrived destroyed. There's all these- Mordy Oberstein: Right. I love that. I don't care. John Wall: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Because you know who's going to destroy the box in three seconds anyway? My children. John Wall: That's just been part of the customer experience. Mordy Oberstein: But this is a similar point to something we discussed. We had a webinar with Mike King and Ross Hudgens where we talked about giving AI rules and confines to work within as opposed to, "Here's a very open, unconfined scenario. But if you give it parameters to work with, it does much better and it does what you want it to do. And that's where I feel like it can offer real insights and real ability to produce content for you that you couldn't have done otherwise or you couldn't have done otherwise as quickly." But again, it's giving an open prompt and just telling it to go without any borders or any confines, is probably a recipe for disaster. John Wall: Oh, yeah, absolutely. So we even have a whole course that's seven hours of training, and a huge chunk of it is writing effective prompts. And so that's where some of the artistry is. And we have a whole framework, we call it the RACE Framework where for any prompt you want to do R-A-C-E. So you give it the role, you say, "Hey, you are an engineer that is working with stereo equipment. A, is for action. Your task is to come up with a list of whatever. "You give it context. That's the C, where you're saying that the audience is this level of professional. Is it engineers with 10 years' experience? Or is it people that have no experience with audio equipment? And then execute." You actually give it the instructions as far as how to write this. It should be at X grade level, it should cover X number of bullet points, have a summary. Basically, the best prompts, you have these huge paragraphs of stuff that you're using. Mordy Oberstein: That's the thing. AI is great. You have to shape it to what you want it to be. And I think the problem is that it's so easy and there's no barrier to entry that people think, "Oh, I can do this." To me, it's like picking up a baseball bat. Yes, you can pick up a baseball bat and you can swing it, but if you look at what the pros are actually doing, there's so much more that goes into it: managing the load, and where's your weight shifting? And when is your weight shifting? And where's your elbow? And how is your wrist turning? There's a million things that go into actually swinging a baseball bat the real way versus you just taking a whack at it with your wonky-ass swing. And it's very similar to AI. Yes, you could put in a prompt and yes, you can get an output but that's not actually swinging the bat. John Wall: Yeah. Another way to think of it, you have that thing, we've always talked about this in software is tools for experts versus expert tools. Look, right now, the state of AI, it's like a router. If you're a carpenter, who knows what the heck they're doing, you can do amazing things with this tool. If you are somebody who's just playing around, you could end up losing some fingers. Mordy Oberstein: That's okay. The AI will add the fingers and some back for you. John Wall: Man, I hadn't thought about how much that hits. Yeah. But thankfully, AI has tons of fingers that it can spread around liberally to everyone. I even saw that on Amazon, they have a fake plastic finger you can buy so that you can wear it around and then you can tell people, "Oh, no, that's obviously AI-generated, because- Mordy Oberstein: People are interesting, huh? John Wall: Yeah. I'm thinking I don't need to go through the work of making sure the finger matches. That seems like a lot of effort to perpetrate a fraud, so I'm not going to bother with that. Mordy Oberstein: You have to really take on the next load because let's say, I don't know, you're out at the beach and your fingers get tanned. You're going to have to have a tanned finger. Crystal Carter: Also, sometimes they think arms in different places that shouldn't be there. The arms coming out in the middle and you're like, "What is going on there?" But I've seen pop stars, there was a whole thing. I'm going to show myself here, but there was a whole thing on Nicki Minaj as a popular rapper and she had a new album art. She had a song she put out unannounced. And the album art she used for, it was clearly generated with AI, and it clearly had not gone through QA. And it was supposed to be police tape and it didn't say police all the way through, and the things had different arms and they had all of this sort of stuff. And even people who have the means... She's a multi-millionaire, and she has a PR team, and she has many people available. But even people who have the means aren't going through the QA. In terms of process, you have your prompting thing, you have your data thing, how much is the QA of the AI part of your process of getting good quality stuff? John Wall: Yeah. For us, that's a huge part of it. Really, in fact, there's nothing that can be released or put out there until it's been pounded on by experts who know what it should be doing and where it should be going. That's the real challenge of this. And then people don't get this either, is that you don't just build it and start using it. No, you build it, you run it and then you train it. And it needs to be constantly trained. Training needs to be a permanent part of your process. Mordy Oberstein: You mean, like anything else, it requires hard work? John Wall: You don't just hire it and then fire your whole marketing team the next day. Mordy Oberstein: You completely kill what AI means to me, and I am now completely uninterested in it. Crystal Carter: It's magic. Isn't it just magic? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. If it's not magic, I don't care. John Wall: Yes. In fact, it gets your coffee right in the morning and it will drive you home at the end of the day. Yeah. No, it doesn't do all the things. Mordy Oberstein: If it doesn't watch my kids, I don't care. Crystal Carter: I think it's important to remember the learning part of the machine learning because that's the other thing. For marketers, PPC, for instance, has had machine learning going on for years, for years and years. Facebook has had it in there. Google Ads has had it in there. And you had to do the machine learning part of it. You'd have to, and you'd have to train it and train the model and retrain the model and retrain your parameters and all that sort of stuff. So for people who just think you can set it and forget it and it will just do magic, it's just a rude awakening, I think. Mordy Oberstein: It's not the Ronco slow cooker, set it and forget it, which is my favorite- Crystal Carter: Hey, I love my slow cooker. My slow cooker is that. I just put all the things and then... John Wall: Set it- Mordy Oberstein: And then forget it. John Wall: One thing that we've been doing that is pretty interesting because of this idea that these models do read everything that's out there, we've played around with actually doing press releases again. We had originally abandoned press releases as a complete waste of time because they were just lost in the five million other press releases that came out today. But now we've been working with some copy that's optimized for large language models to scan and grab. So you can write about unique content. And it's funny, it's classic spammer stuff in that these press releases don't read that well. A human reads them, they don't make a lot of sense. There's some thread there, but the key is you've got 15 or 20 phrases in there that you ultimately want a large language model to think that you are the answer for. Crystal Carter: Right. And to come into the corpus of their knowledge on that particular topic. John Wall: Right. Exactly. Crystal Carter: So one of the things that we find interesting, particularly with large language models that are public-facing, like SGE and banks, Bing chat for instance. So one of the things that they're doing, because it's so expensive to answer questions with AI, it's so expensive for them to run, a lot of times they will truncate the answer. So you might write a really long question about, "What was the breed of dog that Dorothy had in The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland? What exactly? Which kind of breed?" So you might write all of that, but they will truncate the answer. So even if you ask a similar question that's not exactly the same on the LLM, they'll essentially distill it to, "Dorothy's dog in The Wizard of Oz," and they'll distill it and give you, roughly, the same answers. When you're creating a PR release with those kinds of phrases and things, are you thinking for those questions in mind, those lowest common denominator questions? How are you identifying the phrases you want to surface for? John Wall: Yeah. So our analysis on that has been just analyzing what we're getting from answers now, and seeing the format and types of stuff that it wants to see. But yeah, you've hit upon a whole nother area of this study that is a big deal, this idea of managing your tokens. And for a lot of these systems, if you go with the paid version now, suddenly, you get to send larger queries and get larger queries back and get more in depth of. So it's a different level of information and quality. The other one is, as you're building prompts, we find that it's much more effective to do long strings. You keep continuing to correct an ad. And so one trick with that is after you've done four or five prompts, have the model summarize what you've learned so far so that it can boil down your previous 10 queries into one paragraph. And then, when you do more research, you start with that one summarized paragraph and you basically get to skip the initial round. Because yeah, these all have moving windows of after four or five prompts, they start to forget the original stuff and they will start hallucinating again on things that you've walled in. Crystal Carter: So say I want it without the hat on it, and they're like, "With a hat?" And you're like, "No, that's not what I said." And you have to go all the way back to the beginning. Mordy Oberstein: All the way. I find that with images. Using Copilot or Gemini, I find that it loses its train of thought like my grandmother. Crystal Carter: You're like, "Come back, come back." And it's like, "Right over here." And you're like, "No, no. No, this way." John Wall: Yeah. Yeah, they completely start to run afield. And I don't know. And then really, for this whole space, there is this question of they are just doing an obscene amount of background computing that costs money. And sooner or later- Mordy Oberstein: So much. John Wall: Now, thankfully... Well, not thankfully for me, but thankfully for folks in AI, all of the MarTech and cyber currency VC money has dumped to AI for this next year. So there is a pile of cash there now to give everybody a free ride. But the question is how long is that going to last? Sooner or later... And the good news is it's free and they're looking at $20 a month kind of things, which is great. It doesn't cover the cost, but at least will probably boil down to two or three champions and then yeah, maybe we can finally open up that Alzheimer's window a little bit wider so that they can remember where the heck we're going. Mordy Oberstein: If people want to keep track of this by keeping track of you, where can they find you? John Wall: Oh, I'm always over at marketingovercoffee.com. And then for work stuff, we're at trustinsights.ai. We have a Slack group, Analytics for Marketers. If analytics is your thing, come on over there. We're always talking about it every day, and it's a great place to- Mordy Oberstein: Do you know how to use GA4? John Wall: Oh, we are all about GA4. Actually, the big news for us now is we've been doing GA stuff forever, but we actually offer Matomo in-house for people that are sick of GA4 already, which is 98% of people. And we do a bunch of work with Adobe too. So yeah, it's funny, we do all this cool AI stuff, but the reality is 98% of our customers have problem with the plumbing, and so that's the dirty work that we get done. Mordy Oberstein: Even imagined as toilets. John Wall: This is true. Crystal Carter: You should get an AI to clean the.. John Wall: Siri, clean my basement. What's happening? Crystal Carter: Whenever I think of AI, I always think of the housekeeper from the Jetsons. When is that coming? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, Rosey. John Wall: Rosey. Oh, yeah. Crystal Carter: When is Rosey coming to my house? That's what I'm- Mordy Oberstein: That's it. I need someone to watch my kids. Crystal Carter: She has a lot of sass though, but it's fine. John Wall: You want to read a crazy one, read about some of these disasters with the automated vacuuming machines. If the pet gets sick and then the machine hits it, and then spreads it around the whole house, fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: No, no, no. Okay. On that happy note, give John a follow and check out all the great stuff they're doing over there at Trust Insights and the Marketing Over Coffee Podcast. Give that a listen as well. John, thank you so much. John Wall: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: You know what I wonder? I wonder if there'll be some AI-related news in the SEO News. Crystal Carter: Maybe something about BARD or BERT. Mordy Oberstein: Or Ernie or Gemini or Scorpio. Crystal Carter: Or Elmo. Mordy Oberstein: Or Elmo or Barry Crystal Carter: Or MUM. Mordy Oberstein: Or Barry. Crystal Carter: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh! Mordy Oberstein: Is Barry a constellation? Crystal Carter: There should be a Barry algo. I think they keep- Mordy Oberstein: That would be amazing if Google, the most penalizing algorithm ever created, they called it Barry Schwartz. I think that would go over well. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: People already blame him for when they lose their rankings. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, all the time. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, ask him. When Barry- Crystal Carter: Okay. I would like to just make a public service announcement, Barry's not responsible for your rankings. Mordy Oberstein: No. Barry's just reporting on what happened. There appears to be an update that Google didn't announce. He's just reporting. But there have been many times, Barry's... Actually, I've interviewed him about this. Barry's gotten death threats. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, over rankings. He's just reporting, people. Crystal Carter: He's not in charge of it. Mordy Oberstein: He's not in charge. Crystal Carter: He didn't do it. Mordy Oberstein: You shouldn't threaten anybody with death. Crystal Carter: Barry's a nice man. You shouldn't do that. Mordy Oberstein: I wouldn't go that far, but yeah. No, I'm kidding. Barry's a gem, which brings us to the Snappy SEO News. In case you haven't realized, this is our time for the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. The update is over. No, not that one. Not that one. For Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land, the Google March 2024 spam update is done rolling out, the March 2024 core update is very much still alive, seeing a whole bunch of reversals in the second wave of volatility that came out. Treated it last week. If you want, check that out. But anyway, onto the spam update. It's done. After 15 days on March 20th, Google announced it's done, it's complete, it's rolled out. If you'll recall, Google announced there were three new elements that are being integrated into the spam algorithm. One of them is not hitting until May. And as part of these announcements, Google released the March 2024 spam update, which obviously heavily focused on the new things being integrated into its spam algorithms, which are scaled content abuse, expired domain abuse and site reputation abuse. Site reputation abuse, not happening until May. And that's parasite SEO. That's again where, I don't know, I want to push my content. I don't have a very authoritative website. I go to Sports Illustrated. I say, "I will buy a page on your website, write up an article, have nothing to do with sports and get traffic through that parasite SEO." The other elements, the expired domain abuse, where you say, "Hey, that domain, that used to be about whatever topic, which is I can get the domain, bring it back to life. Google will think, 'Oh, wow, it's so authoritative. That was such a great website way back when, and I can write whatever I want, whatever garbage I want, and it'll rank.'" So that and the scaled content abuse part of the algorithm is also live right now, and that's where basically you're just throwing up tons of just AI garbage, not curating it at all, not thinking about it at all. You're just pushing out content at scale without any thought whatsoever to essentially manipulate rank and users. So that was also in the March 2024 spam update, and we saw a lot of activity around that. Part of all of this were all of the manual actions, which we discussed on the podcast as well. Thousands of sites have seen manual actions. A lot of the examples being shared have to do with that scaled content abuse where Google's killing off the entire website because again, people are just spinning up random... Some of the cases I've seen, it's not even good AI. It's just bad garbage AI. It's nonsensical even. So those websites have been completely killed off. If you have been doing those kind of things, and you've seen your content and your rankings rather just falls to the bottom floor, that might be something you want to take a look at. If you are doing good, decent work, you shouldn't really be affected by a spam update. Now, one of the things that you're going to be thinking is, "How do I know if I was hit by the spam update or by the March 2024 core update?" Well, one way to know is if you're doing things like scaled content abuse or expired domain abuse, then it's probably the spam update. Again, if you're not doing these ridiculously spammy, absurd things and you're seeing a ranking loss, one, the March 2024 core update's still not done rolling out. Again, as I mentioned, I'm seeing tons of reversals. So don't do anything yet. As Google mentioned, be patient. If, after the March 2024 core update is done and rolled out and completed, and you're still trying to figure out was it the spam update or the core update, again, if you haven't been doing these ridiculously, overtly spammy... I don't even know how to... mind-boggling things, then it's probably the core update. That's my way of looking at it. Okay, onto article number two, again from Barry Schwartz, but this time over at Search Engine around it... By the way, got to say happy birthday to Barry Schwartz. March 22nd was Barry's birthday. I hope you got a lovely birthday cake. Anyway, Barry writes, "Google SGE feedback on affiliate results and Google News: Does This Interest You Pop-Up." Hope you all caught all of that in the headline. Let me explain. Google has done this for a while, but this is a different way of doing it. This one was picked up by a friend of the show, friend of baseball, Glenn Gabe, who saw that for an affiliate website ranking on the results, Google had a little widget there that says, "How helpful was the result above? One extreme being not helpful at all, the other extreme being extremely helpful." And you just selected the dot on the spectrum of how helpful you thought that it was. So that's really interesting to see that on affiliate stuff. Another example was within a Google News result. So there was a news card that showed up and there was a little pop-up thing that says, "Does this interest you? Thumbs up, thumbs down." Google has been doing these things for a long, long, long time. There's a bunch of iterations of this with feature snippets, "Did you find the feature snippet helpful? Yada, yada, yada." So this is not new to quote Barry, but it is interesting to see. Google, again, has done this many, many times in many, many different ways over the years. I think it's really interesting that it's happening now, especially for the affiliate result that Glenn showed. I just find it really interesting that you have all of these things going on in the ecosystem, the whole Reddit question, the spam updates, the core updates, the quality of results, AI content, SGE. And Google's now rolling out this little test of showing a widget, you can offer to your feedback to how helpful the result was. So I think that aligns to what's going on in the ecosystem overall and especially on something that's product review related or affiliate related. So definitely interesting to see Google doing that there. And that is this week's Snappy SEO News. It would be nice though if they had a Barry update, but it was one that was only helpful and rewarding to all websites that were good. Crystal Carter: And then afterwards everyone would go, "Thank you." Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. And they could say, "It's new. It's a new algorithm." Crystal Carter: Indeed. Indeed. You were saying, "Wouldn't it be nice?" And now I'm thinking of that Beach Boys song. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great song, actually. Crystal Carter: It's a great song. Mordy Oberstein: How did Beach Boys stand up? That's a good song. Crystal Carter: Generally, Beach Boys, they've got that good album. They've got one really, really good album. Mordy Oberstein: Right, Pet Shops. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's a great album. Listen to it start to finish. It's a great album. It's really well-produced. Great album. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You know what else is great? Our follow of the week. And our follow of the week is none other than Dale Bertrand. Crystal Carter: Dale Bertrand. If you've been following How to Rank with AI, then you must be following Dale Bertrand. If you're not following him, please do. He's very active on LinkedIn, and you can see him all over the place speaking all over in lots of different places. So he's a founder and president of Fire&Spark with over 15 years experience working out of Boston. And he talks and shares some great resources around AI and content and using it intelligently and using it in a way that really, really works. So highly recommend. Mordy Oberstein: And just a super nice guy, super nice. I met him in BrightonSEO in November in San Diego and he was super nice. Crystal Carter: Super nice. And he's very often at BrightonSEO in the UK. So yeah, he's a great speaker, great writer, great SEO marketer, so highly recommend. Great follow. Mordy Oberstein: We'll link to his profiles in the show notes. Now I realize, by the way, I completely botched... It was not called Pets Shops; it's called Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. What the hell am I talking about? I am ridiculous. Crystal Carter: Pet Shops. You're thinking of Pet Shop Boys. You hallucinated. Are you AI? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: I knew it. Mordy Oberstein: It explains a lot. Right? So I want to point out the irony of not saying we're not Beach Boy fans on a podcast built on surfing themes. That's not my favorite. I'll say another hot take, the Beatles aren't my favorite. Crystal Carter: Same. Mordy Oberstein: I enjoy the songs. I have Beatle albums or I had Beatle albums back in the day. Who has albums anymore? But they're historically super important. Crystal Carter: Sgt. Pepper's. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Even that, I don't know. I'm not... Crystal Carter: Come on. Their Come Together, that's a jam. Mordy Oberstein: They're not dark enough for me. They're too happy. All this music, it's just too happy. I need a little bit of an edge. I'm more of a Rolling Stones person than I am a Beatles and Beach Boys person. Crystal Carter: Okay, I can see that. Mordy Oberstein: I need sorrow in my music. Crystal Carter: They're good bands. I had a very long conversation on a car ride and we decided that Led Zeppelin was the best band. Mordy Oberstein: What? I like Led Zeppelin. Don't get me wrong. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of criteria that we went into. We discussed it for a very long time. Mordy Oberstein: It's just wrong. Crystal Carter: It's not wrong. It's not wrong. Mordy Oberstein: That's so Wrong. And I love Zeppelin. I actually saw Robert Plant live. Crystal Carter: Where? Mordy Oberstein: The lead singer of Led Zeppelin, I've seen him live. Crystal Carter: No, I know who he is. Where did you see him? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, where. At Madison Square Garden. He opened for The Who back in 2002. Crystal Carter: Oh, Zeppelin's definitely better than The Who. Mordy Oberstein: What? No, that's ridonkulous. Crystal Carter: Okay. All right. Mordy Oberstein: Were the godfather's of punk. All right. Anyway, we'll talk about this the second we end this podcast, which we're going to do right now, so we can talk about this because this is ballistically insane. I think you've been smoking too much AI, Crystal. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Aren't you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week as we dive into Building Strong Operations for SEO and Beyond. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn a little more about SEO? Check out all the great content, webinars and resources over on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . 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Does SEO differ for niche sites? What is the current environment for niche sites on the SERP? How will Google’s SGE affect niche sites? How will AI impact niche site rankings? Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are back this time to figure out how niche sites can use SEO to thrive. Special guest Arielle Phoenix gives her methods for how these specialized sites can create quality content and drive traffic in the age of AI. If you work with specialized sites then this week’s episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast will help you carve out a niche for yourself on the SERP. Back SGE & The SEO power of niche sites! Does SEO differ for niche sites? What is the current environment for niche sites on the SERP? How will Google’s SGE affect niche sites? How will AI impact niche site rankings? Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are back this time to figure out how niche sites can use SEO to thrive. Special guest Arielle Phoenix gives her methods for how these specialized sites can create quality content and drive traffic in the age of AI. If you work with specialized sites then this week’s episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast will help you carve out a niche for yourself on the SERP. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 47 | July 19, 2023 | 51 MIN 00:00 / 50:58 This week’s guests Arielle Phoenix Arielle Phoenix is a content creator and the founder of Bulk Publishing AI. She runs a portfolio of niche sites monetised by display ads, affiliate offers and digital products. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha! Mahalo! We're joining the SERP's Up Podcast . We're pushing out some guru new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and joined by the incredible, the fantastic, the amazing, the marvelous, the spectacular head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Mordy Oberstein, how are you? Mordy Oberstein: I still have his cold, 12 months, months, brutal, ardent. Crystal Carter: We need Erin to play a little violin sound because I do genuinely feel some sadness for you. Mordy Oberstein: There's stuff in my nostrils that won't leave. Crystal Carter: Have you ever explained to a child about this? It's just like you need to go to sleep. They're like, "No, but my nose is stepped up." I'm like, "Hun, just lie on your side and it will all go to one side and then you'll have one clear one." This is what everyone does. Just wait for it. Mordy Oberstein: Doing the rest of the podcast with my head focused. Crystal Carter: There you go. Mordy Oberstein: We're done. Thank you. SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Nasonex. Just kidding. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter , but where you can also leverage the power of SEO and content with both the Wix Blog and Wix Content Manager. Create content at scale and optimize it at scale to get traffic at scale, to increase your presence on the SERP as a niche site. Why niche site? Because today, we're talking about niche sites, the web, and SEO. That's right. We're taking stock of what I think is increased stock in niche sites and SEO by talking about where niche sites fit into the new web, the opportunity niche sites present to users, how to set up your niche site to be an authority for SEO success and beyond. Plus, we have a special guest, Arielle Phoenix , to help us dive into what that all means and she'll share all that in just jiffy. We'll also take a deep pause as we take a deep thought into what content really is. That sounds mysterious. Of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So, find your little corner of the web and get cozy. It's episode number 47 of the SERP's Up Podcast, carves out the niche that is niche site for SEO. Crystal Carter: That was very bespoke, very bijou, very targeted at a very specific market. Now here's the first question we should talk about. Is it niche or niche? Mordy Oberstein: I say niche. Crystal Carter: I also say niche, but this is because I am very continental. There are other people that say niche, which I find sounds too close to an itch for me personally, but to each their own. Mordy Oberstein: You say tomato, I also say tomato, and some other people say tomato. Crystal Carter: They're wrong. No. Mordy Oberstein: They're wrong. Crystal Carter: Anyway, okay. So, depending on whether or not you were thinking about a niche or a niche website, let's just get a little bit of few things straight. Let's talk about what we are actually talking about. So, in SEO, you use various tactics to make sure that your content is discoverable, make sure that people can find your content, make sure that websites can find your content, and you create content strategies around lots of topics that are related to whatever it's you do. So, sometimes what will happen, for instance, let's say you run a business where you have aquariums, right? Let's say you have an aquarium, but I don't know why I thought of that today, but that's the example we're going to go with. Mordy Oberstein: A giant or a little unit. Crystal Carter: No. Okay, so my aquarium is a place where all of the fish of the sea, well, maybe not all of the fish of the sea, but the ones that I was able to wrangle into my aquarium can come and hang out and have a really good time. I'm a big fan of wrasse. They're really fun at an aquarium. Also, clown fish. Clown fish are a good time at an aquarium. So, anyway, so it's an attraction aquarium. That's what I'm doing in my example. Anyway, so let's say I have this attraction aquarium, then I will probably want to make content around fish, right? Fish, the ocean, the sea, coral reefs, snapper turtles, all that stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Fish sticks. Yeah. Crystal Carter: I think that they wouldn't like that, anyway, so I might want to do that thing. What a niche site would do, flipping that on the other side is their aim would be to sell things around aquariums, for instance. So, maybe they would look at the market and they would say there's a big market for people buying aquarium stuff, for instance. Then they would say, "I'm going to make content that appeals to people that are buying that so that I can get traffic through that way." So there's a great article on ahrefs.com, which talks about how to create a niche website . Their question, they say, "What is a niche site?" A niche said is any website that caters to a specific audience or topic. It can be about anything, health, business, relationships, food, travel, fashion, animals, or even more obscure all kinds of niche sites. In this one, they talk a lot about affiliate websites, which is what I'm talking about there. So, for instance, I looked up a niche site that I found, which was houseplants, houseplant.co.uk. You can guess what they talk about. They talk about houseplants almost exclusively. Mordy Oberstein: I was going to say they talk about fish. Crystal Carter: No, they don't. They don't. So, they talk about houseplants almost exclusively. What a niche site team would do is they would make sure that their content was very, very tailored for an affiliate one. They would make sure it was tailored, and they'd also make sure that they had links that went off to affiliate content that was related to their particular niche. So, if it was houseplants.com, they might have affiliate content that went off to houseplant products or houseplant services or houseplants may be on Amazon or other sites where you can get affiliate traffic. We are going to be joined today by someone who works very much in this space, very much in this niche site space, creating content that's designed to be commercially viable on the web, either through affiliate traffic or potentially through display advertising traffic. There's lots of different tactics and it's an interesting way to approach online content and it's something that I thought would be worth exploring. Mordy Oberstein: I remember it was a couple of years ago. So, say in the health space, you have your non-niche players like WebMD, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, harvardhealth.org, and you have niche websites. When you start looking at certain keywords , they're just dominated by... I call them the superpowers of the health space. But as you look at certain types of keywords and for certain types of topics, I remember looking at autism for example. Google realizes as a topic, it's a far more niche topic conceptually than, let's say, I don't know, blood pressure. The SERP opens up, something like to the point where on your average top level head term for a health term, like a heart attack prevention, the entries dominated by 8 out of 10, if I remember correctly, were power players. But when you start opening up the SERP a little bit, half the SERP opens up to you as a niche site. I went through a couple hundred keywords doing this and you could just literally see the space for niche sites open up and blossom certain scenarios. Crystal Carter: I think where they thrive is with long-tail keywords , but a large volume of long-tail keywords. So, for instance, if you're thinking about autism for instance, autism has a spectrum of different situations, different scenarios, and each one of those is going to be its own set of keywords and there's going to be long-tail things for that. So, for instance, if you think about somebody who's on the autism spectrum, there might be a whole niche around being in the workplace as someone with autism for instance, and all of the different things that people might think about and might require, might consider, and might think about when they're writing those topics. What some of the niche site might do would be to focus on all of those. Again, it has to do with having laser focus in terms of your keywords and expecting that maybe one individual keyword might not yield you loads of traffic, but that the cumulative volume of all of your long-tail keywords would give you highly focused traffic that's highly focused on your niche and therefore potential opportunities for revenue and for audience engagement. Mordy Oberstein: In some of these cases, before we get to Arielle, Google, I think what it does is profile verticals or profile niches. So, for example, it knows that the content around autism is far more varied, far less, let's say, clear cut than other areas of health content. It's profiled to realize that there's far more websites talking about, far more different perspective, and far more nuanced ways to realize that even for some of the more headier terms, we should be ranking some more niche content or more nuanced content, because the nature of the topic is far more nuanced and far more harder to pin down than just having your WebMD ranking for everything. Crystal Carter: I think the other thing that's great about looking at different tactics within the SEO community is that there's going to be a lot of overlap and a lot of things that you can learn from say somebody who's going all the way laser focused on a particular niche like you're saying within this autism space and who's, let's say, picking up on the fact that things are wider, that there's more opportunities for more diverse perspectives and approaches to search and content. So, there's things you can learn about that will also apply to some of the more broader topic players and will also potentially apply to bigger companies. There's a charity called Cancer Research UK. They're a niche charity and they're looking at that specific things around cancer and research in the UK. So, they've got a long-tail sort of situation there as well. So, even if you're not working in a specific SEO industry or even if you're not generally applying all of the tactics, for instance, from a niche site approach or from a YMYL approach for instance, and looking widely at some of the ways that people are approaching SEO can be incredibly beneficial to how you get different results, get new results, and meet new audiences online. So, I'm really excited to be chatting about this today and I know that certainly when I've looked across some of these sites, I always learned something from them. I think that the other thing we've seen a lot with niche sites is that from their approach, they tend to rely a lot on content velocity. So, they tend to rely a lot on getting a lot of content out in an interesting way. I know that there are content writers who lean a lot on AI , for instance, and it's interesting to see how they're using that. It's interesting to see what results they're getting. It's interesting to see what works, what doesn't work. So, I think it's interesting to see how people are approaching that overall. Mordy Oberstein: Long story short, if you are running a niche site, there's room for you and opportunity for you. So, let's dive into this. We asked Arielle Phoenix a whole bunch of questions about niche sites and SEO. So, let's take this one first. We asked Arielle the difference between niche sites and non-niche sites from an SEO and organic traffic perspective, and here's Arielle Phoenix on that. Arielle Phoenix: What is the difference between niche sites and non-niche sites from an SEO and organic perspective? Personally, I don't think there is much of a difference between niche sites and non-niche sites from an SEO and organic traffic perspective because what we're doing is essentially the same thing. We're targeting keywords or search terms and optimizing them for search traffic. So, on page SEO , technical SEO , we're doing the same things that you would be doing for a non-niche site to gain Google's traffic or Bing or any search engine really, but the main player, of course, is Google. What I will say though is not all niche sites are the same, and where the model generally was find long-tail keywords and create content for those keywords based on Google search engine. Now more people are looking at alternative search engines, because YouTube is a search engine and apparently TikTok is a search engine . So, focusing more on social traffic as opposed to just Google's search engine, because of course, of algorithm updates and various changes, SEO starts to look a bit shaky or fragile as a sole method, but for most of us, it is still the main method of traffic for our sites. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, yeah, that's a great point. Most of the foundational things you're doing are the same across whatever site for the most part, right? Crystal Carter: Sure, sure. Absolutely. I think it's the similar thing too, and I guess it has to do with your objectives. A lot of folks that I know who work in niche sites and particularly the community around niche site SEO on Twitter, anyway, focus a lot on traffic that yields results and focus a lot more on traffic that yields results in a monetary way. So, maybe there's that to think about, but yeah, she's absolutely right that the core tactics, the core methodology is very similar. I think it's interesting that she's talking about additional search engines as well because that's certainly something that we've seen across the general SEO landscape as well. Mordy Oberstein: For sure. So, let's go a little bit deeper with this and let's go into what's the current environment on the SERP for niche sites? Here again is Arielle. Arielle Phoenix: I think this is going to vary a lot depending on the age of the site and how well somebody's built out their brand and the backlink profile and all of those things are going to come into play. But as an industry or as a sector, I think it's become very competitive over the past few years. I've only been in the space for a few years, but at every six month interval, it's changed dramatically. So, with the competition, and of course, many of us who are in this space, we don't just have the one site. We have multiple sites and we're constantly coming up with new niche ideas and throwing sites up. So, the landscape is very, very competitive. The SERPs for niche sites, again, it's going to vary, because for some of us or for some sites, you're going to have solid growth trajectory. Others are going to be tracking sideways and others are going to be dropping out of the SERPs and being replaced by higher authority or better quality in some cases sites. Mordy Oberstein: So this the vision between, I call them the super authorities of the SERP and niche sites have always been a weird balance. People have always accused Google of defaulting to big name brands, because they're buying so many ads, that thing. I think what it has a lot to do with it and I think this is where niche sites can carve their space out, is that Google really trusts those big sites. It's not like, "Oh, they're a big site, therefore we rank them." It's that they're a big site, therefore we really understand and know them and therefore can trust them. If you can somehow do that as a niche site, you could also rank. Obviously knowing where Google is looking at things like, hey, heart attack prevention is the keyword. Trying to rank there no matter what, it's just Google's going to default to .govs like the NHS or the CDC. There isn't a lot you can do there with that, but that doesn't mean that you can't build up that same kind of authority in a way and rank for media keywords you thought you really could. Now this wouldn't be a conversation about niche sites if we didn't get into AI or in the Google case, SGE, search generative experience . So, here's Arielle on how the future is shaping up for niche sites, especially considering the advent of Google's SGE. Take it away, Arielle. Arielle Phoenix: For many people, the future looks bleak. Personally, I don't think, although I know we are just at the beginning of AI. This is the tip of the iceberg and it's definitely going to improve. SGE at the moment is not that great, and I'm going to explain. We are at the very beginning of it and it handles many queries well. So, it does a good job and it's going to continue to do a good job of things like best products and product roundups and give the searcher probably a better experience than a niche site's review post because it's going based on all the information it has and it's summarizing it, which is essentially what we would be doing, but it's got that data in real time. So, there are going to be types of content and queries that it makes very little sense for niche sites to focus on doing because SGE is just going to do a better job. Where we will shine or where a niche site can shine is in the space where they have genuine product experience. So, if you have the product and you've done the YouTube video and you've got the T-shirt to prove this is your experience, then you have a chance of doing better in that particular topic. But I think the focus on the long-tail, the basic answer queries, which SGE is already doing a good job fulfilling, those are probably short-lived or going to be short-lived for now. As I said, it's not that great and people do still need to a lot of the time click in to see the actual article if the SGE has not done a sufficient job, but we will notice that there is a dip in traffic in those types of posts. If we've got a variety of posts on our site, we'll definitely notice that those basic answer query type posts are going to be just dropping in traffic. But as I said, there are many different types of content, and for me personally, I'm not focusing so much on those answer query type posts. There are many different methods that you can use to create quality content that is going to be useful to the reader and more useful than the question with an extended answer to gain that long-tail traffic. So, really delving into content that allows you to be a bit more creative that's multi-leveled in many ways and that allows you to also add videos and really things to enrich the post in a way that the search engine or this SGE can't do. I think that's always been the case, but because long-tail was such an easy game to play, it was very, very easy to again, create lots of content for those queries and I guess do enough posts where you could generate enough traffic to your site to earn a good amount of income. So, I definitely think for the long term, I don't think SGE cancels niche sites out completely. I don't see that. I know many people have their opinions on that, but I don't see that happening if the niche site owner can identify the different types of content that can work in a way that the SGE can't. In some cases, some sites are just going to fail because they've been built on that long-tail keyword model, but there's still a huge opportunity to use the content creation or the keyword targeting model to build your brand and get ahead of this SGE AI curve. