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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. Until next time, peace and 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

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

Be indispensable to your clients. Find out how SEO’s and marketers can provide indispensable value to your clients. Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter welcome Ignite Visibility’s VP of SEO, Jen Cornwell to talk about the indispensable impact SEO’s and marketers alike bring to their clients. Understand the depth of value SEO agencies can provide to clients, transcending the general SEO perception. Plus, we evaluate what the Google leaks expose about the future of SEO. We have the essentials on being essential on this, the 98th epsiode, of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Being indispensable to your SEO clients Be indispensable to your clients. Find out how SEO’s and marketers can provide indispensable value to your clients. Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter welcome Ignite Visibility’s VP of SEO, Jen Cornwell to talk about the indispensable impact SEO’s and marketers alike bring to their clients. Understand the depth of value SEO agencies can provide to clients, transcending the general SEO perception. Plus, we evaluate what the Google leaks expose about the future of SEO. We have the essentials on being essential on this, the 98th epsiode, of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 98 | July 31, 2024 | 49 MIN 00:00 / 48:46 This week’s guests Jen Cornwell As Ignite Visibility's VP of SEO, Jen Cornwell keeps her team to the forefront of search innovation. With over a decade of experience, she spearheads cutting-edge SEO tactics and pioneering AI integration in search campaigns for clients and the agency. Jen's expertise spans various site types and verticals, ensuring her user-first approach—fueled by a passion for understanding people and connecting them with the right solutions—delivers exceptional results for clients. 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 head of SEO brand at Wix. And I'm joined by the fabulously amazing, the incredible, the always differentiated and always essential head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: I try to keep it... You can stand up from the crowd. There was years ago that I used to worry when I was a kid, when I was like high school or whatever. "Oh, people are staring at me." And I was like, you know what? What's it Bonnie Raitt says, "Let's give them something to talk about." It was like, yeah, I'm going to wear a stupid ridiculous shirt or ridiculous whatever. Because if you're looking, feast your eyes. I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Something like that makes you sound like a total idiot. It took me a long time to realize that was Bonnie Raitt, even though I love 80s music. Crystal Carter: Bonnie Raitt singing about something. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I didn't realize that was her other stuff- Crystal Carter: No, that's 90s. Mordy Oberstein: ... was other stuff. No, it's a 90s, right. It's a 90s song. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah, yeah. Bonnie Raitt's great. But it's 90s. It's 90s, because it was on a Julia Roberts movie. Mordy Oberstein: Pretty Woman, no? No. Crystal Carter: No. It wasn't Pretty Women. Mordy Oberstein: No. I don't know. Crystal Carter: It was one of her other rom-coms. I'm sure. I'm going to have to Google it now. Please, talk amongst yourselves. Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Julia Roberts movies. The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you cannot only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also show your clients how much they really need you with inbuilt reporting found in Wix Studio. And in addition to all of the analytics available to you in Wix Analytics. As today, we continue our Wix Studio series as we talk how SEOs and marketers can show how indispensable they are to their clients. Why in today's environment, you need to show your value across the board, not just in one marketing discipline. Do you hear that SEO folks? Proving your value as an SEO or marketing agency versus a consultancy, is there a difference? And yes, we'll get into AI and how to deal with clients who feel they don't need you because they have an LLM that tells them to drink urine to prevent kidney stones. Ignite Visibility's, own VP of SEO, Jennifer Cornwell will be here in just a few minutes as she helps us show you why you're indispensable to your clients, why you are your client's very own air supply, and why they be so lost without you. Plus, we take a hard look at how the Google leaks are starting to broaden SEO. Again, you hear that SEO, folks? Plus we have the snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So stick with us as we show you how to become like a band-Aid, too painful for your clients to pull off on this, the 98th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. By the way, not an actual strategy you should use. Bad strategy. Don't be too painful. I was just taking poetic license. Yes, I am a poet. You wouldn't know a first glance, but I am quite the poet. I'm a wordsmith. Crystal Carter: Okay. One of my favorite Mordy Oberstein things is when you drop a $5 word. Every now and then, Mordy's like, "Oh, I have the vocabulary just in case you're wondering." Mordy Oberstein: For my birthday one year... Again, I terrible with time. You put out tweets of things I've said I didn't realize I said. And one of them was, "If talk is cheap, I'm fine to talk a lot," or something like that. Crystal Carter: Something like that. This is true. This is true. This is true. They weren't hard to find them, you got a lot of tweets. You are prolific, as it were. By the way, just for people who were wondering or who were in suspense. This Something to Talk About song was from a Julia Roberts movie called Something to Talk About. Mordy Oberstein: We just completely... Just ignorance built upon ignorance, built upon ignorance. Crystal Carter: That's such an SEO thing to do though. Mordy Oberstein: Near me. Something to talk about near me. Crystal Carter: Right. What's the song? It's Something to Talk About. What's the movie? Something to Talk About. What are we going to talk about? Mordy Oberstein: Before we bring our guest on, I will tell you the truth, as opposed to when I lie to you. Which is such a weird idiom, by the way. Like, "Oh, tell you the truth." Because before I was lying. Crystal Carter: Yeah, what was going on before? I thought we were in a circle of trust. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Honestly, like before you weren't being? Anyway, but it's an idiom. Anywho. There are times where I, as a marketer and as someone who's self-deprecating, feel like, come on, what do I know about marketing and SEO? It's like, what I'm saying is so obvious. Do I actually provide any unique value? But I do then meet folks who maybe don't have a marketing background that are maybe just marketing enthusiasts who are talking to me about marketing, or maybe they're just new to market... They are marketers or SEOs, and they're just new to the industry and they're still learning. And I do then realize that I do have actual experience and a unique outlook on marketing, and a unique outlook on SEO that I've built up through the years. That no, I of course didn't have when I first started, or was even in SEO marketing altogether, but that I have built up over the many years that I have been in marketing. And that does actually provide something that's unique and invaluable to the people that I work with. I think. I hope. Right? And with that, please welcome to the show Ignite Visibility's VP of SEO, Jennifer Cornwell. How are you? Jen Cornwell: Hi. I'm good, thanks. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Mordy Oberstein: You're indispensable to this podcast now. Jen Cornwell: Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. That's a big title. Big title for a one-time guest. Mordy Oberstein: No, that means you can't leave. It's like Hotel California. Yeah, you're stuck. That's it. Crystal Carter: And I think it's really interesting you said seasoned. Because I think that one of the things that makes people indispensable is the special sauce that you bring as an SEO, really. I think that's something, Would you say that you and your team have cultivated a little bit of a special sauce that you bring to new clients or new projects? Jen Cornwell: Yeah. I think that the reason clients really like working with us a lot of the time is we are... A lot of businesses, I think they're going to say, "We're the startup mentality." But I do actually feel like we work that way, and we work that way with our clients because we worked that way for such a long time. We just hit our 11-year anniversary in this last year. I've been there for six, and the team has grown. I was like, 65 people when we got hired, and now we're 220 or something. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, grown a lot as a company. But I think even though we've done that, it's still coming to the table for our clients, for these relationships that we've built ultimately. We talk about the seasoning, that's important. But there's also this, your clients have gotten in this rhythm of talking to you all the time, and you are their marketing person now. And the reasons why, as an SEO, yes, you need to talk about SEO, but there's all this opportunity to talk about these other things they aren't thinking about. We try to keep our team really well-rounded and well-versed in a lot of what's going on. They're not paid media experts, but have enough of an understanding to be able to talk to it. And that kind of thing, it's part of it, the indispensableness. Mordy Oberstein: When we're deciding what should we discuss for the podcast, and we were saying how there's just so much more going on in marketing in general, there's just not one facet of marketing. And to be indispensable in today's environment means being a little bit more, I don't know, broad about what you cover and how you cover. Or what you're thinking about or what you're discussing with clients. How has that factored into what you feel makes y'all indispensable to your clients? Jen Cornwell: Part of it is making a better SEO, I think understanding all their marketing channels, because so much of what we do funnels down to us. Even not digital space, stuff we don't do as an agency. I've had a client where we saw an impression decrease for their brand and they're like, "Oh yeah, we stopped running our commercial." And so knowing that and being able to go into conversations with clients when they see something similar and be able to at least ask those questions, I think what's really important. But yeah, I think that's really where it comes from. It's baking it into the experience of the special sauce of situational things we've been in to open up those doors to ask the right questions at the right time. Crystal Carter: I think that's a great example. I've had clients where they've run print advertising or they've run television advertising. And if you're talking to them regularly, then you can bring that all together with the SEO, you can really unlock the real value of some of that. And if you are in an agency situation, all the better. Because you'll have people, you can be like, right, if you're running a television ad on, I don't know, ESPN or something. We can bring in our social team to target people who follow ESPN, we can link everything together. And even if it's on a project basis, even if it's just, you're doing this campaign on ESPN this week, and we'll bring in somebody to help with that, with the social shares or whatever this week or whatever, that sort of thing. But I think that having those conversations, keeping those conversations and really reading the data. Like you were saying, how we saw the impressions, what's going on? Really, really valuable. Jen Cornwell: The client piece that you mentioned is really important, because we talk about that a lot with our clients. I have prospects who come to me and they're like, "What makes a good client?" And I'm like, "When you talk to us." We want you to actually see this as a partnership where we want to help you. And yeah, sometimes they don't even tell you about new pages they add. Or, "Oh yeah, we did change the entire URL structure of the site segment." And you find out in your reporting that everything is way different than the last time you looked at it. But yeah, the clients who tell us about the little stuff, the small things going on, that's where we can actually come in and ask the right questions and be helpful. Mordy Oberstein: Do you notice a change with your clients? We're going to talk later in the podcast about how SEO might be broadening, and the Google leaks and how now there's a whole idea of branding factoring into SEO, and yada, yada, yada. But do you find, I don't know, over the years that the clients themselves have changed? Are they less focused just an SEO or just PPC? Are they starting to broaden a bit? Jen Cornwell: A little bit, I think. We still get a handful of clients who read one SEO blog. They come in and they say, "I do SEO." And they did SEO in 2012. And you're like, "Okay, so you kind of know what it is, but also it's been 10 years." That happens a lot still. But we do have clients who are, they understand that SEO... Their understanding of it is keyword stuffing. They're like, "Oh, yeah, well, I don't want my content to look all weird. I want my content to read weird." And so having to hurdle that. But even that's new, because that's like they understand that there's keywords that need to be implemented in a certain way. And they know it needs to happen for SEO, but they just want to figure out what the middle ground is for user experience. I think that we're having more of those conversations and less of, "How many keywords are on this page, and why aren't there more of them?" conversations. I guess a little bit. There's also some... It depends. It really just depends on the most common SEO answer of all. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, the graph. It depends. It depends in orange. Jen Cornwell: Yes. Yeah. No, it depends on the marketer that's coming in and what their background is. But it's gotten better. I think the understanding of SEO has gotten better. Crystal Carter: And I think a lot of people are starting to say that... And I don't know if you're seeing this trend, is that they're starting to see clients come to them less for implementation support and more for strategic support. Are you seeing that trend as well? Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Yeah. Especially more recently, I think it's a little bit of economic and bandwidth availability resources within their own team in the conversations that we're having. But definitely they're like, "Oh, okay, this is stuff a developer can do," and you can just pass it over to somebody who's in-house who has some SEO experience so we're not doing as much explaining as we have to do. But yeah, it's definitely more on the strategic side. And I think that's where they know enough to know that SEO is different than it was 10 years ago, where they know there needs to be more strategy involved and less "keyword stuffing", as an example. Mordy Oberstein: Or they could have the AI to implement all of it, right? Jen Cornwell: Right. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: It's a smooth transition into the other elephant in the room that I wanted to discuss, which is, how does AI affect you being indispensable? Both in reality, and I think more importantly... Because I think in reality not much has changed, but that's just me. But the perception of that reality with clients. Are they coming in, "Well, I could just LLM this thing."? Jen Cornwell: As soon as ChatGPT was announced and a thing, we had a client who said, "Okay, send me pricing for how to write more content for less money, with AI." And I was like, "Oh, my God." So we go through all that, and it turns out, actually, especially at the time when it was first rolling out, there was no cost savings. The hard costs of a writer were actually implemented in time and trying to get the LLM to get what we needed on the other side, that was not going to work out for that client. But yeah, we had a lot of those conversations. The way we've positioned it with our clients now is, we use AI in our processes for analysis, we use it for blind spots. It's like, as SEOs you get very situational sometimes with your own references. So having something that can double check some other things for you just in case you forget. Stuff that it's more appropriate use. But yeah, we still have clients. I had a client last wee, this week I was on the phone with. And they're like, "Yeah, we're going to hook Jasper up so we can put a bunch of content up on the site." And so I screen shared this screenshot of this client we had that just did AI content. You can see every single algorithm update where it just fell off September, January, then again in March, just stair steps down. I've used that a lot actually as reference point. Crystal Carter: That's one of the things that I think is so valuable about an agency relationship is that as somebody who's working in an agency, and as you said, you have eyes... You've grown from a team of 60 to team of over 100. Across your team you will be having conversations about different trends that you're seeing from clients, and things like that. When a client comes to you and they say, "I want to do this," it won't be your first time doing this. You can say to the wider team, "If you have any examples, have you seen anything?" And they'll go, "Yeah, actually, I do. Watch this drop." And I think that visibility is something that a lot of in-house teams really struggle with a little bit, because you might just have your blinders on and you might not see what's happening in different verticals. Mordy's done so much algorithm research and stuff, and sometimes the algorithms, if you think about the reviews algorithm, the product reviews update. That was initially working in a certain space. And now, I'm pontificating here, but I think that some of the stuff that we saw with that is kind of what we're seeing with the helpful content update rolled out wider. And I think that the knowledge that you get from working across different clients that have been affected by different algorithms, different approaches, different techniques can be super, super valuable. And it's something that you can't get if somebody's working on one client at a time, for instance. Mordy Oberstein: Is that something you feel differentiates you as an agency versus a consultancy? Where you have so much experience and so many different verticals and so many different areas of marketing. If you're going to get consultants it's like, all right, they have your SEO handled, but the second you have a PPC problem come up, or a content issue come up, or whatever it has come up, now you have to go find somebody else. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, we've never been vertical specific, we've always done the variety. We probably lean more toward lead gen, maybe a little bit B2B versus e-comm. But I think what happens, we have clients who come on and they're like, "Oh, do you have experience in our industry?" And that matters for writers and that kind of thing, getting the context of their business together. But I think there's a lot of things that are applicable across verticals. The way Google indexes content for a storage facility site is not any different than the skincare brand that we work on. And the things it's looking for are not intrinsically different, but it is two different audiences. And that's where I think you start to get into the indispensable marketing mindset of, I'm not just an SEO, I'm thinking about user journey, I'm thinking about conversion points. I'm thinking about the user journey for a storage site versus a skin care brand, that's two different things that can be important in your strategy. But yeah, the variety I think is really critical, really helps. Crystal Carter: And when I was working agency side, I really liked this. I was working with clients similarly, skincare, storage, people that different, some of the clients that I was working with. And I thought that was really interesting. Because particularly on the local side, for instance, there will be features that are available within local SEO, for instance, that are applicable to certain verticals that are not applicable to other verticals. And if you're working on product stuff, then there will be different things that you'll use for that, like Google Merchant Center and stuff. But what you find when you're working across all of them is you get more of a sense of how these things work. Because very often maybe they'll have lots of product schema on... Maybe they'll have one vertical that's got lots of schema, and so then you learn how to do schema. So then when they add schema to a different vertical, then you're completely ready for that because you've already done it on this other one. Whereas, everybody who's just been working on the other vertical and has never seen rich results for that particular vertical might be very surprised. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. No, I think SEO is so situational anyway, that having that diverse experience... Or being able to have it, I guess, within our team and not being necessarily... I joke that I want to retire to in-house, that's my retirement plan day. I'm going to leave agency life and I'm going to go to in-house and have a nice little in-house job. But not to disregard the in-house people, I'm sure that is hard in its own way. But I do think, yeah, when you're in-house you're dialed in on maybe one site or a few sites, or one specific vertical. And it's great, maybe it makes you a specialist there, but doesn't exactly open up the experience. And I think the time too, over five years, over six years. What I was doing five or six years ago is very different than now, and the experience over that time. Yeah, your in-house person who's been there for three years maybe hasn't stepped out of the SEO bubble or SEO world in a different way, just because they're only looking at certain things and trying to solve the one problem. This is what I hear about in-house, trying to solve the one problem that you've been trying to push across the line for two years, or whatever it is. And it's always adding site maps to the robots.txt file, and it's going to take seven months to implement. Yeah, I think it's easy to get lost in some of that and maybe lose sight of some of the other stuff that you would get to see agency side. Mordy Oberstein: Do you think that... Because you mentioned this a few times already, the marketing mindset and the marketing mindset. Do you think that maybe that's one of the reasons why maybe SEOs don't necessarily have that marketing mindset that seems to be indispensable to clients? Jen Cornwell: It's probably a little bit of experience, for sure. I think it's really, I refer to it a lot as our SEO vacuum. I go and I can propose all kinds of things to clients like, "Oh yeah, I work on these keywords and these pages," but it doesn't really matter if their audience doesn't care about it or if they don't care about it as a business either. And ultimately, being able to prioritize your recommendations, I think that comes from marketing mindset as well. I'm not just passing over an audit checklist of "here's all the stuff that's wrong and here's some recommendations to fix it". But I'm not necessarily going to tell you what's going to impact your business the most or what you should prioritize first based on your resources. And so I think navigating... That's one example, but being able to navigate their entire marketing plan in the same way. My favorite example, I had a pediatric dentist client, he's got five or six locations in San Diego. And I've worked at a lot of dentists, they love marketing. Mordy Oberstein: They got to figure out how to get you in that chair and pull out your teeth. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, yeah. No, he loved it. And I used to go into the meetings and I would suggest things that I knew I was never going to touch. I would build the landing page. I'll write some content, we'll make the landing page, but there's 5 million other steps to this idea. And those conversations were always really fun for me because I got to talk about stuff other than keywords. But also made us really valuable to him because he's like, "Oh, here's another brain, basically, that can be in this room with me and has the marketing perspective to be able to talk about what we could potentially do." Yeah, I think navigating those situations, the small conversation that turns into a big idea just because you came in with a little bit of extra experience goes a long way. Crystal Carter: That's great. It sounds like a great partnership. The kind of partnership you were talking about before, where everything is back and forth. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Was like the name of the dentist, like, Bright Smiles? Jen Cornwell: No. Actually, they have a really strong brand. They were one of the biggest pediatric dentists in San Diego. And one of my favorite idea that I suggested them that they did was try to set a world record at a baseball game. They were trying to get as many people to floss at once, or something. Crystal Carter: Were they into that? Jen Cornwell: Oh, my God, yeah. They thought that was awesome. Crystal Carter: I love it. Jen Cornwell: ... ever. Well, and it was something that John Lincoln, our CEO, suggested for a night. He's like, "Maybe we could try to get in the world record book." And so I came into this meeting and I was like, "What if they …?” Mordy Oberstein: Could you imagine? They did it? Jen Cornwell: They did it, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: At a baseball game? Jen Cornwell: I don't think they set the record, but they did do it at Padres. At Petco Stadium. Mordy Oberstein: They were all flossing. That sounds, first off, brilliant, but also disgusting. Jen Cornwell: I know. But it was like, they do kids games, so it was like the kids were there and it was like a whole thing. Mordy Oberstein: That just makes it grosser. The kids, I don't know. Oh, my gosh. I'm not a germophobe, but I'm freaking out on the other side of the screen. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. No, it was questionable. But people participated and they did it and got some exposure. Mordy Oberstein: That's awesome. Jen Cornwell: I wrote the blog. That's a... Mordy Oberstein: That is a great idea, by the way. That would make me feel like you're indispensable. Crystal Carter: Right. Unique, showing up with unique ideas. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. I'm going to go Google this now. Got to find people flossing at Petco Park. Jen Cornwell: I give enough details. I give enough details. I think those are more fun conversations to have anyway, honestly. So it's a little bit of my own personal amusement of... And we don't get those opportunities with a lot of our clients. And clients really just look at us as, "You are the SEO partner, so your suggestions about CRO for this form, we don't actually care that much. Just get us the keywords and get us the content." And that works in some relationships. But really strong partnerships you get to have those fun conversations. Crystal Carter: And I think that's also important to being a good partner for your clients is understanding who's like, "I just want this one thing." And you're like, "Cool, here you go." And the people who are like, "Yeah, let's get in. Let's brainstorm." There's going to be some people who really want to be all about it. And I used to have some clients who were just like, "Did you do the internet?" And I'd be like, "Yeah, I did it." They'd be like, "Great." And they don't want anything to do... They don't want to be involved. You're just working with... They're happy, they trust you to handle whatever you need to do. Jen Cornwell: Sometimes that's indispensable too. You're right- Crystal Carter: Exactly. Jen Cornwell: ... it's relative. Mordy Oberstein: Well, I feel like I have to go floss my teeth now. So, if people want to brainstorm with you or brainstorm with Ignite, how could they find you and your company? Jen Cornwell: I'm on LinkedIn. Ignite is also on LinkedIn. And then, I'm also on Twitter. I think it's JenCornwell_. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, don't worry, I'll find it. I'll link to it in the profile. In the profile, in the show notes. Jen Cornwell: Sweet. But yeah, those are two good places. I'm sometimes on Twitter. Mordy Oberstein: Twitter these days is not indispensable. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. And LinkedIn, I don't know, it's a weird mix over there sometimes. Mordy Oberstein: There's nothing great. I'll be honest with you, we can go on a whole different tangent about there's nothing great on social media anymore. I don't TikTok, but Crystal TikToks now. Crystal Carter: Yeah, sometimes. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. You were at Moscon. I did tons of Moscon TikToks. Jen Cornwell: Oh, did you? I've not done any work TikToks. Crystal Carter: You could call it working. No, I'm kidding. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe another podcast. I did make a TikTok where I built a house out of Taco Bell. And got a lot of views and Taco Bell saw it and sent me a whole box full of swag. Crystal Carter: Yo, these are the kind of ideas we need, Jen. Jen Cornwell: My claim to fame. Mordy Oberstein: Floss and the taco. This is- Crystal Carter: Tacos. You need to find a taco client. Jen Cornwell: Oh yeah, I know. Mordy Oberstein: Like Taco Bell. Jen Cornwell: Taco Bell, maybe. Yeah. Del Taco will take. I had El Pollo Loco. Crystal Carter: I used to go to Alberto's in San Diego. Jen Cornwell: Oh yeah, yeah. Crystal Carter: It has taquitos. Jen Cornwell: Rigoberto's, hit all the Berto's. Crystal Carter: Oh, there's the Filiberto's is also very good. They have a gigantic burrito that's amazing. But also I'm thinking, let's brainstorm right now taquitos, they're very much like Lincoln Logs. Jen Cornwell: Oh, Lincoln Logs. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Could build a whole to taquito fort. Jen Cornwell: Taquito. And you got to come up with a fun name. Mine was from Taco Bell Townhouse was because I saw a charcuterie chalet. This was during COVID, people were making little houses out of charcuterie. So yeah, did one out of french fries. Crystal Carter: Why didn't we make the podcast about- Jen Cornwell: We could have started with that. Crystal Carter: About literal food pyramids. Just saying. Mordy Oberstein: You make Lincoln Log, you can make out of asparagus. Crystal Carter: This is true. Jen Cornwell: We had somebody do hot dogs. Mordy Oberstein: Hot dogs. Jen Cornwell: This was all over a work competition. Mordy Oberstein: Work shopping this year. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, the gingerbread house kits. So it was just make anything out of food. And so, yeah, people showed up with some interesting pickles. Crystal Carter: I feel like the easiest thing is going to be carrot sticks because they're already made into things, whatever. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Yeah, that's cheap. Crystal Carter: Tater Tots though, I feel like you could brick those. Pickles are good. They're kind of juicy. Tater Tots, you could use hummus or something sticky as the mortar to keep it put together. Mordy Oberstein: Right. It could be like a stone cottage thing. Crystal Carter: Right. Or like a slightly melted cheese, which will then congeal and then go... You see what I'm saying? Do you see? Mordy Oberstein: I think we've gone completely off the rails. Jen Cornwell: Best bet. Mordy Oberstein: ... so much for coming on the show, and we'll see you out there on TikTok building asparagus, Tater Tot houses. Jen Cornwell: Thank you. Bye. Mordy Oberstein: Anywho, you may have heard this whole thing a little while back that there was a Google leak. Google's algorithm leaked. There was a nut that needed to be tightened, and it was dripping water. There was a Google leak, which everyone I'm assuming heard something about that. And one of the offshoots of that is a lot of SEOs are now talking about, "Oh, we need to be thinking about wider digital presence and brand marketing because of things in the leaks." Such as, oh, Google might be, emphasis on might be, looking at user behavior metrics or Chrome data. Or might be looking at mentions across the web, yada, yada, yada. Again, Amazon might be, we don't know how they're actually doing it, even with the leaks. So SEO is talking about a lot of these wider marketing topics all of a sudden. Which brings up the question that we alluded to earlier, is SEO starting to broaden? Join us now as we explore this fascinating and intriguing question with a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. I guess another way to phrase this question, is SEO starting to die? Is that too spicy? Crystal Carter: I think SEO is trying to use different tools, and also to utilize the tools that we have in different ways. I recently shared a post on LinkedIn, because I recently rewrote, remixed an article on long tail keywords. And historically speaking, the ways that SEOs have talked about long tail keywords is that we have long tail keywords and they've got good search volume accumulatively, and they allow you to connect with different parts of search, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff. All the things that great SEOs do, right? This is perfectly good SEO practice. But, and this is what I think SEOs need to do. We need to look at what we've got, the resources that we've got in a different way. The long tail keywords are not just about the search volume, the long tail keywords, an example that I use, was vegan pizza and pizza delivery in Brooklyn after midnight. This article's on the Wix SEO learning hub. And the thing that long tail keyword gives you is a full campaign. That gives you a full marketing campaign. Vegan tells you that you should be talking to vegan influencers or vegan magazines or vegan YouTube channels, or whatever. Pizza delivery tells you people want pizza, people want it delivered. They tell you that you need to have a Google business profile. They tell you that you need to have the location, your name, address, phone number on your website, et cetera, et cetera. And the after midnight tells you that it's late night. So if you have ads, you only want to show them late at night. You're not going to show people who are looking for pizza delivery at two o'clock in the afternoon those ads, you want to show them at 12 o'clock at night so that they can see those ads and get that pizza straight away. You also might want to take out... You know the quiet storm that goes on the radio at midnight or something, or the late night show on the radio. If you sell pizza after midnight and there's a late night radio show in your area. Guess what, the ad spot for that's probably not going to be that expensive because most people are not looking to buy stuff in middle of the night. However, if somebody's listening to the radio at 12:30 and you're like, "Hey, you want a tasty slice," they might call you. Mordy Oberstein: ... how you phrase that on a late night radio show. Crystal Carter: I mean- Mordy Oberstein: Remembering my youth of what's on the radio at 12 o'clock at night. Crystal Carter: It's a good thing. After midnight in Brooklyn, obviously geolocates you. You might want to sponsor the local basketball team, the local fantasy football team, whatever it may be. But that long tail keyword is data, it's search data. There's somebody who recently shared, they're looking at how search is growing, and the way that they're talking about SEO is slightly different. He was talking about how we can drive search demand. He was talking about how search demand gives you an insight into consumer demand. And that's different from going like, oh, these keywords, oh, blah, blah, blah. We just need to use the tools we have in a new way. Mordy Oberstein: I don't think anything's actually changed, everything that you're saying are things we should have been doing anyway. I think the only thing that's actually changed... And it will change the industry, by the way, because perception is everything. Is that SEOs are now starting to think about this because they're realizing that the wider, I'll call it holistic or whatever kind of marketing, brand marketing. Could, should, probably does, definitely does in some way, shape, or form, impact performance marketing. And they're like, "Oh, snap. Now we have to think about this." But you should be thinking about this the whole time. Growing your digital presence, I like to call it grow your digital light, has a tremendous impact on your SEO efforts and what you're able to do and not able to do. Whether it's SEO super directly, like we're saying now with the leaks are indirectly. So nothing is actually true, but the mindset has changed. And I think that... I can't find it, I was searching for this. And I post too much on social media, this is my problem. And I was in a Slack group and I put it on a LinkedIn. I have no clue. Look, I can't find it. It's one of the things you're going hear more about, or a segment of SEO, is brand SEO. I don't mean getting your branded keywords, I mean looking at brand as a way to summon your SEO effort. And then, lo and behold, a month later the leaks come out and now all of a sudden we're talking... But none of this is new. None of it's new. Crystal Carter: Yeah. One of the reasons why you didn't find that tweet, Mordy, is because you've been saying that for years. Because, Mordy, if you were trying to find that tweet, that's like trying to find- Mordy Oberstein: A lot of people have. The Kevin Indigs of the world come to mind, Lily Ray comes to mind. Crystal Carter: Have you ever found something out, or learned a new word or something like that, and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere? And it's always been there, but you didn't know necessarily what that word was, or didn't necessarily know what that idea was, or something like that. And you find that it's like, "Oh, this has unlocked a whole new perspective for me." And I think that's kind of what some people are coming to. But yeah, it has always been there. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's like Taylor Swift for me. She started dating Travis Kelce, Taylor who? Oh, there's this whole Swift-y thing. I had no clue. But now that I’ve heard of football, now I know. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Mordy Oberstein: My world has changed. Crystal Carter: And if you learn a new tool, it can really open things up. Or also, I think when we think about the skills that we had and the resources that we had, sometimes it's a case of taking stuff that you already know and looking at it differently. There's some people like avocados. Let's talk about avocados. Mordy Oberstein: Love avocados. Crystal Carter: You like avocados. Avocados are delicious. I love avocados. You can literally just... I could literally eat it with a spoon. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. Crystal Carter: Perfectly happy. Mordy Oberstein: Don't even use a spoon, just take your fingers. Crystal Carter: Just- Mordy Oberstein: Just dive in. Crystal Carter: Just get involved. You don't have to do anything to an avocado. Vegans looked at that and they were like, "I'm going to make that chocolate mousse." And people were like, "What?" And vegans were like, "I'm going to make a chocolate mousse." It's the same avocado everybody's been looking at, but they were like, "I'm going to make a chocolate mousse." Completely different vibe. Yeah, it's a completely different vibe. It's a completely different thing. It's the same avocado that you always liked, completely different vibe. Mordy Oberstein: I think the only problem or issue I take is that it's possibly happening in SEO for the wrong reasons. We're like, we're taking the avocado, we're making it into chocolate mousse because I want to shake chocolate mousse and I want to throw it at people on the street. That's fun for me. Crystal Carter: I did a webinar the other day and the audience was super engaged, but I was talking about internal linking. And I was like, "You should have internal links. Make sure you use line links. Line links, they're high priority in the crawl, and they're really useful and they're really helpful, and they add context and they have words before them and words after them," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And somebody was like, "Oh, but if I do use the links, will Google penalize me? And what about this one?" And I was like, "Yo, put the links on your page because they're helpful. They're helpful, they're useful." I cannot stand it if I'm reading an article that's like, "Oh my God, avocado mousse is so delicious. It's the best thing I've ever tried. And gosh, I tried this brand of avocado mousse and it just really blew my mind." And I'm like, "Link me, bro." I'm like, "Where's the link?" And there's no link, I'm mad. I'm big mad. I'm mad, I want to go somewhere else. So link me. Link me to the recipe, link me to the picture, link me to... Pixlr didn't happen. I want to see the stuff. Why? Because it's helpful. That's helpful. It's helpful to Google, it's helpful to users. So the things that we need to do in terms of brand should be helpful. You want to pull your brand forward, you want to use your data wisely. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, momentum and cadence and presence, all that good stuff. Oh, no, more it's going to happen is what happens now on LinkedIn. I connect with somebody, "Hi, how are you?" Oh, here it comes. "Would you like to buy links?" But in a year from now it's going to be, would you like to buy mentions? Because what guest? He was like, "Oh, the leaks talk about mentions, and now we need to be concerned about mentions. I have a good idea, I'll sell mentions." Who needs to get the lie to sell mentions? And you should be worrying about mentions. You don't mentions do? I'm reading an article, they say, "You know what's a really great thing? Avocados. Avocados from whatever company, from Bob's Avocados," and there's no link. But you know what I might do if I want an avocado? I might type in Bob's Avocado into Google. And do you think for a second Google's not looking at the fact that lots of people looking for avocados and Bob at the same time? Did a link do that? No, a mentioned did that. Did a mention do that only after the leaks happened? No, a mention did that many, many years before the leaks came out. But now SEOs are going to try selling mentions. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that really, generally speaking, and I've heard this from good SEOs. People say, "How do you weather the algorithm updates and things like that?" Nine times out of 10, it's just keeping your nose clean. But nine times out of 10, it's like keeping your nose clean doing solid SEO, doing stuff that helps your users, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that it seems really... Okay, so I learned to snowboard, right? Mordy Oberstein: Wait, you know how to snowboard? Crystal Carter: Yeah. I'm a mediocre snowboarder, but I've been on a few mountains in my time. And I don't fall over. Last time I was in Switzerland, I didn't fall over. I did all right. And I was riding Switch. So people who know that, your girl has to moves. Anyway, when I was learning to snowboard, my instructor told me, he was like, "You just look where you want to go." And I was like, "No, because it's got to be this and you have to do that, and you have to go over here, and got to..." And I was doing the most, I was doing too much. But literally, I will tell you, if you want to snowboard, and I tell this to people now. Literally, look where you want to go. It's literally that simple. It's that simple. You're on the board, your feet are planted, you turn your head and your body will go where it needs to go. And that's all it is. So we like, oh, what if I do this, and what if I do that? And da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And don't get me wrong, there are absolutely technical things you need to consider. You need to make sure your website's crawlable. You need to have lots of things that are in there. You need to coordinate your digital PR, et cetera, so that it makes sense for your brand. You need to have a coherent strategy. But essentially, if your goal is to add value for your users, for your audience, then you will be fine. And if your goal is to add value consistently for them, then that will support your brand, as long as you know what your brand is. That's not rocket science. We try to make it so it's super complicated, but it's not. It's not. Mordy Oberstein: It's just tuning out that noise, that's the hard part. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Mordy Oberstein: You know who tunes out a lot of noise, keeps his nose clean, and always provides value? Crystal Carter: Who's that? Mordy Oberstein: It's Barry Schwartz. Crystal Carter: Barry Schwartz. Mordy Oberstein: That's the cleanest nose I've ever seen. Really, it's sparkling. Crystal Carter: I mean, sometimes. Mordy Oberstein: Which means, as we pay homage to Barry, that it's time for this week's snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Got a whole bunch of stuff for you, it's all a AI related. Or actually, AI adjacent. Let's start with Search Engine Roundtables, Barry Schwartz. Well, I don't know why I said Search Engine Roundtables, Barry Schwartz. There only is Barry Schwartz as Search Engine Roundtable, which is an existential feeling. There only is Barry Schwartz. Anyway, Reddit blocked Bing search and others, but not Google. So, Reddit has blocked basically all other search engine, I'm pretty sure, from crawling them via the robot.txt file. I don't know if that applies to Perplexity actually. I thought somewhere I saw Perplexity was fine. Anyway, I'm definitely Bing. Bing is definitely out. Reddit is no longer allowing other search engines to crawl them. That's interesting, right? I never know. What do you say about that? It's an interesting look. What's basically happening is that Reddit is basically saying, "Hey, if you want our content, be like Google and pay for it." I personally don't like Reddit, so I don't know why anybody would pay for it. But, okay. It's really interesting. It's a new paradigm on the web, I guess. I don't know if this deal will work out well for Reddit. I'm highly suspect that making this kind of deal is in their long-term benefit. It's weird, by the way. I'll just say it's weird because, yeah, Bing's not the biggest search engine, it's only got whatever percent of market share. Let's say it's got 5% of market share. I don't remember the exact numbers, nor do I particularly care. 5% of that market share is saying, yeah, I have 5% market share of the entire world. That's a lot of people. I guess Reddit doesn't care about your grandmother going to Reddit anymore. I guess the lesson to take from that. That's a little snarky for this podcast. Anyway, just weird. Let's head over to Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Land, where Google will soon test search shopping ads in AI overviews. So Google has talked about having an ad experience in the AI overviews for a while. Now they're saying you're going to see the tests coming up soon. The quote was, "And as you've probably noticed at GML, Google Marketing Live, we announced that soon we'll actually start testing search and shopping ads in AI overviews for users in the US," yada, yada, yada. So they're going to be testing them soon. Interesting. Let's see how that goes. Obviously, the ability to earn ad revenue is what will indicate if the AI overviews are going to work or not from a business point of view. All this is just interesting to me. Anyway. Now back to Search Engine Roundtable, Google Gemini adds related content and verification links. So the LLM formerly known as Bard, now known as Gemini, now contains links again. This is a weird week. I'm finding the news weird this week. Bard, now known as Gemini, used to show links to the content that the summary was based on. Much the way an AI overview does. But then stopped doing that. Well, now links are back inside of Gemini. Which is interesting, because now covering again from Search Engine Roundtable, SearchGPT, OpenAI search tool is out. It's announced. Like ChatGPT, you can now use SearchGPT to get answers to your questions. But here, with SearchGPT, you'll get citations that the content is based on. So it's basically Gemini. So it's basically the same thing. It's now you can search using OpenAI's platform much the way you would use Gemini. Again, get the summary and now get citations and links to content and so forth within the ecosystem. Will this disrupt the search engine market? Probably not. Because it's basically the same thing as Gemini, and kind of the same thing as the AI overview. So carry on as usual, I guess. I don't know. It's a weird week. It's a weird week. By the way, that article is brought to you by Barry Schwartz. Because, again, who else is writing at SE Roundtable? Actually, not true. Not true. I take that back. Sometimes Glenn Gabe actually writes an article over at SE Roundtable. You can always tell by the headline. Anyway, that's this week's weird and snappy news. It is hard to keep the noise out with the news sometimes. There's a lot of noise in the news. Crystal Carter: I'll be completely honest, I used to get a lot of my news from Twitter, and that is not a use a useful- Mordy Oberstein: Not a good place. Crystal Carter: ... source to get news from anymore. Barry's a great source. And I think a lot of times... There's certain people that I follow to keep on top of things like that as well. Lily Ray's a great person to follow for that, she's really on top of the news, and particularly for stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Glenn. Crystal Carter: Glenn is great as well, and Mike is great as well. Mike King is also a good one who jumps in. And Mike covers a lot of topics as well. So a lot of search, but also a few other topics as well, which is cool. Mordy Oberstein: Yep. That's why I like, by the way, I mentioned Glenn Gabe before, because he covers all tech news. I saw yesterday he posted about... This is insane. By the time this comes out, this will be old news. It's basically a social media thing where you can create an AI persona and then have all the AIs talking to each other. Crystal Carter: I heard the story about a comedian. Opinions on him aside, it was an interesting story. Dave Chappelle apparently had a Twitter account that was not his Twitter account, but this person was posting stuff. Kat Williams, and again, another controversial comedian or whatever. But he also had- Mordy Oberstein: All comedians are kind of controversial, it's what they do. Crystal Carter: He also had a... These two Twitter accounts were arguing with each other. The two of them actually met, these two comedians actually met, and they were like, "I'm sorry." Or, no. And Dave Chappelle apparently said to this other comedian, "I'm so sorry, that's not actually me that's been arguing with you." And Kat Williams was like, "I don't have a Twitter account either." And basically- Mordy Oberstein: Well, that was my comment back to Glenn when he posted about this. I'm like, yeah, AI, but people aren't so great either. So, there you go. You know who is a great person with the perfect pivot possible? Our follow of the week, Sam Rush's own head of influencer marketing, Nicole Ponce. Nicole is amazing. I work with Nicole. I still work with Nicole. Absolutely one of the greatest people you'll ever meet. Super incredible, super smart, super nice, helpful, everything. Give her a follow across all social media platforms. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely do. Not only is she super awesome, super smart, she also has all of the latest info and all the cool stuff that Sam Rush gets up to. They've got some cool events going on, they've got some interesting projects going on, and she's very much a part of that. She's really supportive of the SEO community as well. She supported stuff that Aletis put on. They've also supported things, different events. And they supported Search 'n Stuff, which is another great event as well. And I've worked with Nicole as well, and cannot speak highly enough of her. Big hearts to Nicole. Mordy Oberstein: We're all making heart signs. Crystal Carter: We're making those little hearts. Mordy Oberstein: ... the two of us here. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's just us. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. What an interesting selection of people today. We talked about Barry, Cole… Crystal Carter: ... all the other folks we were just mentioning as well. Mordy Oberstein: We've talked a lot of people on today's show, mentions of people. Mentions, you know what? No one even asked to buy them. We should sell them. We should sell mentions on the podcast. I found a new niche for us. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay, cool. Can we start a fun agency? Just, Mention. Mordy Oberstein: Mentions. Crystal Carter: Got to have a good name. Mordy Oberstein: With dollar signs. The brand, you be like dollar signs everywhere. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There we go. Mordy Oberstein: Good idea. This is the thing, by the way, that we're joking. Obviously. And before we continue and go down this rabbit hole forever, because I will, because I'm salty about this topic. 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 a new episode as we dive into the wonderful world of podcasting, on a podcast with podcasters who do marketing and marketing podcasts. So many fourth walls. So many fourth walls. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts or on the Wix SEO learning over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check all of the great content and webinars and whatnot over on the Wix SEO learning at, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Please 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 Jen Cornwell Nicole Ponce Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Ignite Visibility Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Jen Cornwell Nicole Ponce Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Ignite Visibility 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 head of SEO brand at Wix. And I'm joined by the fabulously amazing, the incredible, the always differentiated and always essential head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: I try to keep it... You can stand up from the crowd. There was years ago that I used to worry when I was a kid, when I was like high school or whatever. "Oh, people are staring at me." And I was like, you know what? What's it Bonnie Raitt says, "Let's give them something to talk about." It was like, yeah, I'm going to wear a stupid ridiculous shirt or ridiculous whatever. Because if you're looking, feast your eyes. I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Something like that makes you sound like a total idiot. It took me a long time to realize that was Bonnie Raitt, even though I love 80s music. Crystal Carter: Bonnie Raitt singing about something. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I didn't realize that was her other stuff- Crystal Carter: No, that's 90s. Mordy Oberstein: ... was other stuff. No, it's a 90s, right. It's a 90s song. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah, yeah. Bonnie Raitt's great. But it's 90s. It's 90s, because it was on a Julia Roberts movie. Mordy Oberstein: Pretty Woman, no? No. Crystal Carter: No. It wasn't Pretty Women. Mordy Oberstein: No. I don't know. Crystal Carter: It was one of her other rom-coms. I'm sure. I'm going to have to Google it now. Please, talk amongst yourselves. Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Julia Roberts movies. The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you cannot only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also show your clients how much they really need you with inbuilt reporting found in Wix Studio. And in addition to all of the analytics available to you in Wix Analytics. As today, we continue our Wix Studio series as we talk how SEOs and marketers can show how indispensable they are to their clients. Why in today's environment, you need to show your value across the board, not just in one marketing discipline. Do you hear that SEO folks? Proving your value as an SEO or marketing agency versus a consultancy, is there a difference? And yes, we'll get into AI and how to deal with clients who feel they don't need you because they have an LLM that tells them to drink urine to prevent kidney stones. Ignite Visibility's, own VP of SEO, Jennifer Cornwell will be here in just a few minutes as she helps us show you why you're indispensable to your clients, why you are your client's very own air supply, and why they be so lost without you. Plus, we take a hard look at how the Google leaks are starting to broaden SEO. Again, you hear that SEO, folks? Plus we have the snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So stick with us as we show you how to become like a band-Aid, too painful for your clients to pull off on this, the 98th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. By the way, not an actual strategy you should use. Bad strategy. Don't be too painful. I was just taking poetic license. Yes, I am a poet. You wouldn't know a first glance, but I am quite the poet. I'm a wordsmith. Crystal Carter: Okay. One of my favorite Mordy Oberstein things is when you drop a $5 word. Every now and then, Mordy's like, "Oh, I have the vocabulary just in case you're wondering." Mordy Oberstein: For my birthday one year... Again, I terrible with time. You put out tweets of things I've said I didn't realize I said. And one of them was, "If talk is cheap, I'm fine to talk a lot," or something like that. Crystal Carter: Something like that. This is true. This is true. This is true. They weren't hard to find them, you got a lot of tweets. You are prolific, as it were. By the way, just for people who were wondering or who were in suspense. This Something to Talk About song was from a Julia Roberts movie called Something to Talk About. Mordy Oberstein: We just completely... Just ignorance built upon ignorance, built upon ignorance. Crystal Carter: That's such an SEO thing to do though. Mordy Oberstein: Near me. Something to talk about near me. Crystal Carter: Right. What's the song? It's Something to Talk About. What's the movie? Something to Talk About. What are we going to talk about? Mordy Oberstein: Before we bring our guest on, I will tell you the truth, as opposed to when I lie to you. Which is such a weird idiom, by the way. Like, "Oh, tell you the truth." Because before I was lying. Crystal Carter: Yeah, what was going on before? I thought we were in a circle of trust. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Honestly, like before you weren't being? Anyway, but it's an idiom. Anywho. There are times where I, as a marketer and as someone who's self-deprecating, feel like, come on, what do I know about marketing and SEO? It's like, what I'm saying is so obvious. Do I actually provide any unique value? But I do then meet folks who maybe don't have a marketing background that are maybe just marketing enthusiasts who are talking to me about marketing, or maybe they're just new to market... They are marketers or SEOs, and they're just new to the industry and they're still learning. And I do then realize that I do have actual experience and a unique outlook on marketing, and a unique outlook on SEO that I've built up through the years. That no, I of course didn't have when I first started, or was even in SEO marketing altogether, but that I have built up over the many years that I have been in marketing. And that does actually provide something that's unique and invaluable to the people that I work with. I think. I hope. Right? And with that, please welcome to the show Ignite Visibility's VP of SEO, Jennifer Cornwell. How are you? Jen Cornwell: Hi. I'm good, thanks. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Mordy Oberstein: You're indispensable to this podcast now. Jen Cornwell: Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. That's a big title. Big title for a one-time guest. Mordy Oberstein: No, that means you can't leave. It's like Hotel California. Yeah, you're stuck. That's it. Crystal Carter: And I think it's really interesting you said seasoned. Because I think that one of the things that makes people indispensable is the special sauce that you bring as an SEO, really. I think that's something, Would you say that you and your team have cultivated a little bit of a special sauce that you bring to new clients or new projects? Jen Cornwell: Yeah. I think that the reason clients really like working with us a lot of the time is we are... A lot of businesses, I think they're going to say, "We're the startup mentality." But I do actually feel like we work that way, and we work that way with our clients because we worked that way for such a long time. We just hit our 11-year anniversary in this last year. I've been there for six, and the team has grown. I was like, 65 people when we got hired, and now we're 220 or something. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my goodness. Wow. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, grown a lot as a company. But I think even though we've done that, it's still coming to the table for our clients, for these relationships that we've built ultimately. We talk about the seasoning, that's important. But there's also this, your clients have gotten in this rhythm of talking to you all the time, and you are their marketing person now. And the reasons why, as an SEO, yes, you need to talk about SEO, but there's all this opportunity to talk about these other things they aren't thinking about. We try to keep our team really well-rounded and well-versed in a lot of what's going on. They're not paid media experts, but have enough of an understanding to be able to talk to it. And that kind of thing, it's part of it, the indispensableness. Mordy Oberstein: When we're deciding what should we discuss for the podcast, and we were saying how there's just so much more going on in marketing in general, there's just not one facet of marketing. And to be indispensable in today's environment means being a little bit more, I don't know, broad about what you cover and how you cover. Or what you're thinking about or what you're discussing with clients. How has that factored into what you feel makes y'all indispensable to your clients? Jen Cornwell: Part of it is making a better SEO, I think understanding all their marketing channels, because so much of what we do funnels down to us. Even not digital space, stuff we don't do as an agency. I've had a client where we saw an impression decrease for their brand and they're like, "Oh yeah, we stopped running our commercial." And so knowing that and being able to go into conversations with clients when they see something similar and be able to at least ask those questions, I think what's really important. But yeah, I think that's really where it comes from. It's baking it into the experience of the special sauce of situational things we've been in to open up those doors to ask the right questions at the right time. Crystal Carter: I think that's a great example. I've had clients where they've run print advertising or they've run television advertising. And if you're talking to them regularly, then you can bring that all together with the SEO, you can really unlock the real value of some of that. And if you are in an agency situation, all the better. Because you'll have people, you can be like, right, if you're running a television ad on, I don't know, ESPN or something. We can bring in our social team to target people who follow ESPN, we can link everything together. And even if it's on a project basis, even if it's just, you're doing this campaign on ESPN this week, and we'll bring in somebody to help with that, with the social shares or whatever this week or whatever, that sort of thing. But I think that having those conversations, keeping those conversations and really reading the data. Like you were saying, how we saw the impressions, what's going on? Really, really valuable. Jen Cornwell: The client piece that you mentioned is really important, because we talk about that a lot with our clients. I have prospects who come to me and they're like, "What makes a good client?" And I'm like, "When you talk to us." We want you to actually see this as a partnership where we want to help you. And yeah, sometimes they don't even tell you about new pages they add. Or, "Oh yeah, we did change the entire URL structure of the site segment." And you find out in your reporting that everything is way different than the last time you looked at it. But yeah, the clients who tell us about the little stuff, the small things going on, that's where we can actually come in and ask the right questions and be helpful. Mordy Oberstein: Do you notice a change with your clients? We're going to talk later in the podcast about how SEO might be broadening, and the Google leaks and how now there's a whole idea of branding factoring into SEO, and yada, yada, yada. But do you find, I don't know, over the years that the clients themselves have changed? Are they less focused just an SEO or just PPC? Are they starting to broaden a bit? Jen Cornwell: A little bit, I think. We still get a handful of clients who read one SEO blog. They come in and they say, "I do SEO." And they did SEO in 2012. And you're like, "Okay, so you kind of know what it is, but also it's been 10 years." That happens a lot still. But we do have clients who are, they understand that SEO... Their understanding of it is keyword stuffing. They're like, "Oh, yeah, well, I don't want my content to look all weird. I want my content to read weird." And so having to hurdle that. But even that's new, because that's like they understand that there's keywords that need to be implemented in a certain way. And they know it needs to happen for SEO, but they just want to figure out what the middle ground is for user experience. I think that we're having more of those conversations and less of, "How many keywords are on this page, and why aren't there more of them?" conversations. I guess a little bit. There's also some... It depends. It really just depends on the most common SEO answer of all. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, the graph. It depends. It depends in orange. Jen Cornwell: Yes. Yeah. No, it depends on the marketer that's coming in and what their background is. But it's gotten better. I think the understanding of SEO has gotten better. Crystal Carter: And I think a lot of people are starting to say that... And I don't know if you're seeing this trend, is that they're starting to see clients come to them less for implementation support and more for strategic support. Are you seeing that trend as well? Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Yeah. Especially more recently, I think it's a little bit of economic and bandwidth availability resources within their own team in the conversations that we're having. But definitely they're like, "Oh, okay, this is stuff a developer can do," and you can just pass it over to somebody who's in-house who has some SEO experience so we're not doing as much explaining as we have to do. But yeah, it's definitely more on the strategic side. And I think that's where they know enough to know that SEO is different than it was 10 years ago, where they know there needs to be more strategy involved and less "keyword stuffing", as an example. Mordy Oberstein: Or they could have the AI to implement all of it, right? Jen Cornwell: Right. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: It's a smooth transition into the other elephant in the room that I wanted to discuss, which is, how does AI affect you being indispensable? Both in reality, and I think more importantly... Because I think in reality not much has changed, but that's just me. But the perception of that reality with clients. Are they coming in, "Well, I could just LLM this thing."? Jen Cornwell: As soon as ChatGPT was announced and a thing, we had a client who said, "Okay, send me pricing for how to write more content for less money, with AI." And I was like, "Oh, my God." So we go through all that, and it turns out, actually, especially at the time when it was first rolling out, there was no cost savings. The hard costs of a writer were actually implemented in time and trying to get the LLM to get what we needed on the other side, that was not going to work out for that client. But yeah, we had a lot of those conversations. The way we've positioned it with our clients now is, we use AI in our processes for analysis, we use it for blind spots. It's like, as SEOs you get very situational sometimes with your own references. So having something that can double check some other things for you just in case you forget. Stuff that it's more appropriate use. But yeah, we still have clients. I had a client last wee, this week I was on the phone with. And they're like, "Yeah, we're going to hook Jasper up so we can put a bunch of content up on the site." And so I screen shared this screenshot of this client we had that just did AI content. You can see every single algorithm update where it just fell off September, January, then again in March, just stair steps down. I've used that a lot actually as reference point. Crystal Carter: That's one of the things that I think is so valuable about an agency relationship is that as somebody who's working in an agency, and as you said, you have eyes... You've grown from a team of 60 to team of over 100. Across your team you will be having conversations about different trends that you're seeing from clients, and things like that. When a client comes to you and they say, "I want to do this," it won't be your first time doing this. You can say to the wider team, "If you have any examples, have you seen anything?" And they'll go, "Yeah, actually, I do. Watch this drop." And I think that visibility is something that a lot of in-house teams really struggle with a little bit, because you might just have your blinders on and you might not see what's happening in different verticals. Mordy's done so much algorithm research and stuff, and sometimes the algorithms, if you think about the reviews algorithm, the product reviews update. That was initially working in a certain space. And now, I'm pontificating here, but I think that some of the stuff that we saw with that is kind of what we're seeing with the helpful content update rolled out wider. And I think that the knowledge that you get from working across different clients that have been affected by different algorithms, different approaches, different techniques can be super, super valuable. And it's something that you can't get if somebody's working on one client at a time, for instance. Mordy Oberstein: Is that something you feel differentiates you as an agency versus a consultancy? Where you have so much experience and so many different verticals and so many different areas of marketing. If you're going to get consultants it's like, all right, they have your SEO handled, but the second you have a PPC problem come up, or a content issue come up, or whatever it has come up, now you have to go find somebody else. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, we've never been vertical specific, we've always done the variety. We probably lean more toward lead gen, maybe a little bit B2B versus e-comm. But I think what happens, we have clients who come on and they're like, "Oh, do you have experience in our industry?" And that matters for writers and that kind of thing, getting the context of their business together. But I think there's a lot of things that are applicable across verticals. The way Google indexes content for a storage facility site is not any different than the skincare brand that we work on. And the things it's looking for are not intrinsically different, but it is two different audiences. And that's where I think you start to get into the indispensable marketing mindset of, I'm not just an SEO, I'm thinking about user journey, I'm thinking about conversion points. I'm thinking about the user journey for a storage site versus a skin care brand, that's two different things that can be important in your strategy. But yeah, the variety I think is really critical, really helps. Crystal Carter: And when I was working agency side, I really liked this. I was working with clients similarly, skincare, storage, people that different, some of the clients that I was working with. And I thought that was really interesting. Because particularly on the local side, for instance, there will be features that are available within local SEO, for instance, that are applicable to certain verticals that are not applicable to other verticals. And if you're working on product stuff, then there will be different things that you'll use for that, like Google Merchant Center and stuff. But what you find when you're working across all of them is you get more of a sense of how these things work. Because very often maybe they'll have lots of product schema on... Maybe they'll have one vertical that's got lots of schema, and so then you learn how to do schema. So then when they add schema to a different vertical, then you're completely ready for that because you've already done it on this other one. Whereas, everybody who's just been working on the other vertical and has never seen rich results for that particular vertical might be very surprised. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. No, I think SEO is so situational anyway, that having that diverse experience... Or being able to have it, I guess, within our team and not being necessarily... I joke that I want to retire to in-house, that's my retirement plan day. I'm going to leave agency life and I'm going to go to in-house and have a nice little in-house job. But not to disregard the in-house people, I'm sure that is hard in its own way. But I do think, yeah, when you're in-house you're dialed in on maybe one site or a few sites, or one specific vertical. And it's great, maybe it makes you a specialist there, but doesn't exactly open up the experience. And I think the time too, over five years, over six years. What I was doing five or six years ago is very different than now, and the experience over that time. Yeah, your in-house person who's been there for three years maybe hasn't stepped out of the SEO bubble or SEO world in a different way, just because they're only looking at certain things and trying to solve the one problem. This is what I hear about in-house, trying to solve the one problem that you've been trying to push across the line for two years, or whatever it is. And it's always adding site maps to the robots.txt file, and it's going to take seven months to implement. Yeah, I think it's easy to get lost in some of that and maybe lose sight of some of the other stuff that you would get to see agency side. Mordy Oberstein: Do you think that... Because you mentioned this a few times already, the marketing mindset and the marketing mindset. Do you think that maybe that's one of the reasons why maybe SEOs don't necessarily have that marketing mindset that seems to be indispensable to clients? Jen Cornwell: It's probably a little bit of experience, for sure. I think it's really, I refer to it a lot as our SEO vacuum. I go and I can propose all kinds of things to clients like, "Oh yeah, I work on these keywords and these pages," but it doesn't really matter if their audience doesn't care about it or if they don't care about it as a business either. And ultimately, being able to prioritize your recommendations, I think that comes from marketing mindset as well. I'm not just passing over an audit checklist of "here's all the stuff that's wrong and here's some recommendations to fix it". But I'm not necessarily going to tell you what's going to impact your business the most or what you should prioritize first based on your resources. And so I think navigating... That's one example, but being able to navigate their entire marketing plan in the same way. My favorite example, I had a pediatric dentist client, he's got five or six locations in San Diego. And I've worked at a lot of dentists, they love marketing. Mordy Oberstein: They got to figure out how to get you in that chair and pull out your teeth. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, yeah. No, he loved it. And I used to go into the meetings and I would suggest things that I knew I was never going to touch. I would build the landing page. I'll write some content, we'll make the landing page, but there's 5 million other steps to this idea. And those conversations were always really fun for me because I got to talk about stuff other than keywords. But also made us really valuable to him because he's like, "Oh, here's another brain, basically, that can be in this room with me and has the marketing perspective to be able to talk about what we could potentially do." Yeah, I think navigating those situations, the small conversation that turns into a big idea just because you came in with a little bit of extra experience goes a long way. Crystal Carter: That's great. It sounds like a great partnership. The kind of partnership you were talking about before, where everything is back and forth. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Was like the name of the dentist, like, Bright Smiles? Jen Cornwell: No. Actually, they have a really strong brand. They were one of the biggest pediatric dentists in San Diego. And one of my favorite idea that I suggested them that they did was try to set a world record at a baseball game. They were trying to get as many people to floss at once, or something. Crystal Carter: Were they into that? Jen Cornwell: Oh, my God, yeah. They thought that was awesome. Crystal Carter: I love it. Jen Cornwell: ... ever. Well, and it was something that John Lincoln, our CEO, suggested for a night. He's like, "Maybe we could try to get in the world record book." And so I came into this meeting and I was like, "What if they …?” Mordy Oberstein: Could you imagine? They did it? Jen Cornwell: They did it, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: At a baseball game? Jen Cornwell: I don't think they set the record, but they did do it at Padres. At Petco Stadium. Mordy Oberstein: They were all flossing. That sounds, first off, brilliant, but also disgusting. Jen Cornwell: I know. But it was like, they do kids games, so it was like the kids were there and it was like a whole thing. Mordy Oberstein: That just makes it grosser. The kids, I don't know. Oh, my gosh. I'm not a germophobe, but I'm freaking out on the other side of the screen. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. No, it was questionable. But people participated and they did it and got some exposure. Mordy Oberstein: That's awesome. Jen Cornwell: I wrote the blog. That's a... Mordy Oberstein: That is a great idea, by the way. That would make me feel like you're indispensable. Crystal Carter: Right. Unique, showing up with unique ideas. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. I'm going to go Google this now. Got to find people flossing at Petco Park. Jen Cornwell: I give enough details. I give enough details. I think those are more fun conversations to have anyway, honestly. So it's a little bit of my own personal amusement of... And we don't get those opportunities with a lot of our clients. And clients really just look at us as, "You are the SEO partner, so your suggestions about CRO for this form, we don't actually care that much. Just get us the keywords and get us the content." And that works in some relationships. But really strong partnerships you get to have those fun conversations. Crystal Carter: And I think that's also important to being a good partner for your clients is understanding who's like, "I just want this one thing." And you're like, "Cool, here you go." And the people who are like, "Yeah, let's get in. Let's brainstorm." There's going to be some people who really want to be all about it. And I used to have some clients who were just like, "Did you do the internet?" And I'd be like, "Yeah, I did it." They'd be like, "Great." And they don't want anything to do... They don't want to be involved. You're just working with... They're happy, they trust you to handle whatever you need to do. Jen Cornwell: Sometimes that's indispensable too. You're right- Crystal Carter: Exactly. Jen Cornwell: ... it's relative. Mordy Oberstein: Well, I feel like I have to go floss my teeth now. So, if people want to brainstorm with you or brainstorm with Ignite, how could they find you and your company? Jen Cornwell: I'm on LinkedIn. Ignite is also on LinkedIn. And then, I'm also on Twitter. I think it's JenCornwell_. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, don't worry, I'll find it. I'll link to it in the profile. In the profile, in the show notes. Jen Cornwell: Sweet. But yeah, those are two good places. I'm sometimes on Twitter. Mordy Oberstein: Twitter these days is not indispensable. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. And LinkedIn, I don't know, it's a weird mix over there sometimes. Mordy Oberstein: There's nothing great. I'll be honest with you, we can go on a whole different tangent about there's nothing great on social media anymore. I don't TikTok, but Crystal TikToks now. Crystal Carter: Yeah, sometimes. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. You were at Moscon. I did tons of Moscon TikToks. Jen Cornwell: Oh, did you? I've not done any work TikToks. Crystal Carter: You could call it working. No, I'm kidding. Jen Cornwell: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe another podcast. I did make a TikTok where I built a house out of Taco Bell. And got a lot of views and Taco Bell saw it and sent me a whole box full of swag. Crystal Carter: Yo, these are the kind of ideas we need, Jen. Jen Cornwell: My claim to fame. Mordy Oberstein: Floss and the taco. This is- Crystal Carter: Tacos. You need to find a taco client. Jen Cornwell: Oh yeah, I know. Mordy Oberstein: Like Taco Bell. Jen Cornwell: Taco Bell, maybe. Yeah. Del Taco will take. I had El Pollo Loco. Crystal Carter: I used to go to Alberto's in San Diego. Jen Cornwell: Oh yeah, yeah. Crystal Carter: It has taquitos. Jen Cornwell: Rigoberto's, hit all the Berto's. Crystal Carter: Oh, there's the Filiberto's is also very good. They have a gigantic burrito that's amazing. But also I'm thinking, let's brainstorm right now taquitos, they're very much like Lincoln Logs. Jen Cornwell: Oh, Lincoln Logs. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Could build a whole to taquito fort. Jen Cornwell: Taquito. And you got to come up with a fun name. Mine was from Taco Bell Townhouse was because I saw a charcuterie chalet. This was during COVID, people were making little houses out of charcuterie. So yeah, did one out of french fries. Crystal Carter: Why didn't we make the podcast about- Jen Cornwell: We could have started with that. Crystal Carter: About literal food pyramids. Just saying. Mordy Oberstein: You make Lincoln Log, you can make out of asparagus. Crystal Carter: This is true. Jen Cornwell: We had somebody do hot dogs. Mordy Oberstein: Hot dogs. Jen Cornwell: This was all over a work competition. Mordy Oberstein: Work shopping this year. Jen Cornwell: Yeah, the gingerbread house kits. So it was just make anything out of food. And so, yeah, people showed up with some interesting pickles. Crystal Carter: I feel like the easiest thing is going to be carrot sticks because they're already made into things, whatever. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Yeah, that's cheap. Crystal Carter: Tater Tots though, I feel like you could brick those. Pickles are good. They're kind of juicy. Tater Tots, you could use hummus or something sticky as the mortar to keep it put together. Mordy Oberstein: Right. It could be like a stone cottage thing. Crystal Carter: Right. Or like a slightly melted cheese, which will then congeal and then go... You see what I'm saying? Do you see? Mordy Oberstein: I think we've gone completely off the rails. Jen Cornwell: Best bet. Mordy Oberstein: ... so much for coming on the show, and we'll see you out there on TikTok building asparagus, Tater Tot houses. Jen Cornwell: Thank you. Bye. Mordy Oberstein: Anywho, you may have heard this whole thing a little while back that there was a Google leak. Google's algorithm leaked. There was a nut that needed to be tightened, and it was dripping water. There was a Google leak, which everyone I'm assuming heard something about that. And one of the offshoots of that is a lot of SEOs are now talking about, "Oh, we need to be thinking about wider digital presence and brand marketing because of things in the leaks." Such as, oh, Google might be, emphasis on might be, looking at user behavior metrics or Chrome data. Or might be looking at mentions across the web, yada, yada, yada. Again, Amazon might be, we don't know how they're actually doing it, even with the leaks. So SEO is talking about a lot of these wider marketing topics all of a sudden. Which brings up the question that we alluded to earlier, is SEO starting to broaden? Join us now as we explore this fascinating and intriguing question with a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. I guess another way to phrase this question, is SEO starting to die? Is that too spicy? Crystal Carter: I think SEO is trying to use different tools, and also to utilize the tools that we have in different ways. I recently shared a post on LinkedIn, because I recently rewrote, remixed an article on long tail keywords. And historically speaking, the ways that SEOs have talked about long tail keywords is that we have long tail keywords and they've got good search volume accumulatively, and they allow you to connect with different parts of search, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all that stuff. All the things that great SEOs do, right? This is perfectly good SEO practice. But, and this is what I think SEOs need to do. We need to look at what we've got, the resources that we've got in a different way. The long tail keywords are not just about the search volume, the long tail keywords, an example that I use, was vegan pizza and pizza delivery in Brooklyn after midnight. This article's on the Wix SEO learning hub. And the thing that long tail keyword gives you is a full campaign. That gives you a full marketing campaign. Vegan tells you that you should be talking to vegan influencers or vegan magazines or vegan YouTube channels, or whatever. Pizza delivery tells you people want pizza, people want it delivered. They tell you that you need to have a Google business profile. They tell you that you need to have the location, your name, address, phone number on your website, et cetera, et cetera. And the after midnight tells you that it's late night. So if you have ads, you only want to show them late at night. You're not going to show people who are looking for pizza delivery at two o'clock in the afternoon those ads, you want to show them at 12 o'clock at night so that they can see those ads and get that pizza straight away. You also might want to take out... You know the quiet storm that goes on the radio at midnight or something, or the late night show on the radio. If you sell pizza after midnight and there's a late night radio show in your area. Guess what, the ad spot for that's probably not going to be that expensive because most people are not looking to buy stuff in middle of the night. However, if somebody's listening to the radio at 12:30 and you're like, "Hey, you want a tasty slice," they might call you. Mordy Oberstein: ... how you phrase that on a late night radio show. Crystal Carter: I mean- Mordy Oberstein: Remembering my youth of what's on the radio at 12 o'clock at night. Crystal Carter: It's a good thing. After midnight in Brooklyn, obviously geolocates you. You might want to sponsor the local basketball team, the local fantasy football team, whatever it may be. But that long tail keyword is data, it's search data. There's somebody who recently shared, they're looking at how search is growing, and the way that they're talking about SEO is slightly different. He was talking about how we can drive search demand. He was talking about how search demand gives you an insight into consumer demand. And that's different from going like, oh, these keywords, oh, blah, blah, blah. We just need to use the tools we have in a new way. Mordy Oberstein: I don't think anything's actually changed, everything that you're saying are things we should have been doing anyway. I think the only thing that's actually changed... And it will change the industry, by the way, because perception is everything. Is that SEOs are now starting to think about this because they're realizing that the wider, I'll call it holistic or whatever kind of marketing, brand marketing. Could, should, probably does, definitely does in some way, shape, or form, impact performance marketing. And they're like, "Oh, snap. Now we have to think about this." But you should be thinking about this the whole time. Growing your digital presence, I like to call it grow your digital light, has a tremendous impact on your SEO efforts and what you're able to do and not able to do. Whether it's SEO super directly, like we're saying now with the leaks are indirectly. So nothing is actually true, but the mindset has changed. And I think that... I can't find it, I was searching for this. And I post too much on social media, this is my problem. And I was in a Slack group and I put it on a LinkedIn. I have no clue. Look, I can't find it. It's one of the things you're going hear more about, or a segment of SEO, is brand SEO. I don't mean getting your branded keywords, I mean looking at brand as a way to summon your SEO effort. And then, lo and behold, a month later the leaks come out and now all of a sudden we're talking... But none of this is new. None of it's new. Crystal Carter: Yeah. One of the reasons why you didn't find that tweet, Mordy, is because you've been saying that for years. Because, Mordy, if you were trying to find that tweet, that's like trying to find- Mordy Oberstein: A lot of people have. The Kevin Indigs of the world come to mind, Lily Ray comes to mind. Crystal Carter: Have you ever found something out, or learned a new word or something like that, and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere? And it's always been there, but you didn't know necessarily what that word was, or didn't necessarily know what that idea was, or something like that. And you find that it's like, "Oh, this has unlocked a whole new perspective for me." And I think that's kind of what some people are coming to. But yeah, it has always been there. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's like Taylor Swift for me. She started dating Travis Kelce, Taylor who? Oh, there's this whole Swift-y thing. I had no clue. But now that I’ve heard of football, now I know. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Mordy Oberstein: My world has changed. Crystal Carter: And if you learn a new tool, it can really open things up. Or also, I think when we think about the skills that we had and the resources that we had, sometimes it's a case of taking stuff that you already know and looking at it differently. There's some people like avocados. Let's talk about avocados. Mordy Oberstein: Love avocados. Crystal Carter: You like avocados. Avocados are delicious. I love avocados. You can literally just... I could literally eat it with a spoon. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. Crystal Carter: Perfectly happy. Mordy Oberstein: Don't even use a spoon, just take your fingers. Crystal Carter: Just- Mordy Oberstein: Just dive in. Crystal Carter: Just get involved. You don't have to do anything to an avocado. Vegans looked at that and they were like, "I'm going to make that chocolate mousse." And people were like, "What?" And vegans were like, "I'm going to make a chocolate mousse." It's the same avocado everybody's been looking at, but they were like, "I'm going to make a chocolate mousse." Completely different vibe. Yeah, it's a completely different vibe. It's a completely different thing. It's the same avocado that you always liked, completely different vibe. Mordy Oberstein: I think the only problem or issue I take is that it's possibly happening in SEO for the wrong reasons. We're like, we're taking the avocado, we're making it into chocolate mousse because I want to shake chocolate mousse and I want to throw it at people on the street. That's fun for me. Crystal Carter: I did a webinar the other day and the audience was super engaged, but I was talking about internal linking. And I was like, "You should have internal links. Make sure you use line links. Line links, they're high priority in the crawl, and they're really useful and they're really helpful, and they add context and they have words before them and words after them," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. And somebody was like, "Oh, but if I do use the links, will Google penalize me? And what about this one?" And I was like, "Yo, put the links on your page because they're helpful. They're helpful, they're useful." I cannot stand it if I'm reading an article that's like, "Oh my God, avocado mousse is so delicious. It's the best thing I've ever tried. And gosh, I tried this brand of avocado mousse and it just really blew my mind." And I'm like, "Link me, bro." I'm like, "Where's the link?" And there's no link, I'm mad. I'm big mad. I'm mad, I want to go somewhere else. So link me. Link me to the recipe, link me to the picture, link me to... Pixlr didn't happen. I want to see the stuff. Why? Because it's helpful. That's helpful. It's helpful to Google, it's helpful to users. So the things that we need to do in terms of brand should be helpful. You want to pull your brand forward, you want to use your data wisely. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, momentum and cadence and presence, all that good stuff. Oh, no, more it's going to happen is what happens now on LinkedIn. I connect with somebody, "Hi, how are you?" Oh, here it comes. "Would you like to buy links?" But in a year from now it's going to be, would you like to buy mentions? Because what guest? He was like, "Oh, the leaks talk about mentions, and now we need to be concerned about mentions. I have a good idea, I'll sell mentions." Who needs to get the lie to sell mentions? And you should be worrying about mentions. You don't mentions do? I'm reading an article, they say, "You know what's a really great thing? Avocados. Avocados from whatever company, from Bob's Avocados," and there's no link. But you know what I might do if I want an avocado? I might type in Bob's Avocado into Google. And do you think for a second Google's not looking at the fact that lots of people looking for avocados and Bob at the same time? Did a link do that? No, a mentioned did that. Did a mention do that only after the leaks happened? No, a mention did that many, many years before the leaks came out. But now SEOs are going to try selling mentions. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that really, generally speaking, and I've heard this from good SEOs. People say, "How do you weather the algorithm updates and things like that?" Nine times out of 10, it's just keeping your nose clean. But nine times out of 10, it's like keeping your nose clean doing solid SEO, doing stuff that helps your users, et cetera, et cetera. And I think that it seems really... Okay, so I learned to snowboard, right? Mordy Oberstein: Wait, you know how to snowboard? Crystal Carter: Yeah. I'm a mediocre snowboarder, but I've been on a few mountains in my time. And I don't fall over. Last time I was in Switzerland, I didn't fall over. I did all right. And I was riding Switch. So people who know that, your girl has to moves. Anyway, when I was learning to snowboard, my instructor told me, he was like, "You just look where you want to go." And I was like, "No, because it's got to be this and you have to do that, and you have to go over here, and got to..." And I was doing the most, I was doing too much. But literally, I will tell you, if you want to snowboard, and I tell this to people now. Literally, look where you want to go. It's literally that simple. It's that simple. You're on the board, your feet are planted, you turn your head and your body will go where it needs to go. And that's all it is. So we like, oh, what if I do this, and what if I do that? And da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And don't get me wrong, there are absolutely technical things you need to consider. You need to make sure your website's crawlable. You need to have lots of things that are in there. You need to coordinate your digital PR, et cetera, so that it makes sense for your brand. You need to have a coherent strategy. But essentially, if your goal is to add value for your users, for your audience, then you will be fine. And if your goal is to add value consistently for them, then that will support your brand, as long as you know what your brand is. That's not rocket science. We try to make it so it's super complicated, but it's not. It's not. Mordy Oberstein: It's just tuning out that noise, that's the hard part. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Mordy Oberstein: You know who tunes out a lot of noise, keeps his nose clean, and always provides value? Crystal Carter: Who's that? Mordy Oberstein: It's Barry Schwartz. Crystal Carter: Barry Schwartz. Mordy Oberstein: That's the cleanest nose I've ever seen. Really, it's sparkling. Crystal Carter: I mean, sometimes. Mordy Oberstein: Which means, as we pay homage to Barry, that it's time for this week's snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Got a whole bunch of stuff for you, it's all a AI related. Or actually, AI adjacent. Let's start with Search Engine Roundtables, Barry Schwartz. Well, I don't know why I said Search Engine Roundtables, Barry Schwartz. There only is Barry Schwartz as Search Engine Roundtable, which is an existential feeling. There only is Barry Schwartz. Anyway, Reddit blocked Bing search and others, but not Google. So, Reddit has blocked basically all other search engine, I'm pretty sure, from crawling them via the robot.txt file. I don't know if that applies to Perplexity actually. I thought somewhere I saw Perplexity was fine. Anyway, I'm definitely Bing. Bing is definitely out. Reddit is no longer allowing other search engines to crawl them. That's interesting, right? I never know. What do you say about that? It's an interesting look. What's basically happening is that Reddit is basically saying, "Hey, if you want our content, be like Google and pay for it." I personally don't like Reddit, so I don't know why anybody would pay for it. But, okay. It's really interesting. It's a new paradigm on the web, I guess. I don't know if this deal will work out well for Reddit. I'm highly suspect that making this kind of deal is in their long-term benefit. It's weird, by the way. I'll just say it's weird because, yeah, Bing's not the biggest search engine, it's only got whatever percent of market share. Let's say it's got 5% of market share. I don't remember the exact numbers, nor do I particularly care. 5% of that market share is saying, yeah, I have 5% market share of the entire world. That's a lot of people. I guess Reddit doesn't care about your grandmother going to Reddit anymore. I guess the lesson to take from that. That's a little snarky for this podcast. Anyway, just weird. Let's head over to Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Land, where Google will soon test search shopping ads in AI overviews. So Google has talked about having an ad experience in the AI overviews for a while. Now they're saying you're going to see the tests coming up soon. The quote was, "And as you've probably noticed at GML, Google Marketing Live, we announced that soon we'll actually start testing search and shopping ads in AI overviews for users in the US," yada, yada, yada. So they're going to be testing them soon. Interesting. Let's see how that goes. Obviously, the ability to earn ad revenue is what will indicate if the AI overviews are going to work or not from a business point of view. All this is just interesting to me. Anyway. Now back to Search Engine Roundtable, Google Gemini adds related content and verification links. So the LLM formerly known as Bard, now known as Gemini, now contains links again. This is a weird week. I'm finding the news weird this week. Bard, now known as Gemini, used to show links to the content that the summary was based on. Much the way an AI overview does. But then stopped doing that. Well, now links are back inside of Gemini. Which is interesting, because now covering again from Search Engine Roundtable, SearchGPT, OpenAI search tool is out. It's announced. Like ChatGPT, you can now use SearchGPT to get answers to your questions. But here, with SearchGPT, you'll get citations that the content is based on. So it's basically Gemini. So it's basically the same thing. It's now you can search using OpenAI's platform much the way you would use Gemini. Again, get the summary and now get citations and links to content and so forth within the ecosystem. Will this disrupt the search engine market? Probably not. Because it's basically the same thing as Gemini, and kind of the same thing as the AI overview. So carry on as usual, I guess. I don't know. It's a weird week. It's a weird week. By the way, that article is brought to you by Barry Schwartz. Because, again, who else is writing at SE Roundtable? Actually, not true. Not true. I take that back. Sometimes Glenn Gabe actually writes an article over at SE Roundtable. You can always tell by the headline. Anyway, that's this week's weird and snappy news. It is hard to keep the noise out with the news sometimes. There's a lot of noise in the news. Crystal Carter: I'll be completely honest, I used to get a lot of my news from Twitter, and that is not a use a useful- Mordy Oberstein: Not a good place. Crystal Carter: ... source to get news from anymore. Barry's a great source. And I think a lot of times... There's certain people that I follow to keep on top of things like that as well. Lily Ray's a great person to follow for that, she's really on top of the news, and particularly for stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Glenn. Crystal Carter: Glenn is great as well, and Mike is great as well. Mike King is also a good one who jumps in. And Mike covers a lot of topics as well. So a lot of search, but also a few other topics as well, which is cool. Mordy Oberstein: Yep. That's why I like, by the way, I mentioned Glenn Gabe before, because he covers all tech news. I saw yesterday he posted about... This is insane. By the time this comes out, this will be old news. It's basically a social media thing where you can create an AI persona and then have all the AIs talking to each other. Crystal Carter: I heard the story about a comedian. Opinions on him aside, it was an interesting story. Dave Chappelle apparently had a Twitter account that was not his Twitter account, but this person was posting stuff. Kat Williams, and again, another controversial comedian or whatever. But he also had- Mordy Oberstein: All comedians are kind of controversial, it's what they do. Crystal Carter: He also had a... These two Twitter accounts were arguing with each other. The two of them actually met, these two comedians actually met, and they were like, "I'm sorry." Or, no. And Dave Chappelle apparently said to this other comedian, "I'm so sorry, that's not actually me that's been arguing with you." And Kat Williams was like, "I don't have a Twitter account either." And basically- Mordy Oberstein: Well, that was my comment back to Glenn when he posted about this. I'm like, yeah, AI, but people aren't so great either. So, there you go. You know who is a great person with the perfect pivot possible? Our follow of the week, Sam Rush's own head of influencer marketing, Nicole Ponce. Nicole is amazing. I work with Nicole. I still work with Nicole. Absolutely one of the greatest people you'll ever meet. Super incredible, super smart, super nice, helpful, everything. Give her a follow across all social media platforms. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely do. Not only is she super awesome, super smart, she also has all of the latest info and all the cool stuff that Sam Rush gets up to. They've got some cool events going on, they've got some interesting projects going on, and she's very much a part of that. She's really supportive of the SEO community as well. She supported stuff that Aletis put on. They've also supported things, different events. And they supported Search 'n Stuff, which is another great event as well. And I've worked with Nicole as well, and cannot speak highly enough of her. Big hearts to Nicole. Mordy Oberstein: We're all making heart signs. Crystal Carter: We're making those little hearts. Mordy Oberstein: ... the two of us here. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's just us. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. What an interesting selection of people today. We talked about Barry, Cole… Crystal Carter: ... all the other folks we were just mentioning as well. Mordy Oberstein: We've talked a lot of people on today's show, mentions of people. Mentions, you know what? No one even asked to buy them. We should sell them. We should sell mentions on the podcast. I found a new niche for us. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay, cool. Can we start a fun agency? Just, Mention. Mordy Oberstein: Mentions. Crystal Carter: Got to have a good name. Mordy Oberstein: With dollar signs. The brand, you be like dollar signs everywhere. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There we go. Mordy Oberstein: Good idea. This is the thing, by the way, that we're joking. Obviously. And before we continue and go down this rabbit hole forever, because I will, because I'm salty about this topic. 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 a new episode as we dive into the wonderful world of podcasting, on a podcast with podcasters who do marketing and marketing podcasts. So many fourth walls. So many fourth walls. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts or on the Wix SEO learning over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check all of the great content and webinars and whatnot over on the Wix SEO learning at, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Please 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

What is the future of SEO shaping up to be? How will AI change the landscape in SEO? What impact will Google have for SEO in the future? Brace yourselves for this blimey incredible feature of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast as Wix’s own Crystal Carter travels to the land of The Beatles and Buckingham Palace to take on BrightonSEO UK! For this special edition episode, we have not one, not two, but THREE super guests to shed light on all things SEO. Joshua George, Lidia Infante, and Rebecca Tomasis join the show live in Brighton to evaluate the potential future of SEO as we know it. We explore answers to Google content, AI utilization, and brand strategy and much more in this comprehensive SEO special. Adapt to the future of SEO and learn how to find ultimate value in your content on this MEGA episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast… UK style! Back Trending topics for SEO in 2024 What is the future of SEO shaping up to be? How will AI change the landscape in SEO? What impact will Google have for SEO in the future? Brace yourselves for this blimey incredible feature of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast as Wix’s own Crystal Carter travels to the land of The Beatles and Buckingham Palace to take on BrightonSEO UK! For this special edition episode, we have not one, not two, but THREE super guests to shed light on all things SEO. Joshua George, Lidia Infante, and Rebecca Tomasis join the show live in Brighton to evaluate the potential future of SEO as we know it. We explore answers to Google content, AI utilization, and brand strategy and much more in this comprehensive SEO special. Adapt to the future of SEO and learn how to find ultimate value in your content on this MEGA episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast… UK style! Previous Episode Next Episode Special episode | October 4, 2023 | 65 MIN 00:00 / 1:05:34 This week’s guests Lidia Infante Lidia Infante has been working in SEO for almost a decade, helping businesses in SaaS, media and eCommerce grow online. She has a BSC in Psychology and a Master in Digital Business, and is a regular speaker at international SEO events such as MozCon, BrightonSEO, and WTSFest. Joshua George Joshua is the founder of ClickSlice, a results driven SEO agency in London. He has almost a decade of experience as an SEO consultant and has provided SEO training for the British government. Rebecca Tomasis Rebecca is an SEO expert, specializing in blogs. Currently she works on the Wix Main Blog. Rebecca's specific focus is the planning and optimization of blog content to generate organic growth, at scale. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha Mahala for joining the SUP podcast. We're projecting out some group 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 the incredible, the fabulous, the absolutely unparalleled, unequivocal, un... I don't have any more adjectives. The head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, Mordy Oberstein, and hello people of the internet. Thank you for that. Fantastic. Amazing, incredible, stupendous, fantastic- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, yeah. I guess that- Crystal Carter: I did fantastic twice. Mordy Oberstein: No, I always do that by the way. How uncouth of me to not have another un to have added to that. Also, uncouth is a very underrated word. Crystal Carter: Oh. I think it's underused. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Don't underestimate it. You can under evaluate its importance in the English language. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's undefeated. Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: It's not undeserving of whatever amount. Okay. The SURP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter Searchlight, over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter. But where you can also be a part of the future of website building with the all new Wix Studio. Explore how your agency can level up with the new customization abilities added to Wix Studio over at wix.com/studio. This as we take up the future of SEO in 2024. Not 2025, we're stopping in 2024 and that's it. In this very special episode of the SURP's Up podcast live from BrightonSEO in the UK. The future is nigh as we blast backwards to the past in what is surely some sort of sci-fi time warp contradiction. That's why we're going backwards to go forwards. And if only I would tell you what I actually mean by that, because even I don't know at this point. What I mean is, we're going back to September 14th to BrightonSEO in the UK where Crystal sat down with some well smart SEO folks, including our own Rebecca Tomasis, as well as Lidia Infante and Joshua George to discuss the future of SEO in a special live recording from the conference itself. So this episode was taped in front of a live audience. But alas, there was no laugh track. As Crystal and crew dived into how AI factors into the content creation process and then the SEO process, the impact of when Google does and doesn't get content right and the future overlap between SEO and brand. So step into the wormhole, open up the door to the DeLorean and step into a traveling phone booth. Whatever your time machine preference is, as this special Brian SEO UK edition of the SURP's Up podcast takes you into the great unknown that is the very near future of SEO. That was a mouthful. What I'm trying to say is, Crystal went to BrightonSEO in the UK, sat down with the really smart people and recorded a live session of the SURP's Up podcast, and I wasn't even there. Crystal Carter: You were there in spirit, because we were using a lot of the fun things that we do across the podcast. A lot of the segments which we all came up with together. Mordy Oberstein: So my spirit was hovering over. Crystal Carter: I also put your on the deck for the podcast. I also put your Twitter handle, not mine, to make sure that if anybody had anything to say about it, they could tweet you and not me. So that's very important. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, I do appreciate that. So we're going to cut to that. But before we cut to that, Crystal, why don't you tell us a little bit about what y'all covered at BrightonSEO? Crystal Carter: Yes. So we did a version of Going Going Googled, talking about SGE. We also talked about some predictive text. We also talked about people also asked. We talked about a few other things as well. So I hope you enjoy this collection of... I think it was really interesting. I'll tell you what, there were some great, great surprising answers that we got from our fantastic panel of the way that people are using some of these new technologies, and the trends that people are seeing there as well. So it was a really great panel. I'd expect a few magical moments across the podcast recording. Mordy Oberstein: So without further ado, here's Crystal and crew over at BrightonSEO in the UK. Crystal Carter: Hi everyone. It's short notice and it was quite a hike. So thank you all for joining us today. We are going to be doing the SERP's Up live podcast. I have some fantastic, wonderful, incredible guests who are joining us. We're going to be here for the whole time, so please, I hope you enjoy this. I am going to be calling to the stage today a wonderful collection of fantastic human beings. First up is Mr. Joshua George, who is the founder of Click's Slice, which is a fantastic SEO agency based in London. He has over a decade of experience doing SEO as a consultant, and he ranks number one for SEO at London which is fantastic. And he also drove here in his McLaren. If you're parking near a McLaren, don't mess up his paint job. Okay, Joshua George, coming up to the stage. Thank you. Thank you. And next up, we have Lidia Infante, who is the SEO extraordinaire over at Sanity, which is the headless CNS. And they are doing incredible things, and she is also a contributor for the Wix SEO Learning Hub. And is also an international SEO extraordinaire, and a speaker and fantastic. And she is a fellow Cardi B fan. Thank you Lidia Infante coming to this stage. Next up is from my team at Wix. This is Rebecca Tomasis, she's an SEO expert who is currently managing the Wix blog. If you've entered into Google something that says like, "Oh, blog, what is blogging?" You will find Rebecca's handiwork there. Because the featured snippets that she collects are incredible. Some people do Pokemon, she collects featured snippets. She's incredible, she's fantastic, she's wonderful, she's Rebecca Tomasis. And I should introduce myself. Obviously I am Crystal Carter, a lot of y'all know me. Hi everybody, hello friends. And I am the co-host of the SERP's Up SEO podcast, which I co-host with Mordy Oberstein who is not here today. However, throughout this podcast, if you have anything to say about the podcast, please do at him on Twitter. His Twitter handle is at Mordy Oberstein. If you're in the back, you can see his thing. So it's at Mordy Oberstein on Twitter. So if you have anything to say about that, please do at Mordy. We publish our podcast every Wednesday. So we published one yesterday, and we will be publishing one next week, and this will be out later on. So thank you all for joining us. Okay, so we're going to get into a few of the features that we normally do on the SERP's Up SEO podcast. We do fun different things. And the first thing we're going to talk about, and these guys have not seen these slides, so we're all just winging it. But yeah. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to talk about generative AI. So how many people have heard about AI today at the thing? For those of you listening on the podcast, everyone's already heard about it. It's only 11 o'clock in the morning that we've all already heard about generative AI. And the reason why is because we all know that Bing put out all of this stuff this year, and everybody went mad after ChatGPT blowing up last autumn. Bing introduced New Bing, and really, as they said, the CEO from Bing's search team said, we made Google dance. And after firing their shots, Google finally released their search generative experience, and they finally started putting in links which people are really excited about. And that's all well and fantastic. But one of the sections that we do in our podcast is we ask, is this new? Is this actually new? How are we thinking that people are using this in new ways? So my first question is, is AI in search actually new? How new are you finding that the search generative experience and how new are you finding people experiencing generative search in this space? Lidia Infante: Technically it is newish, but not really. Essentially, machine learning has been used to train the Google algorithm since the dawn of time. And what I think has really triggered this big AI movement is actually making it available. Because we used to have AI driven SEO tools. For years there was Frase and Jasper, which used to be Jarvis, but probably Marvel sued them or something. Rebecca Tomasis: They did. Lidia Infante: So yeah, it's not really new. But it is available to everybody, so you don't have to be bought in and make an investment before starting to test it out. Also, the generative large language models are very much improved. That's the stuff that's new. Also, our panic about SEO dying, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Thank you. Crystal Carter: It's all something new. And how are you using AI in your new workflows? Joshua, if you're able to share on that? Joshua George: Yeah. So for us, we still have human content. I'm a massive fan of that. I sell it a lot on our discovery calls as well, and clients value that. So I don't think we'll ever get rid of completely using human writers. But we do use it for our blog briefs, it just speeds up a lot more time. And that's currently how we use it at the moment. We haven't rolled it out properly in the whole agency yet. I'm still on the fence of it, because clients pay us a good amount of money to get them results so I'm going to be testing stuff on the site that... I have got an AI site that I'm playing around with testing strategies and see what's working, and that way I have my own data to make my own decisions on instead of seeing what someone says on Twitter, and just basing the whole thing on that basically. Crystal Carter: And people are saying a lot on Twitter. There's a lot on Twitter, a lot of things floating around and a lot of this is a brand new thing, and change everything that you are doing again. Rebecca Tomasis: But I find it takes so much testing to understand, is this going to make my work so efficient that sometimes you're like, "Well, I'm spending so much time testing this. Maybe in this time, I could've..." You have to be able to see I think the long-term benefit of the efficiency or scale, it will be able to bring you. Because it is new, and I think, like you said, the accessibility is new. So it's like, "I need to really take the time to test this and understand the impact." Crystal Carter: I think that the scalability point and how you're rolling out is really important. 'Cause I think that and the accessibility point is really important because yeah, Jasper's been around for ages. I know that Mike King, his team has been using AI for years and things like that. But when it's going mainstream, that means there's more competitors that are using it, which means if you want to be competitive, you have to think about how that works. And that's definitely changing the landscape of how people are interacting on search, and how people are creating content and things like that. I certainly see that. And where do you all feel like having seen the last six months of ChatGPT really going big, and New Bing going big, and generative search coming to Google and Bard and all of that? Where do you think in six months' time from the next BrightonSEO, where do you think we'll be then? Lidia Infante: I think we are going to be a lot less scared and a lot more empowered to actually use AI not as a replacement of us and our work, but as an enhancer of us and our work. I use AI all the time in my workflows now, and I absolutely love it. It's accelerated my output and productivity massively. It's much easier for me to edit stuff to fit tone guidelines, and to make it just detect where did I spell the thing that I'm not supposed to spell that way in the way that's for the company? And you also mentioned, Rebecca, that it takes some investment in time to get it done. So what I try to do is I try to create templatable prompts that I can just reuse, reuse and reuse endlessly. You were mentioning that you use them for content briefs. I use it somewhat for content briefs as well, but I use it more as an assistant of like, "Hello, go into the world of the web and tell me what are questions being asked about this?" Or I go, "Imagine that you are a product owner trying to find a new CMS. What are the questions that you're going to have to answer to your stakeholders?" Now you can feed it sources of truth so it stops making stuff up. Yeah. I almost am very proud that I said making stuff up instead of making (beep) up. I'm doing a really good job on those today. Lidia Infante: All right. So you feed it sources of truth, and you give it your own information of what you want it to base on. If you do really good prompting, you can recycle it forever. And I also really like using it for repurposing and content distribution. So I feed it some of my tweets. This is my tone of voice, this is how I speak in my tone of voice. Make me five tweets to promote this article. And that is a superpower. You go on a scheduler, and you have your content strategy distribution- Rebecca Tomasis: You can think consistency at scale also. And I think for me, I think sometimes I do need a blog post that's super unique and creative, and sometimes I'm like, "Please just follow this structure." And that's something that I can create within that first draft or something with AI, and there is the structure. And then okay, let's now put in the expertise and some of the creativity. But the meat or the bones is like, "Don't change this." Crystal Carter: Right. Right, right. And I think that people who are organized, like you were talking about your content briefs. If you're organized and you already have your content briefs, and you know how to structure a content brief and you know how to which content distribution points you want to hit, then it allows you to... You're already organized, it allows you to really, really work with that. I feel like you want to jump in here. Joshua George: Yeah, I was saying the same reason we're using ChatGPT, it all comes down to prompt. You put rubbish in, you're going to get rubbish out. So once you finalize and really narrow down what prompts actually work, it's pretty much just copy and paste. You just change out the niche. So yeah, we can produce blog briefs super, super quick now at scale. And I don't know how many briefs I'll do in a month at the moment. Loads. Don't tell me you didn't. Hundreds are what we're doing for our clients at the moment, and it's so much quicker. It makes it easier for our content team as well. Because when they're writing the content, they really know the anchor text to use and they know what page to link to. And there's loads of like, "We're using ChatGPT and the custom parameters, prompt engineering." I literally just made a whole call from ChatGPT two weeks ago. Nine hours of video content. I'll be playing around with it so much. And yeah, it's game changing. So I'm personally excited for the future. I can't wait for AI to roll out. I know a lot of people are scared of AI. Like, "Oh, it's going to take my job, is a content writer going to die?" Nah, that's rubbish. There's been so many changes in the SEO industry, and our job as SEO is just that. Rebecca Tomasis: And I think also because that whole conversation, the AI content rank. And I know from my experience it still takes so much human optimization, and strategy, and testing, and going back into the article to get it to rank. That's the process anyway. And in the short term or even the midterm, I don't see any tool that's necessarily able to replicate that. Even if we can get to the point where it creates a perfect piece of content for intent and all of that, it still needs tweaking, right? Crystal Carter: Right. Rebecca Tomasis: Next week, somebody's above you. What do I need to now do right? Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that with the velocity, with great velocity comes great responsibility. Rebecca Tomasis: Yes. And a lot of optimizations. Crystal Carter: Right. Rebecca Tomasis: Wow, I have all this content, and now it needs to rank. Crystal Carter: And I think also sometimes it's like if you're moving really quickly, it's also really easy to make a mistake at a large scale. So if you make one mistake across all over the place, 50, 60 blogs or something, it's like, "Okay, I have to go and unpick all those 50, 60 blogs or whatever." Rebecca Tomasis: You used the wrong angle. Crystal Carter: Right, on every single one. So yeah, that's something to think about as well. And I think also you talked about all of the optimizations you have to make as somebody who is skilled with your skills. You still have to make sure that that works. And if there is a lot of people, if there are a lot of people who are putting out just straight from the machine onto... Quality is still going to rise to the top, and quality comes from skill, and that skill is something you cultivate. Lidia Infante: I have something to say. I think what this has really done is it's changed what is table stakes. So being able to produce content at scale used to be a competitive advantage. But it's not anymore. So what is a competitive advantage right now is surfacing the human within your content, the experience of the person that's writing the specific anecdotes. Their wisdom, rather Than just copycat content. 'Cause now everybody can do copycat content. Grab what's ranking on the search and regurgitate it is something that is table stakes for literally your mom. Your dad- Rebecca Tomasis: ….without AI, right? We will regurgitate. Like, "Okay, this is what X ranks to be number one, and I need to write exactly the same thing." Lidia Infante: But we've had the resources to do- Rebecca Tomasis: To be number one, I need to write exactly the same thing. Lidia Infante: But we've had the resources to do it, and we needed the resources to do it. Now it's no longer needed. Right now, it's table stakes. So now to rise above the noise of what I imagine is going to be an increase of trash content running the web made by ChatGPT, it's going to be differentiation. And for me, differentiation is going to be human experience, and authority and personality. Rebecca Tomasis: So what I'm seeing now though with competitors is taking an article... And I actually talked to our editor, because I wanted her opinion on the content. Because at first glance, the expert tips are there, the sources are there, there's nice data, it's really well optimized and nicely structured. And then you go into the content and it's like, "Well, this was AI." I sent it to our editor and she's like, "This content is a train wreck." So I think this is also interesting to see people generating with... It's very obvious when you generate with AI, and then you're trying to force the expert quotes and everything in. Lidia Infante: Yeah. Crystal Carter: In Clueless they say, "Oh, she's a full on Monet." It's good from far away, but when you get up it's a hot mess. Lidia Infante: Gotcha, good. Crystal Carter: So it's something you need to think about, and making sure that you're maintaining that tone and maintaining that quality as you go along. We can absolutely talk about AI all day, as I'm sure many people are today. But we are going to get into our next section, which is fun with People Also Ask. People also ask sometimes referred to as a universal SERP feature. It is seen on almost every single search that you do on Google. And there are some fun questions that show up on People Also Ask, and we're going to go through a couple of them. So the first question that people also ask is where can we find mermaids? That's a question that people also ask. Rebecca Tomasis: There were actual answers? Crystal Carter: No, don't look at the answers. Y'all are supposed to look at the... They're looking at the answers. Okay, so do you have any ideas before we could find mermaids? Rebecca, you can't say because you looked. Rebecca Tomasis: I already know. Lidia Infante: I can find mermaids in the documentary that you shared with me on Netflix. Crystal Carter: That's true, there is a mermaid thing- Rebecca Tomasis: It's what? People wear the tails, right? Lidia Infante: A fantastic documentary. MerPeople I think it is. Crystal Carter: MerPeople, it's fantastic, it's wonderful. Lidia Infante: So she recommended it to me. I wasn't going to watch it, but now I'm very happy with it. Crystal Carter: It's amazing. If you have nothing to watch on Netflix, watch MerPeople, it's fantastic. Joshua George: Do we have the age group of people who also- Crystal Carter: No, they don't get out of ages. Joshua George: What? Crystal Carter: I literally entered mermaids into Google, and they were like, people also ask. And Google has tons of these. If you enter Google mom, they're like, "Who is Google's mom?" And it's like, "No, that's not the question to ask." Y'all, that's not it. But yeah, where do you think you find mermaids? Joshua George: Well, we have that joke we say in the SEO industry. The best place to hide a dead body is on page two, 'cause nobody looks there, it's perfect. The mermaids are going to be on page two. Crystal Carter: Okay. So Atlas Obscura is actually answering this question legitimately. They're saying that you can find mermaids in Japan. They're also saying that you can find mermaids in Florida, and that you can find mermaids in Vermont. So I think that's fascinating that there is a place- Lidia Infante: Is there sea in Vermont? Crystal Carter: There is not. I think Vermont is landlocked. But apparently there's mermaids there, so that's interesting. Joshua George: Probably. Crystal Carter: Our next question from People Also Ask is vibranium the strongest metal on earth? And this is a serious question that people are asking. And the thing I find you're- Rebecca Tomasis: Vibranium, is it from a Marvel- Lidia Infante: Yes. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Exactly, exactly. Rebecca Tomasis: Is it Thor's hammer? Crystal Carter: Yeah, no. No, that's not vibranium. Lidia Infante: What they have on Wakanda. Crystal Carter: Captain America's shield is vibranium. Joshua George: I'm sorry too, I don't want any Marvel. Crystal Carter: You don't want any Marvel? Joshua George: I don't watch Marvel. Crystal Carter: Okay, okay. So Google here is being very interesting, because Google is not just telling them no, that's a dumb question. Google is saying identified in 1781, Tungsten is the strongest pure metal on earth. And this is from- Lidia Infante: In the real world. Crystal Carter: In the real world. Rebecca Tomasis: So it's basically just saying you are an idiot, this- Crystal Carter: Kind of. Joshua George: Wouldn't it be better if Google just said, "Hey, are you okay?" Rebecca Tomasis: It's a website that might say, "Are you better?" Crystal Carter: So yeah. So this is from a blog called what are earth's mightiest fictional metals? So again, they're trying to help people, to slowly guide them towards reality. Rebecca Tomasis: But are they very expensive? How can they be expensive if they are fictional? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's in the movie. Okay, so anyway. Rebecca Tomasis: I don't know. Crystal Carter: Okay, so our next one. So our next people also ask is, what are the five types of unicorns? Rebecca Tomasis: No. Crystal Carter: This is a very important question that people are asking. Lidia Infante: It's a very important question Crystal Carter: Why is this important? Lidia Infante: So my first website, I made it when I was six years old, on FrontPage. Obviously as a six-year-old, I was very interested in unicorns. Crystal Carter: Of course. Lidia Infante: So it was basically a bundle of images of unicorns that I had been downloading from Google Search, which was my hobby when I was six. Go on Google Search and look at unicorns. Crystal Carter: Of course. Rebecca Tomasis: So obviously a lot of people's hobbies. Lidia Infante: So since then, every time I learn a new technology to make content, I try it out with a unicorn website. I have six websites in- Joshua George: Yeah, you should know this inside out then. Lidia Infante: So if they're saying five, because there's many different classifications- Crystal Carter: Okay, let's get to that. Lidia Infante: If they're saying there's five, it's 'cause they're using the elements type of classification. Crystal Carter: Of course. Lidia Infante: This is going to be like water, sand, ice, fire, electric unicorns. But you can classify them by color, or by whether or not they will give you magic. Crystal Carter: Okay, all right. Okay, so that's a thorough... You should really be ranking for this to be honest. Joshua George: She probably is. We don't even know. Crystal Carter: She's probably a low-key unicorn queen. Okay, so this is from mombooks.com, and they're saying that the seven types in the world today, that is what they're saying in the world today. There are mountain jewels, water moons, woodland flowers, desert flames, ice wanderers, storm classic, shadow knights. I know you all didn't think you were coming to talk about unicorns, but we're here, we're enjoying it, et cetera, et cetera. But these are the kinds of things that people are seeing on People Also Ask. Lidia Infante: The only thing…. Crystal Carter: The thing I find fascinating about this is that Google is not only placating these kinds of questions, and they say it's a mythical creature, y'all. This is a mythical creature, the unicorns are mythical. But they also give you more questions. So they're also saying why is it called a unicorn? And they're saying, where can I find a unicorn? Location, where can I find a unicorn? Rebecca Tomasis: Again, in Vermont. Crystal Carter: Again in Vermont. Apparently, Vermont- Lidia Infante: Oh my God. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: ... it's a super magical place where we should all be looking for unicorns and mermaids. So my question here is this. With regards to People Also Ask, are y'all making content for some of these questions that are terrible questions? Are y'all engaging with these? Joshua George: Hell yeah. Crystal Carter: You are? Joshua George: Absolutely, to build relevancy. So when you carry out a search for anything, those people also ask questions. It's questions that relate to the topic of what you just searched for. So Google already deems those topics relevant to that search term. So if you build out content around that, link it back to the page you're trying to rank, you increase your page's relevancy. Lidia Infante: Even if it's a dumb question? Joshua George: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Joshua George: Yeah, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: I didn't know about the- Joshua George: I wouldn't say unicorns, other stuff. Rebecca Tomasis: There are a lot of repetitive things also, right? Joshua George: Yeah, it's on there. Rebecca Tomasis: Why should I start a business? That's a very bad example, but I'm not going to necessarily directly answer every question. But I think in terms of intent and what people are looking for, and I think they're super insightful. And they got a lot longer, some queries now, it's like... Lidia Infante: Yeah. Joshua George: When you click, you get more as well. They expand- Rebecca Tomasis: And then you're down a warren hole of... Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lidia Infante: I only use PAAs to look at what the content journey is going to be. What is my audience interested in? But where I'm currently at, I'm trying to sell expensive software to enterprises. So if the question is dumb, it's probably not for my audience. Crystal Carter: Okay. But it's a question of sometimes there'll be people... Maybe it's a question of competition. Maybe most people are going to be like, "That's a silly question, I'm not going to answer that." And so maybe if you get in there and address it, maybe not directly. Maybe not put it as the header, but low-key address it. Maybe you're more likely to show instead of mom books.com on something about unicorns. Though the other thing I find also really interesting is that on the right here I have name, origin. Why is it called a unicorn location? Where can I find a unicorn? And then there were other questions as well that come up there. So we're starting to see more of these query-based questions that are popping up on the SERP. I recently was on Google, and got to the bottom of the page. And I saw instead of related searches, it had the query, and then it had a knowledge panel looking thing about... You've seen this as well, about the question, and then another question and then another question. Do you think we're going to see more of this going forward? Yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: No, because I think it also directly links, which we started to see a lot of last week, is especially on some of our big strategic keywords was Reddit threads ranking. Ranking high, ranking five, four, out of nowhere. And I think it's all related, because a lot of these questions are the very insightful questions people ask on Reddit. So I think there is obviously a huge connection between, again, what people are really looking for, and what they're really looking for is the experience. Somebody who's actually, I don't know, seen a unicorn or- Lidia Infante: The human. The human instead of the SEO, right? Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. I think they're really trying to tap into that. And that complaint of it. If this is a machine delivering me an answer, it's not useful and... Yeah. Crystal Carter: That's really interesting. I think also, do you think that with SGE for instance, and with ChatGPT, and Bard, and New Bing and all of that stuff. When you go to New Bing for instance, they're like, "Write as many characters as you want." Enter whatever question you want. And I find that when I'm doing a query in one of those tools, that I will structure my query differently from how I would enter it into Google. In Google, I'm going for lowest common denominator terms, and I'll just be like, "Unicorn with pink wings," or something. Then I would just enter that so that I would get that thing. Whereas in ChatGPT, I might even just speak it into it and I say, "Where can I find a unicorn backpack that has pink wings, and orange stripes and et cetera, et cetera?" And so it'll be much, much longer. Do you think that these queries are responding to the more conversational tone that people are having with search engines? Do you think that's even a trend? Lidia Infante: Well, then we see a bit of a swap to a more conversational tone in search. When voice search happened and we were all thinking that voice search was going to be... What was it, 17% of those searches? Crystal Carter: No, I never thought that. Joshua George: I never use it. I've never searched with my voice ever. Lidia Infante: I only use my Google Assistant to put jams on when I'm cooking. Crystal Carter: Okay, okay. Lidia Infante: I have seen conversational tone come in and out of search in different ways. So when I started in PPC, my very dark past, I was carrying PPC strategies for several countries, and these countries have adopted digitalization and the internet and become proficient in buying online at different stages in different ways. And you could see that the less digitalized a country was, the more likely I was getting this conversationally written queries. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Lidia Infante: Then we swapped onto a generic, very broad, very top of the final query as they matured. And then we swapped to long tail questions from the get go, instead of doing generic, mid-tail, long tail. The fact that it's coming back, and I felt like it came back a little bit when we were all talking about voice search and people were trying it, it changed our relationship with searching a little bit. I wonder if we are having a similar change in our parasocial relationship with search engines. Crystal Carter: I think certainly with... Rand Fishkin recently published an article about how people use ChatGPT, and they were talking about a lot of the words that people are using and people are saying please. Joshua George: I say please all the time. I even say hello. Crystal Carter: I use ChatGPT for that. Joshua George: It's a waste of characters as well. Crystal Carter: I use ChatGPT to save me from Google Sheets. I literally am like, "Google Sheets was mean to me. They told me my code didn't work. And they're like, "Here it is." I'm like, "Thanks, Chat." So yeah. And Bard, Bard also will get upset. If you're not nice to Bard, Bard will be like, "I'm sorry, I'm an AI generated tool and I will not answer any more questions." And I'm like, "Bard, what?" I'm sorry, not Bard, Bing. Bing does that, or whatever. And they're just like, "You can cope with a question," and they're like, "No, I can't, I'm an AI." Stop being so fragile. Lidia Infante: Pass the baby. Crystal Carter: So yeah. So people are saying please, people are saying the thing. And also, I think that there's a certain amount with some of the generative conversational search things, there's less judgment. I think I remember I got some insurance documents, and they sent me the terms of the insurance documents. And I was like, "I don't know what this means." And I put that into Chat and I was like, "ChatGPT, what does this mean?" And they were like, "Oh, it means this, and this and this." And they use this term, and I was like, "I don't know what that term means. What does that term mean?" And they were like, "Oh, it's like this." So you can just be honest about what you don't know, or you can just be honest about what you actually need in a different way than if you were to, I don't know, ask someone. And they were like, "Well actually, how come you didn't know that?" Or that thing. So I wonder if that doesn't change as well, people's relationships to that. And maybe it'll change people's relationships to brands as well. Lidia Infante: Well, that's why I got into marketing at all to begin with, because I was studying psychology, 'cause I'm curious about people, but then if you ask people to test and self-report, you're going to lie. They're going to lie to look good, they're going to lie to be liked, or they're going to lie to agree. And then I had this little side marketing job doing PVC, as well as studying psychology. At the time, you could see all of the queries. I could literally see what my parents in their postcode were searching for. Crystal Carter: Oh my god. Lidia Infante: I was searching for, because they were really excited that their daughter had a job. So yeah, the privacy of your own home, of typing out whatever you want without judgment is huge. Rebecca Tomasis: And I think it could potentially change how people are relating to brands, because I think a lot of people are adopting chatbots on their brands as well, which could give you lots more details on the kinds of content that people actually need but maybe are afraid to ask directly for, and that thing. So yeah, I don't know. We'll see how these things pay out. Joshua George: Yeah. Yeah, and going to be interesting. It's like when you go into a website, you have a search bar, you can search for whatever you want. Might not even exist, but no one's looking at it and you can get away with saying things wrong, asking stupid questions and no one can judge you. Yes, that was- Lidia Infante: Everything you type is on someone's analytics. Joshua George: I know now, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah, I got to say. Joshua George: When I was younger, I did not know that. And yeah, I think using AI for chatbot stuff is literally the same trend as the search box. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's very interesting. Cool. Lidia Infante: When we have to search for something stupid. My husband and I split. Now you look stupid to the algorithm, of course. Or something embarrassing, or something that we definitely should not be asking any search engine. We take it in turns, because we don't want the algorithm to judge us. Crystal Carter: I think also it's one of those things like site search. Site search is always such a goldmine of things that people are looking for that maybe you don't have, or things that people are not understanding. And you're like, "We totally have that on the website," but people can't find it and that thing. So I think that it'd be interesting to see how those things work as people adopt more native AI-powered chat conversations and things like that. Okay, so now we're going to talk about another section called Going, Going Google, which is looking at a few Google trends. So this one is one that I've seen recently. I was very pleased with myself 'cause I spotted it on the SERP and I was like, "Oh, I found this." And Barry reminded me that it is not new, that Brody Clark had actually found it two hours earlier or something, so unlucky there. But this is mentioned in... So I was looking at Santa Monica Pier, and I found this entry. And this was not the first entry, it was further down, for Pacific Park, which is the amusement park on Santa Monica Pier. And you'll see it says, "Mentioned in AAC animals, mentioned in travel awaits, mentioned in other things as well." I don't know if y'all have seen this or how you feel about this. Rebecca Tomasis: For me, it's a little bit... Because like this, I don't... As an SEO, I don't necessarily control... This now is like taking the SERP beyond what I can influence and optimize it. Now, I got to take... Anyway, we're having those conversations. But now, I really need to talk to digital PR. Now, I really need to talk to the affiliates team. Now, I really need to... It's That whole world of ORM, and it's... My number one thought was, how do I manipulate it? Joshua George: Straight away, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: How do I get in there? Lidia Infante: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Because it's a question of who else is ranking for your brand, or who else is ranking for that mention in that brand? Lidia Infante: It seems like an authority thing. 'Cause if you're looking for Santa Monica Pier, you're maybe looking for things to do. And things to do in Santa Monica Pier might be a common follow-up search- Things to do in Santa Monica Pier might be a common follow-up search- Crystal Carter: Right. Lidia Infante: That people are making. It changes the perceived intent of the serve. Typically, when you're doing a what to do type of search, you're looking for lists of people, your brands you trust. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: Here, they're showing you the thing to do, validated by the brands you might trust. Crystal Carter: Right. Rebecca Tomasis: This is what I see, the queries that I'm looking at. The mentioned in, you see the brands. And then you click and it opens up, and then it's like, Wix was mentioned in dah dah dah. And generally obviously the connection is like, these are the brands we understand to be closely related with this kind of topic, right? So in that sense, we can manipulate it. Joshua George: I think this is good though. Crystal Carter: Yeah? Joshua George: Think SEO is coming from a big change. At the moment, I think we're quite lazy with what we do. To rank page a bit of content, bit of backlink. Rebecca Tomasis: We know this works. Joshua George: This is more of a holistic approach, right? You can't just do this, you can't just do link building. You need to be acting on social media, do some PR and that gets better results to the clients at the end of the day. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Joshua George: The ones who don't want to adapt are the ones that are going to lose out. Rebecca Tomasis: Okay. A hundred percent. Crystal Carter: I think it kind of keeps brands, it's going to keep brands honest about how they're approaching their brand relationships and things like that. The other thing, I think the thing that's worrisome, so I see where you're like, oh, this is great. So as a user, I think this is great. Because as a user, I'm definitely looking at multiple websites if I'm going to be doing a thing. So if I want to go to Santa Monica Pier, yeah. I'm like, oh great, I can hear more details about this. So I think that that's Google answering that user journey. They know that you're going to search around for stuff. As a brand, I share your, Ah, what about this? Because what if somebody says something that... What if, I don't know, the people could say something else. So there's potentially some worrisome things there. Joshua George: Yeah. You got to bury it. Crystal Carter: No, no, we don't want to bury it. No, but I think you have to... But I think it does mean that SEOs need to think more about how they're balancing their brand relationships overall. So as you're saying, talking to PR, talking to acquisition or talking to affiliates, talking to different teams to help bring that up. Lidia Infante: It's all brand, brand, brand. Especially when you're on the product end of things. You and I are in a very similar space, if not competitors. And people are looking for the concept. When they're looking for informational, they're looking for best keyword, whatever when they're looking to buy. But if you're looking for best keyword, whatever, you're not going to rank for it. And you really need to be speaking to all of the people who are creating those lists to be included. Otherwise, you're not going to be there. And being included if you're not actively talking to them is all about being top of mind for the journalist that's writing it. So a lot of the SEO work that's coming, it's going to be very brand related. Watching out for your brand serves, watching out for EAT now. EAT, yeah. Another “E”. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see how this relates to where does that rank? Are you ranking in that position? If you're AZ animals, are you ranking number...? If Pac Park is number seven, are you now number eight? How's it going to affect the click-through rate on that? So I don't know. I'm interested, I'm curious. I'm watching the space. The next one that I want to talk about is perspectives. Perspectives has a similar sort of thing. Perspectives, I have mixed feelings about this because I generally see this when it's a news item, so it'll be like a news thing that's happening. Coco Gauff recently won the US Open. Triumphantly. She was amazing, any other tennis fans. She was fantastic. And when you look at Coco Gauff, again, not at the top, but after the news you see perspectives. And it's like people putting in their 2 cents about what happened at the US Open, for instance. So we have, thanks to Coco Goff from Roxanne Jones, we have Roger Federer wishing her well. And then we have just generally related, I think it's the other person who won the US Open as well. So I think that this is a similar thing. Have you all seen perspectives pop up with things or do you find it helpful as a user? Do you think it will be helpful to users? Lidia Infante: I don't find it helpful as a user, but I think it's pointing you at what I've been saying since I sat down here. It's about people. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: People, people. The human perspective is what we are seeking right now. I feel validated. I don't use it. Rebecca Tomasis: I agree, but I've been thinking about it like, there are levels of human perspective that's valuable and not. This is fairly valuable, but you could... Something, I don't know. To go back to the Reddit thread, if you Google how to start a blog and that Reddit thread on how to start a blog is not helpful. So again, it's like quality content, or really answering the question. Does that make sense? This is where I struggle with it a little bit. Like the quality of the results for it Joshua George: Sounds like, I've seen it. I never use it. I don't see the value in this at all. It pulls in... Rebecca Tomasis: Maybe the CNN one. Joshua George: Then you can just go directly onto CNN and read that article. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah, that's true. Joshua George: I don't get it. It's pulling information from Twitter. Twitter. What is it? Is it like a combination of all social media platforms? Is it pulling... I think it's messy. I don't know how it uses... Rebecca Tomasis: I think it's telling us you need to be on everything as much as possible. Joshua George: Coming back to brand, just being different platforms and stepping away from SEO and doing other stuff. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it's definitely pulling in omnichannel elements there. It'll be interesting to see if this one sticks, because Google sometimes drops different features. So it'll be interesting to see if this one sticks. I've seen mixed value from it. A lot of times it seems to repeat some of the news items. And we already have Twitter carousels. We already have news carousels. So it's interesting. And I think also I would expect it to show up for things where there's kind of a debate. So for instance, I'm from Devon and in Devon... Or I'm not from Devon, I'm from California. I live in Devon. And in Devon we have the cream tea and the correct way to put …. Rebecca Tomasis: Jam on it. Crystal Carter: Exactly. Rebecca Tomasis: Cream's first. Crystal Carter: It's cream first. Rebecca Tomasis: So my parents are from Devon, but I like it the Cornwall way.. Crystal Carter: It's controversial. This is my whole point. So if you look up how to do a cream tea, they just put an answer, which is incorrect. And really they should be having... Rebecca Tomasis: The discussion. Crystal Carter: The discussion of this back and forth about where we do a cream tea, although we all know it's first. Because you obviously put the butter on your toast first before you put the jam on. So why would you put the cream .. Rebecca Tomasis: But the cream is the best part. It needs to be on the top. Crystal Carter: Okay, we'll agree to disagree. Lidia Infante: I wonder if perspective is also coming from a place where Google sees that they're losing some share of search to TikTok and to Instagram. Personally, whenever I need to care for my plants, which are alive by some miracle of, I don't know. I look it up on TikTok, because I don't want to read how to report it. I want to see it. Because I will mess it up if it's just written instructions. So for that, for DIY, for recipes, I'd rather search on TikTok. But if I go on Google and I get TikTok results, then I keep searching on Google while consuming on TikTok. Crystal Carter: I think they're definitely trying to mix it up. I think they're trying a lot of things to see what sticks. And I think TikTok is a challenger for them at the moment. Bing is obviously a challenger for them and from a sort of development point of view. So I think they're trying out lots of different things to see how that works. And I think perspectives is one. Joshua George: Don't you feel like they're losing their focus on what they're made to do? Search. Coming back to users, if you want to learn to make a lasagna dish or whatever, you want to see someone doing that. If you Google how to make lasagna, you'll get a blog post, like, turn the oven on. That's not a great user experience. Lidia Infante: Well the blog post will be.. my grandmother used to make lasagna every day. Joshua George: I'd still rather watch the video on TikTok. Same example, five best restaurants in Brighton. You'll get a TikTok, it'll show the restaurant, show you the meal. You just watch the whole thing in a minute and you know exactly what's going on. Lidia Infante: When you go to a restaurant- Joshua George: It's way better. Lidia Infante: You look it up on Instagram to see what you're going to order. I don't know, am I only one who does this? Joshua George: No, I do. Crystal Carter: I think though, folks succeed when they have a mix of intents and things like that. So one of the ones, I'm not a Daily Mail reader, particularly. Lidia Infante: Promise? Crystal Carter: I'm not. However, one of the things that they do, one of the things that they do really well when they were the first folks to do this, and then I've seen more people do it since, but they do a TLDR three bullet points of the article. As soon as you get on the article, they're like, lasagna sales are up. Everybody loves the marinara. And Lydia says it's great. They'll hit you with the three main points from the article. And then you can get into the deep dive of it and you know there's going to be a million pictures and you know there's going to be... They rank really, really well for lots of stuff because they're able to hit that, I've got five minutes, I need that top information. Lidia Infante: Yeah, time is value. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. So I've got five minutes, I can get some value out of this and I can also bookmark it for when I do have time to deep dive into it. I know there's going to be pictures, if I just want to look at pictures. There's going to be a link to a video if I want to watch a video, that sort of stuff as well. So I think that when you're able to hit multiple points in an efficient way, I think that that's what they're trying to do. I think that that's what good blogs, good content folks are doing as well. So I don't know. Lidia Infante: That's something that I've done with AI, with the assist of AI to have it read my blog and be like, okay, give me the five key takeaways in bullet point form. You can ask it to go on a specific markup. And then plug it directly onto a headless CMS and then you A/B test it. Is this working better for my user or is it not? Right? And if it is, I do it on scale, and then review for the thesis that have the most traffic. If it's not good or better, I remove it. Crystal Carter: Right? These are things you can test, you can see, you can see how they're working for folks to get the best value. Lidia Infante: See the challenge is just putting the user at the center. Rebecca Tomasis: So I think a secondary challenge right now though is even though we know we're in a stage where Google is testing a lot of things, it's also a question of we all want to be the first to understand it and be able to optimize for it. And know what to do. But if next week, it's disappeared again. And it was like, okay, so we were tracking where we are mentioned, we were tracking what kind of things were coming up here, we were tracking what social media is coming up on these perspectives. And it's really a question of how do we go for this? But at the same time- Lidia Infante: And should you? Rebecca Tomasis: We can't go for this because.... Lidia Infante: What's the return as well? Joshua George: Like Threads, right? Instagram release Threads literally just copied Twitter, should I invest time in Threads now, is it going to blow up in five years time? Crystal Carter: You just don't know what's going to be here and what's going to …. Crystal Carter: Right. Or it's like, web stories, web stories. They were like, yeah, web stories. And to make a web story was a total pain, and then it's just not really a thing. So I don't know, you don't always know what's going to hit. But I guess that's the thing that's exciting about being an SEO. Lidia Infante: You need to chill and focus on strategy. Because if you're chasing everything, you're going to lose your mind. Crystal Carter: I agree. Okay. The last one I wanted to talk about is, so on Google, if you click the little three dots, you can get more about this search result. I find this fascinating and I think this sort of sits in the same sort of area as the two things we've seen before, which is essentially where, so if you click on a webpage, it'll like, about this source. And it will quote you Wikipedia. So here it says DeviantArt, and says DeviantArt is this. And it was created by this, and it has headquarters in Los Angeles, et cetera. And that's from Wikipedia. And then they'll have a section that's in their own words and it'll say, DeviantArt is this, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes it will have links to other things as well. If you don't have a Wikipedia page, then they'll just say, we couldn't find any third party sources, but this is what it says on the website. And it will just quote some stuff from the website. Now this is currently in beta, but I think this is an interesting evolution, and I think it's an interesting perspective to get an idea of what Google thinks of your brand. Lidia Infante: So excited. I love this feature so much. Crystal Carter: Okay, so what do you love about it? Lidia Infante: I love that through this feature, I got to get budget for several projects. Joshua George: Nice. Lidia Infante: By showing this to leadership. This feature is absolutely awesome. It shows you what page Google has chosen within your site, as what you say about yourself. So I've been trying to get a knowledge panel for the longest time. Now I have one. But someone that had one for a long time was Lazarina Stoy, who's an amazing human SEO. Crystal Carter: She's fantastic. Lidia Infante: Yes. So what I do is I try to reverse engineer her stuff. So I go Google Lazarina Stoy about this source on her personal website, and I noticed that her, in their own words, was coming from, not her homepage, but a page that she made that says, who is Lazarina Stoy? And then it made me look at my own thing and look up in their own words, where's Google pulling my, who am I? It was using the homepage, it was using a specific paragraph that I didn't really want them to use that one. So what I did is I kind of restructured my homepage and I rewrote that specific paragraph. And it worked. And now Google understands me better and I have a knowledge pile. And then I did the same thing for my company, for Sanity. I went on, and we've called ourselves many things. When you're trying to position your brand, you will go through phases. We've been a structured content platform, we've been content is data. We've been the unified content platform. We've been a composable content cloud. Finally, we are embracing that we are a headless CMS, but we've been spoken about throughout the web as headless CMS. Crystal Carter: It's not uncommon for longstanding brands though. Lidia Infante: Yeah. And for us it's super common. So throughout the site we've called ourselves many things. It's very inconsistent. I go on about the source and I know that they're using a short introduction to Sanity as the page where they're pulling what we're saying about ourselves. So I went in there and Google was highlighting structured content platform. And I'm like, no, that was like three positionings ago. So I went in there, changed it to headless CMS, and I've seen us grow in rankings for headless CMS, headless, and CMS related queries by positioning myself as clearly a headless CMS. I'm saying it, others are saying it, therefore I am. I rank, therefore I am. And then we don't have a Wikipedia page. We have one in Norwegian. Which obviously is not getting a lot of traffic. And I'm working on getting us a Wikipedia page in English so that we can get trusted sources on the section in there. But I also dived into the trusted sources in there, in the docs. Because they link you to what are our third party trusted sources. And it's not just Wikipedia, it's also Crunchbase and some others. But they are not actually using it. The only thing that's pulling up on the third party is Wikipedia. I have a Crunchbase profile that's in my same as schema. So it's not hard to find. And Google's not pulling that. So yeah, this is my story with this feature. I love it. I love it. Joshua George: I love it as well. Because if you look at this, it's telling you why it ranked. Because it featured here, here. And again, it's another example of Google saying backlinks are super important. Although don't build it because they're not going to help you. And even like EAT, it's predominantly based on link based signals. People think it's just adding an author on your page. It's really not. You just say where you've been featured and again, it's a backlink. Yeah, I think with all that whole AI content coming out, backlink's going to get more and more impactful in algo. They're really the number one ranking factor, in my opinion anyway, besides content user metrics. So yeah, I love this. Because you can manipulate backlinks, you could build them at scale. And you mentioned you featured on Crunchbase, wherever these websites, like Forbes, you can pay to get featured there. And I think that's going to be the big difference. Who has the higher quality links because they're seen as more credible brand, they have more authority in the space. And they'll have bigger about the source mentions that no one else can have. Wikipedia you can pay to create a Wikipedia page as well. So yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting times. Rebecca Tomasis: I think it relates also to how you build your content, how you cluster your content, what you write about, how you connect it to your domain. The schema that you build to reinforce this is what my brand is an authority in. And I think it's also Google making all of those connections for the user. I think it's super, super important. It's just when you want to be an authority in a lot of things, it's more tricky. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it can be interesting. I think it's also interesting that it also shows up for particular articles. So for instance, if an article has been ranking for a while, it'll say this page was first indexed at this time. And this is what we know about this page and this is what we know about this source as well. So it can be really great for helping to validate the sort of quality of both your brand rep positioning and your entity positioning, but also a particular piece of content and things. I love it. I love that you're using it as proof. That's one of my favorite things. People are like, oh, we're doing this. It's like, yeah, but look what Google says. Look what it says on this earth, because it says something different. So, yeah. Crystal Carter: ... look what it says on the SERP, because it says something different. Yeah, that's fantastic. I think I found it a really fascinating feature. I think the first time I saw it was on Better Homes & Gardens, and then I was like, "I love this. We need more of this." Yeah, I think we all agree that it's something that goes along with Google's general sort of E-E-A-T, evolution, and all of that in the SERP, which I think is even more important in the age of AI. Have you all responded much to the experience thing? Have you added more experience as well to your strategies, as well as the expertise, authority and trust]? Joshua George: Yeah. We just try to make our clients the authors of everything we publish on the site, and just leverage their name at whatever. Hair transplant clinic in Turkey, so that the doctor writes it. We write it, but put it under the doctor, and we try and get it in all the content the best that we can. But other than that, there's not much you can really do. I've got 10 years of experience in every update, 11, 12, 13. Lidia Infante: I think the E in experience is not exactly going in that direction. The way that I see it, when you talk to a subject matter expert, and they're excited about it and they get passionate, and you're probably going to have these experiences here at brightonSEO. If you approach anyone, they speak about their subject of expertise in a very specific way- Crystal Carter: Right. Lidia Infante: ... with excitement, with love and with anecdotes. They're so excited to share their silly little anecdotes with you. I have shifted to not only talking about best practice, but the specific anecdotes that my subject matter experts have. That's something that I cannot really get anywhere else, and it's really hard to insert afterwards. It feels a little bit unnatural. What I've been doing is I interview my subject matter experts, and I've briefed my ghostwriter to not eliminate anecdotes, to actually highlight them, and use storytelling of their personal experience. Yeah, I've incorporated it. I love it. I think it makes for better content, more human content. Rebecca Tomasis: I think for us, also, it's a positive on several fronts, because for us, the experience, this use of a product, we are a product-led company. It's making that double connection of like, "This is a user that has used our product for this intent," and then also then to take them down the funnel. Yeah, it's really... we have to think of product more. Yes. Crystal Carter: I think you're also starting to see things like the bubble that's for examples on Google. People will say... I don't know, "Cat, umbrellas." They'll be like, "Oh, what examples of cat umbrellas." People want to see the pictures of the cat. I literally just invented a product. I don't know if the cats need umbrellas, but there we go. Anyway. Okay. Now predictive text. Okay, so what do we think we have here? If you type in SEO, the first thing you get is SEO is dead. Rebecca Tomasis: I love this one. Look at the second one. Crystal Carter: Well- Lidia Infante: Don't look at the second one. Crystal Carter: Look at the second one. Don't look ahead. Rebecca Tomasis: I'm so sorry. I'm very new to this. Crystal Carter: Don't look ahead, agree or disagree? Joshua George: No. Rebecca Tomasis: Disagree. Joshua George: Disagree. Crystal Carter: Okay, so this is something. The interesting thing I found out about this was that the total number of entries for SEO is dead was 105 million. Joshua George: Wow. Crystal Carter: That's how many research results there are for SEO is dead. A lot of people who are checking the pulse on SEO all the time, and I think we can all agree that SEO is not dead. Okay, so next one, SEO is ruining the internet. Are we ruining the internet? Lidia Infante: Yes. Joshua George: I agree. Lidia Infante: Literally. Crystal Carter: What? Joshua George: I do agree this one. Crystal Carter: What? Why do you agree? Lidia Infante: I would qualify it. I would- Crystal Carter: Are you saying it depends? Is that what you're saying about this? Lidia Infante: Yeah. Joshua George: It depends. Lidia Infante: I think the flood of shit content... I didn't want to say shit. Sorry. Crystal Carter: You've now said it three times Lidia Infante: I was doing so well. I think the flood of bad content to the internet, it's definitely our fault. The fact that myths that we're old about, "You need this many characters to run. You need this many words," have separated us from what the user actually wants. We have low-key ruined the internet. Now when I look for, "I want to buy a coffee maker," and how do I know that this person is not making money to sell me the specific coffee maker? I just want a reliable opinion- Rebecca Tomasis: But I need a coffee maker. Who cares who makes money off the fact that I need a coffee maker? Lidia Infante: Yes, but you want to- Rebecca Tomasis: ... if the coffee maker works for me. I don't know for me... and maybe it's an age thing, so I put... but for me, what I find more value, if I'm looking for a coffee maker, even though I know maybe somebody is being paid to recommend that coffee maker, you're giving me a list, you're giving me a choice, and I can do my own research. Somebody on the internet recommending how many reviews of those you would need to read. Somebody likes this one, and somebody likes that one- Joshua George: Yeah, right. Rebecca Tomasis: ... and somebody likes this one. There are a million coffee makers, give me 10, or give me 10 in this price budget, or give me 10 unique coffee makers, and 10 classy. You know what I mean? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: This is a case of dummy's better than perfect, and I am like, "My coffee maker needs to be perfect." Rebecca Tomasis: No, but wait, not coffee makers. We live in a world of so much choice and again, so much information on the internet- Lidia Infante: Overwhelming. Rebecca Tomasis: ... for me, I actually appreciate that... I don't know that it's so straightforward, "Here are 10 coffee makers, go and choose one." Joshua George: I agree. SEO is definitely ruining the internet. Crystal Carter: No. Joshua George: But it's Google's fault. If you ask Google, "What is the best coffee machine?" You have to read a, "Coffee machines were created by this guy," and then you don't care about that. But if you just say, "This is the best machine," you're never going to rank, you'll get no traffic. Lidia Infante: Right. Joshua George: You have to put in all this waffle to build your relevancy up. Lidia Infante: Right. Joshua George: They should have... instead of basing the algorithm on links and content, it should be more brand signals early on, and that would then leverage the better brands, and better results at the top, and you don't have to … Rebecca Tomasis: The expertise, the E-E-A-T. Yeah. Joshua George: E-E-A-T. Again, that's influenced by links though. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think it has to do... we have to work with what we've got. I think Gus was at dinner, and he was wearing a shirt that said, "Bots are users too." That's the thing is we have to talk to the bots, and the bots need certain things. You have to put in those things to do that. You have to balance what the bots need with what the humans need. It's just, we're doing our best, is what I think. Lidia Infante: I think we've also used... we've become gatekeepers of the quality of websites, on a technical level, and SEOs have done a lot of advocacy for faster websites and more accessible websites. Even though we output bad content sometimes, we are making a more sensible web ecosystem, which by the way also helps the planet. Crystal Carter: Exactly. This is good. You'll be pleased to know that there are only 550... 595,000 people that think that SEO is ruining the internet. Rebecca Tomasis: But maybe it doesn't matter because SEO is dead. Crystal Carter: Okay, so next up is SEO... oh, SEO is a long-term strategy. Would you agree or disagree? Joshua George: Both. Rebecca Tomasis: Never ending. Joshua George: I'm in the middle. It can be short-term strategy as well. Crystal Carter: I think- Lidia Infante: It's a waterfall. The waterfall, when it starts running, it pours, then it keeps pouring. Joshua George: I say it's long-term as in it compounds, right? With more links we have more content- Lidia Infante: Right. Yeah, exactly. Joshua George: ... that's more long term, but some clients... I've had clients come on board for one month just gone, but they've got loads of results in that one month. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joshua George: We had a client, one of the biggest clients in the UK called Humax Direct. They sell Freeview boxes. Crystal Carter: Okay. Joshua George: They had things from Independent, Telegraph, every mass... Argus, all these massive companies. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Joshua George: They had no H1 Tech, no Title Tech, nothing. I just came and like, "Yeah, put that there." Boom, top of page one, organic revenue through the roof. Crystal Carter: Right. Joshua George: They're like, "Yeah, I think we're happy now." Short-term strategy, you're winning. See us next year. Crystal Carter: I agree. It's definitely been the case where you get a client and they're like, "Yeah," and you're like, "There are easy wins here. You can definitely- Joshua George: I love this. I love it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: They're so fun. They love you afterwards. They're like, "Yeah, definitely works for us." Joshua George: "So clever." Crystal Carter: Good. I think we say it depends. Is that an, it depends? Lidia Infante: No, it's both. It's both. Joshua George: It's both. It's both. Lidia Infante: It compounds, but it can have short-term wins impact. Joshua George: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. We have 42 million people that agree, or that are running content that says that SEO is a long-term strategy. Rebecca Tomasis: That would be the SEO. Crystal Carter: Last one, which you'll be very pleased to know, has the most search results of... coming in at 394 million search results. SEO is important. Agree, disagree. I can guess. Joshua George: If you like money, yes. Rebecca Tomasis: I like my job. Lidia Infante: Basically, yeah. What do you think, is SEO important? Yeah. Crystal Carter: Agree. We agree. Everybody agrees. Rebecca Tomasis: If we raise our standards, then we raise the standard of the internet, right? Maybe that's our shared responsibility with Google, to- Crystal Carter: We make the world a better place. That's how, "We are the world." Rebecca Tomasis: Somebody said, "You don't do brain surgery." It's not the end of the world. Lidia Infante: Yes. Rebecca Tomasis: Oh, great. That's fine. Crystal Carter: I heard somebody who said- Lidia Infante: "This is my email in an emergency." What emergency? Crystal Carter: I heard somebody who was like, "It's PR, not ER." I was like, "You know what? That's honestly... it'll be okay. It's fine. We can optimize that page later," and stuff. But I certainly think that it can be a challenge sometimes pointing out... advocating for SEO in a space where sometimes... I don't know, PPC is seen as a big win, or maybe the team doesn't quite understand SEO, or maybe they got burned by... that's... if you- Joshua George: Yeah, I hear that all the time. Lidia Infante: That is so common. There's been such bad actors, doing bad jobs, that have put people off SEO. We have a brand problem as an industry. People still think content creators, or the content teams still are worried that you're going to make them write very long things that are not good for the user, or... and I heard this in 2023. Do I need to include any misspellings of the keyword? Crystal Carter: No. Lidia Infante: Do not. Rebecca Tomasis: Wow. Joshua George: I hear those same questions, that I do all the sales calls at the agency now, and it's like, "I've been burnt in the past. I've worked with this guy, he told me this," and half of my job on the sales calls is just convincing the person that by the way, you search for a keyword, we rank, you booked a call with us. But it does work by the way. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: Yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Joshua George: You've got here. It does work. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of people that aren't even doing SEO properly as well. We actually work with a client in Brighton. We met them yesterday before I was speaking, and they've been working for a big agency in London... I'm not going to name, for four or five months, and they built no backlinks whatsoever- Rebecca Tomasis: Right. Joshua George: ... and they haven't even implemented all the findings from the audit they'd done. Rebecca Tomasis: Right. Joshua George: It's just how do people get away with that? Then when that client goes to a good agency... not saying we are, there's other good agencies out there as well. You're already at a disadvantage. You have to then convince the person that- Lidia Infante: Yeah. Joshua George: ... you are good at what you do and you are different. Crystal Carter: I think trust is so important with clients, and with working with projects and things, because if you don't have... I've seen working agency side... I remember we walked in, and we did an audit of a site and I was like, "This is wrong, and that's wrong, and this is wrong, and that's wrong." We were pitching, we were prospecting for this client, and the guy who ran their website, who had been doing their SEO and dev stuff, where they'd be like, "Oh yeah, the devs doing the SEO." He just sat there with his arms folded the whole time, and was not bothered. Then after we finished our audit, he kept the client. Joshua George: Yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: We didn't get the client, but they trusted him implicitly. Broken things, fixed things, whatever, they trusted him immensely. I think that if you don't have the trust of the client, then it's very difficult to convey that SEO is important, that SEO matters to get the budget sign off, and things like that. You have to be transparent, open. Joshua George: Is it hard sell though? You're saying, "Hey, pay me two grand a month, for seven months. No guarantee, but you might rank number one." It's difficult. We actually only introduced recently offering PPC alongside SEO, a blended search approach. Crystal Carter: Right. Joshua George: You get the instant results in the ads, and you get more long-term strategy with the SEO as well. It works really well, and so much easier to sell. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and I think also that PPC layering can be really useful with testing things, and with also shoring up different parts of the SEO, if there's algo shenanigans and you're like, "But we need this content up here." Rebecca Tomasis: But the best is when they're like, "Well, we're going to drop this spend, and let's see if organic picks it over." Then you don't even need to think about it, and you're like, "It will." Then it does. Wow. It's like the best... no offense. Lidia Infante: Then you can move that budget to 100 words that you're not- Rebecca Tomasis: If you think about it, it's not necessarily about cutting that budget unpaid, right? It's like let's move it to something else, where it'll have more ROI- Lidia Infante: Or experiment with different PPC types of content, to see if they're going to actually deliver customers. Crystal Carter: Right. Lidia Infante: If they do, you'll go and make it for organic, ta da. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. Exactly, so you can create content on video for instance, instead of... let's say you were promoting blogs on PPC, if you cut that PPC spend, you could spend that producing videos, then you can add that to the et cetera, all of it, and just make it all work, and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. Lidia Infante: It's 3D chess. Crystal Carter: Exactly. This is the thing. It's a lot of strands. There should be one here that says SEO is complicated, and you should pay people to help you with it, and things. Yes, finishing up with that, this has been SERPS UP Live. If you like SERPS UP, we talk about this kind of thing with all fantastic, wonderful people. Y'all have all contributed to our many things that we've done, so thank you very much for joining us in this beautiful, incredible room. Thank you so much to Lidia for being here and sharing her incredible insights. Thank you so much to Joshua for being here, sharing her incredible insights. Thank you so much to Rebecca for being here. Thank you all. Enjoy your lunch, and have a great, BrighonSEO. Mordy Oberstein: We hope you enjoyed Crystal's session with Rebecca, with Lidia, and with Joshua. We'll link to all of their social media profiles in the show notes. There's no SEO news today, because this is a different little version of the SERPS UP Podcast. Little teaser, we are going to do more live conference recordings of the SERPS UP Podcast in the future, so look out for that. That's a warning. Look out for that. Crystal Carter: Find us at a conference near you doing some fantastic SERPS UP information. We hope to get some fantastic guests. We may very well do at our next one as well, so if you see us live, come and check it out. Say hello- Mordy Oberstein: Say hello. Crystal Carter: ... and yeah, get yourself into the real life podcast experience. Mordy Oberstein: With that, thank you for joining the SERFS UP Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with the new episodes, we dive into keyword cannibalization. Is it real? It is, but there's more to it. We'll dive in, look forward wherever you consume your podcast, or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all 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 a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace and love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Rebecca Tomasis Joshua George Lidia Infante Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter BrightonSEO Google Search testing “Mentioned in” search snippet Google Perspectives Feature Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Rebecca Tomasis Joshua George Lidia Infante Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter BrightonSEO Google Search testing “Mentioned in” search snippet Google Perspectives Feature Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha Mahala for joining the SUP podcast. We're projecting out some group 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 the incredible, the fabulous, the absolutely unparalleled, unequivocal, un... I don't have any more adjectives. The head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, Mordy Oberstein, and hello people of the internet. Thank you for that. Fantastic. Amazing, incredible, stupendous, fantastic- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, yeah. I guess that- Crystal Carter: I did fantastic twice. Mordy Oberstein: No, I always do that by the way. How uncouth of me to not have another un to have added to that. Also, uncouth is a very underrated word. Crystal Carter: Oh. I think it's underused. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Don't underestimate it. You can under evaluate its importance in the English language. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's undefeated. Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: It's not undeserving of whatever amount. Okay. The SURP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter Searchlight, over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter. But where you can also be a part of the future of website building with the all new Wix Studio. Explore how your agency can level up with the new customization abilities added to Wix Studio over at wix.com/studio. This as we take up the future of SEO in 2024. Not 2025, we're stopping in 2024 and that's it. In this very special episode of the SURP's Up podcast live from BrightonSEO in the UK. The future is nigh as we blast backwards to the past in what is surely some sort of sci-fi time warp contradiction. That's why we're going backwards to go forwards. And if only I would tell you what I actually mean by that, because even I don't know at this point. What I mean is, we're going back to September 14th to BrightonSEO in the UK where Crystal sat down with some well smart SEO folks, including our own Rebecca Tomasis, as well as Lidia Infante and Joshua George to discuss the future of SEO in a special live recording from the conference itself. So this episode was taped in front of a live audience. But alas, there was no laugh track. As Crystal and crew dived into how AI factors into the content creation process and then the SEO process, the impact of when Google does and doesn't get content right and the future overlap between SEO and brand. So step into the wormhole, open up the door to the DeLorean and step into a traveling phone booth. Whatever your time machine preference is, as this special Brian SEO UK edition of the SURP's Up podcast takes you into the great unknown that is the very near future of SEO. That was a mouthful. What I'm trying to say is, Crystal went to BrightonSEO in the UK, sat down with the really smart people and recorded a live session of the SURP's Up podcast, and I wasn't even there. Crystal Carter: You were there in spirit, because we were using a lot of the fun things that we do across the podcast. A lot of the segments which we all came up with together. Mordy Oberstein: So my spirit was hovering over. Crystal Carter: I also put your on the deck for the podcast. I also put your Twitter handle, not mine, to make sure that if anybody had anything to say about it, they could tweet you and not me. So that's very important. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, I do appreciate that. So we're going to cut to that. But before we cut to that, Crystal, why don't you tell us a little bit about what y'all covered at BrightonSEO? Crystal Carter: Yes. So we did a version of Going Going Googled, talking about SGE. We also talked about some predictive text. We also talked about people also asked. We talked about a few other things as well. So I hope you enjoy this collection of... I think it was really interesting. I'll tell you what, there were some great, great surprising answers that we got from our fantastic panel of the way that people are using some of these new technologies, and the trends that people are seeing there as well. So it was a really great panel. I'd expect a few magical moments across the podcast recording. Mordy Oberstein: So without further ado, here's Crystal and crew over at BrightonSEO in the UK. Crystal Carter: Hi everyone. It's short notice and it was quite a hike. So thank you all for joining us today. We are going to be doing the SERP's Up live podcast. I have some fantastic, wonderful, incredible guests who are joining us. We're going to be here for the whole time, so please, I hope you enjoy this. I am going to be calling to the stage today a wonderful collection of fantastic human beings. First up is Mr. Joshua George, who is the founder of Click's Slice, which is a fantastic SEO agency based in London. He has over a decade of experience doing SEO as a consultant, and he ranks number one for SEO at London which is fantastic. And he also drove here in his McLaren. If you're parking near a McLaren, don't mess up his paint job. Okay, Joshua George, coming up to the stage. Thank you. Thank you. And next up, we have Lidia Infante, who is the SEO extraordinaire over at Sanity, which is the headless CNS. And they are doing incredible things, and she is also a contributor for the Wix SEO Learning Hub. And is also an international SEO extraordinaire, and a speaker and fantastic. And she is a fellow Cardi B fan. Thank you Lidia Infante coming to this stage. Next up is from my team at Wix. This is Rebecca Tomasis, she's an SEO expert who is currently managing the Wix blog. If you've entered into Google something that says like, "Oh, blog, what is blogging?" You will find Rebecca's handiwork there. Because the featured snippets that she collects are incredible. Some people do Pokemon, she collects featured snippets. She's incredible, she's fantastic, she's wonderful, she's Rebecca Tomasis. And I should introduce myself. Obviously I am Crystal Carter, a lot of y'all know me. Hi everybody, hello friends. And I am the co-host of the SERP's Up SEO podcast, which I co-host with Mordy Oberstein who is not here today. However, throughout this podcast, if you have anything to say about the podcast, please do at him on Twitter. His Twitter handle is at Mordy Oberstein. If you're in the back, you can see his thing. So it's at Mordy Oberstein on Twitter. So if you have anything to say about that, please do at Mordy. We publish our podcast every Wednesday. So we published one yesterday, and we will be publishing one next week, and this will be out later on. So thank you all for joining us. Okay, so we're going to get into a few of the features that we normally do on the SERP's Up SEO podcast. We do fun different things. And the first thing we're going to talk about, and these guys have not seen these slides, so we're all just winging it. But yeah. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to talk about generative AI. So how many people have heard about AI today at the thing? For those of you listening on the podcast, everyone's already heard about it. It's only 11 o'clock in the morning that we've all already heard about generative AI. And the reason why is because we all know that Bing put out all of this stuff this year, and everybody went mad after ChatGPT blowing up last autumn. Bing introduced New Bing, and really, as they said, the CEO from Bing's search team said, we made Google dance. And after firing their shots, Google finally released their search generative experience, and they finally started putting in links which people are really excited about. And that's all well and fantastic. But one of the sections that we do in our podcast is we ask, is this new? Is this actually new? How are we thinking that people are using this in new ways? So my first question is, is AI in search actually new? How new are you finding that the search generative experience and how new are you finding people experiencing generative search in this space? Lidia Infante: Technically it is newish, but not really. Essentially, machine learning has been used to train the Google algorithm since the dawn of time. And what I think has really triggered this big AI movement is actually making it available. Because we used to have AI driven SEO tools. For years there was Frase and Jasper, which used to be Jarvis, but probably Marvel sued them or something. Rebecca Tomasis: They did. Lidia Infante: So yeah, it's not really new. But it is available to everybody, so you don't have to be bought in and make an investment before starting to test it out. Also, the generative large language models are very much improved. That's the stuff that's new. Also, our panic about SEO dying, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Thank you. Crystal Carter: It's all something new. And how are you using AI in your new workflows? Joshua, if you're able to share on that? Joshua George: Yeah. So for us, we still have human content. I'm a massive fan of that. I sell it a lot on our discovery calls as well, and clients value that. So I don't think we'll ever get rid of completely using human writers. But we do use it for our blog briefs, it just speeds up a lot more time. And that's currently how we use it at the moment. We haven't rolled it out properly in the whole agency yet. I'm still on the fence of it, because clients pay us a good amount of money to get them results so I'm going to be testing stuff on the site that... I have got an AI site that I'm playing around with testing strategies and see what's working, and that way I have my own data to make my own decisions on instead of seeing what someone says on Twitter, and just basing the whole thing on that basically. Crystal Carter: And people are saying a lot on Twitter. There's a lot on Twitter, a lot of things floating around and a lot of this is a brand new thing, and change everything that you are doing again. Rebecca Tomasis: But I find it takes so much testing to understand, is this going to make my work so efficient that sometimes you're like, "Well, I'm spending so much time testing this. Maybe in this time, I could've..." You have to be able to see I think the long-term benefit of the efficiency or scale, it will be able to bring you. Because it is new, and I think, like you said, the accessibility is new. So it's like, "I need to really take the time to test this and understand the impact." Crystal Carter: I think that the scalability point and how you're rolling out is really important. 'Cause I think that and the accessibility point is really important because yeah, Jasper's been around for ages. I know that Mike King, his team has been using AI for years and things like that. But when it's going mainstream, that means there's more competitors that are using it, which means if you want to be competitive, you have to think about how that works. And that's definitely changing the landscape of how people are interacting on search, and how people are creating content and things like that. I certainly see that. And where do you all feel like having seen the last six months of ChatGPT really going big, and New Bing going big, and generative search coming to Google and Bard and all of that? Where do you think in six months' time from the next BrightonSEO, where do you think we'll be then? Lidia Infante: I think we are going to be a lot less scared and a lot more empowered to actually use AI not as a replacement of us and our work, but as an enhancer of us and our work. I use AI all the time in my workflows now, and I absolutely love it. It's accelerated my output and productivity massively. It's much easier for me to edit stuff to fit tone guidelines, and to make it just detect where did I spell the thing that I'm not supposed to spell that way in the way that's for the company? And you also mentioned, Rebecca, that it takes some investment in time to get it done. So what I try to do is I try to create templatable prompts that I can just reuse, reuse and reuse endlessly. You were mentioning that you use them for content briefs. I use it somewhat for content briefs as well, but I use it more as an assistant of like, "Hello, go into the world of the web and tell me what are questions being asked about this?" Or I go, "Imagine that you are a product owner trying to find a new CMS. What are the questions that you're going to have to answer to your stakeholders?" Now you can feed it sources of truth so it stops making stuff up. Yeah. I almost am very proud that I said making stuff up instead of making (beep) up. I'm doing a really good job on those today. Lidia Infante: All right. So you feed it sources of truth, and you give it your own information of what you want it to base on. If you do really good prompting, you can recycle it forever. And I also really like using it for repurposing and content distribution. So I feed it some of my tweets. This is my tone of voice, this is how I speak in my tone of voice. Make me five tweets to promote this article. And that is a superpower. You go on a scheduler, and you have your content strategy distribution- Rebecca Tomasis: You can think consistency at scale also. And I think for me, I think sometimes I do need a blog post that's super unique and creative, and sometimes I'm like, "Please just follow this structure." And that's something that I can create within that first draft or something with AI, and there is the structure. And then okay, let's now put in the expertise and some of the creativity. But the meat or the bones is like, "Don't change this." Crystal Carter: Right. Right, right. And I think that people who are organized, like you were talking about your content briefs. If you're organized and you already have your content briefs, and you know how to structure a content brief and you know how to which content distribution points you want to hit, then it allows you to... You're already organized, it allows you to really, really work with that. I feel like you want to jump in here. Joshua George: Yeah, I was saying the same reason we're using ChatGPT, it all comes down to prompt. You put rubbish in, you're going to get rubbish out. So once you finalize and really narrow down what prompts actually work, it's pretty much just copy and paste. You just change out the niche. So yeah, we can produce blog briefs super, super quick now at scale. And I don't know how many briefs I'll do in a month at the moment. Loads. Don't tell me you didn't. Hundreds are what we're doing for our clients at the moment, and it's so much quicker. It makes it easier for our content team as well. Because when they're writing the content, they really know the anchor text to use and they know what page to link to. And there's loads of like, "We're using ChatGPT and the custom parameters, prompt engineering." I literally just made a whole call from ChatGPT two weeks ago. Nine hours of video content. I'll be playing around with it so much. And yeah, it's game changing. So I'm personally excited for the future. I can't wait for AI to roll out. I know a lot of people are scared of AI. Like, "Oh, it's going to take my job, is a content writer going to die?" Nah, that's rubbish. There's been so many changes in the SEO industry, and our job as SEO is just that. Rebecca Tomasis: And I think also because that whole conversation, the AI content rank. And I know from my experience it still takes so much human optimization, and strategy, and testing, and going back into the article to get it to rank. That's the process anyway. And in the short term or even the midterm, I don't see any tool that's necessarily able to replicate that. Even if we can get to the point where it creates a perfect piece of content for intent and all of that, it still needs tweaking, right? Crystal Carter: Right. Rebecca Tomasis: Next week, somebody's above you. What do I need to now do right? Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that with the velocity, with great velocity comes great responsibility. Rebecca Tomasis: Yes. And a lot of optimizations. Crystal Carter: Right. Rebecca Tomasis: Wow, I have all this content, and now it needs to rank. Crystal Carter: And I think also sometimes it's like if you're moving really quickly, it's also really easy to make a mistake at a large scale. So if you make one mistake across all over the place, 50, 60 blogs or something, it's like, "Okay, I have to go and unpick all those 50, 60 blogs or whatever." Rebecca Tomasis: You used the wrong angle. Crystal Carter: Right, on every single one. So yeah, that's something to think about as well. And I think also you talked about all of the optimizations you have to make as somebody who is skilled with your skills. You still have to make sure that that works. And if there is a lot of people, if there are a lot of people who are putting out just straight from the machine onto... Quality is still going to rise to the top, and quality comes from skill, and that skill is something you cultivate. Lidia Infante: I have something to say. I think what this has really done is it's changed what is table stakes. So being able to produce content at scale used to be a competitive advantage. But it's not anymore. So what is a competitive advantage right now is surfacing the human within your content, the experience of the person that's writing the specific anecdotes. Their wisdom, rather Than just copycat content. 'Cause now everybody can do copycat content. Grab what's ranking on the search and regurgitate it is something that is table stakes for literally your mom. Your dad- Rebecca Tomasis: ….without AI, right? We will regurgitate. Like, "Okay, this is what X ranks to be number one, and I need to write exactly the same thing." Lidia Infante: But we've had the resources to do- Rebecca Tomasis: To be number one, I need to write exactly the same thing. Lidia Infante: But we've had the resources to do it, and we needed the resources to do it. Now it's no longer needed. Right now, it's table stakes. So now to rise above the noise of what I imagine is going to be an increase of trash content running the web made by ChatGPT, it's going to be differentiation. And for me, differentiation is going to be human experience, and authority and personality. Rebecca Tomasis: So what I'm seeing now though with competitors is taking an article... And I actually talked to our editor, because I wanted her opinion on the content. Because at first glance, the expert tips are there, the sources are there, there's nice data, it's really well optimized and nicely structured. And then you go into the content and it's like, "Well, this was AI." I sent it to our editor and she's like, "This content is a train wreck." So I think this is also interesting to see people generating with... It's very obvious when you generate with AI, and then you're trying to force the expert quotes and everything in. Lidia Infante: Yeah. Crystal Carter: In Clueless they say, "Oh, she's a full on Monet." It's good from far away, but when you get up it's a hot mess. Lidia Infante: Gotcha, good. Crystal Carter: So it's something you need to think about, and making sure that you're maintaining that tone and maintaining that quality as you go along. We can absolutely talk about AI all day, as I'm sure many people are today. But we are going to get into our next section, which is fun with People Also Ask. People also ask sometimes referred to as a universal SERP feature. It is seen on almost every single search that you do on Google. And there are some fun questions that show up on People Also Ask, and we're going to go through a couple of them. So the first question that people also ask is where can we find mermaids? That's a question that people also ask. Rebecca Tomasis: There were actual answers? Crystal Carter: No, don't look at the answers. Y'all are supposed to look at the... They're looking at the answers. Okay, so do you have any ideas before we could find mermaids? Rebecca, you can't say because you looked. Rebecca Tomasis: I already know. Lidia Infante: I can find mermaids in the documentary that you shared with me on Netflix. Crystal Carter: That's true, there is a mermaid thing- Rebecca Tomasis: It's what? People wear the tails, right? Lidia Infante: A fantastic documentary. MerPeople I think it is. Crystal Carter: MerPeople, it's fantastic, it's wonderful. Lidia Infante: So she recommended it to me. I wasn't going to watch it, but now I'm very happy with it. Crystal Carter: It's amazing. If you have nothing to watch on Netflix, watch MerPeople, it's fantastic. Joshua George: Do we have the age group of people who also- Crystal Carter: No, they don't get out of ages. Joshua George: What? Crystal Carter: I literally entered mermaids into Google, and they were like, people also ask. And Google has tons of these. If you enter Google mom, they're like, "Who is Google's mom?" And it's like, "No, that's not the question to ask." Y'all, that's not it. But yeah, where do you think you find mermaids? Joshua George: Well, we have that joke we say in the SEO industry. The best place to hide a dead body is on page two, 'cause nobody looks there, it's perfect. The mermaids are going to be on page two. Crystal Carter: Okay. So Atlas Obscura is actually answering this question legitimately. They're saying that you can find mermaids in Japan. They're also saying that you can find mermaids in Florida, and that you can find mermaids in Vermont. So I think that's fascinating that there is a place- Lidia Infante: Is there sea in Vermont? Crystal Carter: There is not. I think Vermont is landlocked. But apparently there's mermaids there, so that's interesting. Joshua George: Probably. Crystal Carter: Our next question from People Also Ask is vibranium the strongest metal on earth? And this is a serious question that people are asking. And the thing I find you're- Rebecca Tomasis: Vibranium, is it from a Marvel- Lidia Infante: Yes. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Exactly, exactly. Rebecca Tomasis: Is it Thor's hammer? Crystal Carter: Yeah, no. No, that's not vibranium. Lidia Infante: What they have on Wakanda. Crystal Carter: Captain America's shield is vibranium. Joshua George: I'm sorry too, I don't want any Marvel. Crystal Carter: You don't want any Marvel? Joshua George: I don't watch Marvel. Crystal Carter: Okay, okay. So Google here is being very interesting, because Google is not just telling them no, that's a dumb question. Google is saying identified in 1781, Tungsten is the strongest pure metal on earth. And this is from- Lidia Infante: In the real world. Crystal Carter: In the real world. Rebecca Tomasis: So it's basically just saying you are an idiot, this- Crystal Carter: Kind of. Joshua George: Wouldn't it be better if Google just said, "Hey, are you okay?" Rebecca Tomasis: It's a website that might say, "Are you better?" Crystal Carter: So yeah. So this is from a blog called what are earth's mightiest fictional metals? So again, they're trying to help people, to slowly guide them towards reality. Rebecca Tomasis: But are they very expensive? How can they be expensive if they are fictional? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's in the movie. Okay, so anyway. Rebecca Tomasis: I don't know. Crystal Carter: Okay, so our next one. So our next people also ask is, what are the five types of unicorns? Rebecca Tomasis: No. Crystal Carter: This is a very important question that people are asking. Lidia Infante: It's a very important question Crystal Carter: Why is this important? Lidia Infante: So my first website, I made it when I was six years old, on FrontPage. Obviously as a six-year-old, I was very interested in unicorns. Crystal Carter: Of course. Lidia Infante: So it was basically a bundle of images of unicorns that I had been downloading from Google Search, which was my hobby when I was six. Go on Google Search and look at unicorns. Crystal Carter: Of course. Rebecca Tomasis: So obviously a lot of people's hobbies. Lidia Infante: So since then, every time I learn a new technology to make content, I try it out with a unicorn website. I have six websites in- Joshua George: Yeah, you should know this inside out then. Lidia Infante: So if they're saying five, because there's many different classifications- Crystal Carter: Okay, let's get to that. Lidia Infante: If they're saying there's five, it's 'cause they're using the elements type of classification. Crystal Carter: Of course. Lidia Infante: This is going to be like water, sand, ice, fire, electric unicorns. But you can classify them by color, or by whether or not they will give you magic. Crystal Carter: Okay, all right. Okay, so that's a thorough... You should really be ranking for this to be honest. Joshua George: She probably is. We don't even know. Crystal Carter: She's probably a low-key unicorn queen. Okay, so this is from mombooks.com, and they're saying that the seven types in the world today, that is what they're saying in the world today. There are mountain jewels, water moons, woodland flowers, desert flames, ice wanderers, storm classic, shadow knights. I know you all didn't think you were coming to talk about unicorns, but we're here, we're enjoying it, et cetera, et cetera. But these are the kinds of things that people are seeing on People Also Ask. Lidia Infante: The only thing…. Crystal Carter: The thing I find fascinating about this is that Google is not only placating these kinds of questions, and they say it's a mythical creature, y'all. This is a mythical creature, the unicorns are mythical. But they also give you more questions. So they're also saying why is it called a unicorn? And they're saying, where can I find a unicorn? Location, where can I find a unicorn? Rebecca Tomasis: Again, in Vermont. Crystal Carter: Again in Vermont. Apparently, Vermont- Lidia Infante: Oh my God. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: ... it's a super magical place where we should all be looking for unicorns and mermaids. So my question here is this. With regards to People Also Ask, are y'all making content for some of these questions that are terrible questions? Are y'all engaging with these? Joshua George: Hell yeah. Crystal Carter: You are? Joshua George: Absolutely, to build relevancy. So when you carry out a search for anything, those people also ask questions. It's questions that relate to the topic of what you just searched for. So Google already deems those topics relevant to that search term. So if you build out content around that, link it back to the page you're trying to rank, you increase your page's relevancy. Lidia Infante: Even if it's a dumb question? Joshua George: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Joshua George: Yeah, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: I didn't know about the- Joshua George: I wouldn't say unicorns, other stuff. Rebecca Tomasis: There are a lot of repetitive things also, right? Joshua George: Yeah, it's on there. Rebecca Tomasis: Why should I start a business? That's a very bad example, but I'm not going to necessarily directly answer every question. But I think in terms of intent and what people are looking for, and I think they're super insightful. And they got a lot longer, some queries now, it's like... Lidia Infante: Yeah. Joshua George: When you click, you get more as well. They expand- Rebecca Tomasis: And then you're down a warren hole of... Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lidia Infante: I only use PAAs to look at what the content journey is going to be. What is my audience interested in? But where I'm currently at, I'm trying to sell expensive software to enterprises. So if the question is dumb, it's probably not for my audience. Crystal Carter: Okay. But it's a question of sometimes there'll be people... Maybe it's a question of competition. Maybe most people are going to be like, "That's a silly question, I'm not going to answer that." And so maybe if you get in there and address it, maybe not directly. Maybe not put it as the header, but low-key address it. Maybe you're more likely to show instead of mom books.com on something about unicorns. Though the other thing I find also really interesting is that on the right here I have name, origin. Why is it called a unicorn location? Where can I find a unicorn? And then there were other questions as well that come up there. So we're starting to see more of these query-based questions that are popping up on the SERP. I recently was on Google, and got to the bottom of the page. And I saw instead of related searches, it had the query, and then it had a knowledge panel looking thing about... You've seen this as well, about the question, and then another question and then another question. Do you think we're going to see more of this going forward? Yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: No, because I think it also directly links, which we started to see a lot of last week, is especially on some of our big strategic keywords was Reddit threads ranking. Ranking high, ranking five, four, out of nowhere. And I think it's all related, because a lot of these questions are the very insightful questions people ask on Reddit. So I think there is obviously a huge connection between, again, what people are really looking for, and what they're really looking for is the experience. Somebody who's actually, I don't know, seen a unicorn or- Lidia Infante: The human. The human instead of the SEO, right? Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. I think they're really trying to tap into that. And that complaint of it. If this is a machine delivering me an answer, it's not useful and... Yeah. Crystal Carter: That's really interesting. I think also, do you think that with SGE for instance, and with ChatGPT, and Bard, and New Bing and all of that stuff. When you go to New Bing for instance, they're like, "Write as many characters as you want." Enter whatever question you want. And I find that when I'm doing a query in one of those tools, that I will structure my query differently from how I would enter it into Google. In Google, I'm going for lowest common denominator terms, and I'll just be like, "Unicorn with pink wings," or something. Then I would just enter that so that I would get that thing. Whereas in ChatGPT, I might even just speak it into it and I say, "Where can I find a unicorn backpack that has pink wings, and orange stripes and et cetera, et cetera?" And so it'll be much, much longer. Do you think that these queries are responding to the more conversational tone that people are having with search engines? Do you think that's even a trend? Lidia Infante: Well, then we see a bit of a swap to a more conversational tone in search. When voice search happened and we were all thinking that voice search was going to be... What was it, 17% of those searches? Crystal Carter: No, I never thought that. Joshua George: I never use it. I've never searched with my voice ever. Lidia Infante: I only use my Google Assistant to put jams on when I'm cooking. Crystal Carter: Okay, okay. Lidia Infante: I have seen conversational tone come in and out of search in different ways. So when I started in PPC, my very dark past, I was carrying PPC strategies for several countries, and these countries have adopted digitalization and the internet and become proficient in buying online at different stages in different ways. And you could see that the less digitalized a country was, the more likely I was getting this conversationally written queries. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Lidia Infante: Then we swapped onto a generic, very broad, very top of the final query as they matured. And then we swapped to long tail questions from the get go, instead of doing generic, mid-tail, long tail. The fact that it's coming back, and I felt like it came back a little bit when we were all talking about voice search and people were trying it, it changed our relationship with searching a little bit. I wonder if we are having a similar change in our parasocial relationship with search engines. Crystal Carter: I think certainly with... Rand Fishkin recently published an article about how people use ChatGPT, and they were talking about a lot of the words that people are using and people are saying please. Joshua George: I say please all the time. I even say hello. Crystal Carter: I use ChatGPT for that. Joshua George: It's a waste of characters as well. Crystal Carter: I use ChatGPT to save me from Google Sheets. I literally am like, "Google Sheets was mean to me. They told me my code didn't work. And they're like, "Here it is." I'm like, "Thanks, Chat." So yeah. And Bard, Bard also will get upset. If you're not nice to Bard, Bard will be like, "I'm sorry, I'm an AI generated tool and I will not answer any more questions." And I'm like, "Bard, what?" I'm sorry, not Bard, Bing. Bing does that, or whatever. And they're just like, "You can cope with a question," and they're like, "No, I can't, I'm an AI." Stop being so fragile. Lidia Infante: Pass the baby. Crystal Carter: So yeah. So people are saying please, people are saying the thing. And also, I think that there's a certain amount with some of the generative conversational search things, there's less judgment. I think I remember I got some insurance documents, and they sent me the terms of the insurance documents. And I was like, "I don't know what this means." And I put that into Chat and I was like, "ChatGPT, what does this mean?" And they were like, "Oh, it means this, and this and this." And they use this term, and I was like, "I don't know what that term means. What does that term mean?" And they were like, "Oh, it's like this." So you can just be honest about what you don't know, or you can just be honest about what you actually need in a different way than if you were to, I don't know, ask someone. And they were like, "Well actually, how come you didn't know that?" Or that thing. So I wonder if that doesn't change as well, people's relationships to that. And maybe it'll change people's relationships to brands as well. Lidia Infante: Well, that's why I got into marketing at all to begin with, because I was studying psychology, 'cause I'm curious about people, but then if you ask people to test and self-report, you're going to lie. They're going to lie to look good, they're going to lie to be liked, or they're going to lie to agree. And then I had this little side marketing job doing PVC, as well as studying psychology. At the time, you could see all of the queries. I could literally see what my parents in their postcode were searching for. Crystal Carter: Oh my god. Lidia Infante: I was searching for, because they were really excited that their daughter had a job. So yeah, the privacy of your own home, of typing out whatever you want without judgment is huge. Rebecca Tomasis: And I think it could potentially change how people are relating to brands, because I think a lot of people are adopting chatbots on their brands as well, which could give you lots more details on the kinds of content that people actually need but maybe are afraid