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'll be honest with you, if you're running a niche site, going all in on the AI seems like, "Wait a second, your entire unique value or unique value is the fact that you're not AI, is that you have the actual experience, you are the actual expert. You are able to deep dive into the topic the way that most people, let alone most AI writers can't do." So I feel if you are a niche site, no, leverage the fact that you have that expertise and that experience and go full on into that as a way of combating what's inevitably going to be a world filled with the same content spun up by the same AI writers. Crystal Carter: I think that what she's talking about there is absolutely on the money on being able to show that you have reviewed the product well, that you have the YouTube video to go with it, that you're able to add value. This is something that applies not just to niche sites, but to all sites. I think it's something that Google has been trying to nurture within the SEO space for ages with their product review updates. Then with them, they just started calling it the review update and they're basically wanting actual examples and actual real life evidence that you engage with the product to know what you're talking about there. When I think of good niche sites that I have used where it's somebody who's reviewing specific products that I'm looking to buy, for instance, and they've gone into it in depth, I'm like, "I want a cordless vacuum cleaner." There's somebody who's like, "Have I got a website for you?" They're going into all the cordless vacuum cleaners and all of the different things that they do and they've got all the different videos. She's absolutely on the money, but the people who are creating content strategically for their niche are going to do well, because I think that the SGE is going to be very much like featured snippets. You don't see featured snippet on every single SERP. Cyrus Shepherd’s talked about how often you see SGE on the SERP. It's not all the time. So, I think the long-tails will still add value, as she said. As she also pointed out, you also need to enrich the content with additional value. Mordy Oberstein: Especially because when you do that, you're building up your brand, which is a very unique thing to do, especially in a world that's filled with the generic content that's already out there, let alone the generic content that AI is going to put out there. Now, we're talking about niche sites. We have to talk about the question, which is how to create authority as a niche site so that you can compete with the bigger players. Ooh, scandalous and probably the most important question in my mind that we've asked Arielle. Here's what she had to say. Arielle Phoenix: Again, personally, I still take the approach of topical domination or topical authority . The topical domination is more covering the topic in depth, so not leaving anything. Previously, we would try to find gaps in the topic where you have the high traffic, high authority sites going for specific topics, and then you find your way in where they wouldn't bother touching those topics. But with topical domination, you're covering everything. So, every related question, every entity around the subject, and then moving on to another silo that links to it, but that's also covered in depth. So, I guess once upon a time, you could do a small niche site where you just focus on the topic and make 50 or so articles. I think now you need to make these micro topics and do the same thing, but hone in on that micro topic and then relate that to another micro topic and then use that to bolster that key topic that you would've just made 50 articles around in the past. So, still taking that velocity or that high velocity approach with content, but using that as the foundation to build your brand upon. But then using things like YouTube as a separate entity, so focusing on YouTube and allowing them to support each other and other social channels. Of course, you do have to find the social channels that work for that niche. You don't have to go and build a Twitter or LinkedIn for everything, but you do want to build that social proof and focus on EAT once you've got that strong foundation, but that's just my approach. That's what I'm doing to compete with the bigger players, having a solid content base, pairing that with a solid social base, mainly YouTube, and then focusing on the EAT. So, that is the guest post and the link building efforts. As taboo as that does still seem to be, we know the huge sites have a huge backlink profile, so going deeper in on the content and the internal linking, making sure that the site as an entity is as strong as possible, and then going in with the social media, the outreach, building things like link magnets if possible in your niche building applications, things that really build the brand, and of course, focusing then on the EAT. So, ensuring that there is an actual entity behind it and everything is connected, so it is a reputable source or at least appears to be when facing those bigger players. So, yeah, that's my take. That's my approach in the ever-changing niche site space, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts and thanks for having me. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I really liked what she had to say there. It's similar to what I've always talked about when people ask me about targeting zero search volume keywords. Okay, let's assume that no one's searching for this. Okay, there's no value. No, there actually is value because you're building up authority around that topic. You need to start slow. You need to start from somewhere, and starting from these micro topics and then building out from there is just the logical sequence of how you build trusted authority with a search engine who doesn't until that point know who you are. Crystal Carter: Right, precisely. Sometimes you can even drive traffic by creating the traffic with what you're doing and what you're talking about. Then I think she also talked a lot about clustering keywords, and she talked about YouTube as well. She's got a great YouTube video about keyword clustering, keyword clustering tools, and how she works that into her general method, so that's definitely worth looking at. But the keyword clustering is a really great way to organize all of that content for Google because you are helping Google to understand what you're doing with your backlinks or say your site map and things like that and your hierarchy within your site, but also the way that you're linking your site and the way that you're connecting the content that you're creating will also help Google to understand what you're doing and help them to serve it on search result pages in a way that's really effective. I think that that is absolutely important to making sure that the content that you create is valuable to users, is discoverable by Google. So, when you're making lots more content around micro topics that Google can see the actual bulk of your content and that you have that topic authority and then it's really easy for them to access the whole stack. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You have to really think of it very holistically. You don't look at your pieces of content as individual pieces of content. It's one piece feeds the next piece, which feeds the next piece, which feeds the next piece, which creates a corpus. Content is a corpus, and you need a corpus of content. Thank you again, Arielle, for all of that amazing content. Definitely be sure to check out Arielle on Twitter, @ariellecpx. That's @A-R-I-E-L-L-ECPX on Twitter and ariellephoenix.com. Be sure to look in the show notes for the link to her site. Now, speaking about content and SGE and niche sites filling a void on the web, I like to go a little bit deeper into that. I spoil it a little bit on our episode with Mike King around CTR and SGE on the SERP. When I was talking about your content being Matlock, which I'm not going to go into that again. If you listen to that episode, you'll understand what I mean by it. Your content is Matlock. If you don't know who Matlock is, don't worry, ask your grandmother. So, let's dive in a little bit deeper as I'd like to talk about what the heck we mean when we ask that your content might not be as desirable as you might think it is and what that means in terms of SGE and CTR and traffic and clicks and the role of niche sites in all of this as Crystal and I share a deep thought. Okay, let me repose a question to you. So, you spin up content, you create content, it's content. Let's just leave it at that. It's content. You now expect rankings and you expect traffic and you expect conversions, but consider what we just talked about in terms of niche sites and their ability to go into micro topics and to really offer experience and to really offer expertise around really specific nuances within a larger area of the web. When you spin up content and you expect traffic, is that expectation really realistic? Crystal Carter: I mean, there's a reason why SEOs exist, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. To ignore John Mueller on Twitter. Crystal Carter: And Barry Schwartz, to be fair. Mordy Oberstein: To ignore Barry Schwartz on Twitter. Crystal Carter: Exactly. But we exist for a reason because there's lots of people who did that and got nothing. They were like, "Oh, I put up content, and just nothing happened." Sometimes it needs guidance, sometimes it needs help. Sometimes it needs... Mordy Oberstein: Well, let's say it gets the help. You've optimized all the things. Does it still deserve traffic? Just because it ranks, does it deserve traffic? That's what I'm really asking, I guess. Crystal Carter: No, I wouldn't say so. No, no. Google doesn't owe you anything. You could do your best, but Google doesn't owe you anything. Also, the clicks, the ranking, all of that, that's all a reflection of user value. Even if users are going to your site and they're not getting value, then they're not going to come back and Google won't rank you so well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and just because you rank really, really well doesn't mean the content is really, really good. It could just be there's nothing better. Crystal Carter: This is absolutely true. It could also be that maybe that search term was the search term for a while, but maybe nobody's searching it anymore. I don't think anybody's worried about who Jean-Claude Van Damme's girlfriend is right now or something. Mordy Oberstein: I was just Googling that the other day. Crystal Carter: Maybe people were Googling that back in the day when he was like that dude or whatever, but right now, nobody's particularly interested. Mordy Oberstein: What angle is Jean-Claude Van Damme's leg when he does a roundhouse kick? Is it 123 degrees? Crystal Carter: Maybe it was when he was doing pirouettes. Wasn't he a ballet too as well? Mordy Oberstein: Something like that. Yeah. I was watching a video about this recently. Actually, it's random. Just don't ask me why. When I say we, I mean I think the web has gotten to a point where we think, "Okay, this ranks or this should rank. It's good enough to rank, and therefore it deserves traffic." I'm not sure that that equation is entirely accurate. What I think is in many, many, many more cases than you would like to think is that the reason why a page would get traffic or a URL would rank is because there's nothing better. I think that there's an enormous shortage of content on the web. When I say shortage, I mean of good content. There's no shortage of content. There's a shortage of good content. What I think that AI and SGE is going to bring it to focus is that question, is the fact that just because in the past you've had traffic doesn't necessarily mean... I know this is a hot take, and I know SEOs are not going to be happy to be saying this. ... in terms of mathematical logic imply or demand that that traffic continue forever. Crystal Carter: Right. It might just be that nobody ever tried to tip you off a castle. It might be that nobody else tried to write that content. I sometimes find that I see content that's ranking number one, and then I go to check at the search volume up for it and it's not getting any traffic anyway. You're like the king of nothing. So, that happens too. Mordy Oberstein: Do you know what SGE is to me? It's a giant Local Pack. It's a giant Local Pack. Crystal Carter: I can see what you mean. Mordy Oberstein: Imagine it's 2003. I don't know if that's accurate or not. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Beforehand, there was no Local Pack. There's no three listings of a local business. When you search pizza near me, you had to go click on Yelp and run through all the listings there. Then all of a sudden, the Local Pack comes on the SERP and all of the organic results you have your typical 1 through 10 traditional listing, I don't say it becomes irrelevant or becomes less relevant. All things being equal, is that bad? Was that bad for the web? Was that bad for the users? Was that bad for businesses? Crystal Carter: It was different. I've been chatting about this a little while. Everyone's like, "Oh, SGE is completely new. AI and the search is completely new." Featured snippets have been run by AI and machine learning the entire time, the whole time. Featured snippets have been run by AI the entire time. It's been around for years. The image search, visual search with Vision AI has been around for years. All of these things have been around for ages. Yeah, like you're saying, it's different, but all of them are pulling from ranking content. So, the content has to rank in the first place before it can be considered for this new and shiny and fantastic feature. What we see is that the things that rank in SGE are also ranking in your needs SERP. So, what we see is the thing that ranks for the featured snippet or is included in the featured snippet, because sometimes featured snippets include content for one thing and content from another thing, content from another thing, they're all ranking content from the regular plain old blue link SERPS. So, that's important to think. I think also your Matlock scenario is really important. If you look at Internet Live Stats, startling statistics, in 2004, the number of websites according to Internet Live Stats was 51 million websites. Then by 2010, six years later, there were 206 million websites online. So, essentially, your Matlock thing is the same. That's a fourfold increase. Mordy Oberstein: Something's going to have to stop ranking or stop getting traffic at some point. My Matlock case, just for reference, there's a TV show back from the late '80s, early '90s called Matlock with Annie Griffith. When you were home sick as a kid, say a 10-year-old, you're watching The Price Is Right. Then at a certain point, there's nothing on, just Matlock. There was no cable. I'm dating myself here. There was no cable. There was five channel with the bunny rabbit ear antennas, and you were either watching General Hospital, which is soap opera, which I was not watching, or Matlock. So, Matlock had great numbers in the early afternoon because there was nothing else. That's my parallel with content. Maybe your content is getting all that traffic because there's nothing else. There's no other paradigm, but SGE brings in a new paradigm, which by the way, I think niche sites are built for SGE for two reasons. One is Google's trying to be a little bit more specific as the entire point of SGE to refine what people are looking for and they want to offer very refined, very specific results. That's one. The second is there's an explore feature or an expand feature within Google's SGE where it takes the SGE summary. So, it takes the five lines of SGE, of an AI content that they wrote. It breaks it down per line and it shows organic results per line, which are inherently going to be very specific. So, SGE in my mind is built for niche sites who may not have been able to capitalize on the SERP, who might now be able to capitalize on. I would love to see, thought, SGE rolls out in full a year later. Are the big players losing traffic and are niche sites increasing in traffic? That would be fascinating to see. Crystal Carter: I think it's really interesting because I think the reason why niche sites are going to do well out of this or could potentially do well is because of the way that you talk to a generative search experience. So, on a generative search, I am much more likely to write a very, very long-winded query. On a Google SERP, a standard traditional search, I'm probably going- Mordy Oberstein: Three words. Crystal Carter: Three words, right? I'm going to say TV on now. Mordy Oberstein: Van Damme leg kick. Crystal Carter: Right? Van Damme leg kick. Whereas let's say, "What kind of ballet did Jean-Claude Van Damme do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?" or whatever it may be So you'll get right into it, or you might even describe something that you don't even know the name for instance. Mordy Oberstein: The answer is the ballet where you get a roundhouse right to the face. Crystal Carter: I think that Arielle was talking about niching down and getting right into not just writing that one topic, but writing up, but making sure that your website represents an entity and that everything revolves around that entity and you're covering every different way to discover that entity and discover that information. Again, that works really, really well with a generative search experience because it's a situation where you're going to ask a question and then you're going to delve into it and delve into it and delve into it and delve into it more and more and more and more and more. I think I've discussed this previously, but one of the best ones I've had was I was trying to figure out what to do with my houseplant. My houseplant is dying. What do I do with it? It kept giving me lots of results from the same houseplant website. Now I'm like, "Okay, that's a good place to go for information about this houseplant because they have all of the information about that. So, why would I go to some other website? I'd go to that one." Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. You really build that trust, that branding. By the way, how was that houseplant? Crystal Carter: It's better. It's better actually. I took some advice. I put it in a north facing window. I gave it some more water. I haven't repotted it, but she's doing okay. Thanks for asking. That's so kind. Mordy Oberstein: Of course. Now, since we're talking about AI, I'm sure there's some AI news this week because there's always some AI news or not. Either way. Crystal Carter: There are bots. Mordy Oberstein: There's this week's snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Come on, Barry. Light my fire. Barry Schwartz has been roll this week with a few hotly contested SEO issues. So, cue up some sappy soap opera music because it's about to get dramatic in here. First Barry Schwartz over at search engine round table, Google details, SEO guidance for content syndication partners. So, in a nutshell, the practice for years has been to use the canonical to tell Google, which is the real original article. So, you're syndicating content. Let's say you're Reuters. You're syndicating to ABC News, to CNN, to MSNBC, whatever it is. How do you know? How does Google supposed to know which is the real source, which is the real original article? By using the canonical tag pointing back to the original article, which has been difficult to get done because you have to get that done in an agreement with the syndicated partners. What are the chances that they actually want to tell Google, "Hey, don't rank us. Rank the original partner"? That aside, a few months ago, Google said, "We'll make it different. We're going to say, now you should use the no index instead of the canonical tag." Meaning if you want to rank and not your syndicated partners tell the syndicated partners, just apply a no index tag so they can't rank and only you can rank. So, you would need to get that into an agreement, which would be very, very difficult. There's a lot of back and forth. Was the guidance really that all along so forth and so forth and so forth? I don't want to get into any of that. The point is many SEOs feel stuck here to rock in a hard place and would like to see a different approach again, because you need to now tell the syndicated partners, "Hey, you need to apply a no index tag here." You're not going to rank at all, which again, if I'm, let's say MSNBC or ABC News, I want to rank. So, why would I agree to that? Google's Danny Sullivan did say he would take that feedback and bring it to the team, which is not always lip service. I know people sometimes feel that's lip service. It's not. I could say at Wix, we've done that many, many times. We've taken feedback from the SEO community, brought that to the team, and then made a product improvement. So, I would take that as a legitimate offer of, "Hey, I'm going to go bring that to the team. Let's see if we can figure that out." So maybe there will be something coming down the pike that would make syndication a little bit more advantageous from a ranking point of view. The point is, if you are going to syndicate your content, there are some hard conversations that you're going to need to have about the benefits of syndicating and the monetary gain you get from that versus the ability to rank and the monetary gain you would get from that. But wait, Barry was not done there. From search engine land, Barry goes, "Google's Core Web Vitals INP issues email is causing concern." So a few weeks ago, Google added INP, Interaction to Next Paint, which will replace FID, First Input Delay as one of the three Core Web Vitals Come March 2024. With that, Google started setting out the notifications. You have an issue for INP from search console. The issue is that the web is currently working to align with the new guidelines. So, for example, we at Wix have been working way before Google actually announced INP would be in the Core Web Vitals with Google to see what makes sense, what doesn't make sense when it comes to tracking websites and INP. So, for example, we've been working on this for a long time and now 83% of our website's mobile in the US pass INP, but the issue is that this is not coming due until March and really nothing changed on the website. Only that changed that Google brought INP into search console is now sending out notifications, but the website has been the same the entire time. So, if thing's been okay with the website, then there's really nothing to worry about. At the same time from a ranking point of view, nothing is changing until March 2024. Even with that, this is where Barry really went off in his weekly news recap on Search Engine Roundtable, which we'll link to, where Barry was saying, "Hey, look, there was a whole bunch of hype around Core Web Vitals that are ranking the first time around when Google initially integrated this into the algorithm and that didn't really pan out. There really wasn't any significant ranking impact as a result. In fact for many websites, there was literally zero. Nothing actually happened as a tiebreaker scenario." Barry was saying, "Hey, why are we trying to make this a big deal again, from a ranking point of view? You're now sending these issues out via email to websites. Website numbers are going to freak out and start prioritizing an INP from an SEO point of view." But that's not really the right thing to do because you're talking about a small issue within a small issue because a ranking impact is really, really minimal for Core Web Vitals. Now you're just talking about one of the Core Web Vitals. So, Barry was saying, "Hey, I think these emails are harmful because they're going to make people freak out and start prioritizing what might not be an SEO priority to begin with." That's not to say that INP is not important. It's super important from a user experience point of view. When your users get to the page, they should have a really seamless, fast integrated experience that doesn't hold them back from doing what they want to do. But the point about rank, I would have to agree with Barry about. The point is, if you've got these emails, nothing about your site actually changed. All that changes is Google's now sending the emails out. You don't know the significance of the INP issue. It could be a very small little thing that you need to change, right? But Google doesn't tell you that in the email, so take it slow. From a ranking point of view, none of this matters until March 2024, and even then, it's a very, very, very, very small issue most likely. The last thing you should really just understand is that this is something that the web itself is really aligning to, which is why I think people were upset. Hey, we're working towards aligning to your new guidelines. Why are we now getting emails that we're not there yet? Of course, we're not there yet, but again, many, many websites are there and should be fine. Again, for example, on the Wix site, 83% of mobile sites in the US already passed INP and we're not even anywhere close to March. Okay. Moving on, some AI news for you, again from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Just call him the monopoly man. He's got a monopoly on the SEO news. Barry writes, "Google expands Bard to more countries, more languages, and adds new features." So Bard is now available in more geolocations and there's a whole bunch of new features. For example, you can now listen to the prompt, which is great for accessibility. You can adjust the tone of the response, so how formal you want the response to be, how long you want the response to be and so forth. This comes, by the way, as Search Engine Journal's Matt Southern reports, "Is ChatGPT getting Dumber?" Usage drops as users complain. So, basically people are saying, "Hey, I've been using ChatGPT for a long time, and it seems to be the responses are not as good as they used to be." OpenAI said, which I very much align with, that nothing's really changed. It's probably noticing more and more issues as you use it more and more often. I totally agree with that. I don't think anything actually changed the... Why would the AI get dumber? It's only getting more refined and more refined and more refined. This goes back to what we've been saying on this podcast for a very, very, very long time. The technology is super cool and it is super amazing and it is super innovative and it is beyond words. But when you get past that and you're talking about actual usage in real life situations, there are gaps in this technology. So, now as a web, we've gotten past the initial wow factor and we're actually starting to use this thing in real life cases. We're like, "Wait a second, maybe this isn't as good as we thought it was, because you're looking at it from two different perspectives, the wow factor versus actual integration to your consumer base." So I don't think the AI has gotten any dumber. What I think, as OpenAI points out, is that you're starting to notice more and more flaws and thinking maybe this isn't as good and maybe we can't use it across the board the way we thought we could, which I hate to say this, but if you listen to the podcast regularly, we told you so. By the way, some of the data sources are showing a 10% drop-off in ChatGPT usage. Pulling Barry Schwartz back in on Twitter, he was talking about the hype is starting to wane. I think he ran a poll from Gary Sterling over at Search Engine Roundtable, showing that SEOs are using it significantly less often. The point is in marketing, there's all these things that come around in cycles, super hype things. I don't think AI is hype per se, as I've mentioned on the podcast many, many times. I think it's a great tool. It's not going anywhere, but that initial, "Oh, my goodness. This is amazing. It's a panacea for all things," I think that was hype. I think the web is starting to come out of that, and I think hopefully that will result in more mature adoption of the AI technology. With that, that is this week's not so snappy news. Always so snappy with that snappy news. Hey, Crystal, I always feel like coming back like a news show. Have a great weekend, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah, I had a great, great weekend. I'm planning to go- Mordy Oberstein: All right. Okay, here where the weather is... I always wanted to be a news anchor. Not never. Anyway, I always found that news anchor thing so plastic, not my thing. Crystal Carter: Fair enough. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, Sue, of course, Bob. Anyway, Crystal Carter: I feel like you'd be more of a radio show guy for that. Mordy Oberstein: Definitely more of the afternoon drive home radio station for hard rock radio station thing. Speaking of music, by the way, it's time for our follow of the weekend. He's a very musical person. If we're talking about SGE, we're talking about the future of search as we talked about niche sites, who else could our follow of the week be than our previous guest, Mike King over @iPullRank on Twitter. That's I, the letter I, not the number I, the letter I. Just like what? The letter I-P-U-L-L-R-A-N-K, iPullRank. Crystal Carter: iPullRank, yeah. Mike is great. Mike is a fount of SEO knowledge. He's been SEO and thinking about AI for ages. We had him on a webinar talking about ChatGPT and AI content writers. He's got so much knowledge about the relationship between machine learning and entities and search and how that all works. So, he's a fantastic follow. He's also really, really engaged with the community and very much a pillar of the community. So, absolutely follow him. He's a fantastic follow. Mordy Oberstein: Must follow, I feel like. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely must follow. He is great at translating that information that's really complex in a really eye level way, which is fabulous. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and do check out the webinar. He dropped some fantastic, fantastic information there. Mordy Oberstein: The webinar with him and Ross Hudgins about AI content writers and SEO and the future of the web, we'll link to in the show notes. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Everybody who joined it said it was fantastic. So, please, please do join along. Enjoy it, find it on YouTube, all of that stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Well, we've come to the end of this road. I'll see you niche week. I've been holding that for like 20 minutes. Crystal Carter: Niche road will we take? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, niche. It doesn't work. Doesn't work. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with new episodes. We dive into repurposing your audio and video content for search. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Arielle Phoenix Mike King Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Areille Phoenix Website News: Google Details SEO Guidance For Content Syndication Partners Google’s Core Web Vitals INP issues email causing concern Is ChatGPT Getting “Dumber”? Usage Drops As Users Complain Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Arielle Phoenix Mike King Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Areille Phoenix Website News: Google Details SEO Guidance For Content Syndication Partners Google’s Core Web Vitals INP issues email causing concern Is ChatGPT Getting “Dumber”? Usage Drops As Users Complain Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha! Mahalo! We're joining the SERP's Up Podcast . We're pushing out some guru new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and joined by the incredible, the fantastic, the amazing, the marvelous, the spectacular head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Mordy Oberstein, how are you? Mordy Oberstein: I still have his cold, 12 months, months, brutal, ardent. Crystal Carter: We need Erin to play a little violin sound because I do genuinely feel some sadness for you. Mordy Oberstein: There's stuff in my nostrils that won't leave. Crystal Carter: Have you ever explained to a child about this? It's just like you need to go to sleep. They're like, "No, but my nose is stepped up." I'm like, "Hun, just lie on your side and it will all go to one side and then you'll have one clear one." This is what everyone does. Just wait for it. Mordy Oberstein: Doing the rest of the podcast with my head focused. Crystal Carter: There you go. Mordy Oberstein: We're done. Thank you. SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Nasonex. Just kidding. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter , but where you can also leverage the power of SEO and content with both the Wix Blog and Wix Content Manager. Create content at scale and optimize it at scale to get traffic at scale, to increase your presence on the SERP as a niche site. Why niche site? Because today, we're talking about niche sites, the web, and SEO. That's right. We're taking stock of what I think is increased stock in niche sites and SEO by talking about where niche sites fit into the new web, the opportunity niche sites present to users, how to set up your niche site to be an authority for SEO success and beyond. Plus, we have a special guest, Arielle Phoenix , to help us dive into what that all means and she'll share all that in just jiffy. We'll also take a deep pause as we take a deep thought into what content really is. That sounds mysterious. Of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So, find your little corner of the web and get cozy. It's episode number 47 of the SERP's Up Podcast, carves out the niche that is niche site for SEO. Crystal Carter: That was very bespoke, very bijou, very targeted at a very specific market. Now here's the first question we should talk about. Is it niche or niche? Mordy Oberstein: I say niche. Crystal Carter: I also say niche, but this is because I am very continental. There are other people that say niche, which I find sounds too close to an itch for me personally, but to each their own. Mordy Oberstein: You say tomato, I also say tomato, and some other people say tomato. Crystal Carter: They're wrong. No. Mordy Oberstein: They're wrong. Crystal Carter: Anyway, okay. So, depending on whether or not you were thinking about a niche or a niche website, let's just get a little bit of few things straight. Let's talk about what we are actually talking about. So, in SEO, you use various tactics to make sure that your content is discoverable, make sure that people can find your content, make sure that websites can find your content, and you create content strategies around lots of topics that are related to whatever it's you do. So, sometimes what will happen, for instance, let's say you run a business where you have aquariums, right? Let's say you have an aquarium, but I don't know why I thought of that today, but that's the example we're going to go with. Mordy Oberstein: A giant or a little unit. Crystal Carter: No. Okay, so my aquarium is a place where all of the fish of the sea, well, maybe not all of the fish of the sea, but the ones that I was able to wrangle into my aquarium can come and hang out and have a really good time. I'm a big fan of wrasse. They're really fun at an aquarium. Also, clown fish. Clown fish are a good time at an aquarium. So, anyway, so it's an attraction aquarium. That's what I'm doing in my example. Anyway, so let's say I have this attraction aquarium, then I will probably want to make content around fish, right? Fish, the ocean, the sea, coral reefs, snapper turtles, all that stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Fish sticks. Yeah. Crystal Carter: I think that they wouldn't like that, anyway, so I might want to do that thing. What a niche site would do, flipping that on the other side is their aim would be to sell things around aquariums, for instance. So, maybe they would look at the market and they would say there's a big market for people buying aquarium stuff, for instance. Then they would say, "I'm going to make content that appeals to people that are buying that so that I can get traffic through that way." So there's a great article on ahrefs.com, which talks about how to create a niche website . Their question, they say, "What is a niche site?" A niche said is any website that caters to a specific audience or topic. It can be about anything, health, business, relationships, food, travel, fashion, animals, or even more obscure all kinds of niche sites. In this one, they talk a lot about affiliate websites, which is what I'm talking about there. So, for instance, I looked up a niche site that I found, which was houseplants, houseplant.co.uk. You can guess what they talk about. They talk about houseplants almost exclusively. Mordy Oberstein: I was going to say they talk about fish. Crystal Carter: No, they don't. They don't. So, they talk about houseplants almost exclusively. What a niche site team would do is they would make sure that their content was very, very tailored for an affiliate one. They would make sure it was tailored, and they'd also make sure that they had links that went off to affiliate content that was related to their particular niche. So, if it was houseplants.com, they might have affiliate content that went off to houseplant products or houseplant services or houseplants may be on Amazon or other sites where you can get affiliate traffic. We are going to be joined today by someone who works very much in this space, very much in this niche site space, creating content that's designed to be commercially viable on the web, either through affiliate traffic or potentially through display advertising traffic. There's lots of different tactics and it's an interesting way to approach online content and it's something that I thought would be worth exploring. Mordy Oberstein: I remember it was a couple of years ago. So, say in the health space, you have your non-niche players like WebMD, Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, harvardhealth.org, and you have niche websites. When you start looking at certain keywords , they're just dominated by... I call them the superpowers of the health space. But as you look at certain types of keywords and for certain types of topics, I remember looking at autism for example. Google realizes as a topic, it's a far more niche topic conceptually than, let's say, I don't know, blood pressure. The SERP opens up, something like to the point where on your average top level head term for a health term, like a heart attack prevention, the entries dominated by 8 out of 10, if I remember correctly, were power players. But when you start opening up the SERP a little bit, half the SERP opens up to you as a niche site. I went through a couple hundred keywords doing this and you could just literally see the space for niche sites open up and blossom certain scenarios. Crystal Carter: I think where they thrive is with long-tail keywords , but a large volume of long-tail keywords. So, for instance, if you're thinking about autism for instance, autism has a spectrum of different situations, different scenarios, and each one of those is going to be its own set of keywords and there's going to be long-tail things for that. So, for instance, if you think about somebody who's on the autism spectrum, there might be a whole niche around being in the workplace as someone with autism for instance, and all of the different things that people might think about and might require, might consider, and might think about when they're writing those topics. What some of the niche site might do would be to focus on all of those. Again, it has to do with having laser focus in terms of your keywords and expecting that maybe one individual keyword might not yield you loads of traffic, but that the cumulative volume of all of your long-tail keywords would give you highly focused traffic that's highly focused on your niche and therefore potential opportunities for revenue and for audience engagement. Mordy Oberstein: In some of these cases, before we get to Arielle, Google, I think what it does is profile verticals or profile niches. So, for example, it knows that the content around autism is far more varied, far less, let's say, clear cut than other areas of health content. It's profiled to realize that there's far more websites talking about, far more different perspective, and far more nuanced ways to realize that even for some of the more headier terms, we should be ranking some more niche content or more nuanced content, because the nature of the topic is far more nuanced and far more harder to pin down than just having your WebMD ranking for everything. Crystal Carter: I think the other thing that's great about looking at different tactics within the SEO community is that there's going to be a lot of overlap and a lot of things that you can learn from say somebody who's going all the way laser focused on a particular niche like you're saying within this autism space and who's, let's say, picking up on the fact that things are wider, that there's more opportunities for more diverse perspectives and approaches to search and content. So, there's things you can learn about that will also apply to some of the more broader topic players and will also potentially apply to bigger companies. There's a charity called Cancer Research UK. They're a niche charity and they're looking at that specific things around cancer and research in the UK. So, they've got a long-tail sort of situation there as well. So, even if you're not working in a specific SEO industry or even if you're not generally applying all of the tactics, for instance, from a niche site approach or from a YMYL approach for instance, and looking widely at some of the ways that people are approaching SEO can be incredibly beneficial to how you get different results, get new results, and meet new audiences online. So, I'm really excited to be chatting about this today and I know that certainly when I've looked across some of these sites, I always learned something from them. I think that the other thing we've seen a lot with niche sites is that from their approach, they tend to rely a lot on content velocity. So, they tend to rely a lot on getting a lot of content out in an interesting way. I know that there are content writers who lean a lot on AI , for instance, and it's interesting to see how they're using that. It's interesting to see what results they're getting. It's interesting to see what works, what doesn't work. So, I think it's interesting to see how people are approaching that overall. Mordy Oberstein: Long story short, if you are running a niche site, there's room for you and opportunity for you. So, let's dive into this. We asked Arielle Phoenix a whole bunch of questions about niche sites and SEO. So, let's take this one first. We asked Arielle the difference between niche sites and non-niche sites from an SEO and organic traffic perspective, and here's Arielle Phoenix on that. Arielle Phoenix: What is the difference between niche sites and non-niche sites from an SEO and organic perspective? Personally, I don't think there is much of a difference between niche sites and non-niche sites from an SEO and organic traffic perspective because what we're doing is essentially the same thing. We're targeting keywords or search terms and optimizing them for search traffic. So, on page SEO , technical SEO , we're doing the same things that you would be doing for a non-niche site to gain Google's traffic or Bing or any search engine really, but the main player, of course, is Google. What I will say though is not all niche sites are the same, and where the model generally was find long-tail keywords and create content for those keywords based on Google search engine. Now more people are looking at alternative search engines, because YouTube is a search engine and apparently TikTok is a search engine . So, focusing more on social traffic as opposed to just Google's search engine, because of course, of algorithm updates and various changes, SEO starts to look a bit shaky or fragile as a sole method, but for most of us, it is still the main method of traffic for our sites. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, yeah, that's a great point. Most of the foundational things you're doing are the same across whatever site for the most part, right? Crystal Carter: Sure, sure. Absolutely. I think it's the similar thing too, and I guess it has to do with your objectives. A lot of folks that I know who work in niche sites and particularly the community around niche site SEO on Twitter, anyway, focus a lot on traffic that yields results and focus a lot more on traffic that yields results in a monetary way. So, maybe there's that to think about, but yeah, she's absolutely right that the core tactics, the core methodology is very similar. I think it's interesting that she's talking about additional search engines as well because that's certainly something that we've seen across the general SEO landscape as well. Mordy Oberstein: For sure. So, let's go a little bit deeper with this and let's go into what's the current environment on the SERP for niche sites? Here again is Arielle. Arielle Phoenix: I think this is going to vary a lot depending on the age of the site and how well somebody's built out their brand and the backlink profile and all of those things are going to come into play. But as an industry or as a sector, I think it's become very competitive over the past few years. I've only been in the space for a few years, but at every six month interval, it's changed dramatically. So, with the competition, and of course, many of us who are in this space, we don't just have the one site. We have multiple sites and we're constantly coming up with new niche ideas and throwing sites up. So, the landscape is very, very competitive. The SERPs for niche sites, again, it's going to vary, because for some of us or for some sites, you're going to have solid growth trajectory. Others are going to be tracking sideways and others are going to be dropping out of the SERPs and being replaced by higher authority or better quality in some cases sites. Mordy Oberstein: So this the vision between, I call them the super authorities of the SERP and niche sites have always been a weird balance. People have always accused Google of defaulting to big name brands, because they're buying so many ads, that thing. I think what it has a lot to do with it and I think this is where niche sites can carve their space out, is that Google really trusts those big sites. It's not like, "Oh, they're a big site, therefore we rank them." It's that they're a big site, therefore we really understand and know them and therefore can trust them. If you can somehow do that as a niche site, you could also rank. Obviously knowing where Google is looking at things like, hey, heart attack prevention is the keyword. Trying to rank there no matter what, it's just Google's going to default to .govs like the NHS or the CDC. There isn't a lot you can do there with that, but that doesn't mean that you can't build up that same kind of authority in a way and rank for media keywords you thought you really could. Now this wouldn't be a conversation about niche sites if we didn't get into AI or in the Google case, SGE, search generative experience . So, here's Arielle on how the future is shaping up for niche sites, especially considering the advent of Google's SGE. Take it away, Arielle. Arielle Phoenix: For many people, the future looks bleak. Personally, I don't think, although I know we are just at the beginning of AI. This is the tip of the iceberg and it's definitely going to improve. SGE at the moment is not that great, and I'm going to explain. We are at the very beginning of it and it handles many queries well. So, it does a good job and it's going to continue to do a good job of things like best products and product roundups and give the searcher probably a better experience than a niche site's review post because it's going based on all the information it has and it's summarizing it, which is essentially what we would be doing, but it's got that data in real time. So, there are going to be types of content and queries that it makes very little sense for niche sites to focus on doing because SGE is just going to do a better job. Where we will shine or where a niche site can shine is in the space where they have genuine product experience. So, if you have the product and you've done the YouTube video and you've got the T-shirt to prove this is your experience, then you have a chance of doing better in that particular topic. But I think the focus on the long-tail, the basic answer queries, which SGE is already doing a good job fulfilling, those are probably short-lived or going to be short-lived for now. As I said, it's not that great and people do still need to a lot of the time click in to see the actual article if the SGE has not done a sufficient job, but we will notice that there is a dip in traffic in those types of posts. If we've got a variety of posts on our site, we'll definitely notice that those basic answer query type posts are going to be just dropping in traffic. But as I said, there are many different types of content, and for me personally, I'm not focusing so much on those answer query type posts. There are many different methods that you can use to create quality content that is going to be useful to the reader and more useful than the question with an extended answer to gain that long-tail traffic. So, really delving into content that allows you to be a bit more creative that's multi-leveled in many ways and that allows you to also add videos and really things to enrich the post in a way that the search engine or this SGE can't do. I think that's always been the case, but because long-tail was such an easy game to play, it was very, very easy to again, create lots of content for those queries and I guess do enough posts where you could generate enough traffic to your site to earn a good amount of income. So, I definitely think for the long term, I don't think SGE cancels niche sites out completely. I don't see that. I know many people have their opinions on that, but I don't see that happening if the niche site owner can identify the different types of content that can work in a way that the SGE can't. In some cases, some sites are just going to fail because they've been built on that long-tail keyword model, but there's still a huge opportunity to use the content creation or the keyword targeting model to build your brand and get ahead of this SGE AI curve. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'll be honest with you, if you're running a niche site, going all in on the AI seems like, "Wait a second, your entire unique value or unique value is the fact that you're not AI, is that you have the actual experience, you are the actual expert. You are able to deep dive into the topic the way that most people, let alone most AI writers can't do." So I feel if you are a niche site, no, leverage the fact that you have that expertise and that experience and go full on into that as a way of combating what's inevitably going to be a world filled with the same content spun up by the same AI writers. Crystal Carter: I think that what she's talking about there is absolutely on the money on being able to show that you have reviewed the product well, that you have the YouTube video to go with it, that you're able to add value. This is something that applies not just to niche sites, but to all sites. I think it's something that Google has been trying to nurture within the SEO space for ages with their product review updates. Then with them, they just started calling it the review update and they're basically wanting actual examples and actual real life evidence that you engage with the product to know what you're talking about there. When I think of good niche sites that I have used where it's somebody who's reviewing specific products that I'm looking to buy, for instance, and they've gone into it in depth, I'm like, "I want a cordless vacuum cleaner." There's somebody who's like, "Have I got a website for you?" They're going into all the cordless vacuum cleaners and all of the different things that they do and they've got all the different videos. She's absolutely on the money, but the people who are creating content strategically for their niche are going to do well, because I think that the SGE is going to be very much like featured snippets. You don't see featured snippet on every single SERP. Cyrus Shepherd’s talked about how often you see SGE on the SERP. It's not all the time. So, I think the long-tails will still add value, as she said. As she also pointed out, you also need to enrich the content with additional value. Mordy Oberstein: Especially because when you do that, you're building up your brand, which is a very unique thing to do, especially in a world that's filled with the generic content that's already out there, let alone the generic content that AI is going to put out there. Now, we're talking about niche sites. We have to talk about the question, which is how to create authority as a niche site so that you can compete with the bigger players. Ooh, scandalous and probably the most important question in my mind that we've asked Arielle. Here's what she had to say. Arielle Phoenix: Again, personally, I still take the approach of topical domination or topical authority . The topical domination is more covering the topic in depth, so not leaving anything. Previously, we would try to find gaps in the topic where you have the high traffic, high authority sites going for specific topics, and then you find your way in where they wouldn't bother touching those topics. But with topical domination, you're covering everything. So, every related question, every entity around the subject, and then moving on to another silo that links to it, but that's also covered in depth. So, I guess once upon a time, you could do a small niche site where you just focus on the topic and make 50 or so articles. I think now you need to make these micro topics and do the same thing, but hone in on that micro topic and then relate that to another micro topic and then use that to bolster that key topic that you would've just made 50 articles around in the past. So, still taking that velocity or that high velocity approach with content, but using that as the foundation to build your brand upon. But then using things like YouTube as a separate entity, so focusing on YouTube and allowing them to support each other and other social channels. Of course, you do have to find the social channels that work for that niche. You don't have to go and build a Twitter or LinkedIn for everything, but you do want to build that social proof and focus on EAT once you've got that strong foundation, but that's just my approach. That's what I'm doing to compete with the bigger players, having a solid content base, pairing that with a solid social base, mainly YouTube, and then focusing on the EAT. So, that is the guest post and the link building efforts. As taboo as that does still seem to be, we know the huge sites have a huge backlink profile, so going deeper in on the content and the internal linking, making sure that the site as an entity is as strong as possible, and then going in with the social media, the outreach, building things like link magnets if possible in your niche building applications, things that really build the brand, and of course, focusing then on the EAT. So, ensuring that there is an actual entity behind it and everything is connected, so it is a reputable source or at least appears to be when facing those bigger players. So, yeah, that's my take. That's my approach in the ever-changing niche site space, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts and thanks for having me. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I really liked what she had to say there. It's similar to what I've always talked about when people ask me about targeting zero search volume keywords. Okay, let's assume that no one's searching for this. Okay, there's no value. No, there actually is value because you're building up authority around that topic. You need to start slow. You need to start from somewhere, and starting from these micro topics and then building out from there is just the logical sequence of how you build trusted authority with a search engine who doesn't until that point know who you are. Crystal Carter: Right, precisely. Sometimes you can even drive traffic by creating the traffic with what you're doing and what you're talking about. Then I think she also talked a lot about clustering keywords, and she talked about YouTube as well. She's got a great YouTube video about keyword clustering, keyword clustering tools, and how she works that into her general method, so that's definitely worth looking at. But the keyword clustering is a really great way to organize all of that content for Google because you are helping Google to understand what you're doing with your backlinks or say your site map and things like that and your hierarchy within your site, but also the way that you're linking your site and the way that you're connecting the content that you're creating will also help Google to understand what you're doing and help them to serve it on search result pages in a way that's really effective. I think that that is absolutely important to making sure that the content that you create is valuable to users, is discoverable by Google. So, when you're making lots more content around micro topics that Google can see the actual bulk of your content and that you have that topic authority and then it's really easy for them to access the whole stack. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You have to really think of it very holistically. You don't look at your pieces of content as individual pieces of content. It's one piece feeds the next piece, which feeds the next piece, which feeds the next piece, which creates a corpus. Content is a corpus, and you need a corpus of content. Thank you again, Arielle, for all of that amazing content. Definitely be sure to check out Arielle on Twitter, @ariellecpx. That's @A-R-I-E-L-L-ECPX on Twitter and ariellephoenix.com. Be sure to look in the show notes for the link to her site. Now, speaking about content and SGE and niche sites filling a void on the web, I like to go a little bit deeper into that. I spoil it a little bit on our episode with Mike King around CTR and SGE on the SERP. When I was talking about your content being Matlock, which I'm not going to go into that again. If you listen to that episode, you'll understand what I mean by it. Your content is Matlock. If you don't know who Matlock is, don't worry, ask your grandmother. So, let's dive in a little bit deeper as I'd like to talk about what the heck we mean when we ask that your content might not be as desirable as you might think it is and what that means in terms of SGE and CTR and traffic and clicks and the role of niche sites in all of this as Crystal and I share a deep thought. Okay, let me repose a question to you. So, you spin up content, you create content, it's content. Let's just leave it at that. It's content. You now expect rankings and you expect traffic and you expect conversions, but consider what we just talked about in terms of niche sites and their ability to go into micro topics and to really offer experience and to really offer expertise around really specific nuances within a larger area of the web. When you spin up content and you expect traffic, is that expectation really realistic? Crystal Carter: I mean, there's a reason why SEOs exist, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. To ignore John Mueller on Twitter. Crystal Carter: And Barry Schwartz, to be fair. Mordy Oberstein: To ignore Barry Schwartz on Twitter. Crystal Carter: Exactly. But we exist for a reason because there's lots of people who did that and got nothing. They were like, "Oh, I put up content, and just nothing happened." Sometimes it needs guidance, sometimes it needs help. Sometimes it needs... Mordy Oberstein: Well, let's say it gets the help. You've optimized all the things. Does it still deserve traffic? Just because it ranks, does it deserve traffic? That's what I'm really asking, I guess. Crystal Carter: No, I wouldn't say so. No, no. Google doesn't owe you anything. You could do your best, but Google doesn't owe you anything. Also, the clicks, the ranking, all of that, that's all a reflection of user value. Even if users are going to your site and they're not getting value, then they're not going to come back and Google won't rank you so well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and just because you rank really, really well doesn't mean the content is really, really good. It could just be there's nothing better. Crystal Carter: This is absolutely true. It could also be that maybe that search term was the search term for a while, but maybe nobody's searching it anymore. I don't think anybody's worried about who Jean-Claude Van Damme's girlfriend is right now or something. Mordy Oberstein: I was just Googling that the other day. Crystal Carter: Maybe people were Googling that back in the day when he was like that dude or whatever, but right now, nobody's particularly interested. Mordy Oberstein: What angle is Jean-Claude Van Damme's leg when he does a roundhouse kick? Is it 123 degrees? Crystal Carter: Maybe it was when he was doing pirouettes. Wasn't he a ballet too as well? Mordy Oberstein: Something like that. Yeah. I was watching a video about this recently. Actually, it's random. Just don't ask me why. When I say we, I mean I think the web has gotten to a point where we think, "Okay, this ranks or this should rank. It's good enough to rank, and therefore it deserves traffic." I'm not sure that that equation is entirely accurate. What I think is in many, many, many more cases than you would like to think is that the reason why a page would get traffic or a URL would rank is because there's nothing better. I think that there's an enormous shortage of content on the web. When I say shortage, I mean of good content. There's no shortage of content. There's a shortage of good content. What I think that AI and SGE is going to bring it to focus is that question, is the fact that just because in the past you've had traffic doesn't necessarily mean... I know this is a hot take, and I know SEOs are not going to be happy to be saying this. ... in terms of mathematical logic imply or demand that that traffic continue forever. Crystal Carter: Right. It might just be that nobody ever tried to tip you off a castle. It might be that nobody else tried to write that content. I sometimes find that I see content that's ranking number one, and then I go to check at the search volume up for it and it's not getting any traffic anyway. You're like the king of nothing. So, that happens too. Mordy Oberstein: Do you know what SGE is to me? It's a giant Local Pack. It's a giant Local Pack. Crystal Carter: I can see what you mean. Mordy Oberstein: Imagine it's 2003. I don't know if that's accurate or not. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Beforehand, there was no Local Pack. There's no three listings of a local business. When you search pizza near me, you had to go click on Yelp and run through all the listings there. Then all of a sudden, the Local Pack comes on the SERP and all of the organic results you have your typical 1 through 10 traditional listing, I don't say it becomes irrelevant or becomes less relevant. All things being equal, is that bad? Was that bad for the web? Was that bad for the users? Was that bad for businesses? Crystal Carter: It was different. I've been chatting about this a little while. Everyone's like, "Oh, SGE is completely new. AI and the search is completely new." Featured snippets have been run by AI and machine learning the entire time, the whole time. Featured snippets have been run by AI the entire time. It's been around for years. The image search, visual search with Vision AI has been around for years. All of these things have been around for ages. Yeah, like you're saying, it's different, but all of them are pulling from ranking content. So, the content has to rank in the first place before it can be considered for this new and shiny and fantastic feature. What we see is that the things that rank in SGE are also ranking in your needs SERP. So, what we see is the thing that ranks for the featured snippet or is included in the featured snippet, because sometimes featured snippets include content for one thing and content from another thing, content from another thing, they're all ranking content from the regular plain old blue link SERPS. So, that's important to think. I think also your Matlock scenario is really important. If you look at Internet Live Stats, startling statistics, in 2004, the number of websites according to Internet Live Stats was 51 million websites. Then by 2010, six years later, there were 206 million websites online. So, essentially, your Matlock thing is the same. That's a fourfold increase. Mordy Oberstein: Something's going to have to stop ranking or stop getting traffic at some point. My Matlock case, just for reference, there's a TV show back from the late '80s, early '90s called Matlock with Annie Griffith. When you were home sick as a kid, say a 10-year-old, you're watching The Price Is Right. Then at a certain point, there's nothing on, just Matlock. There was no cable. I'm dating myself here. There was no cable. There was five channel with the bunny rabbit ear antennas, and you were either watching General Hospital, which is soap opera, which I was not watching, or Matlock. So, Matlock had great numbers in the early afternoon because there was nothing else. That's my parallel with content. Maybe your content is getting all that traffic because there's nothing else. There's no other paradigm, but SGE brings in a new paradigm, which by the way, I think niche sites are built for SGE for two reasons. One is Google's trying to be a little bit more specific as the entire point of SGE to refine what people are looking for and they want to offer very refined, very specific results. That's one. The second is there's an explore feature or an expand feature within Google's SGE where it takes the SGE summary. So, it takes the five lines of SGE, of an AI content that they wrote. It breaks it down per line and it shows organic results per line, which are inherently going to be very specific. So, SGE in my mind is built for niche sites who may not have been able to capitalize on the SERP, who might now be able to capitalize on. I would love to see, thought, SGE rolls out in full a year later. Are the big players losing traffic and are niche sites increasing in traffic? That would be fascinating to see. Crystal Carter: I think it's really interesting because I think the reason why niche sites are going to do well out of this or could potentially do well is because of the way that you talk to a generative search experience. So, on a generative search, I am much more likely to write a very, very long-winded query. On a Google SERP, a standard traditional search, I'm probably going- Mordy Oberstein: Three words. Crystal Carter: Three words, right? I'm going to say TV on now. Mordy Oberstein: Van Damme leg kick. Crystal Carter: Right? Van Damme leg kick. Whereas let's say, "What kind of ballet did Jean-Claude Van Damme do and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?" or whatever it may be So you'll get right into it, or you might even describe something that you don't even know the name for instance. Mordy Oberstein: The answer is the ballet where you get a roundhouse right to the face. Crystal Carter: I think that Arielle was talking about niching down and getting right into not just writing that one topic, but writing up, but making sure that your website represents an entity and that everything revolves around that entity and you're covering every different way to discover that entity and discover that information. Again, that works really, really well with a generative search experience because it's a situation where you're going to ask a question and then you're going to delve into it and delve into it and delve into it and delve into it more and more and more and more and more. I think I've discussed this previously, but one of the best ones I've had was I was trying to figure out what to do with my houseplant. My houseplant is dying. What do I do with it? It kept giving me lots of results from the same houseplant website. Now I'm like, "Okay, that's a good place to go for information about this houseplant because they have all of the information about that. So, why would I go to some other website? I'd go to that one." Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. You really build that trust, that branding. By the way, how was that houseplant? Crystal Carter: It's better. It's better actually. I took some advice. I put it in a north facing window. I gave it some more water. I haven't repotted it, but she's doing okay. Thanks for asking. That's so kind. Mordy Oberstein: Of course. Now, since we're talking about AI, I'm sure there's some AI news this week because there's always some AI news or not. Either way. Crystal Carter: There are bots. Mordy Oberstein: There's this week's snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Come on, Barry. Light my fire. Barry Schwartz has been roll this week with a few hotly contested SEO issues. So, cue up some sappy soap opera music because it's about to get dramatic in here. First Barry Schwartz over at search engine round table, Google details, SEO guidance for content syndication partners. So, in a nutshell, the practice for years has been to use the canonical to tell Google, which is the real original article. So, you're syndicating content. Let's say you're Reuters. You're syndicating to ABC News, to CNN, to MSNBC, whatever it is. How do you know? How does Google supposed to know which is the real source, which is the real original article? By using the canonical tag pointing back to the original article, which has been difficult to get done because you have to get that done in an agreement with the syndicated partners. What are the chances that they actually want to tell Google, "Hey, don't rank us. Rank the original partner"? That aside, a few months ago, Google said, "We'll make it different. We're going to say, now you should use the no index instead of the canonical tag." Meaning if you want to rank and not your syndicated partners tell the syndicated partners, just apply a no index tag so they can't rank and only you can rank. So, you would need to get that into an agreement, which would be very, very difficult. There's a lot of back and forth. Was the guidance really that all along so forth and so forth and so forth? I don't want to get into any of that. The point is many SEOs feel stuck here to rock in a hard place and would like to see a different approach again, because you need to now tell the syndicated partners, "Hey, you need to apply a no index tag here." You're not going to rank at all, which again, if I'm, let's say MSNBC or ABC News, I want to rank. So, why would I agree to that? Google's Danny Sullivan did say he would take that feedback and bring it to the team, which is not always lip service. I know people sometimes feel that's lip service. It's not. I could say at Wix, we've done that many, many times. We've taken feedback from the SEO community, brought that to the team, and then made a product improvement. So, I would take that as a legitimate offer of, "Hey, I'm going to go bring that to the team. Let's see if we can figure that out." So maybe there will be something coming down the pike that would make syndication a little bit more advantageous from a ranking point of view. The point is, if you are going to syndicate your content, there are some hard conversations that you're going to need to have about the benefits of syndicating and the monetary gain you get from that versus the ability to rank and the monetary gain you would get from that. But wait, Barry was not done there. From search engine land, Barry goes, "Google's Core Web Vitals INP issues email is causing concern." So a few weeks ago, Google added INP, Interaction to Next Paint, which will replace FID, First Input Delay as one of the three Core Web Vitals Come March 2024. With that, Google started setting out the notifications. You have an issue for INP from search console. The issue is that the web is currently working to align with the new guidelines. So, for example, we at Wix have been working way before Google actually announced INP would be in the Core Web Vitals with Google to see what makes sense, what doesn't make sense when it comes to tracking websites and INP. So, for example, we've been working on this for a long time and now 83% of our website's mobile in the US pass INP, but the issue is that this is not coming due until March and really nothing changed on the website. Only that changed that Google brought INP into search console is now sending out notifications, but the website has been the same the entire time. So, if thing's been okay with the website, then there's really nothing to worry about. At the same time from a ranking point of view, nothing is changing until March 2024. Even with that, this is where Barry really went off in his weekly news recap on Search Engine Roundtable, which we'll link to, where Barry was saying, "Hey, look, there was a whole bunch of hype around Core Web Vitals that are ranking the first time around when Google initially integrated this into the algorithm and that didn't really pan out. There really wasn't any significant ranking impact as a result. In fact for many websites, there was literally zero. Nothing actually happened as a tiebreaker scenario." Barry was saying, "Hey, why are we trying to make this a big deal again, from a ranking point of view? You're now sending these issues out via email to websites. Website numbers are going to freak out and start prioritizing an INP from an SEO point of view." But that's not really the right thing to do because you're talking about a small issue within a small issue because a ranking impact is really, really minimal for Core Web Vitals. Now you're just talking about one of the Core Web Vitals. So, Barry was saying, "Hey, I think these emails are harmful because they're going to make people freak out and start prioritizing what might not be an SEO priority to begin with." That's not to say that INP is not important. It's super important from a user experience point of view. When your users get to the page, they should have a really seamless, fast integrated experience that doesn't hold them back from doing what they want to do. But the point about rank, I would have to agree with Barry about. The point is, if you've got these emails, nothing about your site actually changed. All that changes is Google's now sending the emails out. You don't know the significance of the INP issue. It could be a very small little thing that you need to change, right? But Google doesn't tell you that in the email, so take it slow. From a ranking point of view, none of this matters until March 2024, and even then, it's a very, very, very, very small issue most likely. The last thing you should really just understand is that this is something that the web itself is really aligning to, which is why I think people were upset. Hey, we're working towards aligning to your new guidelines. Why are we now getting emails that we're not there yet? Of course, we're not there yet, but again, many, many websites are there and should be fine. Again, for example, on the Wix site, 83% of mobile sites in the US already passed INP and we're not even anywhere close to March. Okay. Moving on, some AI news for you, again from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Just call him the monopoly man. He's got a monopoly on the SEO news. Barry writes, "Google expands Bard to more countries, more languages, and adds new features." So Bard is now available in more geolocations and there's a whole bunch of new features. For example, you can now listen to the prompt, which is great for accessibility. You can adjust the tone of the response, so how formal you want the response to be, how long you want the response to be and so forth. This comes, by the way, as Search Engine Journal's Matt Southern reports, "Is ChatGPT getting Dumber?" Usage drops as users complain. So, basically people are saying, "Hey, I've been using ChatGPT for a long time, and it seems to be the responses are not as good as they used to be." OpenAI said, which I very much align with, that nothing's really changed. It's probably noticing more and more issues as you use it more and more often. I totally agree with that. I don't think anything actually changed the... Why would the AI get dumber? It's only getting more refined and more refined and more refined. This goes back to what we've been saying on this podcast for a very, very, very long time. The technology is super cool and it is super amazing and it is super innovative and it is beyond words. But when you get past that and you're talking about actual usage in real life situations, there are gaps in this technology. So, now as a web, we've gotten past the initial wow factor and we're actually starting to use this thing in real life cases. We're like, "Wait a second, maybe this isn't as good as we thought it was, because you're looking at it from two different perspectives, the wow factor versus actual integration to your consumer base." So I don't think the AI has gotten any dumber. What I think, as OpenAI points out, is that you're starting to notice more and more flaws and thinking maybe this isn't as good and maybe we can't use it across the board the way we thought we could, which I hate to say this, but if you listen to the podcast regularly, we told you so. By the way, some of the data sources are showing a 10% drop-off in ChatGPT usage. Pulling Barry Schwartz back in on Twitter, he was talking about the hype is starting to wane. I think he ran a poll from Gary Sterling over at Search Engine Roundtable, showing that SEOs are using it significantly less often. The point is in marketing, there's all these things that come around in cycles, super hype things. I don't think AI is hype per se, as I've mentioned on the podcast many, many times. I think it's a great tool. It's not going anywhere, but that initial, "Oh, my goodness. This is amazing. It's a panacea for all things," I think that was hype. I think the web is starting to come out of that, and I think hopefully that will result in more mature adoption of the AI technology. With that, that is this week's not so snappy news. Always so snappy with that snappy news. Hey, Crystal, I always feel like coming back like a news show. Have a great weekend, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah, I had a great, great weekend. I'm planning to go- Mordy Oberstein: All right. Okay, here where the weather is... I always wanted to be a news anchor. Not never. Anyway, I always found that news anchor thing so plastic, not my thing. Crystal Carter: Fair enough. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, Sue, of course, Bob. Anyway, Crystal Carter: I feel like you'd be more of a radio show guy for that. Mordy Oberstein: Definitely more of the afternoon drive home radio station for hard rock radio station thing. Speaking of music, by the way, it's time for our follow of the weekend. He's a very musical person. If we're talking about SGE, we're talking about the future of search as we talked about niche sites, who else could our follow of the week be than our previous guest, Mike King over @iPullRank on Twitter. That's I, the letter I, not the number I, the letter I. Just like what? The letter I-P-U-L-L-R-A-N-K, iPullRank. Crystal Carter: iPullRank, yeah. Mike is great. Mike is a fount of SEO knowledge. He's been SEO and thinking about AI for ages. We had him on a webinar talking about ChatGPT and AI content writers. He's got so much knowledge about the relationship between machine learning and entities and search and how that all works. So, he's a fantastic follow. He's also really, really engaged with the community and very much a pillar of the community. So, absolutely follow him. He's a fantastic follow. Mordy Oberstein: Must follow, I feel like. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely must follow. He is great at translating that information that's really complex in a really eye level way, which is fabulous. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and do check out the webinar. He dropped some fantastic, fantastic information there. Mordy Oberstein: The webinar with him and Ross Hudgins about AI content writers and SEO and the future of the web, we'll link to in the show notes. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Everybody who joined it said it was fantastic. So, please, please do join along. Enjoy it, find it on YouTube, all of that stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Well, we've come to the end of this road. I'll see you niche week. I've been holding that for like 20 minutes. Crystal Carter: Niche road will we take? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, niche. It doesn't work. Doesn't work. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with new episodes. We dive into repurposing your audio and video content for search. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Back Looker Studio SEO report template Communicate SEO results and get stakeholder buy-in for future strategies with this customizable report. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this resource to: Customize your performance easily Integrate with leading reporting tools Format your data clearly Sophie Brannon Director of SEO, RushOrderTees LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Sophie Brannon is the Director of SEO at RushOrderTees . With agency, in-house, and freelance experience, she has led strategy, implementation, and communication for everything from local campaigns to multi-language international campaigns in the UK, US, and Australia. She’s an industry speaker and author, award-winner, and led the Web Almanac 2022 SEO chapter. More about this topic Read this post on how to create effective SEO reports on the Wix SEO Hub blog for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Crystal Ortiz is an SEO consultant with experience across fashion, health, travel, automotive, and fitness. She teaches digital marketing classes at various universities across the US. Crystal lives in Indiana with her husband, son, and dog. Crystal Ortiz SEO Consultant Crystal Ortiz is an SEO consultant with experience across fashion, health, travel, automotive, and fitness. She teaches digital marketing classes at various universities across the US. Crystal lives in Indiana with her husband, son, and dog. Articles & Resources 15 Nov 2022 What is search volume? Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

How do you get and keep your SEO team up to speed? Where do you even start when training an SEO team? What tactics should you follow when building a strong SEO training program? Take your team to the next level as Sterling Sky’s Colan Nielsen joins Wix’s Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein to share proven strategies for training SEO teams. Formalize your training programs as Wix’s own Henry Collie joins us to discuss his expertise in implementing successful courses to further strengthen your SEO team and beyond. “Go team!”, as this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast helps you take your SEO team to new heights Back How to train your SEO team How do you get and keep your SEO team up to speed? Where do you even start when training an SEO team? What tactics should you follow when building a strong SEO training program? Take your team to the next level as Sterling Sky’s Colan Nielsen joins Wix’s Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein to share proven strategies for training SEO teams. Formalize your training programs as Wix’s own Henry Collie joins us to discuss his expertise in implementing successful courses to further strengthen your SEO team and beyond. “Go team!”, as this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast helps you take your SEO team to new heights Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 59 | October 25, 2023 | 49 MIN 00:00 / 49:23 This week’s guests Colan Nielsen Colan began his career in the local SEO world back in 2010. He became a Google Product Expert at the Google My Business forum in 2014. This allowed him the opportunity to help 1000s of business owners navigate the often confusing world of Google My Business. In 2017 he joined the Sterling Sky team as VP of Local Search, and has served as a faculty member at LocalU and an administrator at the Local Search Forum, both affiliate organizations of Sterling Sky, since coming on board. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We've put out some groovy new insights around what's happening, SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by the amazing, the fabulous, the incredible, the spectacular, the magnificent, the marvelous head of communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Thank you for that fantastic introduction, Mordy. That was magnificent, and marvelous and... Mordy Oberstein: Not as easy as it sounds, is it? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's hard. You make it look really easy. But, I mean, you are a wordsmith. Are you not, Mr. Oberstein? Mordy Oberstein: I pretend to be one on TV. On the internet, I pretend to be one. Crystal Carter: My favorite thing is Mordy's pretty cas most of the time, but Mordy's got some $5 words in the bank there. I'm just saying. And every now and then, we'll be in a meeting, and he's just like, "Don't forget. Don't forget. I'm educated over here." And I don’t mean. I don’t mean. I hope that you can… Mordy Oberstein: But what you can't see on my other screen is the digital thesaurus. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Okay. I see. I see. Back in the day I thought a thesaurus was a type of dinosaur. Mordy Oberstein: That's great. Crystal Carter: I was like, oh, yeah, there's the Brontosaurus, the Ichthyosaurus, the thesaurus, obviously. Mordy Oberstein: Obviously. Crystal Carter: I was like, why- Mordy Oberstein: It's the thesaurus. It's the biggest one of all, the thesaurus. Crystal Carter: I was like, why they got this book about dinosaurs next to the dictionaries? They keep putting them in the wrong place. What was that about? And so, anyway. Mordy Oberstein: Remind me later. I have a great story about something similar to my brother, but it's not for this podcast. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Right. Got it. Crystal Carter: That's SERP's Up plus plus. Mordy Oberstein: That's plus plus, right. That's the after hours SERP's Plus Up, whatever. This SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, searchlight over wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, which you can get it delivered each and every month into your inbox, which is also part of our wider SEO learning hub, which is a great place to stay up to date on SEO, maybe join a webinar, maybe even access a resource to help, I don't know, train your SEO team. Who knows? The possibilities are endless over at wix.com/seo/learn, as today we're talking about training your SEO team. Get it? That's why I did that plug. Crystal Carter: I see. I see. That makes sense. Mordy Oberstein: Pat on the back for the pivot. We're talking how you train your SEO team. That's right. Today, whether you're an agency or an in-house team, or just want some tips for yourself, or maybe if you want to see perhaps how your boss is looking at things, we're here to help your team. Where to start when training an SEO team? How much is on you to train your team and how much is on them to train themselves? How do you train different types of people doing different types of SEO all with different levels of experience and then actually get your own work done? To help us bring our SEO pedagogy up to standard, Sterling Sky's VP of Search and Local University faculty member, Professor Colan Nielsen will be joining us in just a few minutes. Plus, we sit down with the true educator, Henry Collie, Wix's own curriculum developer, to talk about what goes into creating a strong learning program. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social media. So open up your lesson planners and put on your spectacles with a little rope thingies attached to them as episode number 59 of the SERP's Up podcast helps you find your teacher's voice. I want the audience to know that Crystal has those spectacles with the stringy thing. Crystal Carter: I do. Mordy Oberstein: And every time she wears her hair up. I'm like, "Oh, my God, you're giving me teacher vibes and I'm having a lot of anxiety." Crystal Carter: This makes you wonder, were you called into the office a lot back in the day? Like, oh, Mordy won't confirm nor deny. Mordy Oberstein: Who knows? Crystal Carter: I think your silence speaks so loud. Mordy Oberstein: I was difficult in high school, for the time I spent in high school. It's a totally different story for a totally different time. Crystal Carter: For SERP's Up plus plus. Mordy Oberstein: Plus plus. Right, the after hours podcast over away. I think just to give a quick, quick, quick background on this before we bring Colan in. You have an SEO team. Let's say, you're at an agency, you have all types of SEO folks. You have seniors and juniors and all types of different people, and whether they are SEO experts or they're new to the SEO game, there's always some kind of training that has to go on. Whether it be SEO training or even beyond SEO training. How do we speak nicely to our clients so they don't leave and they keep paying us every month? You might be a great SEO, but you might not be great with clients. There's a lot of education that continuously has to happen no matter where you are in any profession, but I think particularly when working inside of an SEO team, whether in-house, at an agency, which is why we have, as I mentioned right here, live with us, the VP of Search over at Sterling Sky. Welcome to the SERP's Up podcast, Colan. How are you? Colan Nielsen: Wow, Mordy. Thank you very much. That was a wonderful intro and a tough act to follow. Crystal's right, you are indeed a wordsmith. So I'm going to do my best to follow that incredible intro. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: It's our honor and esteemed pleasure. Okay, quick plug. Sterling Sky, Local U, what do we got? Colan Nielsen: Blue Mountains, Ontario, which is this beautiful city just north of Toronto. It's October 13th, which means we're into that time of year where trees are changing. It's beautiful, and this is probably one of the best places in all of Ontario to be at that time of year if you like the changing of the seasons and seeing these beautiful trees change color. So we're right nestled in this mountainous valley. This is our first Canadian Local University events, I believe, in the history of Local U, so it's very special to us. A lot of our team members, including Joy, the founder of the company, is from Canada. I'm from Canada. We're bringing all of our US team to Canada to be here with us for it as well. So we're super excited. Amazing speakers, amazing location. I can't say enough about how excited I am. Crystal Carter: It looks amazing. I'm looking at it and again, idyllic is the setting I would give. Just absolutely idyllic. Just frolicking in the beautiful leaves and- Mordy Oberstein: You're dropping the words now, by the way. Crystal Carter: But also, the lineup you have here. You're by himself. Darren Shaw, amazing. Claire Carlisle, absolute legend. We've got Matthew Hunt. I don't know him just at the moment, but I will find out and I'm sure he's fantastic. Jan Tomaso, also amazing. Darren, again. Joy, who is such a fountain of knowledge, and Marie Haynes also repping for... Mordy Oberstein: Also. Crystal Carter: ... Canada there. So yeah, what a lineup. What a great day. Colan Nielsen: Yeah, we're excited. And what's really cool about Local U night before networking events, that's, in my opinion, is almost at the same level in terms of the value you're going to get out as the day itself, where you're listening to speakers and presentations. That night before you get to interact, talk business, make connections. So it's all worth it. Crystal Carter: I think that's a great pivot into our topic because I think that sometimes folks think, oh, I'm not sure if we have money to send the junior team members or learning team members to something like Local U or another marketing conference, for instance. But being in the presence of people who are top of their game, who are really passionate about their topic, who are exploring new and interesting ideas can be really, really inspiring and can be really good and to help sort of kickstart someone's learning journey. And I don't know if that's part of your training sort of thing when you guys are getting new folks through the team, but I'd love to hear more about it. Colan Nielsen: It absolutely is. We do our best to try and ensure that certainly as many people from our team can attend these events as possible. Certainly, newer people to the team. We'll get to this in a little bit, but there's certainly an approach we have with hiring people is typically around hiring people that come with experience and knowledge baked in. But we also hire people that are newer to SEO that this is perfect for. Another thing you made me think of there that was really cool, if we're thinking about these different avenues for new people that are new to SEO, getting into training and where do I go? So there's events like Local University, but then something that's kind of connected to Local University is the Local Search Forum. The reason I bring that up is, well, A, it's a totally free resource. Anybody can go sign up. You can ask client questions. You can ask general SEO questions or hiring questions, training questions. And I've been finding for the last couple of Local U events, there are members of the Local Search Forum that are now attending the Local University events to sort of just level things up and then you get to meet those people in person. So it's like this really nice circle that gets completed between the forum and the events. So definitely check out the forum as well. It's a wonderful training resource for sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah, forums are particularly good for helping training. I think also because... And maybe we'll get to this, but sometimes in a team... And I think that that's the important operative word there. A team, is that sometimes in a team you need someone to do something. Maybe it's not the first thing that they want to do necessarily, but you're like, we have this new project that we're doing and we need you to learn how to prompt the AI efficiently or how to use this new tool or how to train everyone on this thing, or whatever it may be. And sometimes you might be the only person in the team that knows that skill or knows that tool, or something like that. And sometimes the forum folks will be the folks that you know that you can talk to about it. There's like the Google Business Profile forums and things like that. How much do you find that as a team, do you need to point people to resources like that forum? Colan Nielsen: So we actually have... Let's say we allocate budgets each month, time, resources, whatever you want to think about it to people on our team to make sure that on any given month they have time to go to the Local Search Forum to either participate, to create threads, or simply just to go through and answer threads that other people are asking. I think that's one of the best things you can do, especially as a beginning SEO. But even as time goes on is go to forums, find problems that people have and just volunteer your time and troubleshoot them and answer them. And it's really just sharpening that knife. It's a free, wonderful way to sharpen your knife. And then there's all those other benefits like the networking and meeting new people and all that stuff. Mordy Oberstein: So I want to piggyback on that just a little bit because about time and make sure everybody is able to do all these things, but you as someone who is training other SEOs, it could be a lot. You have your full-time job, and then you have all the training that you need to do. How do you sort of balance both? And I'll sort of piggyback another question on top of that. And you kind of mentioned at the beginning. How much is it on you to teach and how much is it on them to go figure it out and learn? Colan Nielsen: Yeah, it's a great question. So we definitely take a lot of time, care, efforts as an agency to ensure that we're continually training, and as time goes by, this becomes even more time. When we started in 2016, there was about three people on the Sterling Sky team. There was a part-time team member, Joy, and myself. I think we had one other person at the time. We're now approaching 40 full-time team members. So training is something we've really, really integrated. And so just to give you some examples. We kind of break things up in a given month. We'll have general training meetings and we'll break these into some very strategic categories. So for instance, every month, we have a strategy team meeting, and the people that are going to join that meeting are people that are responsible for client strategy. So that meeting is really about performance at the end of the day. It's about training on how to get better results for our clients as far as whatever performance metrics. But then we also have account manager training meetings, which are equally important, but instead of those being focused around client performance, they're around client relationship. Making sure we're doing the things that we say we're going to do, that we're communicating effectively, efficiently, all that kind of stuff. We then also have specific, let's call them, team meetings. So we have link building specific training meetings, which just the link builders are going to be a part of that. The other meeting that I would say for us being a Local Search agency, that's a really, really important meeting to have is we actually have a very specific set Google Business Profile strategy meeting. And the people on our team that join this meeting are, well, anybody that's doing Google Business Profile strategy, which I would say is a little bit higher level than somebody who's just say, optimizing a profile. This is like a level up from there where you're now building strategies, you know how to fix duplicate listing issues, stuff like that. We have a specific strategy meeting for that, where we'll discuss new issues that have come up with Google. You may have saw recently, Ben Fisher tweeted there's this big change coming to the... Mordy Oberstein: I saw that. Colan Nielsen: ... reinstatement process, which is huge. So we'll talk about stuff like that. The other thing that's interesting, and I think this is really important I would say for any agency or anybody learning is if you are an account manager working in Local Search, you also should be striving towards being a Google Business Profile strategist or experts, because that is the one thing that we've found that if you're on a call with a client that is paying you to do Local Search and you're not able to answer some of those important questions they have, where it's more like, let me get back to you about that and check with the team. If you can avoid those and build that knowledge of the account manager up, especially on the GVP stuff, that seems to go a long way as far as training goes. Crystal Carter: I think it's really interesting the way that you're breaking it down into so many different layers of learning. And I think that that will also really appeal to the different ways that people learn. So the different learning styles and qualitative, quantitative, that sort of stuff. Mordy has a degree in education, so he can probably break them down into more of them than me, but there's lots of different learning styles there, which I think is really interesting. I think the other thing that I find fascinating about this approach to team learning is that it helps to reduce skills gaps and it also helps to improve the dissemination of information with regards to a particular topic. So for instance, like Google Business Profile, there's lots of different changes. There's lots of different iterations that you'll see if you're working in a restaurant space, you'll see one type of Google Business Profile. If it's a hotel, it's another one. If it's a shop, it's another one, and things like that. I don't know how you organize your clients', but it might be that you have your clients organized by everybody who's in a restaurant is with one person and everybody who's in a hotel is with another person. Or it might just be that whoever's free, whoever has the time gets the next client. Different agencies work different ways. So if you have a meeting where you're discussing the broad trends that you're seeing across a particular platform or a particular approach, then that helps to reduce some of the gaps so that even if your account manager hasn't necessarily dealt with that particular issue personally, if they heard about it in the meeting, then they can say, oh, well our team has seen this or that, oh, I can get you the report that we saw from, we did that with this other client, that sort of thing. And I think that that also helped reduce some of the tacit knowledge that you sometimes lose in agencies when it's in everyone's head. Can you talk to us about how you disseminate the information that you get from some of those team collaborative training spaces? Colan Nielsen: Yeah. Well, typically if it's something that's, say, mission-critical, like this suspension change, where the reinstatement process changed or Google's making some other crazy change, which they constantly do as we all know. Those types of things will certainly filter themselves up to our monthly team meeting. So today is actually, in about four from now we have our monthly team meeting and this is our all hands on deck meeting. So all 40 people will be attending this, and we break that team meeting up into a similar style as to how I just mentioned we kind of break up those individual training sessions. But anything that comes out of those meetings that is important for everybody to know then makes its way into that monthly team meeting and we discuss it. Some of the other things that seem to be helping with that over time. And then also touch on something you mentioned, Crystal, about just meeting people's styles of how they would like to train. It's an evolving process, and something we've started to do a lot more recently is incorporate more shadowing, for instance. Because I think at the end of the day, if you're training an account manager or a sales role, let's say, there's only so much you can do by standing there and telling somebody, these are our golden rules, these are the things that you have to follow and you got to follow up within two hours and this, that and the other thing. Right, that's fine. People need to know that and they need to be listed somewhere so you can reference them and know rules. But I think what's more important and what we're experimenting with a lot more lately is getting into other styles like shadowing. So for instance, we've just started on the sales side of things. We actually don't have a sales team at Sterling Sky. I talk to clients. I don't have a sales background, but people on the team who love SEO and love talking to people are really good at selling. So that's kind of how we do it. And now we're having more people shadow. So I'll jump on a call with a prospect, I'll have somebody else from my team join, they'll take notes, they'll ask me questions. Maybe next month I'll have them join a sales call, I'll join with them, take notes, give them feedback. And that seems to be a really effective way to do training as well. Mordy Oberstein: So it's really because one of the way it sounds like, through a certain extent, is that you're doing a lot of the training as part of the actual workflow. Something new came up in the SEO industry, you got to know about this, let's have a meeting about discuss, now you're educated. But it also seems like you're trying to address gaps with the shadow. There's always two parts of the educational process. Okay, I'm going to teach you A, B, C, and D, and I when I was a teacher back in the teaching fourth graders, just like teaching SEOs, you have, I'm going to teach you X, Y, and Z today, but when I'm done teaching you or even while I'm teaching you, I also have to address the fact that you might have gaps at the same time. So it sounds like, on the one hand you are driving the conversation forward, we're updating a SEO knowledge on a constant basis and we're also trying to address the sort of gaps by having a shadow work with you so that you can ask your specific questions and get what your actual educational needs are satisfied. Colan Nielsen: 100%. It's amazing what types of things gets, let's say, revealed, for lack of a better word, during a shadowing process. Often things will come up that you didn't even think about. Or maybe the trainee, the person who's receiving the training, they didn't even think to ask or think that it was maybe a gap. Then you do the shadowing, hey, here's this little thing here. I think we have an opportunity to take this to a level 10. Maybe we're at a level six or something right now. And then where that leads to sometimes, another thing that we're, I'd say, relatively new starting to do is we will then have people on our team who are now wanting to do training of things that they've learned new training, which I think is probably the ultimate form of learning something, is taking something that you've recently learned and then teaching other people on the team that thing. I don't think it gets better than that. And for instance, my teammates, Becky on her team here is doing some training this month. It's very specific, but really cool training about something she's become really good at and it's about featured snippets. So she's become this pro in our team of, I refer to it as seizing, featured snippets. And she's gotten so good at, that she's now training the rest of the team on best practices for capturing featured snippets for our clients. Mordy Oberstein: That's awesome. Crystal Carter: That's fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: Let me ask you sort of a different kind of question I've been wanting to ask, because I do a lot of training not in SEO. It was totally different industry, and one of the debates we used to always have is, which is better? To hire somebody who knows nothing about whatever it's that we're doing, it's actually property management, whatever, or you can train them the way you want them to be trained? They know nothing about the industry, they're getting all the information from you. They're going to see just by default a lot of the things that they're going to be dealing with the way that you want them to be seeing it. Or do you want to bring in somebody who already has a lot of experience, more experience, who you don't have to train as much, but they may not see things the way that you see things as it pertains to, in this case, SEO? Colan Nielsen: Yeah, that's a great question. So I'd say, for us 90% of the time, certainly over the last six years or so, we are hiring experienced, really smart people that come with presets SEO knowledge. It's pre-programmed into them. They've been doing the SEO for, anywhere from five to 10 plus years. And I don't think that's necessarily the best way to do things, but I think what it really comes down to is what type of SEO service is it that you are providing? What is the perceived value of your service that you want to kind of implant into your potential customer's mind? So when I think of value, there's different things that are drivers of value. One of those is perceived likelihood of outcome, those types of things. And I think if you're building a team of say, all stars or a green team or whatever it may be and can deliver a much higher quality of SEO, it just means that you are able to charge more for your SEO because you're delivering better value at the end of the day. Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with building a team of people who are less experienced them up. There's a place for that. I just think it might be working towards serving a slightly different product, let's say, or service for that client. So 90% of people who hire definitely come with experience and knowledge. And then what we do here is that for those people that we hire, a lot of the training will then be on Sterling Sky specific SEO tactics that we test, that we have then turned into our processes and tactics. So they've got the base SEO knowledge. That's all taken care of. Now it's like, welcome to Sterling Sky, here's some other really cool things that we have figured out over the years that we now do for our clients, and then we're training them on those specific things. Mordy Oberstein: So you have the dream team over Sterling Sky. I just want to know which one of y'all is Charles Barkley? Colan Nielsen: You know what, Dave could be Charles. It's a- Crystal Carter: I thought it was Noah. Yeah. Colan Nielsen: Could be. Dave's a big basketball fan. I actually have a big poster on my office wall here that Dave sent me, and it's all the caricatures of the big players from the '90s. So he's a big basketball fan. Crystal Carter: Sorry, to go back to what you're saying, I thought it really interesting about all of the different iterations of just being very bespoke with your training and being very attuned to the person that you're with. I think that's really important. So tuning it to somebody who's maybe into basketball. Certainly in my time, whether I'm training clients, because that's often very, very much the case, where you're training clients as well on maybe something that you're handing over to them or something, or juniors, where you sort of try to talk to them a little bit so you can figure out which kind of metaphors you can use with them to try to help make sure that it fit. But I think also how do you identify when somebody needs to do some more and are you able to identify sometimes before they do? Does that ever happen? Colan Nielsen: Yeah, definitely. And I would say that is extremely important to be able to do is figure out, to see that metaphorical train heading for the crash long before it happens. So this, again, is an evolving process, but we're continually trying to introduce new checks and balances along the way all while trying to balance that with not being too overbearing or micromanaging or whatever it may be. So we have started to do things like pre-mortems, regular meetings. So, say, as part of our that monthly strategy meeting that we have, we've recently started talking about very specific clients and then that gives opportunities for people to bring up issues that they're having, which could be a training issue, could be performance, could be progress related to that client. That would be one thing. For account managers, for example, they're more focused on client trust and happiness. So we have triggers in place where every single month we're doing a qualitative feedback to answer the question: Is the client happy and do they trust us? And depending on those answers, we track that over time. If we start to see something going down or dipping or whatever the problem is, it will trigger process here that we refer to as a red flag process, which then goes into a system of if it's a performance issue, okay, it's a strategy red flag. If it's a relationship issue or an account manager issue, it goes into more of a progress red flag. The other way we start to figure out these problems before they become real problems is through assessing via these shadowing type calls that we do and just giving that feedback as quickly as possible, and doing it regularly. And so far that seems to be working well, but it's definitely something that it's almost weekly is evolving. There's a new step, there's a new iteration of it. Mordy Oberstein: So if folks are having their own issues and looking for their own iteration of SEO education, they want to contact you, how can they find you, Professor? Colan Nielsen: My email's open. So colan@sterlingsky.ca , and for those who don't know, my first name's got a bit of a weird spelling. It's Colan, still pronounced like the traditional Colan. Long story there. But I think my parents had SEO in mind when they named me. Because it is wonderful for the old name search on Google. I think I covered the first two pages, so thanks mom and dad. That's good. So colan@sterlingsky.ca . I'm not very active on Twitter, that's probably where I share most things. You can find me at the Local Search Forum where I'm an administrator, very active there. If you come to the Local Search Forum and ask about specific problem with your client or whatever it may be, you very likely will see myself or certainly, one of the other Local U faculty members or one of our amazing guests. Mordy Oberstein: Awesome, and we'll make sure to link to all that in the show notes and definitely check out Local U. There's amazing knowledge from all sorts of amazing SEOs. It's at localu.org. All right, Colan, thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you out there in the SEO ether. Colan Nielsen: Thank you so much. This was really fun. We'll talk to you soon. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. So you may not know this, but we at Wix have a slew of courses and tutorials to help you do anything from master the Wix and Wix studio platform to learning how to use Meta to grow your brand and know how to create a site aligned to accessibility standards. And one of the great folks who does help design these curriculums and courses is the one, the only Henry Collie. And he's someone who Crystal and I have worked with directly. Spoiler alert, we're in the earliest stages of our SEO certification course that we're working with Henry on. So we thought it would make sense to talk about training teams that we should talk to Henry. So let's go across the Wix first and welcome Henry. Automated voice: 3, 2, 1. Ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: Hey Henry, welcome to the SERP's Up podcast. Henry Collie: Hey, Mordy. How's it going? Mordy Oberstein: We're good. So first off all, what's it like to work with Crystal and I on courses? Must be wonderful for you. Henry Collie: It's dreadful. It's awful. Yeah, a trial by fire. No, actually it's been really great. I mean, you and I've worked together now on and off for about a year, I think. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And a few courses, but this will be the first one that actually comes into fruition. Henry Collie: Yeah, the first one that actually gets over the finish line. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Henry Collie: I think that's the thing that people forget when they go into curriculum is that most of the stuff you make probably won't make it to the end for various reasons. It could be to do with production reasons or differences of opinion. Crystal Carter: And you've worked in curriculum for lots of spaces. I think what I find really interesting is that as the idea of education, of creating courses, of creating curriculums has really expanded. I think that maybe 10, 15 years ago it was mostly schools that were doing courses and things. And now, really if you've got a brand, if you've got a complex product, you probably need an education arm. And there's people who are really good at hula-hooping who are putting together courses and things like that. How have you seen that change and grow? Henry Collie: Yeah, so first of all, when I started, I actually started off as a copywriter. So I was simultaneously acting and copywriting, but I was mainly copywriting for educational materials. So one of my first jobs was with Freeformers, making a product for Facebook to teach soft skills. And then I kind of fell into it that way with a mentor. And I think there's a danger to what is happening right now with education online and in the tech space. It's amazing the opportunities are there, and there's a huge marketing value to having educational content. But what often happens and what's happening more and more is we're getting this superficial education like thing because we must have education, so we must make an education thing that looks like education, but we never... Well, I do, to my detriment. But it's really important to make sure that it's actually providing the outcomes that people are expecting. And often it doesn't, because we're making these pieces of education for an agenda that doesn't align with education. So it's really important to keep that in mind, I think. Mordy Oberstein: I find that these kind of courses, ya know, people think it's like writing. They go - I speak English. I write English. I can write. I can write whatever, just because you know how to write doesn't mean you can professionally write. Just because you want to have an educational course and you are going to do this and you feel you need to do this doesn't mean that you actually know how to do this. Because teaching, as someone who has a master's degree in education, is its own art form and it's its own thing and there's own consider... And there's things that you just don't think about when you are naturally speaking or naturally transmitting information that you do think about when you're more formally transmitting information. Henry Collie: Yeah, absolutely. Crystal Carter: And I think it's something that's interesting because a lot of people, there's a thing that people say, which is if you can't do teach. And people say that as an insult or something, which it is not, because I think the thing is that if you are somebody who's like, I don't know, David Beckham or something, and you rolled out of bed and you were like, I know how to do football off the top of your head, you never had to learn football. If you're somebody who you were like, I really love football, but I can't quite get that thing to do the thing that I want it to, then you learn how to learn that and therefore you can convey that. If it's just instinctual, you don't even know how to articulate it because it just came naturally to you. But if it's something that you have to learn how to do, then that's something that works really, really well. Henry Collie: Well, right. And there's also a very well-documented expert bias and experience bias where even if you have had to learn it and you have had to go through that process of learning, you are so far into your journey that you've forgotten what those particular things where that you learn from. And even if you have remembered all of those, let's say you took a log of every single educational step that you've passed through every single point of understanding, that log is special and specific to you. It's not necessarily something that's broadly applicable. So you can't simply just be an expert and then go teach. And what you often get when you have an expert who's way up here. I'm making gesticulations. Crystal Carter: Hand gestures. Henry Collie: Just so you know what can't see. Mordy Oberstein: His hand is way up high right now. Henry Collie: So just so everybody knows, my left hand is currently up around my eye level and my right hand is down around my neck. So if you're up here, then you can't see what those people down there need to understand. And you often fall into that trap of trying to tell everybody everything that you know is important. But sometimes you also need to leave things out. You need to lie to people a little bit so that later on you can reestablish the truth, because otherwise they have no framework of understanding to build on. Crystal Carter: It's like with kids, you tell them C is for cat, and the C word, that C makes a cah sound. T is for tall and it makes a tah sound, except for when it's in notion, then it makes a shah sound, except for when it's in that and it makes the th sound, and there's all these sorts of things. But you just need to get them to understand that the letters work in the first place and to get them forward before you tell them all of the I before Es, which I can never remember. Mordy Oberstein: You see that all the time. In sports, you have professional athletes who now go into broadcasting and they're terrible, because they know all about the game, they don't know how to talk or they don't know how to transmit the information into a way that I can understand it, because not a professional athlete. But if we can zoom out to a different question. So great, we're going to do this course and now we need to figure out how to do it. But what makes you decide legitimately whether or not you should or shouldn't be doing when to begin with? Henry Collie: Right. So it's a really important question. It depends on the situation and it depends on who you're dealing with. But the first step is to understand what value you're going to add. And I think that's, again, going back to the superficial superficiality of a lot of edutainment... Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Henry Collie: Ooh. Mordy Oberstein: That's a shot. Shots fired. Henry Collie: Is that, we ask what are we going to cover? Will people watch it? Will people engage with it? Which really aren't the most important metrics. The most important metrics is... The most important metrics are, rather, will they gain value from this? What value will they gain from it? And then if you can actually measure what that value will be. And there's ways of doing that. For example, with SEO, we're creating this SEO course at the moment. We know that our partners, our freelancers, our agencies will gain measurable value from being able to offer these services and to be able to offer them to a high level. Now of course, that value is completely stripped if we make an edutainment course with a funny little badge that they can put on their LinkedIn that nobody caress about, so it actually has to deliver those educational outcomes or it's completely pointless and it's just wasting their time. So first of all, that's how you figure out whether it's worth doing. You have to measure what that value will be. And then secondly, you need to break down what those services, what outcomes are into their smallest constituent parts and then see where those people are right now and get them to where they need to be to either emulate or even surpass people who are currently operating in that way. I think that's probably the long and short of it. Crystal Carter: And how dynamic would you say that process is? I certainly know that when I've done an article or done a video or something, or even when we do our webinars even, people are like, yeah, but what about this? What about that? How dynamic is that process? How often do we need to revise, do we need to amend, do we need to adjust a course? Henry Collie: Constantly. There is no point at which it's completed. There is no point where like, oh, now we're making curriculum and it's now finished and it's done. You constantly have to reevaluate. And actually that's something I harp on about this all the time, so stop me if it's rambling, but I actually hate the word educate and education. The reason being I think it's an aggressive act, is to educate and it also focuses on the teacher and what the teacher is imparting and what the teacher is enforcing into a student. Whereas, learning I much prefer rather than educator is to focus on learning, because that focuses more on what the learner is getting out of the process. And in order to do that, now you are enforced, just by that linguistic change and that reframing, you now have to not evaluate the student necessarily, which you do, but you actually have to evaluate how well your work is reaching your promises. Because you are promising somebody something. Education is a product. It's not just random thing where we cover topics, and to kind of circle back to what my main point is, is you can cover things and say, that's all covered. We have talked about this. We have talked about that. We have covered this. Why don't you understand you silly student? Well, because you didn't... Actually, you covered it and you checked off the box, but you didn't audit whether what you covered imparted any value to me as a learner. Oh, sorry. I feel myself getting angry. Crystal Carter: No, it's true. I've definitely had a situation where I've done a certification, I won't name which one it is, but I can think of exactly which one it is in my mind. And I've done a certification and you go through all the things and you tick the boxes, because they've told you that you have to do the certification again. And so I would call that, I guess, education, because I studied the things or whatever. But I didn't actually learn it necessarily. You don't really learn it. Mordy Oberstein: You do become part of your scheme, how you think and how you operate as part of your outlook and part of your knowledge base, just because something I like it's somewhere in my brain, but I have to recall it, I guess. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think to learn something, you kind of have to do it. And I think you mentioned mentorship and mentorship is really, really important as part of that, and learning as you go, which I think is one of the reasons why we add that into the product. Henry Collie: We also need to define what learning actually means, because I think we often say learning education, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not one thing. Learning involves loads of cognitive steps, loads of cognitive processes. It's a constant pathway. We constantly have to evaluate to see where we are in that process. And there are innumerable learning theories, instructional design methodologies, but when you break it all down, they're essentially all saying the same thing and providing various ways of achieving the same objective, which is you the learner in one state, and at the end of this process you should be in or at least, close to another state of being. And it's not just about rote learning or saying, I've covered this or I've talked about this and now you can tell me what the capital of X country is. You can learn what the capital of X country is, but do you know why it's the capital? Do you know how it became the capital? Do you understand the social aspects of that country that created that situation in the first place? Now you don't just know that it's the capital. You now understand that it's the capital. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's so Piaget dude. Henry Collie: When I was young. Mordy Oberstein: So as time ebbs away from us, where can people learn about you? Henry Collie: Ooh, I'm pretty quiet, to be honest. I don't really do social media. Mordy Oberstein: Oh. Henry Collie: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's odd for us, personally. Crystal Carter: You run an educational course though, yeah? Henry Collie: Yes. Crystal Carter: Where is the course? Henry Collie: Oh, you mean separately from Wix? No, I don't. Crystal Carter: No. On Wix. Mordy Oberstein: On Wix. Henry Collie: Oh, on Wix. Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Because they can learn by osmosis. They can see the course, take the course in... Henry Collie: Right, right, right. Mordy Oberstein: ... and then learn who you are. Almost like reading a poem and understanding the poet. Henry Collie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Right. Well, if they want to find anything that I've done, they can check out Wix Learn, which they can find the e-commerce course on there. Also, the accessibility 101 course, which I highly recommend. It's extremely important. It's extremely important for design, not just for accessibility and for- Crystal Carter: Also important for SEO. Henry Collie: And extremely important for SEO. And then by probably the end of this year, we will have the new SEO course out where they won't directly see me as a human, but they will see- Mordy Oberstein: They will feel you at every step of the way. I guarantee it. Henry Collie: They'll feel my presence. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Henry Collie: My ominous presence. Mordy Oberstein: Your aura. Hum. You should leave like a Easter egg in there somewhere. Henry Collie: Oh, should we? Should we just put in little like my favorite books? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Or like the screenshot should be like... We're talking about the SERP, it could have a screenshot of like who is Henry? Henry Collie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crystal Carter: Just be a photo of you in the background in a frame or something. Mordy Oberstein: Right, look for Easter egg. Henry Collie: Do you know, I think there was a time... I think it's gone now, but I Googled my name and I had a little knowledge profile and a little buttons. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, oh, I don't have social. You have a knowledge graph. Look at you. A knowledge panel. Henry Collie: I think they've clocked it though and gotten rid of it. Mordy Oberstein: I got Google that. Crystal Carter: That's cool. Mordy Oberstein: There was a movie called Henrique . Someone does movies that's also named Henry Collie. But your picture shows up right there when you… Henry Collie: Oh yeah, no, that's me. I used to be an actor. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, so there you are. Okay, so where can they find you? They can find you in movies. Crystal Carter: IMDB. That's funny. Mordy Oberstein: All right, well, look for Henry in our SEO certification course that's coming up or in the movies. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much for joining us today. Mordy Oberstein: Thanks Henry. Henry Collie: Cheers guys. Automated voice: 3, 2, 1. Ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: So thank you so much again, Henry, it was fascinating to talk to you and looking forward to keep working with you on our SEO course. Spoiler. Spoiler. Spoiler. Now since we are talking about learning, you know what we can do to help you learn more? Crystal Carter: What can we do, Mordy? Mordy Oberstein: We can quote Barry Schwartz a bunch of times as we get into this snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy news. Three articles, two updates for you, or two articles about two updates for you. First one from Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal. Google completes rollout of October 2023 spam update, which means you can now resume spamming. I'm just kidding, you should not resume spamming. You should never be spamming to begin with. So if you're utilizing, you have been utilizing spammy practices across the webs, you may have seen a significant loss of rankings. If you have not been engaged in spammy practices, and 99.9% of the listeners of this podcast have not been, this update should not have really impacted you. What might have impacted you is the October 2023 core update. And one day before Google announced the completion of the spam update, Google said, per Barry Schwartz, over at SEL, Search Engine Land, Google October 23 core update rollout, now complete. They're both complete. This one may have impacted you. This impacts sites across the web. Have a look at your rankings, see what happened. The update is now finished. There will be data on this, meaning as the recording of this podcast, of the news section, we have not seen the data come out from the tool providers. I know because I do send Russia's data. So have a look by the time this episode does come out over at Search Engine Land, look for Barry's article, Collecting Data from Across the Tool Providers to see the nature of this update and how, perhaps, how impactful it is sort of, kind of, maybe, that's a different story for a different time. But you'll get some data that points to some things about the core update. Lastly, from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. Got to make sure Barry gets all the links to all of the different blogs and websites that he has. This one's over at Search Engine Roundtable. Barry writes, Google search generative experience may link to paywalled content, but here's how to block SGE. So if you have content behind a paywall, say you have to sign, enter your name and email address to access the content, Google said they can link to that content in their Search Generative Experience, the SGE, as I like to refer the AI box, where Google, you enter a query, Google spits out a whole AI answer with a couple of links. Google also said, and they updated their robots meta tech documentation to show or to say that they will respect robots meta tag directives with the SGE. Meaning, if you say, "Hey Google, I'm going to implement a no snippet robots meta tag. I don't want you to quote me. I don't want you to show a snippet of my content on this webpage on your SERP. That includes all of the SERP, which also includes the SGE Box. Also, similarly, if say, for example, you say, "Google, you know what? You can show a snippet of my content from this page, on your webpage, on the SERP, rather, but I don't want you to show a ton." So here's the number of characters you're allowed to show is called a max snippet robots meta tag. You can also implement that and Google will respect that in the SGE for Wix users. It's very easy to implement any of these robot meta tags. Simply go to the SEO panel on any particular page and you will see a checkbox where you can tick off, which robots meta tags you want in the advanced SEO section of the SEO panel. And with that, Barry now has all the links, and that's our version of this week's snappy SEO news. Thanks to the learning Barry. Each and every week Barry brings us the SEO learning. Each and every day, in my opinion. I check it out all the time, every day. Crystal Carter: It's true. It's true. I contemplated sending him something today that I saw, but I'm sure that somebody else has seen it already. But you got to roll the dice. If you don't get involved, you can't win. Mordy Oberstein: The best thing to do, as I told you, Crystal, is let the article go live with somebody else, and then as soon as it goes live, say, Barry, is this new, and find your own example and then he will include you in it. Crystal Carter: Right. Oh, of course. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, that's my hack. I've never done that, but I should. Crystal Carter: I don't know anyone who would do that. Mordy Oberstein: No. Everyone has different standards for how they go about their lives. We're not here to judge anybody. Crystal Carter: Some people are doing their best, and we're just doing our best. Mordy Oberstein: And that's not new. That's just how life goes. Crystal Carter: It's something you got to learn. Mordy Oberstein: So many little SEO jokes in there. You know what's no joke? Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: Following the right people on social media so that you get the right SEO learning. So this week's follow of the week is a family favorite, as in the Wix family favorite. Mark Preston, who you can follow over at Mark Preston, 1969. That's at Mark Preston 1969 over on Twitter, formerly known as X, scratch reverse. I'm still confused, but follow Mark. Mark does tons of training, tons of advising, and he's our follow of the week for training people. Crystal Carter: And he's so committed to helping people learn more, particularly about Wix, but also generally about marketing, about personal branding, and is somebody who is very approachable in that regard. He shares a lot of information directly on Twitter. People ask him questions, and he's so generous with his time, and a super nice guy as well. Like Barry, but really lovely when you meet him. So I highly recommend following Mark and checking out his podcast and all the other cool stuff that he does. Mordy Oberstein: Yep. So definitely give Mark a follow. Definitely, definitely give Mark a follow over on Twitter, X, whatever. You got it. We'll link to his profile in the show notes and hope you learned a lot this week. And then you can go out there and train your SEO team. Crystal Carter: Choo, choo. Mordy Oberstein: I choo, choo, choose you Crystal Carter: It was a train because training because choo, choo. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, now I get it. Wow, that went right over my head. Crystal Carter: Well, I hope the train didn't go over your head. That would be very uncomfortable. Mordy Oberstein: Unless it was a toy train, in which case it would just bounce off my head. Crystal Carter: That reminds me of a friend who had a kid and then the other kid was like throwing their Thomas the tank engine at the baby, and it's like, no, don't, don't do that, don't do that. They had to take it away. Mordy Oberstein: I remember throwing my Star Trek Enterprise toy at my little baby brother, but it was a metal and getting in trouble for that. Crystal Carter: Were you shouting engage? Mordy Oberstein: Make it so. Crystal Carter: No, no, don't, don't. Don't do that. Mordy Oberstein: Well, thank you for joining us on this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss... Not to worry. We're back next week in the new episode as we dive into how to work well with non-SEO teams. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to a learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars and newsletter on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Colan Nielsen Henry Collie Mark Preston Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Searchlight SEO Newsletter Sterling Sky SEO Agency LocalU News: Google Completes Rollout of October 2023 Spam Update Google October 2023 Core Update rollout is now complete Google: Search Generative Experience May Link To Paywalled Content But Here Is How To Block SGE Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Colan Nielsen Henry Collie Mark Preston Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Searchlight SEO Newsletter Sterling Sky SEO Agency LocalU News: Google Completes Rollout of October 2023 Spam Update Google October 2023 Core Update rollout is now complete Google: Search Generative Experience May Link To Paywalled Content But Here Is How To Block SGE Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We've put out some groovy new insights around what's happening, SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by the amazing, the fabulous, the incredible, the spectacular, the magnificent, the marvelous head of communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Thank you for that fantastic introduction, Mordy. That was magnificent, and marvelous and... Mordy Oberstein: Not as easy as it sounds, is it? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's hard. You make it look really easy. But, I mean, you are a wordsmith. Are you not, Mr. Oberstein? Mordy Oberstein: I pretend to be one on TV. On the internet, I pretend to be one. Crystal Carter: My favorite thing is Mordy's pretty cas most of the time, but Mordy's got some $5 words in the bank there. I'm just saying. And every now and then, we'll be in a meeting, and he's just like, "Don't forget. Don't forget. I'm educated over here." And I don’t mean. I don’t mean. I hope that you can… Mordy Oberstein: But what you can't see on my other screen is the digital thesaurus. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Okay. I see. I see. Back in the day I thought a thesaurus was a type of dinosaur. Mordy Oberstein: That's great. Crystal Carter: I was like, oh, yeah, there's the Brontosaurus, the Ichthyosaurus, the thesaurus, obviously. Mordy Oberstein: Obviously. Crystal Carter: I was like, why- Mordy Oberstein: It's the thesaurus. It's the biggest one of all, the thesaurus. Crystal Carter: I was like, why they got this book about dinosaurs next to the dictionaries? They keep putting them in the wrong place. What was that about? And so, anyway. Mordy Oberstein: Remind me later. I have a great story about something similar to my brother, but it's not for this podcast. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Right. Got it. Crystal Carter: That's SERP's Up plus plus. Mordy Oberstein: That's plus plus, right. That's the after hours SERP's Plus Up, whatever. This SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, searchlight over wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, which you can get it delivered each and every month into your inbox, which is also part of our wider SEO learning hub, which is a great place to stay up to date on SEO, maybe join a webinar, maybe even access a resource to help, I don't know, train your SEO team. Who knows? The possibilities are endless over at wix.com/seo/learn, as today we're talking about training your SEO team. Get it? That's why I did that plug. Crystal Carter: I see. I see. That makes sense. Mordy Oberstein: Pat on the back for the pivot. We're talking how you train your SEO team. That's right. Today, whether you're an agency or an in-house team, or just want some tips for yourself, or maybe if you want to see perhaps how your boss is looking at things, we're here to help your team. Where to start when training an SEO team? How much is on you to train your team and how much is on them to train themselves? How do you train different types of people doing different types of SEO all with different levels of experience and then actually get your own work done? To help us bring our SEO pedagogy up to standard, Sterling Sky's VP of Search and Local University faculty member, Professor Colan Nielsen will be joining us in just a few minutes. Plus, we sit down with the true educator, Henry Collie, Wix's own curriculum developer, to talk about what goes into creating a strong learning program. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social media. So open up your lesson planners and put on your spectacles with a little rope thingies attached to them as episode number 59 of the SERP's Up podcast helps you find your teacher's voice. I want the audience to know that Crystal has those spectacles with the stringy thing. Crystal Carter: I do. Mordy Oberstein: And every time she wears her hair up. I'm like, "Oh, my God, you're giving me teacher vibes and I'm having a lot of anxiety." Crystal Carter: This makes you wonder, were you called into the office a lot back in the day? Like, oh, Mordy won't confirm nor deny. Mordy Oberstein: Who knows? Crystal Carter: I think your silence speaks so loud. Mordy Oberstein: I was difficult in high school, for the time I spent in high school. It's a totally different story for a totally different time. Crystal Carter: For SERP's Up plus plus. Mordy Oberstein: Plus plus. Right, the after hours podcast over away. I think just to give a quick, quick, quick background on this before we bring Colan in. You have an SEO team. Let's say, you're at an agency, you have all types of SEO folks. You have seniors and juniors and all types of different people, and whether they are SEO experts or they're new to the SEO game, there's always some kind of training that has to go on. Whether it be SEO training or even beyond SEO training. How do we speak nicely to our clients so they don't leave and they keep paying us every month? You might be a great SEO, but you might not be great with clients. There's a lot of education that continuously has to happen no matter where you are in any profession, but I think particularly when working inside of an SEO team, whether in-house, at an agency, which is why we have, as I mentioned right here, live with us, the VP of Search over at Sterling Sky. Welcome to the SERP's Up podcast, Colan. How are you? Colan Nielsen: Wow, Mordy. Thank you very much. That was a wonderful intro and a tough act to follow. Crystal's right, you are indeed a wordsmith. So I'm going to do my best to follow that incredible intro. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: It's our honor and esteemed pleasure. Okay, quick plug. Sterling Sky, Local U, what do we got? Colan Nielsen: Blue Mountains, Ontario, which is this beautiful city just north of Toronto. It's October 13th, which means we're into that time of year where trees are changing. It's beautiful, and this is probably one of the best places in all of Ontario to be at that time of year if you like the changing of the seasons and seeing these beautiful trees change color. So we're right nestled in this mountainous valley. This is our first Canadian Local University events, I believe, in the history of Local U, so it's very special to us. A lot of our team members, including Joy, the founder of the company, is from Canada. I'm from Canada. We're bringing all of our US team to Canada to be here with us for it as well. So we're super excited. Amazing speakers, amazing location. I can't say enough about how excited I am. Crystal Carter: It looks amazing. I'm looking at it and again, idyllic is the setting I would give. Just absolutely idyllic. Just frolicking in the beautiful leaves and- Mordy Oberstein: You're dropping the words now, by the way. Crystal Carter: But also, the lineup you have here. You're by himself. Darren Shaw, amazing. Claire Carlisle, absolute legend. We've got Matthew Hunt. I don't know him just at the moment, but I will find out and I'm sure he's fantastic. Jan Tomaso, also amazing. Darren, again. Joy, who is such a fountain of knowledge, and Marie Haynes also repping for... Mordy Oberstein: Also. Crystal Carter: ... Canada there. So yeah, what a lineup. What a great day. Colan Nielsen: Yeah, we're excited. And what's really cool about Local U night before networking events, that's, in my opinion, is almost at the same level in terms of the value you're going to get out as the day itself, where you're listening to speakers and presentations. That night before you get to interact, talk business, make connections. So it's all worth it. Crystal Carter: I think that's a great pivot into our topic because I think that sometimes folks think, oh, I'm not sure if we have money to send the junior team members or learning team members to something like Local U or another marketing conference, for instance. But being in the presence of people who are top of their game, who are really passionate about their topic, who are exploring new and interesting ideas can be really, really inspiring and can be really good and to help sort of kickstart someone's learning journey. And I don't know if that's part of your training sort of thing when you guys are getting new folks through the team, but I'd love to hear more about it. Colan Nielsen: It absolutely is. We do our best to try and ensure that certainly as many people from our team can attend these events as possible. Certainly, newer people to the team. We'll get to this in a little bit, but there's certainly an approach we have with hiring people is typically around hiring people that come with experience and knowledge baked in. But we also hire people that are newer to SEO that this is perfect for. Another thing you made me think of there that was really cool, if we're thinking about these different avenues for new people that are new to SEO, getting into training and where do I go? So there's events like Local University, but then something that's kind of connected to Local University is the Local Search Forum. The reason I bring that up is, well, A, it's a totally free resource. Anybody can go sign up. You can ask client questions. You can ask general SEO questions or hiring questions, training questions. And I've been finding for the last couple of Local U events, there are members of the Local Search Forum that are now attending the Local University events to sort of just level things up and then you get to meet those people in person. So it's like this really nice circle that gets completed between the forum and the events. So definitely check out the forum as well. It's a wonderful training resource for sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah, forums are particularly good for helping training. I think also because... And maybe we'll get to this, but sometimes in a team... And I think that that's the important operative word there. A team, is that sometimes in a team you need someone to do something. Maybe it's not the first thing that they want to do necessarily, but you're like, we have this new project that we're doing and we need you to learn how to prompt the AI efficiently or how to use this new tool or how to train everyone on this thing, or whatever it may be. And sometimes you might be the only person in the team that knows that skill or knows that tool, or something like that. And sometimes the forum folks will be the folks that you know that you can talk to about it. There's like the Google Business Profile forums and things like that. How much do you find that as a team, do you need to point people to resources like that forum? Colan Nielsen: So we actually have... Let's say we allocate budgets each month, time, resources, whatever you want to think about it to people on our team to make sure that on any given month they have time to go to the Local Search Forum to either participate, to create threads, or simply just to go through and answer threads that other people are asking. I think that's one of the best things you can do, especially as a beginning SEO. But even as time goes on is go to forums, find problems that people have and just volunteer your time and troubleshoot them and answer them. And it's really just sharpening that knife. It's a free, wonderful way to sharpen your knife. And then there's all those other benefits like the networking and meeting new people and all that stuff. Mordy Oberstein: So I want to piggyback on that just a little bit because about time and make sure everybody is able to do all these things, but you as someone who is training other SEOs, it could be a lot. You have your full-time job, and then you have all the training that you need to do. How do you sort of balance both? And I'll sort of piggyback another question on top of that. And you kind of mentioned at the beginning. How much is it on you to teach and how much is it on them to go figure it out and learn? Colan Nielsen: Yeah, it's a great question. So we definitely take a lot of time, care, efforts as an agency to ensure that we're continually training, and as time goes by, this becomes even more time. When we started in 2016, there was about three people on the Sterling Sky team. There was a part-time team member, Joy, and myself. I think we had one other person at the time. We're now approaching 40 full-time team members. So training is something we've really, really integrated. And so just to give you some examples. We kind of break things up in a given month. We'll have general training meetings and we'll break these into some very strategic categories. So for instance, every month, we have a strategy team meeting, and the people that are going to join that meeting are people that are responsible for client strategy. So that meeting is really about performance at the end of the day. It's about training on how to get better results for our clients as far as whatever performance metrics. But then we also have account manager training meetings, which are equally important, but instead of those being focused around client performance, they're around client relationship. Making sure we're doing the things that we say we're going to do, that we're communicating effectively, efficiently, all that kind of stuff. We then also have specific, let's call them, team meetings. So we have link building specific training meetings, which just the link builders are going to be a part of that. The other meeting that I would say for us being a Local Search agency, that's a really, really important meeting to have is we actually have a very specific set Google Business Profile strategy meeting. And the people on our team that join this meeting are, well, anybody that's doing Google Business Profile strategy, which I would say is a little bit higher level than somebody who's just say, optimizing a profile. This is like a level up from there where you're now building strategies, you know how to fix duplicate listing issues, stuff like that. We have a specific strategy meeting for that, where we'll discuss new issues that have come up with Google. You may have saw recently, Ben Fisher tweeted there's this big change coming to the... Mordy Oberstein: I saw that. Colan Nielsen: ... reinstatement process, which is huge. So we'll talk about stuff like that. The other thing that's interesting, and I think this is really important I would say for any agency or anybody learning is if you are an account manager working in Local Search, you also should be striving towards being a Google Business Profile strategist or experts, because that is the one thing that we've found that if you're on a call with a client that is paying you to do Local Search and you're not able to answer some of those important questions they have, where it's more like, let me get back to you about that and check with the team. If you can avoid those and build that knowledge of the account manager up, especially on the GVP stuff, that seems to go a long way as far as training goes. Crystal Carter: I think it's really interesting the way that you're breaking it down into so many different layers of learning. And I think that that will also really appeal to the different ways that people learn. So the different learning styles and qualitative, quantitative, that sort of stuff. Mordy has a degree in education, so he can probably break them down into more of them than me, but there's lots of different learning styles there, which I think is really interesting. I think the other thing that I find fascinating about this approach to team learning is that it helps to reduce skills gaps and it also helps to improve the dissemination of information with regards to a particular topic. So for instance, like Google Business Profile, there's lots of different changes. There's lots of different iterations that you'll see if you're working in a restaurant space, you'll see one type of Google Business Profile. If it's a hotel, it's another one. If it's a shop, it's another one, and things like that. I don't know how you organize your clients', but it might be that you have your clients organized by everybody who's in a restaurant is with one person and everybody who's in a hotel is with another person. Or it might just be that whoever's free, whoever has the time gets the next client. Different agencies work different ways. So if you have a meeting where you're discussing the broad trends that you're seeing across a particular platform or a particular approach, then that helps to reduce some of the gaps so that even if your account manager hasn't necessarily dealt with that particular issue personally, if they heard about it in the meeting, then they can say, oh, well our team has seen this or that, oh, I can get you the report that we saw from, we did that with this other client, that sort of thing. And I think that that also helped reduce some of the tacit knowledge that you sometimes lose in agencies when it's in everyone's head. Can you talk to us about how you disseminate the information that you get from some of those team collaborative training spaces? Colan Nielsen: Yeah. Well, typically if it's something that's, say, mission-critical, like this suspension change, where the reinstatement process changed or Google's making some other crazy change, which they constantly do as we all know. Those types of things will certainly filter themselves up to our monthly team meeting. So today is actually, in about four from now we have our monthly team meeting and this is our all hands on deck meeting. So all 40 people will be attending this, and we break that team meeting up into a similar style as to how I just mentioned we kind of break up those individual training sessions. But anything that comes out of those meetings that is important for everybody to know then makes its way into that monthly team meeting and we discuss it. Some of the other things that seem to be helping with that over time. And then also touch on something you mentioned, Crystal, about just meeting people's styles of how they would like to train. It's an evolving process, and something we've started to do a lot more recently is incorporate more shadowing, for instance. Because I think at the end of the day, if you're training an account manager or a sales role, let's say, there's only so much you can do by standing there and telling somebody, these are our golden rules, these are the things that you have to follow and you got to follow up within two hours and this, that and the other thing. Right, that's fine. People need to know that and they need to be listed somewhere so you can reference them and know rules. But I think what's more important and what we're experimenting with a lot more lately is getting into other styles like shadowing. So for instance, we've just started on the sales side of things. We actually don't have a sales team at Sterling Sky. I talk to clients. I don't have a sales background, but people on the team who love SEO and love talking to people are really good at selling. So that's kind of how we do it. And now we're having more people shadow. So I'll jump on a call with a prospect, I'll have somebody else from my team join, they'll take notes, they'll ask me questions. Maybe next month I'll have them join a sales call, I'll join with them, take notes, give them feedback. And that seems to be a really effective way to do training as well. Mordy Oberstein: So it's really because one of the way it sounds like, through a certain extent, is that you're doing a lot of the training as part of the actual workflow. Something new came up in the SEO industry, you got to know about this, let's have a meeting about discuss, now you're educated. But it also seems like you're trying to address gaps with the shadow. There's always two parts of the educational process. Okay, I'm going to teach you A, B, C, and D, and I when I was a teacher back in the teaching fourth graders, just like teaching SEOs, you have, I'm going to teach you X, Y, and Z today, but when I'm done teaching you or even while I'm teaching you, I also have to address the fact that you might have gaps at the same time. So it sounds like, on the one hand you are driving the conversation forward, we're updating a SEO knowledge on a constant basis and we're also trying to address the sort of gaps by having a shadow work with you so that you can ask your specific questions and get what your actual educational needs are satisfied. Colan Nielsen: 100%. It's amazing what types of things gets, let's say, revealed, for lack of a better word, during a shadowing process. Often things will come up that you didn't even think about. Or maybe the trainee, the person who's receiving the training, they didn't even think to ask or think that it was maybe a gap. Then you do the shadowing, hey, here's this little thing here. I think we have an opportunity to take this to a level 10. Maybe we're at a level six or something right now. And then where that leads to sometimes, another thing that we're, I'd say, relatively new starting to do is we will then have people on our team who are now wanting to do training of things that they've learned new training, which I think is probably the ultimate form of learning something, is taking something that you've recently learned and then teaching other people on the team that thing. I don't think it gets better than that. And for instance, my teammates, Becky on her team here is doing some training this month. It's very specific, but really cool training about something she's become really good at and it's about featured snippets. So she's become this pro in our team of, I refer to it as seizing, featured snippets. And she's gotten so good at, that she's now training the rest of the team on best practices for capturing featured snippets for our clients. Mordy Oberstein: That's awesome. Crystal Carter: That's fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: Let me ask you sort of a different kind of question I've been wanting to ask, because I do a lot of training not in SEO. It was totally different industry, and one of the debates we used to always have is, which is better? To hire somebody who knows nothing about whatever it's that we're doing, it's actually property management, whatever, or you can train them the way you want them to be trained? They know nothing about the industry, they're getting all the information from you. They're going to see just by default a lot of the things that they're going to be dealing with the way that you want them to be seeing it. Or do you want to bring in somebody who already has a lot of experience, more experience, who you don't have to train as much, but they may not see things the way that you see things as it pertains to, in this case, SEO? Colan Nielsen: Yeah, that's a great question. So I'd say, for us 90% of the time, certainly over the last six years or so, we are hiring experienced, really smart people that come with presets SEO knowledge. It's pre-programmed into them. They've been doing the SEO for, anywhere from five to 10 plus years. And I don't think that's necessarily the best way to do things, but I think what it really comes down to is what type of SEO service is it that you are providing? What is the perceived value of your service that you want to kind of implant into your potential customer's mind? So when I think of value, there's different things that are drivers of value. One of those is perceived likelihood of outcome, those types of things. And I think if you're building a team of say, all stars or a green team or whatever it may be and can deliver a much higher quality of SEO, it just means that you are able to charge more for your SEO because you're delivering better value at the end of the day. Now, that's not to say there's anything wrong with building a team of people who are less experienced them up. There's a place for that. I just think it might be working towards serving a slightly different product, let's say, or service for that client. So 90% of people who hire definitely come with experience and knowledge. And then what we do here is that for those people that we hire, a lot of the training will then be on Sterling Sky specific SEO tactics that we test, that we have then turned into our processes and tactics. So they've got the base SEO knowledge. That's all taken care of. Now it's like, welcome to Sterling Sky, here's some other really cool things that we have figured out over the years that we now do for our clients, and then we're training them on those specific things. Mordy Oberstein: So you have the dream team over Sterling Sky. I just want to know which one of y'all is Charles Barkley? Colan Nielsen: You know what, Dave could be Charles. It's a- Crystal Carter: I thought it was Noah. Yeah. Colan Nielsen: Could be. Dave's a big basketball fan. I actually have a big poster on my office wall here that Dave sent me, and it's all the caricatures of the big players from the '90s. So he's a big basketball fan. Crystal Carter: Sorry, to go back to what you're saying, I thought it really interesting about all of the different iterations of just being very bespoke with your training and being very attuned to the person that you're with. I think that's really important. So tuning it to somebody who's maybe into basketball. Certainly in my time, whether I'm training clients, because that's often very, very much the case, where you're training clients as well on maybe something that you're handing over to them or something, or juniors, where you sort of try to talk to them a little bit so you can figure out which kind of metaphors you can use with them to try to help make sure that it fit. But I think also how do you identify when somebody needs to do some more and are you able to identify sometimes before they do? Does that ever happen? Colan Nielsen: Yeah, definitely. And I would say that is extremely important to be able to do is figure out, to see that metaphorical train heading for the crash long before it happens. So this, again, is an evolving process, but we're continually trying to introduce new checks and balances along the way all while trying to balance that with not being too overbearing or micromanaging or whatever it may be. So we have started to do things like pre-mortems, regular meetings. So, say, as part of our that monthly strategy meeting that we have, we've recently started talking about very specific clients and then that gives opportunities for people to bring up issues that they're having, which could be a training issue, could be performance, could be progress related to that client. That would be one thing. For account managers, for example, they're more focused on client trust and happiness. So we have triggers in place where every single month we're doing a qualitative feedback to answer the question: Is the client happy and do they trust us? And depending on those answers, we track that over time. If we start to see something going down or dipping or whatever the problem is, it will trigger process here that we refer to as a red flag process, which then goes into a system of if it's a performance issue, okay, it's a strategy red flag. If it's a relationship issue or an account manager issue, it goes into more of a progress red flag. The other way we start to figure out these problems before they become real problems is through assessing via these shadowing type calls that we do and just giving that feedback as quickly as possible, and doing it regularly. And so far that seems to be working well, but it's definitely something that it's almost weekly is evolving. There's a new step, there's a new iteration of it. Mordy Oberstein: So if folks are having their own issues and looking for their own iteration of SEO education, they want to contact you, how can they find you, Professor? Colan Nielsen: My email's open. So colan@sterlingsky.ca , and for those who don't know, my first name's got a bit of a weird spelling. It's Colan, still pronounced like the traditional Colan. Long story there. But I think my parents had SEO in mind when they named me. Because it is wonderful for the old name search on Google. I think I covered the first two pages, so thanks mom and dad. That's good. So colan@sterlingsky.ca . I'm not very active on Twitter, that's probably where I share most things. You can find me at the Local Search Forum where I'm an administrator, very active there. If you come to the Local Search Forum and ask about specific problem with your client or whatever it may be, you very likely will see myself or certainly, one of the other Local U faculty members or one of our amazing guests. Mordy Oberstein: Awesome, and we'll make sure to link to all that in the show notes and definitely check out Local U. There's amazing knowledge from all sorts of amazing SEOs. It's at localu.org. All right, Colan, thank you so much for joining us and we'll see you out there in the SEO ether. Colan Nielsen: Thank you so much. This was really fun. We'll talk to you soon. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. So you may not know this, but we at Wix have a slew of courses and tutorials to help you do anything from master the Wix and Wix studio platform to learning how to use Meta to grow your brand and know how to create a site aligned to accessibility standards. And one of the great folks who does help design these curriculums and courses is the one, the only Henry Collie. And he's someone who Crystal and I have worked with directly. Spoiler alert, we're in the earliest stages of our SEO certification course that we're working with Henry on. So we thought it would make sense to talk about training teams that we should talk to Henry. So let's go across the Wix first and welcome Henry. Automated voice: 3, 2, 1. Ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: Hey Henry, welcome to the SERP's Up podcast. Henry Collie: Hey, Mordy. How's it going? Mordy Oberstein: We're good. So first off all, what's it like to work with Crystal and I on courses? Must be wonderful for you. Henry Collie: It's dreadful. It's awful. Yeah, a trial by fire. No, actually it's been really great. I mean, you and I've worked together now on and off for about a year, I think. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And a few courses, but this will be the first one that actually comes into fruition. Henry Collie: Yeah, the first one that actually gets over the finish line. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Henry Collie: I think that's the thing that people forget when they go into curriculum is that most of the stuff you make probably won't make it to the end for various reasons. It could be to do with production reasons or differences of opinion. Crystal Carter: And you've worked in curriculum for lots of spaces. I think what I find really interesting is that as the idea of education, of creating courses, of creating curriculums has really expanded. I think that maybe 10, 15 years ago it was mostly schools that were doing courses and things. And now, really if you've got a brand, if you've got a complex product, you probably need an education arm. And there's people who are really good at hula-hooping who are putting together courses and things like that. How have you seen that change and grow? Henry Collie: Yeah, so first of all, when I started, I actually started off as a copywriter. So I was simultaneously acting and copywriting, but I was mainly copywriting for educational materials. So one of my first jobs was with Freeformers, making a product for Facebook to teach soft skills. And then I kind of fell into it that way with a mentor. And I think there's a danger to what is happening right now with education online and in the tech space. It's amazing the opportunities are there, and there's a huge marketing value to having educational content. But what often happens and what's happening more and more is we're getting this superficial education like thing because we must have education, so we must make an education thing that looks like education, but we never... Well, I do, to my detriment. But it's really important to make sure that it's actually providing the outcomes that people are expecting. And often it doesn't, because we're making these pieces of education for an agenda that doesn't align with education. So it's really important to keep that in mind, I think. Mordy Oberstein: I find that these kind of courses, ya know, people think it's like writing. They go - I speak English. I write English. I can write. I can write whatever, just because you know how to write doesn't mean you can professionally write. Just because you want to have an educational course and you are going to do this and you feel you need to do this doesn't mean that you actually know how to do this. Because teaching, as someone who has a master's degree in education, is its own art form and it's its own thing and there's own consider... And there's things that you just don't think about when you are naturally speaking or naturally transmitting information that you do think about when you're more formally transmitting information. Henry Collie: Yeah, absolutely. Crystal Carter: And I think it's something that's interesting because a lot of people, there's a thing that people say, which is if you can't do teach. And people say that as an insult or something, which it is not, because I think the thing is that if you are somebody who's like, I don't know, David Beckham or something, and you rolled out of bed and you were like, I know how to do football off the top of your head, you never had to learn football. If you're somebody who you were like, I really love football, but I can't quite get that thing to do the thing that I want it to, then you learn how to learn that and therefore you can convey that. If it's just instinctual, you don't even know how to articulate it because it just came naturally to you. But if it's something that you have to learn how to do, then that's something that works really, really well. Henry Collie: Well, right. And there's also a very well-documented expert bias and experience bias where even if you have had to learn it and you have had to go through that process of learning, you are so far into your journey that you've forgotten what those particular things where that you learn from. And even if you have remembered all of those, let's say you took a log of every single educational step that you've passed through every single point of understanding, that log is special and specific to you. It's not necessarily something that's broadly applicable. So you can't simply just be an expert and then go teach. And what you often get when you have an expert who's way up here. I'm making gesticulations. Crystal Carter: Hand gestures. Henry Collie: Just so you know what can't see. Mordy Oberstein: His hand is way up high right now. Henry Collie: So just so everybody knows, my left hand is currently up around my eye level and my right hand is down around my neck. So if you're up here, then you can't see what those people down there need to understand. And you often fall into that trap of trying to tell everybody everything that you know is important. But sometimes you also need to leave things out. You need to lie to people a little bit so that later on you can reestablish the truth, because otherwise they have no framework of understanding to build on. Crystal Carter: It's like with kids, you tell them C is for cat, and the C word, that C makes a cah sound. T is for tall and it makes a tah sound, except for when it's in notion, then it makes a shah sound, except for when it's in that and it makes the th sound, and there's all these sorts of things. But you just need to get them to understand that the letters work in the first place and to get them forward before you tell them all of the I before Es, which I can never remember. Mordy Oberstein: You see that all the time. In sports, you have professional athletes who now go into broadcasting and they're terrible, because they know all about the game, they don't know how to talk or they don't know how to transmit the information into a way that I can understand it, because not a professional athlete. But if we can zoom out to a different question. So great, we're going to do this course and now we need to figure out how to do it. But what makes you decide legitimately whether or not you should or shouldn't be doing when to begin with? Henry Collie: Right. So it's a really important question. It depends on the situation and it depends on who you're dealing with. But the first step is to understand what value you're going to add. And I think that's, again, going back to the superficial superficiality of a lot of edutainment... Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Henry Collie: Ooh. Mordy Oberstein: That's a shot. Shots fired. Henry Collie: Is that, we ask what are we going to cover? Will people watch it? Will people engage with it? Which really aren't the most important metrics. The most important metrics is... The most important metrics are, rather, will they gain value from this? What value will they gain from it? And then if you can actually measure what that value will be. And there's ways of doing that. For example, with SEO, we're creating this SEO course at the moment. We know that our partners, our freelancers, our agencies will gain measurable value from being able to offer these services and to be able to offer them to a high level. Now of course, that value is completely stripped if we make an edutainment course with a funny little badge that they can put on their LinkedIn that nobody caress about, so it actually has to deliver those educational outcomes or it's completely pointless and it's just wasting their time. So first of all, that's how you figure out whether it's worth doing. You have to measure what that value will be. And then secondly, you need to break down what those services, what outcomes are into their smallest constituent parts and then see where those people are right now and get them to where they need to be to either emulate or even surpass people who are currently operating in that way. I think that's probably the long and short of it. Crystal Carter: And how dynamic would you say that process is? I certainly know that when I've done an article or done a video or something, or even when we do our webinars even, people are like, yeah, but what about this? What about that? How dynamic is that process? How often do we need to revise, do we need to amend, do we need to adjust a course? Henry Collie: Constantly. There is no point at which it's completed. There is no point where like, oh, now we're making curriculum and it's now finished and it's done. You constantly have to reevaluate. And actually that's something I harp on about this all the time, so stop me if it's rambling, but I actually hate the word educate and education. The reason being I think it's an aggressive act, is to educate and it also focuses on the teacher and what the teacher is imparting and what the teacher is enforcing into a student. Whereas, learning I much prefer rather than educator is to focus on learning, because that focuses more on what the learner is getting out of the process. And in order to do that, now you are enforced, just by that linguistic change and that reframing, you now have to not evaluate the student necessarily, which you do, but you actually have to evaluate how well your work is reaching your promises. Because you are promising somebody something. Education is a product. It's not just random thing where we cover topics, and to kind of circle back to what my main point is, is you can cover things and say, that's all covered. We have talked about this. We have talked about that. We have covered this. Why don't you understand you silly student? Well, because you didn't... Actually, you covered it and you checked off the box, but you didn't audit whether what you covered imparted any value to me as a learner. Oh, sorry. I feel myself getting angry. Crystal Carter: No, it's true. I've definitely had a situation where I've done a certification, I won't name which one it is, but I can think of exactly which one it is in my mind. And I've done a certification and you go through all the things and you tick the boxes, because they've told you that you have to do the certification again. And so I would call that, I guess, education, because I studied the things or whatever. But I didn't actually learn it necessarily. You don't really learn it. Mordy Oberstein: You do become part of your scheme, how you think and how you operate as part of your outlook and part of your knowledge base, just because something I like it's somewhere in my brain, but I have to recall it, I guess. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think to learn something, you kind of have to do it. And I think you mentioned mentorship and mentorship is really, really important as part of that, and learning as you go, which I think is one of the reasons why we add that into the product. Henry Collie: We also need to define what learning actually means, because I think we often say learning education, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not one thing. Learning involves loads of cognitive steps, loads of cognitive processes. It's a constant pathway. We constantly have to evaluate to see where we are in that process. And there are innumerable learning theories, instructional design methodologies, but when you break it all down, they're essentially all saying the same thing and providing various ways of achieving the same objective, which is you the learner in one state, and at the end of this process you should be in or at least, close to another state of being. And it's not just about rote learning or saying, I've covered this or I've talked about this and now you can tell me what the capital of X country is. You can learn what the capital of X country is, but do you know why it's the capital? Do you know how it became the capital? Do you understand the social aspects of that country that created that situation in the first place? Now you don't just know that it's the capital. You now understand that it's the capital. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's so Piaget dude. Henry Collie: When I was young. Mordy Oberstein: So as time ebbs away from us, where can people learn about you? Henry Collie: Ooh, I'm pretty quiet, to be honest. I don't really do social media. Mordy Oberstein: Oh. Henry Collie: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's odd for us, personally. Crystal Carter: You run an educational course though, yeah? Henry Collie: Yes. Crystal Carter: Where is the course? Henry Collie: Oh, you mean separately from Wix? No, I don't. Crystal Carter: No. On Wix. Mordy Oberstein: On Wix. Henry Collie: Oh, on Wix. Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Because they can learn by osmosis. They can see the course, take the course in... Henry Collie: Right, right, right. Mordy Oberstein: ... and then learn who you are. Almost like reading a poem and understanding the poet. Henry Collie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Right. Well, if they want to find anything that I've done, they can check out Wix Learn, which they can find the e-commerce course on there. Also, the accessibility 101 course, which I highly recommend. It's extremely important. It's extremely important for design, not just for accessibility and for- Crystal Carter: Also important for SEO. Henry Collie: And extremely important for SEO. And then by probably the end of this year, we will have the new SEO course out where they won't directly see me as a human, but they will see- Mordy Oberstein: They will feel you at every step of the way. I guarantee it. Henry Collie: They'll feel my presence. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Henry Collie: My ominous presence. Mordy Oberstein: Your aura. Hum. You should leave like a Easter egg in there somewhere. Henry Collie: Oh, should we? Should we just put in little like my favorite books? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Or like the screenshot should be like... We're talking about the SERP, it could have a screenshot of like who is Henry? Henry Collie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crystal Carter: Just be a photo of you in the background in a frame or something. Mordy Oberstein: Right, look for Easter egg. Henry Collie: Do you know, I think there was a time... I think it's gone now, but I Googled my name and I had a little knowledge profile and a little buttons. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, oh, I don't have social. You have a knowledge graph. Look at you. A knowledge panel. Henry Collie: I think they've clocked it though and gotten rid of it. Mordy Oberstein: I got Google that. Crystal Carter: That's cool. Mordy Oberstein: There was a movie called Henrique . Someone does movies that's also named Henry Collie. But your picture shows up right there when you… Henry Collie: Oh yeah, no, that's me. I used to be an actor. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, so there you are. Okay, so where can they find you? They can find you in movies. Crystal Carter: IMDB. That's funny. Mordy Oberstein: All right, well, look for Henry in our SEO certification course that's coming up or in the movies. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much for joining us today. Mordy Oberstein: Thanks Henry. Henry Collie: Cheers guys. Automated voice: 3, 2, 1. Ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: So thank you so much again, Henry, it was fascinating to talk to you and looking forward to keep working with you on our SEO course. Spoiler. Spoiler. Spoiler. Now since we are talking about learning, you know what we can do to help you learn more? Crystal Carter: What can we do, Mordy? Mordy Oberstein: We can quote Barry Schwartz a bunch of times as we get into this snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy news. Three articles, two updates for you, or two articles about two updates for you. First one from Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal. Google completes rollout of October 2023 spam update, which means you can now resume spamming. I'm just kidding, you should not resume spamming. You should never be spamming to begin with. So if you're utilizing, you have been utilizing spammy practices across the webs, you may have seen a significant loss of rankings. If you have not been engaged in spammy practices, and 99.9% of the listeners of this podcast have not been, this update should not have really impacted you. What might have impacted you is the October 2023 core update. And one day before Google announced the completion of the spam update, Google said, per Barry Schwartz, over at SEL, Search Engine Land, Google October 23 core update rollout, now complete. They're both complete. This one may have impacted you. This impacts sites across the web. Have a look at your rankings, see what happened. The update is now finished. There will be data on this, meaning as the recording of this podcast, of the news section, we have not seen the data come out from the tool providers. I know because I do send Russia's data. So have a look by the time this episode does come out over at Search Engine Land, look for Barry's article, Collecting Data from Across the Tool Providers to see the nature of this update and how, perhaps, how impactful it is sort of, kind of, maybe, that's a different story for a different time. But you'll get some data that points to some things about the core update. Lastly, from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. Got to make sure Barry gets all the links to all of the different blogs and websites that he has. This one's over at Search Engine Roundtable. Barry writes, Google search generative experience may link to paywalled content, but here's how to block SGE. So if you have content behind a paywall, say you have to sign, enter your name and email address to access the content, Google said they can link to that content in their Search Generative Experience, the SGE, as I like to refer the AI box, where Google, you enter a query, Google spits out a whole AI answer with a couple of links. Google also said, and they updated their robots meta tech documentation to show or to say that they will respect robots meta tag directives with the SGE. Meaning, if you say, "Hey Google, I'm going to implement a no snippet robots meta tag. I don't want you to quote me. I don't want you to show a snippet of my content on this webpage on your SERP. That includes all of the SERP, which also includes the SGE Box. Also, similarly, if say, for example, you say, "Google, you know what? You can show a snippet of my content from this page, on your webpage, on the SERP, rather, but I don't want you to show a ton." So here's the number of characters you're allowed to show is called a max snippet robots meta tag. You can also implement that and Google will respect that in the SGE for Wix users. It's very easy to implement any of these robot meta tags. Simply go to the SEO panel on any particular page and you will see a checkbox where you can tick off, which robots meta tags you want in the advanced SEO section of the SEO panel. And with that, Barry now has all the links, and that's our version of this week's snappy SEO news. Thanks to the learning Barry. Each and every week Barry brings us the SEO learning. Each and every day, in my opinion. I check it out all the time, every day. Crystal Carter: It's true. It's true. I contemplated sending him something today that I saw, but I'm sure that somebody else has seen it already. But you got to roll the dice. If you don't get involved, you can't win. Mordy Oberstein: The best thing to do, as I told you, Crystal, is let the article go live with somebody else, and then as soon as it goes live, say, Barry, is this new, and find your own example and then he will include you in it. Crystal Carter: Right. Oh, of course. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, that's my hack. I've never done that, but I should. Crystal Carter: I don't know anyone who would do that. Mordy Oberstein: No. Everyone has different standards for how they go about their lives. We're not here to judge anybody. Crystal Carter: Some people are doing their best, and we're just doing our best. Mordy Oberstein: And that's not new. That's just how life goes. Crystal Carter: It's something you got to learn. Mordy Oberstein: So many little SEO jokes in there. You know what's no joke? Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: Following the right people on social media so that you get the right SEO learning. So this week's follow of the week is a family favorite, as in the Wix family favorite. Mark Preston, who you can follow over at Mark Preston, 1969. That's at Mark Preston 1969 over on Twitter, formerly known as X, scratch reverse. I'm still confused, but follow Mark. Mark does tons of training, tons of advising, and he's our follow of the week for training people. Crystal Carter: And he's so committed to helping people learn more, particularly about Wix, but also generally about marketing, about personal branding, and is somebody who is very approachable in that regard. He shares a lot of information directly on Twitter. People ask him questions, and he's so generous with his time, and a super nice guy as well. Like Barry, but really lovely when you meet him. So I highly recommend following Mark and checking out his podcast and all the other cool stuff that he does. Mordy Oberstein: Yep. So definitely give Mark a follow. Definitely, definitely give Mark a follow over on Twitter, X, whatever. You got it. We'll link to his profile in the show notes and hope you learned a lot this week. And then you can go out there and train your SEO team. Crystal Carter: Choo, choo. Mordy Oberstein: I choo, choo, choose you Crystal Carter: It was a train because training because choo, choo. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, now I get it. Wow, that went right over my head. Crystal Carter: Well, I hope the train didn't go over your head. That would be very uncomfortable. Mordy Oberstein: Unless it was a toy train, in which case it would just bounce off my head. Crystal Carter: That reminds me of a friend who had a kid and then the other kid was like throwing their Thomas the tank engine at the baby, and it's like, no, don't, don't do that, don't do that. They had to take it away. Mordy Oberstein: I remember throwing my Star Trek Enterprise toy at my little baby brother, but it was a metal and getting in trouble for that. Crystal Carter: Were you shouting engage? Mordy Oberstein: Make it so. Crystal Carter: No, no, don't, don't. Don't do that. Mordy Oberstein: Well, thank you for joining us on this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss... Not to worry. We're back next week in the new episode as we dive into how to work well with non-SEO teams. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to a learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars and newsletter on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

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Jack has over a decade's worth of experience in SEO. He's CEO of Crescendo Consulting, which specializes in marketing early and mid-stage startups in highly regulated industries (think Fintech and CBD startups). He's a fan of pineapples on pizza and Star Wars Episode I. Jack Treseler CEO at Crescendo Consulting Jack has over a decade's worth of experience in SEO. He's CEO of Crescendo Consulting , which specializes in marketing early and mid-stage startups in highly regulated industries (think Fintech and CBD startups). He's a fan of pineapples on pizza and Star Wars Episode I. Articles & Resources 22 Jun 2023 ChatGPT: Everything SEOs need to know Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Why are emerging content trends important for SEO? What specific content trends should you pay the most attention to? How are content trends perceived in the eyes of Google? This week, Wix’s Mordy Obertein and Crystal Carter examine the role of emerging content trends in SEO. Joining the show is the founder of Black Truck Media, Jason Dodge, and the founder of Organic Growth Marketing, Nigel Stevens to share their thoughts on the evolving content landscape and what it means for ranking on the SERP. Hop in the ol’ Delorean as we’re going back to the future this week to identify emerging content trends and their SEO impact with this week’s episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Why SEOs should watch content trends carefully Why are emerging content trends important for SEO? What specific content trends should you pay the most attention to? How are content trends perceived in the eyes of Google? This week, Wix’s Mordy Obertein and Crystal Carter examine the role of emerging content trends in SEO. Joining the show is the founder of Black Truck Media, Jason Dodge, and the founder of Organic Growth Marketing, Nigel Stevens to share their thoughts on the evolving content landscape and what it means for ranking on the SERP. Hop in the ol’ Delorean as we’re going back to the future this week to identify emerging content trends and their SEO impact with this week’s episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 69 | January 10, 2024 | 49 MIN 00:00 / 49:17 This week’s guests Jason Dodge Jason Dodge is the Founder and CEO at search marketing firm, BlackTruck Media + Marketing. Combining nearly 20 years of industry experience with the efforts of holistic, human-centered thinking and technical search marketing tactics, Jason works alongside his team to assist brands with improving their online visibility through both organic search and paid media. His background and experience span both B2B and D2C verticals - from travel & hospitality, to global manufacturing, automotive aftermarket, and large healthcare systems. With a continued passion for the ever-evolving world of search, Jason is a regular contributor to industry publications, and works diligently to help educate others in the marketing and communications industry on the value that SEO brings to their brand. Nigel Stevens Nigel is the Founder and CEO of Organic Growth Marketing, a boutique growth agency. They work with fast-growth SaaS companies like Hotjar, ProfitWell, and Ramp to drive non-paid revenue growth with Content and SEO. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining us in the SERP's Up Podcast. Some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who loves content, no one enjoys content more than Crystal. She loves content in trends. She loves analyzing its emergingness-ness, and it's about all things content. She's the one, she's the only, Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications here at Wix, or as I like to call her, Captain Content. Crystal Carter: I'm a technical SEO. Let's just clarify that now. Mordy Oberstein: I'm just trying to make you feel uncomfortable. Crystal Carter: Let's clarify that right now people of the internet, I'm a technical SEO. I like talking to the bots. I like structured data. I appreciate content, I appreciate good content. But yeah, I'm not the content marketer. So just to correct that content. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, sorry, my mistake. I was not aware of that at all. Other than times we're like, hey, we've got to write a post about something. They're like, all right, Mordy, you just write it because you'll spit out 30 pages in three minutes. Crystal Carter: So I was in a group chat with [inaudible 00:01:18], who is a content marketer. She writes content, she teaches people how to do content, and she was like, every time we're on a WhatsApp chat, all I can see is Crystal is typing, Crystal is typing, and I'll write three lines and it'll take me 20 minutes. It takes me a long time to decide on the words. I can say all kinds of stuff, listen to me saying things, but writing it takes a little longer for me. Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/seo/newsletter, but where you can also spin up content even quicker with reusable templates across all the sites you manage with Wix Studio, look forward at wix.com/studio. It's a great way to scale the latest trends in content, assuming you don't hate those trends, because today we're talking about the emerging content trends of the web and why SEOs might need to pay a little bit more attention to why it would be certainly beneficial if you did, and why you should certainly pay close attention to them. Why emerging content trends are important for SEO. What are some emerging content trends to note and why SEO should be paying lots and lots and lots of attention to them. Joining us in the digital flesh with the founder of BlackTruck Media and the founder of OGM, Nigel Stevens and Jason Dodge, not respectively. I got the order backwards there. Plus we'll have a look at how Google itself understands some of the emerging content trends out there. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news, who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social. So join us as we help you emerge from the ashes and emerge from the darkness as episode number 68 of the SERP's Up Podcast helps SEOs with the content trends emerging from the shadows. A little ominous there, yeah. Crystal Carter: Ominous. Mordy Oberstein: Ominous. Nigel Stevens: And a great radio voice! Jason Dodge: It was really good. Nigel Stevens: Stronger. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, but I can't say ominous, right. Ominous. Jason Dodge: Sounds great though. Sounds dark. It's dark. Mordy Oberstein: I would edit it out but now we've leaned into it so now we can't edit it out. By the way, welcome Jason and welcome Nigel. How are you guys? Nigel Stevens: Hello. Jason Dodge: Hello, good. Thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: Same. Crystal Carter: Very pleased to have you on the show. Jason Dodge: I don't know how to respond to that after the ominous. Crystal Carter: You have to respond in a Batman voice. Mordy Oberstein: You can respond by pitching who you are and what you do for our audience. Marketers got to market.. Jason Dodge: Yes, I can do that. I can do that. And I'm going to jump in over top of Nigel, but we'll get it in the right order this time. Mordy Oberstein: Sorry. Jason Dodge: I'm Jason Dodge. I'm the founder and CEO of BlackTruck Media and Marketing, search marketing company based in the beautiful area of Grand Rapids, Michigan for my Upper Midwestern listeners. Nigel Stevens: I am Nigel Stevens. I run a company called Organic Growth Marketing, founder and CEO. And we are not based in one place, but highly distributed around the world, work with a lot of fast-growing SaaS companies. Mordy Oberstein: Like good content, highly distributed. Nigel Stevens: Ayo. Crystal Carter: And sassy. That's what we like. These are important things. Jason Dodge: Look at you, look at you. Crystal Carter: All the time. Mordy Oberstein: So to catch the audience up just a little bit, I believe that content is one of the most volatile and ever-changing things on the planet. It's constantly changing and the implications of it change our world. And the example I always give, and I'll give it again because it's a great example. I've probably done it on this podcast before, is I think of the night, is the 1960 or '61, whatever, it had to be '60, right? Presidential debate between Richard Nixon and JFK. It was the first one on TV. And for the audio audience, the people listening on the radio, they thought Richard Nixon won. And then when they surveyed people who watched it on TV, they thought that JFK won. And the reason for that is is that JFK looks like JFK and Richard Nixon looks like Richard Nixon. But it changed, that content shift changed everything because now presidential campaigns became about optics. There's a lot more about optics because now you could see everything, literally, you could see everything. So when content changes, it literally changes the world. And Google has said, very recently actually, Danny Sullivan was talking, I think on Twitter, Danny Sullivan is Google's search liaison saying that, "We Google look at emerging content trends and try to align our algorithm to capitalize on them, to meet them because we know that's what users want. So don't hunt the algorithm, hunt what people actually want because that's what we're looking at." But I find, and this is where I would like to get both your guys' thoughts, and of course Crystal, there's not always so much chatter about content trends and emerging content trends and the value of content trends for SEO within the SEO sphere, and why not? And maybe that should change. Jason Dodge: Can we just go on the record and like, Danny Sullivan coming out and, I think it's great, but I'm seeing a lot, I think any chatter that I've seen, certainly out of the last, I don't know, how many algorithm updates have we had in the last three months? Mordy Oberstein: 4,000. Jason Dodge: Thank you. 4,000 every month now, and then pretty soon we're just not going to know about them. I think, just to kind of back it up, you're either an algorithm chaser or you're not. I am, self-admitted, not an algorithm chaser, have not been for 20 years of my career in the SEO space. But what I really find interesting when you talk about optics and you talk about perhaps somebody like Danny Sullivan talking about what Google is interested in and what they're doing, and then there's others in the industry that you can read tweets or X's or whatever we're calling that these days, that all of a sudden the focus is on the user and how we need to create content for the user, when in reality, my opinion has always been, shouldn't we be creating content for the user? I guess some of this stuff, it's like, do we really need an algorithm update to do that and to slap everybody in the face that like, you should be writing for the human being and the individual, and I get it, we're SEOs, we're here to work to improve the rank and file of websites, but I just find it really interesting, here we are as the "mature industry" and we're talking about writing content for users and the people who are actually going to consume it. I find it really fascinating, mildly frustrating, but fascinating that we have a big tech company like Google that says, just write it for the people. Crystal Carter: So my question is, do you think that they're responding to a content trend from that? Like presumably they felt the need to say this, like sometimes I said to my kid, "Hey, put your shoes on," and he goes, "I am." And I'm like, "I can see you. You're not putting your shoes on. That's why I told you you should put your shoes on." Now, do we think that this, I can, Mordy you're laughing 'cause I know you feel my pain here. Mordy Oberstein: That's the best analogy for what's going on. Crystal Carter: Right? So I wonder if you as a good SEO, like Nigel as a good SEO, I wonder maybe they're not talking to you, they know you've already put your shoes on or whatever, but they also know that there's a bunch of people or a bunch of other folks who are doing something else. And I wonder if they're not also highlighting a trend that they are seeing as well. Do you think that's the case? Jason Dodge: Yeah, I mean, Nigel, go for it. I certainly have some thoughts, but by all means jump in. Nigel Stevens: I mean, I feel like it's a rhetorical question. Of course, they're responding to people that are trying to game the algorithm. And I think a lot of the root cause here, when you really think about it, 'cause I think everyone, people tend to agree with these concepts in theory, like create content for the user, not just provide, but a lot of people's saying that also don't act that way. And I think a lot of it just comes back to incentives. At the end of the day, if you're doing SEO, you're either doing it for your own site, in which case all you care about is the bottom line, or you're doing it for someone else and you were therefore dependent on their idea of what success is. And I think the incentive structure of the SEO industry is behind the actual place we are in it. Meaning that if companies say, okay, we need traffic, and you are getting gold against traffic, you are under a lot of pressure to do the things that you think will bring traffic even if you think they don't make sense. And I think even good SEO people have valid conversations with in-house content people whose heart's in the right place and they're like, "God, do we really have to add this in?" And the SEO person's like, "Look, we can not add it, but if we add it, we think there's an X percent higher chance that we're going to rank for this, therefore do it." So I actually would frame it as, it's not necessarily binary black and white where there's good SEO and bad SEO and kids putting on their shoes or not putting on their shoes, however you want to put it. There's also people that are like, look, my incentives are to drive traffic and if I do these things, then I will drive traffic. And that means adding, what is this, how to do this, X best practice of this, how do I take every single possible section from all the top competitors, add them to this, I think that there's a higher chance I'm going to rank. At the end of the day, those incentives are in place because Google has, in a lot of ways, rewarded that. So to go back to your question Crystal, yes, I think Google is now trying to undo some of the incentives that they have put in place for all these years that have put the web to where they are. It's easy to say, oh, SEO people doing this or that, like SEO people are just following where the money goes and that's where it's taking them, that's my perspective. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and you still see that with links, right? Because back in the day it was links and that still lingers to this day. It's very hard to break that. It's an amazing thing because the incentive cycle has changed and it's been changing, I would say since around 2018 when Google released the Medic Update, which was the second update in this whole new series of core updates. The first one was the March, 2018 core update, but the Medic one, which was the August 2018 core update was the one that really sparked this. Where you saw Google doing something qualitatively different in the search results, or at least trying to, and slowly but surely they've been making headway for the last five years with this. But it's taken SEOs a long time to realize that incentive cycle is changing because the incentive cycle is only as good as what Google can show on the SERP. If Google can only use, say, page rank to determine quality, then it's only going to be able to show X level of quality threshold on the SERP so I don't have to go very far. If Google can use machine learning to better understand whatever, whatever, now that threshold increases, but it doesn't happen overnight. It's a slow burn. So what ends up happening, I think, is the needle moves, but if you're chasing the algorithm, you're always behind it 'cause you're not going to see it until it's too late. Jason, thoughts? Jason Dodge: No, Nigel, I think, summed it up really well. Mordy, you kind of helped pull that together. I think Google reacting the way that they do, right? 'Cause I mean that is what an algorithm change is, it's a reaction that the results or the web has been a disappointing place for a number of years. Search has been disappointing. But users, it's really been ingrained in us to trust it. We trust the results. It's an answer engine. I go there seeking solutions to my problems, answers to my questions. We see that with growing trends in featured snippets. We see the growing trends in PaaS and things of that nature. That's because it's the evolution of how people are using the tool, using the search engine. Who's being rewarded and incentivized, we could argue that left and right, but typically it is the more helpful content. But to Nigel's point, if you see that a competitor's answering certain questions a certain way and then as an SEO, why wouldn't I make that recommendation and why wouldn't I put that in my strategy? But definitely I think there are course corrections absolutely based on the way in which, not so much even the results that are coming up, but going deeper and saying how people are interacting with those results. And oftentimes I think we just need to take a step back and really be cognizant of that and understand maybe the intent and also where is that person in their journey. And I'm thinking that over the last few years, Google with machine learning, with AI is starting to understand the intent and where those searchers might be at in their journey too, therefore adjusting. Crystal Carter: I think also they're guiding the journey. So like Google's tool as a tool is much, much more sophisticated than it was during the Medic Update than it was during the ones before it. They're guiding the journey. They're going, oh, would you like to see the shoes in different colors? And you're like, yeah, you know what? Actually, I would. I didn't even know that was an option, but okay. Or people are asking this question, I was like, are they now? That's some juicy gossip. I'd love to read the answer to that question. So I think you're both touching upon how the medium of Google itself kind of dictates the content trends. Nigel, would you say that that's something that you've seen? Nigel Stevens: Yeah, I mean, what you're basically saying is that it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy where Google has trained people how to use Google and then therefore that impacts the results and that impacts the way people use it, and it's like a self-fulfilling cycle. Another thing I would add to this, and this is kind of, I can't know this for sure, it's more of a hypothesis, but I've heard other smarter people than me say it and I think it makes sense is that, I mean Google is also, as much as they innovate, they've also kind of been shown to be resting on their laurels a little bit, whereas, ChatGPT came out. That whole concept, as far as I know, was kind of invented at Google. They kind of didn't do much with it other than backend improvements to search, and then they scrambled to put something out. And the whispers I've heard are that Google is viewing this as the first true existential threat that they have ever really seen. So I would wager for sure that a big part of all of this is they're leaning more into that user data and what do people find helpful, not find helpful, all that. But all of that is like, they had some of that data before and they weren't acting on it as much, and now they're like, oh, we actually need to get ahead of this before we wake up and we're in third place. Mordy Oberstein: So there's two great points in that. One is all the talk of SG, and we actually spoke about this at our session at brightonSEO in San Diego that, I think in our session and in the EDGE of the Web session that SG is a little bit of a red herring, right? Google saw that Bing had this fancy shiny thing, was part of the whole AI wave. Let's go get the fancy shiny thing. And I think that took their focus off what's good for the actual user. And I've always been surprised that there has been no talk or very little talk about MUM, because I think MUM is something that's fascinating that can actually do a lot of things to help Google parse out queries and parse out content to better understand content. Because better understanding, in this particular perspective, means being able to break things down to a smaller parse to show more specific search results for more and better more specifically understand queries. But they haven't really talked a lot about that. And that's to your point, because they've gotten distracted. The other part of your answer I thought is fascinating is that Google does look at user behavior data. And Google recently came out as part of the whole DOJ trials that Google's looking at user behavior and SEO's like, ah, see, they're all looking at clicks. And my take and Crystal confirmed this, what Danny Sullivan said at brightonSEO was like, yeah, that's how RankBrain works. Their machine learning systems take a look at user behavior, process it and make general shifts and moves about what people want or are consuming, and then reflect that in the search results. Which brings me to my question to you both. Google has said, we're looking at what people are doing and what they want. The classic example I used for this is back in the day, you could have a recipe rank, and the recipe was just a recipe, there's no picture. Good luck ranking a recipe without a picture today. Because Google realized, hey, if you're looking for a recipe, user behavior seems to indicate you're going to stick around if there's a picture of the food. So recipe queries must have pictures among the results. So we know they're looking at what people are doing in content trends and all these things, but as SEOs, we somehow, and I'm not saying this in a critical way, I'm saying this, let's diagnose the problem so we could fix it. If Google's saying that they're looking at content and content trends and how people are engaging with content, why are we not talking enough about this? Jason Dodge: We're scared? I mean, you know... Mordy Oberstein: I'm not scared. Jason Dodge: And are you saying we as SEOs or Google, right? Mordy Oberstein: The we, we, got it. That didn't come out right. Jason Dodge: No, that didn't, that didn't. That goes back to putting your shoes on kids. Think about it this way, the disruption with AI and SGE and things of that nature, okay, so one thing for certain is that we know that Google isn't going to turn off their moneymaking machine, right? At BlackTruck, we also run paid ads as well. So we kind of see both sides as integrated as possible to be able to share data amongst teams to be able to see what's what. And we've seen it over the last, I would say, four weeks with the latest algorithm changes to seeing sites that took a nose dive, but then all of a sudden their ads become much more valuable when we blend search console data and PPC data together. It's really kind of crazy to see this correlation happening. So Q4 is going to be great for them. But I think if you look at trends in social as well, and the type of content that is being consumed in social and the moves that Meta has made in Facebook and the incentives to keep, you know, it's kind of almost like a cat and mouse. The incentive's to keep people on Meta, especially if you're an advertiser, is where you'll learn that the most, you'll get the most engagement out of it is if I keep people there. That's a playbook in my opinion, that's a chapter out of a playbook of Google. If I keep people here, they're more engaged with my site, I can give them answers. They don't need to come to your site. It's a visibility in the SERPs. Then you start to see, Mordy, to your point, oh, interesting, we know that recipes that have a photo because it's what I'm going to make because as an individual, photos are a universal language. They transcend any language out there. I see it, that looks tasty, I want to make it. It's the same reason that you see Google Business profiles, 35 or 40% more click activity for GBP's that have photos because people want to see what they're getting into. It doesn't matter if it's a home services company or it's a restaurant, right? It's human behavior. So yeah, hell yeah, absolutely. I mean, if a user's going to engage with that, we need to have more of that. Mordy Oberstein: Right, but then we don't, we talk about user behavior, Nigel, we talk about and they're like, oh, Google's looking at clicks. We look at it very linearly without looking at, well, no, Google's looking at user behavior and like, for example, E for experience in EAT, Nigel, do they pull that out of their hat? Like a magical thing they pulled out? They saw, there's a greater propensity for people to be searching for, looking for and engaging with content that has actual personal experience. So Nigel, why isn't the conversation focused on content trends and what's emerging in the content world and why do you feel like we stick in this little SEO sphere without cracking the larger picture? Why is that happening? Nigel Stevens: Part of the answer is probably just inertia and human psychology. People don't like to change, and people's understanding of SEO, a lot of people unfortunately, is not about thinking deeply about this like, okay, Google is looking at the intent and trying to serve it. A lot of people equate search intent to what I see in the SERPs right now. I don't know, maybe this is a controversial statement, but I don't think that's necessarily true because going back to Crystal's point about the self-fulfilling cycle of Google, one thing I see in B2B SaaS is everyone knows the playbook. It's like, create this long piece of content on everything and then everyone does it, and then everyone assumes that therefore, because that's all the content that's available, that is what people want. Therefore, that is search intent. Therefore, that is what good SEO looks like and not considering the possibility that, what if this is all a result of the incentives, back to that word, and people acting on it, and we're not thinking about, okay, if we wanted to provide something that is not like all these things but would better fulfill what Google is actually trying to move towards, what would that look like? But that's a difficult conversation. So again, going back to the business model aspect of this, if you're doing SEO, what's easier to try to sell out to someone, look, I know that all these other people are ranking doing this and this and this. We think that that's not beneficial for these reasons and we want to do this. That's a lot harder of a conversation to sell than, hey look, we saw your competitors did this. Let's do that. Because anyone who's worked with companies knows that's the number one way to get anything sold is like, well, competitor X did this, don't you want to do it? And the answer is almost always yes. Jason Dodge: I think you're spot on with that. I think 100%, and maybe that's where Nigel, you and I can come at it from an agency ownership/leadership perspective, right? When you're creating buy-in to get things done, it doesn't matter the size of the business, the size of the client, if you will, the size of the brand you work with, a hundred percent, one of the best ways to do it is look at what your competitor's doing. Absolutely, because you want to crush that, right? The other one is talking more holistically about SEO and talking more holistically about things like SERP visibility is, A, much more difficult to report on, and B, it's just harder to explain, it takes a lot more education. Crystal Carter: I think what's interesting, and there's a couple of points that you've both touched on, about the competitive nature, but also about different channels as well, different trends across different channels. I think one of the things that's important to think about in terms of content perspective from Google's point of view is that they are looking at the whole of the web, not just websites. You mentioned Facebook for instance, Google's also looking at their competitor, right? So their competitors include Facebook, include TikTok, include Twitter, other, Amazon for instance. Those are their competitors, and I think they're also steered by those content trends. So I think while it can be tricky to be a first mover within an internal, as a marketing person, you're making your pitch and you're like, hey, we're going to do something that's never been done before on this new content trend. I think sometimes it pays, and I think that probably the SEOs that do this the most are the SEOs who are looking across multiple channels where they can see there's a trend over here, there's a trend over there that's happening because Google can see that lots of people are engaging with TikTok. I spoke about it at MozCon and how Google increased the amount of videos that are on the SERP, they're like 45% year-on-year over the last year, partially in response to TikTok. And I think that we also need to be thinking about the trends that we see in other channels, not just in SEO in order to respond to what users are doing and where users are. Mordy Oberstein: So I literally put out a tweet, I don't know, September 28th. We're living in an emerging environment from AI to content trends, and I think it's going to pit SEOs against brand marketers. Brand marketers are looking to get ahead of the curve, whereas SEOs often don't want to get away from works now. As someone who does a lot of both, I feel this, I feel the conflict. And to highlight why I think it's so important that SEOs start thinking about content trends, I think we'll get into how you do that and what is emerging, is let alone the success of the site and the minutia of traffic and clicks or whatever, but if you're working with other stakeholders or other kinds of marketers who are looking at wider trends, are seeing what's happening now, I've never seen this on the web before. So many things are changing and it feels like something's about to break in a good way. We're going to shift. A major shift is currently happening, and if the other marketers that you're working with who are on your team or as part of your organization or part of the site stakeholder structure, are looking at things like, we need to jump on something to get ahead of the curve, and you're still thinking about SEO in a very, let's keep up with the algorithm kind of thing. You're going to be having a disconnect between the way you're approaching marketing and the way the other marketers are approaching marketing. And that's a bad thing and you don't want to be in that spot. So with that, Nigel, if I'm trying to get ahead of content, trying to look at merging content trends, how do I do that? Where do I look? What am I trying to find? How do I keep my finger on the pulse kind of thing? Nigel Stevens: Yeah, so to answer that question and address, I agree with everything that both of you just said. One thing I would point out is we keep talking about marketers and marketing disciplines. One thing that I think marketers, including myself have an amazing ability to do is go to work, view the world that way, and then close your work computer and do stuff, interact with the web in a totally different way and not connect those trends. Even thinking about it as channels is a very marketer first way to think about it, which you're not wrong, it's a hundred percent. But one epiphany I had was thinking about the way I interact with the web, whatever, watching YouTube videos and YouTube shorts and little things, and then I flip open my work computer and I'm looking at some of the work that's being done in the broader industry. I'm like, I'm not necessarily saying that SaaS companies need to be making six second dance videos, but the gap between what I'm doing in my personal life and what everyone else is doing in their lives and what we're doing in work, again, it's not that it has to be nothing there, but I think they're world's apart. And that sort of goes back to the point of running a playbook for this industry versus thinking about, okay, what do human beings who interact with the web now, that have no attention span, that have podcasts, YouTube videos, a million different things to do, and one of the things that I'm telling my team and we're talking about is we have to shift away from thinking about getting traffic to capturing attention because again, this again goes back to the incentives thing, at the beginning of my career I was, okay, you rank for this stuff, you get the traffic, that's good. Somebody figures out how to turn it into money. And I think over time the amount of traffic went up as far as when you combine Google, all the platforms, people are looking at a bazillion things. So someone looking at something doesn't really matter anymore. And that's why I think a lot of it is incentives and it's also just looking at your personal life and saying, what are things that capture my attention? What are things that I think are interesting? And they don't have to be applied directly based on the vertical or industry you're working in, but what are principles that I can learn from that? One simple example is, it seems like a lot of these platforms are using types of opt-in where even on LinkedIn, what appears to work as slideshows, opt-in, opt-in, opt-in. Short videos, opt-in, opt-in, opt-in. But then big ass article, there's a big gap between those two things, which doesn't mean you can't create really good content rich articles, but how do you make them more navigable versus just this gigantic block of text? Jason Dodge: The actual content experience is really something, Nigel, that you touched on. The opt-in is an interesting one too. And I think the opt-in is one of those, not to sidetrack us, I think that's one of those, somebody had mentioned before, it's a reaction to the idea that third party cookies are going to go away. So first party data is going to be gold, which it's always been gold anyways, so what's the best way to do it? Opt-in to my stuff. So now again, the focus is on that, but I couldn't agree with you more. I think the idea that the content has to be experiential, it has to be a positive content experience, long form content is great, but like TLDR, if I don't want to read it, the recipe is a great example. There's enough internet memes out there for it. I don't need to read about the trauma that you had baking cookies with grandma. Let's just get to the recipe. Mordy Oberstein: I would love to actually read recipes of trauma. The first part is all about the trauma. Jason Dodge: That domain's probably available. I'm going to go get that domain right now. Crystal Carter: And I think, just to pick up on what Nigel was saying about some of the, pay attention to the things that actually capture you, I think that we as web users, we are inundated with so much content and we can see trends. We can see that there are dance trends online and things like that. So I mean, Duolingo is a classic example. Duolingo has a very silly mascot that dances all over TikTok and does all sorts of silly things on TikTok, and they get great exposure for that. I'm talking about it right now. And they're a language app and their Duolingo mascot guy who runs around TikTok doesn't necessarily talk about languages all that often, but their brand is front and center really, really regularly. Another good example that I've heard from is Amanda Natividad. She shared how her exterminator has a newsletter and it's really, really useful. And she actually shared a screenshot from the newsletter, and I was like, that's really useful advice. I followed that advice. It was great advice. Now, the thing that's interesting about that is that I remember that, I don't even know his name necessarily, but if I was in her area, I would go and look that person up. So I think it's really important to pay attention to the things that you pay attention to, what's made you stop and where are the trends that you're seeing when you're going around online? Jason Dodge: I think, yeah, spot on. And if you think about it too, a couple different items to build on that, if you don't have relationships with PR folks, I think as an SEO right now or moving into 2024, I think you've missed the boat. If you have attended any search marketing conference in the last 10 years, the best people who have been on the stage to talk about link building are PR people. They're PR professionals. That's their background. Their background is the pitch and how do I get that brand? How do I get the brand? They're not even talking about the site, they're not talking about links, it's how do I get the brand out there as much as possible? That's all PR, right? And so having a, I know a lot of our team have communications background and PR background. It's less about the dollars and cents and it's more about how do we communicate with people and where they're at in the channel and in the journey, et cetera. I mean, I think to your point of why aren't we doing it is just we've always done what we've always done, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. But it's fun to watch. One of the things that I like to do is watch what people are doing and how it's changing when they're doing their content. But one thing I know as an example is Search Engine Land. They started to push their newsletter subscription in a different way. They have a couple of lines from the article, then they have a short little paragraph pushing their newsletter highlighted in light blue, and there's no CTA. To sign up for the news, it's an in link. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. It's far less intrusive. It's very subtle. It looks like it's part of the article. And you know what? I kind of like that better. I gauge how I'm feeling when I'm looking at what people are trying out and experimenting with their content. And if it resonates with me, I'm like, okay, that's interesting, pause. And it resonated with me that they're not pushing the CTA the same way. I'm like, you know what? That's really interesting. And then I look for other corroborations. Google started running ads in between the organic results. I wonder if that's very similar. They're seeing that top of the SERP ads or bottom of the page ads. Everyone knows that those are, everyone knows that their ads, no matter how subtle the ad label is, I don't want to be sold to forget it. But if it's much more subtle, so in the middle of an organic result, then suddenly I feel it's less intrusive. You're less trying to pitch me and I'm more happy to click on that. So I wonder if Google is seeing and doing the same thing as Search Engine Land is doing. And at that point, I realized I'm feeling a certain way. I'm seeing two things that might be related, might not be, just a theory, that's something to investigate and research and then talk to other people about like, do you think the age of the CTA is dead? Put out a tweet, put out a LinkedIn post and see what the comments say about that. Crystal Carter: I think there's a lot of ways to respond to emerging content. And I think that, yeah, we should be talking about it more. So here's a controversial theory. Do you think the SEOs don't talk to other SEOs about emerging content trends? Because we like to keep our cards close to our chest because it's a question of know when to hold them, know when to fold them. It's tough out here in these SERPs. Nigel Stevens: The reason, I think that's a good theory about a lot of things, the reason I'm going to say, I don't buy it is that I'm not seeing very much evidence of that out in the universe of anything that's breaking the pattern. And to kind of riff on what you were both talking about, like Crystal, you mentioned, I think about the exterminator thing, it made me stop what I was doing. Something I've been thinking a lot about is what are the first principles? We're out here talking about algorithms, what Google is doing, what are the first principles here? It's like, what is marketing? It's connect with someone, get their attention and get them to do something. And I feel like this is kind of corny to say, but if you think about those first principles, then you don't get locked into all of these best practices. How does Google render JavaScript? All this, which they're like, are the important questions that you have to answer, but the core first principle that's never going to change is how do you get someone's attention and get them to do something? And as the internet, the barrier to entry is getting lower for producing certain types of stuff. The premium is going to go on. How do you actually capture attention and show credibility and show someone that this was not just an automatically generated page that's trying to trick you into doing something? Mordy Oberstein: And as time runs out on us, find out by following both Nigel and Jason. Where can people find you folks? Nigel Stevens: On LinkedIn? I'm not a very good internet marketer. I'm not on the X and the Twitters. Jason Dodge: Oh, man, you can follow me. Yeah, certainly, I'm with Nigel. LinkedIn is a good place. I'm still active on Twitter/X, @dodgejd, pretty much everywhere. And obviously blacktruckmedia.com. Mordy Oberstein: Awesome, we'll link to your show notes. Fellas, it was so nice talking to you. It's such a needed topic. And if you're listening to this, take what we're saying to heart. Open your mind, open your minds. Content is like LSD. Open your minds to wider experiences. Is that good? Jason Dodge: I think that's great. Nigel Stevens: What a better note to end on. Crystal Carter: Does content make the walls move? Jason Dodge: Yeah, that's great. Please include that in the show notes. It's wonderful. Nigel Stevens: Nigel, how was the podcast? Well, it ended with LSD, but I'll tell you later. Mordy Oberstein: As all great things do. Jason Dodge: I think that you're spot on. And Nigel, you hit the nail on the head. And Crystal, you made a good suggestion too. Just start to pay attention to what's going on around you. Don't be so myopic and stuck and actually look at these landing pages in your own personal experiences. I think 100%, because there are reasons that Google is making these changes. So pay attention. Mordy Oberstein: And good luck to us all. Jason Dodge: Good luck. Mordy Oberstein: And good luck to you guys. Thanks again for coming on. Nigel Stevens: Thank you. Jason Dodge: Thank you as well. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, well, with all this talk about emerging content trends, we're curious. I'm curious at least, how does Google understand some of the emerging topics or emerging trends related to content? And to do that, we have a fun little segment. We look at Google's People Also Ask box where we have those four questions that you can open up a tab and see an answer and that it loads more questions every time you click on one of them. Anyway, with the PAA box, we search for some terms related to emerging content trends, which can only mean one thing, it's time for Fun with People Also Ask. So I did a little query, and it's nothing too complicated. I searched for content trends 2024. Now, keep in mind, we're recording this on November 14th, 2023. And what I got back was four questions. One was, what are the biggest content trends in 2023? What is the future of content? Okay, that kind of makes sense. What are the B2B marketing trends for 2024? And what are the five marketing trends and predictions for 2023? Now, first question I had was, 2023, is that Google getting it wrong? I asked for 2024 or is Google saying, I don't think you know what you're really asking for. It's still 2023 right now. Why are you asking about 2024? Crystal Carter: Very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: So what's interesting is that I'm looking at the SERP and there's tons of content there that's showing for 2024. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and we're still a good month and a half out, which just goes to show you our earlier point about what SEOs sometimes do. Crystal Carter: So it's not to say that they don't have anything to pull from, but they're definitely like, yeah, let's talk about 2023. And it's like, guys, we're not... Mordy Oberstein: Wait, maybe Google, it's a little shot at what sometimes SEOs do. Google's like, oh, you asked for 2024 but to tell you that 2024 is really the same as 2023, you just changed the year and the title tag. It was like, here's a bunch of results for 2023. We know what you're doing. Crystal Carter: No, this is new content. It's completely different. Mordy Oberstein: But the title tag is new, it says 2024. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Also, you pointed this out, was that there was the switch to the B2B marketing trends, which I thought was in. If I'm asking for content trends... Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: But then Google switches to marketing trends. Crystal Carter: Right. So they're switching to B2B marketing there, and they're also switching to marketing trends, predictions. Now, marketing trends might not be entirely to do with content specifically, and certainly marketing trends and predictions might not be to do with content particularly as well. They could be like billboards are going to make a big comeback. I mean, look, just what happened with the Barbie movie. And actually I think it's interesting the way people are using billboards. But yeah, I think it's very interesting that they've pivoted to that. Sometimes when you look up something around on a PAA, sometimes they will hedge. We found this when we were looking at migration, for instance. They were like, oh, you're talking about data migration? You're talking about human migration? You're talking about like, which kind of migration are you talking about? What migration, which kind of thing are you talking about? So I think if you're trying to rank for a PAA, for instance, it's important to know that when it's a less specific search, you're more likely to have half of the PAA's. Mordy Oberstein: There's always that outlier intent or the multiple intent built into the PAA box. I once did a study about this in, I don't know, 2018, where I went through manually, went through hundreds of PAA boxes, and subjectively decided, very scientific, although after a while you get good at it, how many different intents there are. And they're pretty clear, you could see it here, Google switches from the content to the marketing trends thing, it's pretty self-evident. And there was a good number percentage of boxes that have this. It's a regular pattern. I don't remember the exact number because the platform that I wrote that content for, deleted it. So that information has been lost from the web. Crystal Carter: It was time well spent, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, really? As someone used it in the Rest MX deck back in the day, and I was in the room like, oh, that's my study. That's my study. So I was pretty proud about that, but now it's gone from the internet. Unless you found the URL and use the Wayback Machine. Crystal Carter: You're not better though. It's fine. It's not a big deal. Mordy Oberstein: No, I'm very happy about it. Why would I not be happy about this? But anyway, it's a normal thing. We digress, there's a normal thing for Google to throw a little punt and like, oh, maybe you mean this. Maybe that's your intent. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it's interesting. So similarly, and we know that AI content writing is a content trend for 2023, and for 2024, I'm sure as well. And so I entered in AI content writing as the key term and the People Also Ask for that was, can I use AI for content writing? What is the best content AI writer? That's fun, PAA's don't always make grammatical sense. Is there an AI that writes content for free? Is AI content writing worth it? And I think that that, again, when you read all of those, you see the sort of flow of worry and concern and interest around a particular topic. Is it free? Is it worth it? Should I invest my time in this? Is this something I should do? How people are thinking about a particular topic. Mordy Oberstein: I could dive into this or have the perfect pivot. Speaking of headlines that sometimes also don't always make sense, here's this week's version of The Snappy News. Crystal Carter: Or Barry. Mordy Oberstein: Or Barry. I'm sorry. It was such a good pivot, wasn't it? Come on. That was great. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, three for the price of two this week. First up, from Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Land, 94% of Google SGE links are different from organic results, study finds. So Danny does a whole summary of a study done by Authoritas who did a study called Research Study: The Impact of Google Search Generative Experience on Organic Rankings. We'll link to both in the show notes. If you want a summary, check out Danny's Search Engine Land piece. If you want to dive into all the nitty-gritty details, check out the actual story from Authoritas. But essentially what they did was, among many and many other things, was look at the number of links within Google's SGE and to see if they matched the organic results themselves. What they found was that on average there are 10 links within Google's SGE, but only four domains, meaning those 10 links only come from four websites. They also found that around 94% of the URLs within the SGE do not match the organic results. Now, what I'm curious to see is the number of links that match within the summary itself versus the three or four whatever organic result cards Google shows in the top right-hand corner of the SGE box. What do I mean? Some of the links are additive. Google is citing along as it's generating its summary within the SGE box. So you ask Google, I don't know, who is the best baseball player ever? And it tells you, well Babe Ruth played for the Yankees and blah, blah, and it offers a citation to the New York Yankees. It's a link to the New York Yankees, let's say. It wouldn't make sense that that link would be found within the organic result itself, but basically Google's doing is annotating the subtopics that reflect the wider topic that's reflected in the query. So those links as you go along in the SGE text itself kind of makes sense that they don't match. What would be interesting to see is that if the organic cards within the top right hand quarter of the SGE box, which do align to the overall query, which do basically serve as organic results, if those match the organic results or not. Now the fact that they wouldn't match might not be a problem, 'cause Google's saying, hey, just like a feature snippet, we're not going to show the URL within the feature snippet and then again, within the organic results. They might just be showing the URLs within the SGE as part of those organic cards, and then again not, in the actual organic results again. So it might not necessarily be a problem if they don't match, you know what I mean? Anyway, check out the full study within the show notes. We'll link to learn there. Second article from he who is Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable, the newly designed Search Engine Roundtable, oh, Wharton professor, Ethan Mollick, on the decay of internet search. It's very dramatic, Barry. So basically a professor from Wharton, associate professor from the Wharton School of Business was searching for, it looks like queries about upcoming shows. I don't know, when is Stranger Things, season five coming out? That kind of query. Instead, the organic results kind of stink here. It's interesting, there's been a lot of sentiments. One of the things I really, I wouldn't say enjoy talking about, I find fascinating. That's how I would, I find it fascinating. The whole idea of the decay of the organic results because from my point of view, as someone who's looked very, very carefully at what Google has been doing with the algorithm updates for the better part of 10 years, I only see the results getting better. Obviously there are peaks and valleys. Google makes an update, sometimes they get everything right, exactly. And you have controversy within the SEO community about how good the results are. I'm talking since 2018, the advent of the modern day core updates, Google's only gotten better. However, sentiment has gotten worse. I don't want to get into why exactly that is, here, I've talked a lot about this in the past. I think we've probably covered on the podcast at some point. If we haven't, we will. It's one of my talking points. It's interesting here in this case, 'cause it happens to be, I search for these queries a lot. Like, I don't know, when is the final season of The Crown coming out? It came out already and a lot of the results here are less than spectacular. But, first off, I do find that for the most part, even though the results are not particularly spectacular and they're a little bit clickbaity, they kind of serve their purpose. It's not meant to be Faulkner. On the other hand, I do get where the professor, the group professor is coming from because they are a little bit, nah, not stellar in quality. I think though the main issue is that what these websites are doing is that they're paying attention to what say, the statements that Netflix is making or researching various sources, kind of putting it all together for you so you know what the storyline might be, when the show might be coming out? Where is it in production? How far along is it in that? And the reason why the result may not be great is because there's just not a lot of great content out there. So what else is Google going to rank? Netflix isn't putting out a full article of where the show is in production, when they expect it to come out, what some of the rumored storylines are. They're not doing that. So you have these other websites who are not the source themselves, or not these super authorities like Netflix itself or Hulu or Disney Plus, I can go on with all the other streaming websites that are out there. My God, how many streaming websites are there? There is no content like that. So what else is Google going to rank? So is it, the content stinks and Google should be ranking something else? Or is it that somebody else should be writing better content so that Google can rank it? The chicken and the egg. And with that, that is this week's Snappy News. We love you Barry. You are our best friend. We love you more than words could ever say. Crystal Carter: Honestly, like yeah, you're that dude. Mordy Oberstein: I feel you in the heart. Crystal Carter: Big love, Barry. Mordy Oberstein: Big love Barry. Which brings to another big love that we have, which is telling you about people that you could be following on social media for more SEO content and marketing awesomes, and this week we have Kelsey Jones, who's @wonderwall7, W-O-N-D-E-R-W-A-L-L seven, if you're not typing that in really quickly as I'm spelling it, we'll link to it in the show notes. But Kelsey is a fabulous content marketing person and she's one of these content marketing people that really overlaps in SEO, kind of like Ross Hudgens out there, who's another follow we had a couple of weeks ago. So definitely give her a follow and a shoutout over on X/Twitter, again, I don't know what we call it anymore, but she actually recently hosted SEOChat and that was also fabulous. So give her a big follow. Crystal Carter: Give her a big follow because today is going to be the day that you're going to find out about some of the cool stuff that Kelsey Jones is doing. Mordy Oberstein: Wow, what an oasis. An oasis of social media awesomeness. Crystal Carter: Precisely. So yeah, do check her out. But yeah, I think it's great to be thinking about, particularly if you are an SEO SEO, I think it's really good to be speaking to and checking out folks who are looking at the activity from a different perspective and who are all trying to get this... Mordy Oberstein: A wider content world. Crystal Carter: Exactly. And who are all trying to get great results for users and customers and clients and to broaden your mind. Mordy Oberstein: From the wider content world. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: No? Crystal Carter: The whole internet. Mordy has been very demonstrative of late. So ever since his dance routine at BrightonSEO, Mordy's given me full jazz hands right now. Mordy Oberstein: We'll dance for good content. Unfortunately, I never have to dance because there's no good content. Anyway, with that snarky remark, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, look for wherever you consume your podcast or the SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all of the great content and webinars we have over at the Wix SEO Learning Hub at you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace and love and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Nigel Stevens Jason Dodge Kelsey Jones Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Black Truck Media OGM Marketing Unsolved SEO Mysteries News: 94% of Google SGE links are different from organic search results, study finds Research Study - The Impact of Google's Search Generative Experience on organic rankings Wharton Professor, Ethan Mollick, On The Decay Of Internet Search Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Nigel Stevens Jason Dodge Kelsey Jones Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Black Truck Media OGM Marketing Unsolved SEO Mysteries News: 94% of Google SGE links are different from organic search results, study finds Research Study - The Impact of Google's Search Generative Experience on organic rankings Wharton Professor, Ethan Mollick, On The Decay Of Internet Search Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining us in the SERP's Up Podcast. Some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who loves content, no one enjoys content more than Crystal. She loves content in trends. She loves analyzing its emergingness-ness, and it's about all things content. She's the one, she's the only, Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications here at Wix, or as I like to call her, Captain Content. Crystal Carter: I'm a technical SEO. Let's just clarify that now. Mordy Oberstein: I'm just trying to make you feel uncomfortable. Crystal Carter: Let's clarify that right now people of the internet, I'm a technical SEO. I like talking to the bots. I like structured data. I appreciate content, I appreciate good content. But yeah, I'm not the content marketer. So just to correct that content. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, sorry, my mistake. I was not aware of that at all. Other than times we're like, hey, we've got to write a post about something. They're like, all right, Mordy, you just write it because you'll spit out 30 pages in three minutes. Crystal Carter: So I was in a group chat with [inaudible 00:01:18], who is a content marketer. She writes content, she teaches people how to do content, and she was like, every time we're on a WhatsApp chat, all I can see is Crystal is typing, Crystal is typing, and I'll write three lines and it'll take me 20 minutes. It takes me a long time to decide on the words. I can say all kinds of stuff, listen to me saying things, but writing it takes a little longer for me. Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/seo/newsletter, but where you can also spin up content even quicker with reusable templates across all the sites you manage with Wix Studio, look forward at wix.com/studio. It's a great way to scale the latest trends in content, assuming you don't hate those trends, because today we're talking about the emerging content trends of the web and why SEOs might need to pay a little bit more attention to why it would be certainly beneficial if you did, and why you should certainly pay close attention to them. Why emerging content trends are important for SEO. What are some emerging content trends to note and why SEO should be paying lots and lots and lots of attention to them. Joining us in the digital flesh with the founder of BlackTruck Media and the founder of OGM, Nigel Stevens and Jason Dodge, not respectively. I got the order backwards there. Plus we'll have a look at how Google itself understands some of the emerging content trends out there. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news, who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social. So join us as we help you emerge from the ashes and emerge from the darkness as episode number 68 of the SERP's Up Podcast helps SEOs with the content trends emerging from the shadows. A little ominous there, yeah. Crystal Carter: Ominous. Mordy Oberstein: Ominous. Nigel Stevens: And a great radio voice! Jason Dodge: It was really good. Nigel Stevens: Stronger. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, but I can't say ominous, right. Ominous. Jason Dodge: Sounds great though. Sounds dark. It's dark. Mordy Oberstein: I would edit it out but now we've leaned into it so now we can't edit it out. By the way, welcome Jason and welcome Nigel. How are you guys? Nigel Stevens: Hello. Jason Dodge: Hello, good. Thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: Same. Crystal Carter: Very pleased to have you on the show. Jason Dodge: I don't know how to respond to that after the ominous. Crystal Carter: You have to respond in a Batman voice. Mordy Oberstein: You can respond by pitching who you are and what you do for our audience. Marketers got to market.. Jason Dodge: Yes, I can do that. I can do that. And I'm going to jump in over top of Nigel, but we'll get it in the right order this time. Mordy Oberstein: Sorry. Jason Dodge: I'm Jason Dodge. I'm the founder and CEO of BlackTruck Media and Marketing, search marketing company based in the beautiful area of Grand Rapids, Michigan for my Upper Midwestern listeners. Nigel Stevens: I am Nigel Stevens. I run a company called Organic Growth Marketing, founder and CEO. And we are not based in one place, but highly distributed around the world, work with a lot of fast-growing SaaS companies. Mordy Oberstein: Like good content, highly distributed. Nigel Stevens: Ayo. Crystal Carter: And sassy. That's what we like. These are important things. Jason Dodge: Look at you, look at you. Crystal Carter: All the time. Mordy Oberstein: So to catch the audience up just a little bit, I believe that content is one of the most volatile and ever-changing things on the planet. It's constantly changing and the implications of it change our world. And the example I always give, and I'll give it again because it's a great example. I've probably done it on this podcast before, is I think of the night, is the 1960 or '61, whatever, it had to be '60, right? Presidential debate between Richard Nixon and JFK. It was the first one on TV. And for the audio audience, the people listening on the radio, they thought Richard Nixon won. And then when they surveyed people who watched it on TV, they thought that JFK won. And the reason for that is is that JFK looks like JFK and Richard Nixon looks like Richard Nixon. But it changed, that content shift changed everything because now presidential campaigns became about optics. There's a lot more about optics because now you could see everything, literally, you could see everything. So when content changes, it literally changes the world. And Google has said, very recently actually, Danny Sullivan was talking, I think on Twitter, Danny Sullivan is Google's search liaison saying that, "We Google look at emerging content trends and try to align our algorithm to capitalize on them, to meet them because we know that's what users want. So don't hunt the algorithm, hunt what people actually want because that's what we're looking at." But I find, and this is where I would like to get both your guys' thoughts, and of course Crystal, there's not always so much chatter about content trends and emerging content trends and the value of content trends for SEO within the SEO sphere, and why not? And maybe that should change. Jason Dodge: Can we just go on the record and like, Danny Sullivan coming out and, I think it's great, but I'm seeing a lot, I think any chatter that I've seen, certainly out of the last, I don't know, how many algorithm updates have we had in the last three months? Mordy Oberstein: 4,000. Jason Dodge: Thank you. 4,000 every month now, and then pretty soon we're just not going to know about them. I think, just to kind of back it up, you're either an algorithm chaser or you're not. I am, self-admitted, not an algorithm chaser, have not been for 20 years of my career in the SEO space. But what I really find interesting when you talk about optics and you talk about perhaps somebody like Danny Sullivan talking about what Google is interested in and what they're doing, and then there's others in the industry that you can read tweets or X's or whatever we're calling that these days, that all of a sudden the focus is on the user and how we need to create content for the user, when in reality, my opinion has always been, shouldn't we be creating content for the user? I guess some of this stuff, it's like, do we really need an algorithm update to do that and to slap everybody in the face that like, you should be writing for the human being and the individual, and I get it, we're SEOs, we're here to work to improve the rank and file of websites, but I just find it really interesting, here we are as the "mature industry" and we're talking about writing content for users and the people who are actually going to consume it. I find it really fascinating, mildly frustrating, but fascinating that we have a big tech company like Google that says, just write it for the people. Crystal Carter: So my question is, do you think that they're responding to a content trend from that? Like presumably they felt the need to say this, like sometimes I said to my kid, "Hey, put your shoes on," and he goes, "I am." And I'm like, "I can see you. You're not putting your shoes on. That's why I told you you should put your shoes on." Now, do we think that this, I can, Mordy you're laughing 'cause I know you feel my pain here. Mordy Oberstein: That's the best analogy for what's going on. Crystal Carter: Right? So I wonder if you as a good SEO, like Nigel as a good SEO, I wonder maybe they're not talking to you, they know you've already put your shoes on or whatever, but they also know that there's a bunch of people or a bunch of other folks who are doing something else. And I wonder if they're not also highlighting a trend that they are seeing as well. Do you think that's the case? Jason Dodge: Yeah, I mean, Nigel, go for it. I certainly have some thoughts, but by all means jump in. Nigel Stevens: I mean, I feel like it's a rhetorical question. Of course, they're responding to people that are trying to game the algorithm. And I think a lot of the root cause here, when you really think about it, 'cause I think everyone, people tend to agree with these concepts in theory, like create content for the user, not just provide, but a lot of people's saying that also don't act that way. And I think a lot of it just comes back to incentives. At the end of the day, if you're doing SEO, you're either doing it for your own site, in which case all you care about is the bottom line, or you're doing it for someone else and you were therefore dependent on their idea of what success is. And I think the incentive structure of the SEO industry is behind the actual place we are in it. Meaning that if companies say, okay, we need traffic, and you are getting gold against traffic, you are under a lot of pressure to do the things that you think will bring traffic even if you think they don't make sense. And I think even good SEO people have valid conversations with in-house content people whose heart's in the right place and they're like, "God, do we really have to add this in?" And the SEO person's like, "Look, we can not add it, but if we add it, we think there's an X percent higher chance that we're going to rank for this, therefore do it." So I actually would frame it as, it's not necessarily binary black and white where there's good SEO and bad SEO and kids putting on their shoes or not putting on their shoes, however you want to put it. There's also people that are like, look, my incentives are to drive traffic and if I do these things, then I will drive traffic. And that means adding, what is this, how to do this, X best practice of this, how do I take every single possible section from all the top competitors, add them to this, I think that there's a higher chance I'm going to rank. At the end of the day, those incentives are in place because Google has, in a lot of ways, rewarded that. So to go back to your question Crystal, yes, I think Google is now trying to undo some of the incentives that they have put in place for all these years that have put the web to where they are. It's easy to say, oh, SEO people doing this or that, like SEO people are just following where the money goes and that's where it's taking them, that's my perspective. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and you still see that with links, right? Because back in the day it was links and that still lingers to this day. It's very hard to break that. It's an amazing thing because the incentive cycle has changed and it's been changing, I would say since around 2018 when Google released the Medic Update, which was the second update in this whole new series of core updates. The first one was the March, 2018 core update, but the Medic one, which was the August 2018 core update was the one that really sparked this. Where you saw Google doing something qualitatively different in the search results, or at least trying to, and slowly but surely they've been making headway for the last five years with this. But it's taken SEOs a long time to realize that incentive cycle is changing because the incentive cycle is only as good as what Google can show on the SERP. If Google can only use, say, page rank to determine quality, then it's only going to be able to show X level of quality threshold on the SERP so I don't have to go very far. If Google can use machine learning to better understand whatever, whatever, now that threshold increases, but it doesn't happen overnight. It's a slow burn. So what ends up happening, I think, is the needle moves, but if you're chasing the algorithm, you're always behind it 'cause you're not going to see it until it's too late. Jason, thoughts? Jason Dodge: No, Nigel, I think, summed it up really well. Mordy, you kind of helped pull that together. I think Google reacting the way that they do, right? 'Cause I mean that is what an algorithm change is, it's a reaction that the results or the web has been a disappointing place for a number of years. Search has been disappointing. But users, it's really been ingrained in us to trust it. We trust the results. It's an answer engine. I go there seeking solutions to my problems, answers to my questions. We see that with growing trends in featured snippets. We see the growing trends in PaaS and things of that nature. That's because it's the evolution of how people are using the tool, using the search engine. Who's being rewarded and incentivized, we could argue that left and right, but typically it is the more helpful content. But to Nigel's point, if you see that a competitor's answering certain questions a certain way and then as an SEO, why wouldn't I make that recommendation and why wouldn't I put that in my strategy? But definitely I think there are course corrections absolutely based on the way in which, not so much even the results that are coming up, but going deeper and saying how people are interacting with those results. And oftentimes I think we just need to take a step back and really be cognizant of that and understand maybe the intent and also where is that person in their journey. And I'm thinking that over the last few years, Google with machine learning, with AI is starting to understand the intent and where those searchers might be at in their journey too, therefore adjusting. Crystal Carter: I think also they're guiding the journey. So like Google's tool as a tool is much, much more sophisticated than it was during the Medic Update than it was during the ones before it. They're guiding the journey. They're going, oh, would you like to see the shoes in different colors? And you're like, yeah, you know what? Actually, I would. I didn't even know that was an option, but okay. Or people are asking this question, I was like, are they now? That's some juicy gossip. I'd love to read the answer to that question. So I think you're both touching upon how the medium of Google itself kind of dictates the content trends. Nigel, would you say that that's something that you've seen? Nigel Stevens: Yeah, I mean, what you're basically saying is that it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy where Google has trained people how to use Google and then therefore that impacts the results and that impacts the way people use it, and it's like a self-fulfilling cycle. Another thing I would add to this, and this is kind of, I can't know this for sure, it's more of a hypothesis, but I've heard other smarter people than me say it and I think it makes sense is that, I mean Google is also, as much as they innovate, they've also kind of been shown to be resting on their laurels a little bit, whereas, ChatGPT came out. That whole concept, as far as I know, was kind of invented at Google. They kind of didn't do much with it other than backend improvements to search, and then they scrambled to put something out. And the whispers I've heard are that Google is viewing this as the first true existential threat that they have ever really seen. So I would wager for sure that a big part of all of this is they're leaning more into that user data and what do people find helpful, not find helpful, all that. But all of that is like, they had some of that data before and they weren't acting on it as much, and now they're like, oh, we actually need to get ahead of this before we wake up and we're in third place. Mordy Oberstein: So there's two great points in that. One is all the talk of SG, and we actually spoke about this at our session at brightonSEO in San Diego that, I think in our session and in the EDGE of the Web session that SG is a little bit of a red herring, right? Google saw that Bing had this fancy shiny thing, was part of the whole AI wave. Let's go get the fancy shiny thing. And I think that took their focus off what's good for the actual user. And I've always been surprised that there has been no talk or very little talk about MUM, because I think MUM is something that's fascinating that can actually do a lot of things to help Google parse out queries and parse out content to better understand content. Because better understanding, in this particular perspective, means being able to break things down to a smaller parse to show more specific search results for more and better more specifically understand queries. But they haven't really talked a lot about that. And that's to your point, because they've gotten distracted. The other part of your answer I thought is fascinating is that Google does look at user behavior data. And Google recently came out as part of the whole DOJ trials that Google's looking at user behavior and SEO's like, ah, see, they're all looking at clicks. And my take and Crystal confirmed this, what Danny Sullivan said at brightonSEO was like, yeah, that's how RankBrain works. Their machine learning systems take a look at user behavior, process it and make general shifts and moves about what people want or are consuming, and then reflect that in the search results. Which brings me to my question to you both. Google has said, we're looking at what people are doing and what they want. The classic example I used for this is back in the day, you could have a recipe rank, and the recipe was just a recipe, there's no picture. Good luck ranking a recipe without a picture today. Because Google realized, hey, if you're looking for a recipe, user behavior seems to indicate you're going to stick around if there's a picture of the food. So recipe queries must have pictures among the results. So we know they're looking at what people are doing in content trends and all these things, but as SEOs, we somehow, and I'm not saying this in a critical way, I'm saying this, let's diagnose the problem so we could fix it. If Google's saying that they're looking at content and content trends and how people are engaging with content, why are we not talking enough about this? Jason Dodge: We're scared? I mean, you know... Mordy Oberstein: I'm not scared. Jason Dodge: And are you saying we as SEOs or Google, right? Mordy Oberstein: The we, we, got it. That didn't come out right. Jason Dodge: No, that didn't, that didn't. That goes back to putting your shoes on kids. Think about it this way, the disruption with AI and SGE and things of that nature, okay, so one thing for certain is that we know that Google isn't going to turn off their moneymaking machine, right? At BlackTruck, we also run paid ads as well. So we kind of see both sides as integrated as possible to be able to share data amongst teams to be able to see what's what. And we've seen it over the last, I would say, four weeks with the latest algorithm changes to seeing sites that took a nose dive, but then all of a sudden their ads become much more valuable when we blend search console data and PPC data together. It's really kind of crazy to see this correlation happening. So Q4 is going to be great for them. But I think if you look at trends in social as well, and the type of content that is being consumed in social and the moves that Meta has made in Facebook and the incentives to keep, you know, it's kind of almost like a cat and mouse. The incentive's to keep people on Meta, especially if you're an advertiser, is where you'll learn that the most, you'll get the most engagement out of it is if I keep people there. That's a playbook in my opinion, that's a chapter out of a playbook of Google. If I keep people here, they're more engaged with my site, I can give them answers. They don't need to come to your site. It's a visibility in the SERPs. Then you start to see, Mordy, to your point, oh, interesting, we know that recipes that have a photo because it's what I'm going to make because as an individual, photos are a universal language. They transcend any language out there. I see it, that looks tasty, I want to make it. It's the same reason that you see Google Business profiles, 35 or 40% more click activity for GBP's that have photos because people want to see what they're getting into. It doesn't matter if it's a home services company or it's a restaurant, right? It's human behavior. So yeah, hell yeah, absolutely. I mean, if a user's going to engage with that, we need to have more of that. Mordy Oberstein: Right, but then we don't, we talk about user behavior, Nigel, we talk about and they're like, oh, Google's looking at clicks. We look at it very linearly without looking at, well, no, Google's looking at user behavior and like, for example, E for experience in EAT, Nigel, do they pull that out of their hat? Like a magical thing they pulled out? They saw, there's a greater propensity for people to be searching for, looking for and engaging with content that has actual personal experience. So Nigel, why isn't the conversation focused on content trends and what's emerging in the content world and why do you feel like we stick in this little SEO sphere without cracking the larger picture? Why is that happening? Nigel Stevens: Part of the answer is probably just inertia and human psychology. People don't like to change, and people's understanding of SEO, a lot of people unfortunately, is not about thinking deeply about this like, okay, Google is looking at the intent and trying to serve it. A lot of people equate search intent to what I see in the SERPs right now. I don't know, maybe this is a controversial statement, but I don't think that's necessarily true because going back to Crystal's point about the self-fulfilling cycle of Google, one thing I see in B2B SaaS is everyone knows the playbook. It's like, create this long piece of content on everything and then everyone does it, and then everyone assumes that therefore, because that's all the content that's available, that is what people want. Therefore, that is search intent. Therefore, that is what good SEO looks like and not considering the possibility that, what if this is all a result of the incentives, back to that word, and people acting on it, and we're not thinking about, okay, if we wanted to provide something that is not like all these things but would better fulfill what Google is actually trying to move towards, what would that look like? But that's a difficult conversation. So again, going back to the business model aspect of this, if you're doing SEO, what's easier to try to sell out to someone, look, I know that all these other people are ranking doing this and this and this. We think that that's not beneficial for these reasons and we want to do this. That's a lot harder of a conversation to sell than, hey look, we saw your competitors did this. Let's do that. Because anyone who's worked with companies knows that's the number one way to get anything sold is like, well, competitor X did this, don't you want to do it? And the answer is almost always yes. Jason Dodge: I think you're spot on with that. I think 100%, and maybe that's where Nigel, you and I can come at it from an agency ownership/leadership perspective, right? When you're creating buy-in to get things done, it doesn't matter the size of the business, the size of the client, if you will, the size of the brand you work with, a hundred percent, one of the best ways to do it is look at what your competitor's doing. Absolutely, because you want to crush that, right? The other one is talking more holistically about SEO and talking more holistically about things like SERP visibility is, A, much more difficult to report on, and B, it's just harder to explain, it takes a lot more education. Crystal Carter: I think what's interesting, and there's a couple of points that you've both touched on, about the competitive nature, but also about different channels as well, different trends across different channels. I think one of the things that's important to think about in terms of content perspective from Google's point of view is that they are looking at the whole of the web, not just websites. You mentioned Facebook for instance, Google's also looking at their competitor, right? So their competitors include Facebook, include TikTok, include Twitter, other, Amazon for instance. Those are their competitors, and I think they're also steered by those content trends. So I think while it can be tricky to be a first mover within an internal, as a marketing person, you're making your pitch and you're like, hey, we're going to do something that's never been done before on this new content trend. I think sometimes it pays, and I think that probably the SEOs that do this the most are the SEOs who are looking across multiple channels where they can see there's a trend over here, there's a trend over there that's happening because Google can see that lots of people are engaging with TikTok. I spoke about it at MozCon and how Google increased the amount of videos that are on the SERP, they're like 45% year-on-year over the last year, partially in response to TikTok. And I think that we also need to be thinking about the trends that we see in other channels, not just in SEO in order to respond to what users are doing and where users are. Mordy Oberstein: So I literally put out a tweet, I don't know, September 28th. We're living in an emerging environment from AI to content trends, and I think it's going to pit SEOs against brand marketers. Brand marketers are looking to get ahead of the curve, whereas SEOs often don't want to get away from works now. As someone who does a lot of both, I feel this, I feel the conflict. And to highlight why I think it's so important that SEOs start thinking about content trends, I think we'll get into how you do that and what is emerging, is let alone the success of the site and the minutia of traffic and clicks or whatever, but if you're working with other stakeholders or other kinds of marketers who are looking at wider trends, are seeing what's happening now, I've never seen this on the web before. So many things are changing and it feels like something's about to break in a good way. We're going to shift. A major shift is currently happening, and if the other marketers that you're working with who are on your team or as part of your organization or part of the site stakeholder structure, are looking at things like, we need to jump on something to get ahead of the curve, and you're still thinking about SEO in a very, let's keep up with the algorithm kind of thing. You're going to be having a disconnect between the way you're approaching marketing and the way the other marketers are approaching marketing. And that's a bad thing and you don't want to be in that spot. So with that, Nigel, if I'm trying to get ahead of content, trying to look at merging content trends, how do I do that? Where do I look? What am I trying to find? How do I keep my finger on the pulse kind of thing? Nigel Stevens: Yeah, so to answer that question and address, I agree with everything that both of you just said. One thing I would point out is we keep talking about marketers and marketing disciplines. One thing that I think marketers, including myself have an amazing ability to do is go to work, view the world that way, and then close your work computer and do stuff, interact with the web in a totally different way and not connect those trends. Even thinking about it as channels is a very marketer first way to think about it, which you're not wrong, it's a hundred percent. But one epiphany I had was thinking about the way I interact with the web, whatever, watching YouTube videos and YouTube shorts and little things, and then I flip open my work computer and I'm looking at some of the work that's being done in the broader industry. I'm like, I'm not necessarily saying that SaaS companies need to be making six second dance videos, but the gap between what I'm doing in my personal life and what everyone else is doing in their lives and what we're doing in work, again, it's not that it has to be nothing there, but I think they're world's apart. And that sort of goes back to the point of running a playbook for this industry versus thinking about, okay, what do human beings who interact with the web now, that have no attention span, that have podcasts, YouTube videos, a million different things to do, and one of the things that I'm telling my team and we're talking about is we have to shift away from thinking about getting traffic to capturing attention because again, this again goes back to the incentives thing, at the beginning of my career I was, okay, you rank for this stuff, you get the traffic, that's good. Somebody figures out how to turn it into money. And I think over time the amount of traffic went up as far as when you combine Google, all the platforms, people are looking at a bazillion things. So someone looking at something doesn't really matter anymore. And that's why I think a lot of it is incentives and it's also just looking at your personal life and saying, what are things that capture my attention? What are things that I think are interesting? And they don't have to be applied directly based on the vertical or industry you're working in, but what are principles that I can learn from that? One simple example is, it seems like a lot of these platforms are using types of opt-in where even on LinkedIn, what appears to work as slideshows, opt-in, opt-in, opt-in. Short videos, opt-in, opt-in, opt-in. But then big ass article, there's a big gap between those two things, which doesn't mean you can't create really good content rich articles, but how do you make them more navigable versus just this gigantic block of text? Jason Dodge: The actual content experience is really something, Nigel, that you touched on. The opt-in is an interesting one too. And I think the opt-in is one of those, not to sidetrack us, I think that's one of those, somebody had mentioned before, it's a reaction to the idea that third party cookies are going to go away. So first party data is going to be gold, which it's always been gold anyways, so what's the best way to do it? Opt-in to my stuff. So now again, the focus is on that, but I couldn't agree with you more. I think the idea that the content has to be experiential, it has to be a positive content experience, long form content is great, but like TLDR, if I don't want to read it, the recipe is a great example. There's enough internet memes out there for it. I don't need to read about the trauma that you had baking cookies with grandma. Let's just get to the recipe. Mordy Oberstein: I would love to actually read recipes of trauma. The first part is all about the trauma. Jason Dodge: That domain's probably available. I'm going to go get that domain right now. Crystal Carter: And I think, just to pick up on what Nigel was saying about some of the, pay attention to the things that actually capture you, I think that we as web users, we are inundated with so much content and we can see trends. We can see that there are dance trends online and things like that. So I mean, Duolingo is a classic example. Duolingo has a very silly mascot that dances all over TikTok and does all sorts of silly things on TikTok, and they get great exposure for that. I'm talking about it right now. And they're a language app and their Duolingo mascot guy who runs around TikTok doesn't necessarily talk about languages all that often, but their brand is front and center really, really regularly. Another good example that I've heard from is Amanda Natividad. She shared how her exterminator has a newsletter and it's really, really useful. And she actually shared a screenshot from the newsletter, and I was like, that's really useful advice. I followed that advice. It was great advice. Now, the thing that's interesting about that is that I remember that, I don't even know his name necessarily, but if I was in her area, I would go and look that person up. So I think it's really important to pay attention to the things that you pay attention to, what's made you stop and where are the trends that you're seeing when you're going around online? Jason Dodge: I think, yeah, spot on. And if you think about it too, a couple different items to build on that, if you don't have relationships with PR folks, I think as an SEO right now or moving into 2024, I think you've missed the boat. If you have attended any search marketing conference in the last 10 years, the best people who have been on the stage to talk about link building are PR people. They're PR professionals. That's their background. Their background is the pitch and how do I get that brand? How do I get the brand? They're not even talking about the site, they're not talking about links, it's how do I get the brand out there as much as possible? That's all PR, right? And so having a, I know a lot of our team have communications background and PR background. It's less about the dollars and cents and it's more about how do we communicate with people and where they're at in the channel and in the journey, et cetera. I mean, I think to your point of why aren't we doing it is just we've always done what we've always done, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. But it's fun to watch. One of the things that I like to do is watch what people are doing and how it's changing when they're doing their content. But one thing I know as an example is Search Engine Land. They started to push their newsletter subscription in a different way. They have a couple of lines from the article, then they have a short little paragraph pushing their newsletter highlighted in light blue, and there's no CTA. To sign up for the news, it's an in link. I'm like, oh, that's really interesting. It's far less intrusive. It's very subtle. It looks like it's part of the article. And you know what? I kind of like that better. I gauge how I'm feeling when I'm looking at what people are trying out and experimenting with their content. And if it resonates with me, I'm like, okay, that's interesting, pause. And it resonated with me that they're not pushing the CTA the same way. I'm like, you know what? That's really interesting. And then I look for other corroborations. Google started running ads in between the organic results. I wonder if that's very similar. They're seeing that top of the SERP ads or bottom of the page ads. Everyone knows that those are, everyone knows that their ads, no matter how subtle the ad label is, I don't want to be sold to forget it. But if it's much more subtle, so in the middle of an organic result, then suddenly I feel it's less intrusive. You're less trying to pitch me and I'm more happy to click on that. So I wonder if Google is seeing and doing the same thing as Search Engine Land is doing. And at that point, I realized I'm feeling a certain way. I'm seeing two things that might be related, might not be, just a theory, that's something to investigate and research and then talk to other people about like, do you think the age of the CTA is dead? Put out a tweet, put out a LinkedIn post and see what the comments say about that. Crystal Carter: I think there's a lot of ways to respond to emerging content. And I think that, yeah, we should be talking about it more. So here's a controversial theory. Do you think the SEOs don't talk to other SEOs about emerging content trends? Because we like to keep our cards close to our chest because it's a question of know when to hold them, know when to fold them. It's tough out here in these SERPs. Nigel Stevens: The reason, I think that's a good theory about a lot of things, the reason I'm going to say, I don't buy it is that I'm not seeing very much evidence of that out in the universe of anything that's breaking the pattern. And to kind of riff on what you were both talking about, like Crystal, you mentioned, I think about the exterminator thing, it made me stop what I was doing. Something I've been thinking a lot about is what are the first principles? We're out here talking about algorithms, what Google is doing, what are the first principles here? It's like, what is marketing? It's connect with someone, get their attention and get them to do something. And I feel like this is kind of corny to say, but if you think about those first principles, then you don't get locked into all of these best practices. How does Google render JavaScript? All this, which they're like, are the important questions that you have to answer, but the core first principle that's never going to change is how do you get someone's attention and get them to do something? And as the internet, the barrier to entry is getting lower for producing certain types of stuff. The premium is going to go on. How do you actually capture attention and show credibility and show someone that this was not just an automatically generated page that's trying to trick you into doing something? Mordy Oberstein: And as time runs out on us, find out by following both Nigel and Jason. Where can people find you folks? Nigel Stevens: On LinkedIn? I'm not a very good internet marketer. I'm not on the X and the Twitters. Jason Dodge: Oh, man, you can follow me. Yeah, certainly, I'm with Nigel. LinkedIn is a good place. I'm still active on Twitter/X, @dodgejd, pretty much everywhere. And obviously blacktruckmedia.com. Mordy Oberstein: Awesome, we'll link to your show notes. Fellas, it was so nice talking to you. It's such a needed topic. And if you're listening to this, take what we're saying to heart. Open your mind, open your minds. Content is like LSD. Open your minds to wider experiences. Is that good? Jason Dodge: I think that's great. Nigel Stevens: What a better note to end on. Crystal Carter: Does content make the walls move? Jason Dodge: Yeah, that's great. Please include that in the show notes. It's wonderful. Nigel Stevens: Nigel, how was the podcast? Well, it ended with LSD, but I'll tell you later. Mordy Oberstein: As all great things do. Jason Dodge: I think that you're spot on. And Nigel, you hit the nail on the head. And Crystal, you made a good suggestion too. Just start to pay attention to what's going on around you. Don't be so myopic and stuck and actually look at these landing pages in your own personal experiences. I think 100%, because there are reasons that Google is making these changes. So pay attention. Mordy Oberstein: And good luck to us all. Jason Dodge: Good luck. Mordy Oberstein: And good luck to you guys. Thanks again for coming on. Nigel Stevens: Thank you. Jason Dodge: Thank you as well. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, well, with all this talk about emerging content trends, we're curious. I'm curious at least, how does Google understand some of the emerging topics or emerging trends related to content? And to do that, we have a fun little segment. We look at Google's People Also Ask box where we have those four questions that you can open up a tab and see an answer and that it loads more questions every time you click on one of them. Anyway, with the PAA box, we search for some terms related to emerging content trends, which can only mean one thing, it's time for Fun with People Also Ask. So I did a little query, and it's nothing too complicated. I searched for content trends 2024. Now, keep in mind, we're recording this on November 14th, 2023. And what I got back was four questions. One was, what are the biggest content trends in 2023? What is the future of content? Okay, that kind of makes sense. What are the B2B marketing trends for 2024? And what are the five marketing trends and predictions for 2023? Now, first question I had was, 2023, is that Google getting it wrong? I asked for 2024 or is Google saying, I don't think you know what you're really asking for. It's still 2023 right now. Why are you asking about 2024? Crystal Carter: Very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: So what's interesting is that I'm looking at the SERP and there's tons of content there that's showing for 2024. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and we're still a good month and a half out, which just goes to show you our earlier point about what SEOs sometimes do. Crystal Carter: So it's not to say that they don't have anything to pull from, but they're definitely like, yeah, let's talk about 2023. And it's like, guys, we're not... Mordy Oberstein: Wait, maybe Google, it's a little shot at what sometimes SEOs do. Google's like, oh, you asked for 2024 but to tell you that 2024 is really the same as 2023, you just changed the year and the title tag. It was like, here's a bunch of results for 2023. We know what you're doing. Crystal Carter: No, this is new content. It's completely different. Mordy Oberstein: But the title tag is new, it says 2024. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Also, you pointed this out, was that there was the switch to the B2B marketing trends, which I thought was in. If I'm asking for content trends... Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: But then Google switches to marketing trends. Crystal Carter: Right. So they're switching to B2B marketing there, and they're also switching to marketing trends, predictions. Now, marketing trends might not be entirely to do with content specifically, and certainly marketing trends and predictions might not be to do with content particularly as well. They could be like billboards are going to make a big comeback. I mean, look, just what happened with the Barbie movie. And actually I think it's interesting the way people are using billboards. But yeah, I think it's very interesting that they've pivoted to that. Sometimes when you look up something around on a PAA, sometimes they will hedge. We found this when we were looking at migration, for instance. They were like, oh, you're talking about data migration? You're talking about human migration? You're talking about like, which kind of migration are you talking about? What migration, which kind of thing are you talking about? So I think if you're trying to rank for a PAA, for instance, it's important to know that when it's a less specific search, you're more likely to have half of the PAA's. Mordy Oberstein: There's always that outlier intent or the multiple intent built into the PAA box. I once did a study about this in, I don't know, 2018, where I went through manually, went through hundreds of PAA boxes, and subjectively decided, very scientific, although after a while you get good at it, how many different intents there are. And they're pretty clear, you could see it here, Google switches from the content to the marketing trends thing, it's pretty self-evident. And there was a good number percentage of boxes that have this. It's a regular pattern. I don't remember the exact number because the platform that I wrote that content for, deleted it. So that information has been lost from the web. Crystal Carter: It was time well spent, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, really? As someone used it in the Rest MX deck back in the day, and I was in the room like, oh, that's my study. That's my study. So I was pretty proud about that, but now it's gone from the internet. Unless you found the URL and use the Wayback Machine. Crystal Carter: You're not better though. It's fine. It's not a big deal. Mordy Oberstein: No, I'm very happy about it. Why would I not be happy about this? But anyway, it's a normal thing. We digress, there's a normal thing for Google to throw a little punt and like, oh, maybe you mean this. Maybe that's your intent. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it's interesting. So similarly, and we know that AI content writing is a content trend for 2023, and for 2024, I'm sure as well. And so I entered in AI content writing as the key term and the People Also Ask for that was, can I use AI for content writing? What is the best content AI writer? That's fun, PAA's don't always make grammatical sense. Is there an AI that writes content for free? Is AI content writing worth it? And I think that that, again, when you read all of those, you see the sort of flow of worry and concern and interest around a particular topic. Is it free? Is it worth it? Should I invest my time in this? Is this something I should do? How people are thinking about a particular topic. Mordy Oberstein: I could dive into this or have the perfect pivot. Speaking of headlines that sometimes also don't always make sense, here's this week's version of The Snappy News. Crystal Carter: Or Barry. Mordy Oberstein: Or Barry. I'm sorry. It was such a good pivot, wasn't it? Come on. That was great. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, three for the price of two this week. First up, from Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Land, 94% of Google SGE links are different from organic results, study finds. So Danny does a whole summary of a study done by Authoritas who did a study called Research Study: The Impact of Google Search Generative Experience on Organic Rankings. We'll link to both in the show notes. If you want a summary, check out Danny's Search Engine Land piece. If you want to dive into all the nitty-gritty details, check out the actual story from Authoritas. But essentially what they did was, among many and many other things, was look at the number of links within Google's SGE and to see if they matched the organic results themselves. What they found was that on average there are 10 links within Google's SGE, but only four domains, meaning those 10 links only come from four websites. They also found that around 94% of the URLs within the SGE do not match the organic results. Now, what I'm curious to see is the number of links that match within the summary itself versus the three or four whatever organic result cards Google shows in the top right-hand corner of the SGE box. What do I mean? Some of the links are additive. Google is citing along as it's generating its summary within the SGE box. So you ask Google, I don't know, who is the best baseball player ever? And it tells you, well Babe Ruth played for the Yankees and blah, blah, and it offers a citation to the New York Yankees. It's a link to the New York Yankees, let's say. It wouldn't make sense that that link would be found within the organic result itself, but basically Google's doing is annotating the subtopics that reflect the wider topic that's reflected in the query. So those links as you go along in the SGE text itself kind of makes sense that they don't match. What would be interesting to see is that if the organic cards within the top right hand quarter of the SGE box, which do align to the overall query, which do basically serve as organic results, if those match the organic results or not. Now the fact that they wouldn't match might not be a problem, 'cause Google's saying, hey, just like a feature snippet, we're not going to show the URL within the feature snippet and then again, within the organic results. They might just be showing the URLs within the SGE as part of those organic cards, and then again not, in the actual organic results again. So it might not necessarily be a problem if they don't match, you know what I mean? Anyway, check out the full study within the show notes. We'll link to learn there. Second article from he who is Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable, the newly designed Search Engine Roundtable, oh, Wharton professor, Ethan Mollick, on the decay of internet search. It's very dramatic, Barry. So basically a professor from Wharton, associate professor from the Wharton School of Business was searching for, it looks like queries about upcoming shows. I don't know, when is Stranger Things, season five coming out? That kind of query. Instead, the organic results kind of stink here. It's interesting, there's been a lot of sentiments. One of the things I really, I wouldn't say enjoy talking about, I find fascinating. That's how I would, I find it fascinating. The whole idea of the decay of the organic results because from my point of view, as someone who's looked very, very carefully at what Google has been doing with the algorithm updates for the better part of 10 years, I only see the results getting better. Obviously there are peaks and valleys. Google makes an update, sometimes they get everything right, exactly. And you have controversy within the SEO community about how good the results are. I'm talking since 2018, the advent of the modern day core updates, Google's only gotten better. However, sentiment has gotten worse. I don't want to get into why exactly that is, here, I've talked a lot about this in the past. I think we've probably covered on the podcast at some point. If we haven't, we will. It's one of my talking points. It's interesting here in this case, 'cause it happens to be, I search for these queries a lot. Like, I don't know, when is the final season of The Crown coming out? It came out already and a lot of the results here are less than spectacular. But, first off, I do find that for the most part, even though the results are not particularly spectacular and they're a little bit clickbaity, they kind of serve their purpose. It's not meant to be Faulkner. On the other hand, I do get where the professor, the group professor is coming from because they are a little bit, nah, not stellar in quality. I think though the main issue is that what these websites are doing is that they're paying attention to what say, the statements that Netflix is making or researching various sources, kind of putting it all together for you so you know what the storyline might be, when the show might be coming out? Where is it in production? How far along is it in that? And the reason why the result may not be great is because there's just not a lot of great content out there. So what else is Google going to rank? Netflix isn't putting out a full article of where the show is in production, when they expect it to come out, what some of the rumored storylines are. They're not doing that. So you have these other websites who are not the source themselves, or not these super authorities like Netflix itself or Hulu or Disney Plus, I can go on with all the other streaming websites that are out there. My God, how many streaming websites are there? There is no content like that. So what else is Google going to rank? So is it, the content stinks and Google should be ranking something else? Or is it that somebody else should be writing better content so that Google can rank it? The chicken and the egg. And with that, that is this week's Snappy News. We love you Barry. You are our best friend. We love you more than words could ever say. Crystal Carter: Honestly, like yeah, you're that dude. Mordy Oberstein: I feel you in the heart. Crystal Carter: Big love, Barry. Mordy Oberstein: Big love Barry. Which brings to another big love that we have, which is telling you about people that you could be following on social media for more SEO content and marketing awesomes, and this week we have Kelsey Jones, who's @wonderwall7, W-O-N-D-E-R-W-A-L-L seven, if you're not typing that in really quickly as I'm spelling it, we'll link to it in the show notes. But Kelsey is a fabulous content marketing person and she's one of these content marketing people that really overlaps in SEO, kind of like Ross Hudgens out there, who's another follow we had a couple of weeks ago. So definitely give her a follow and a shoutout over on X/Twitter, again, I don't know what we call it anymore, but she actually recently hosted SEOChat and that was also fabulous. So give her a big follow. Crystal Carter: Give her a big follow because today is going to be the day that you're going to find out about some of the cool stuff that Kelsey Jones is doing. Mordy Oberstein: Wow, what an oasis. An oasis of social media awesomeness. Crystal Carter: Precisely. So yeah, do check her out. But yeah, I think it's great to be thinking about, particularly if you are an SEO SEO, I think it's really good to be speaking to and checking out folks who are looking at the activity from a different perspective and who are all trying to get this... Mordy Oberstein: A wider content world. Crystal Carter: Exactly. And who are all trying to get great results for users and customers and clients and to broaden your mind. Mordy Oberstein: From the wider content world. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: No? Crystal Carter: The whole internet. Mordy has been very demonstrative of late. So ever since his dance routine at BrightonSEO, Mordy's given me full jazz hands right now. Mordy Oberstein: We'll dance for good content. Unfortunately, I never have to dance because there's no good content. Anyway, with that snarky remark, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, look for wherever you consume your podcast or the SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all of the great content and webinars we have over at the Wix SEO Learning Hub at you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. 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Agency saves time, money and SEO headaches “Building websites with Wix is like having a team of developers on your side. They’re always innovating for us and we can just run with it. ” 50% Increase in the speed of website builds 50% Reduction in costs compared to bespoke builds 50% Of all web projects in the last 12 months delivered on Wix When Optix Solutions made the strategic decision to start outsourcing their development work, the agency began to worry that they had traded in one type of bottleneck for another. What they needed was a web creation platform that could give them the flexibility to say yes to client requests, without the logistical headache of always having to factor in someone else's timelines and costs. And most importantly for their in-house SEO team, it had to be a platform that could give them complete control over clients’ SEO. The business Based in Exeter, England, Optix Solutions is a full-service agency with a special focus on digital marketing and web creation. Founded back in 1999 by two university pals, it has grown into a high-powered operation led by 17 staff who deliver everything from paid media strategy to creative TV campaigns. With a client list that ranges from much-loved local businesses to large government bodies like the UK National Health Service, it’s fair to say the projects that Optix Solutions take on never fall into the category of one-size-fits-all. As digital marketing makes up the biggest slice of their business, SEO is one of their key offerings. The SEO challenge After every client meeting, Optix Solutions’ Creative Lead, Samuel Skinner, always asked himself two questions: How quickly can we do this? and How much is it going to cost us? Without developers on demand, he now had another pressing consideration to add to the mix: Who’s going to do this for us? Samuel Skinner, Creative Lead at Optix Solutions Deceptively simple on the face of it, these issues all posed blockers for the agency. As Samuel notes, customers often came in with big plans and very little idea of the time, cost and logistics that it would take to bring them to fruition. “I've always had a problem explaining to a customer why something they can describe to me in very simple words is actually going to be painful or very expensive for them,” he shares. “They’ll say, ‘All I want to do is take this picture out, put this graphic in, and move that text there.’ But of course, a developer’s got to sit down and write the code, test the code, and deploy the code.” When it came to factoring in SEO, Samuel found he was spending far too much time briefing developers and spelling out each website’s specific requirements. If he didn’t do this, he found that things could get skipped over, which led to bottlenecks for the SEO team further down the line. For example, it was essential that they were able to access the website’s metadata, make edits, add tags to pages, and do URL redirects. And while third-party plugins were an option, they were a messy route the agency would rather not go down. The solution Samuel had been a personal advocate of Wix for some time, having first picked it up in his college days to build his online portfolio. It would now prove to be a game-changer for his agency—enabling them to move faster and reduce costs, without having to rely on developers. The upshot? Samuel’s team is saying yes to more clients than ever before. “Wix gives us a flexibility that’s incredibly powerful,” Samuel enthuses. “I can deliver a better customer experience because I'm not having to say no all the time—the old barriers are gone. Not only can we deliver at a fraction of the price and move really fast, we can also be quite experimental with it. We know that we can phase projects without unexpected costs creeping in. It’s opened up a lot of ideas and opportunities for us.” As well as being ideal for one-off campaigns like landing pages, the agency finds Wix especially useful for mid-sized clients with sites anywhere between 40 and 50 pages—the bonus being that Wix offers them the ability to keep scaling. “You know those clients who want professional sites that look superb, but are a bit squeamish when it comes to putting tons of money behind it? That’s where we can come in and say hey, you know what, we have a great solution.” Another major win is that Samuel’s team can now build websites with SEO in mind, rather than an afterthought. From the get-go, all the SEO capabilities they need are at their fingertips. “ Things like the URL Redirect Manager and the built-in SEO tools for areas like the blog, especially OG images and Twitter cards, are really excellent features,” Sam lists. “Having worked with a lot of bespoke site builds, factoring these things into the specification and then testing thoroughly would always eat time. Wix’s features work straight out-of-the-box, so I can execute with speed—and without fiddley plugins.” Optix Solutions’ newfound agility doesn’t end there. Samuel’s team can now enjoy far more flexibility in the placement of their in-house resources. “Wix is like an extra service that slots into our business and we can all jump on it,” he says. “The best part is that getting staff trained up is super efficient because I can direct them to all of Wix’s video guides and how-tos.” No bottlenecks in sight. The results “We can comfortably deliver an entire site within a couple of months (less if we needed to). In a typical project with specialist developers, we would run at least twice this. So our timelines have been cut in half .” “ Budget wise we’re able to deliver solutions well below the £10k mark and keep it viable for our business. This isn’t a figure we can reach with other platforms or options, so Wix is our sole offering for clients that need to work within these kinds of budgets.” Discover how advanced SEO features on Wix give you the ability to work smarter and faster for your clients and explore our SEO Learning Hub for the latest insights from industry experts. Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO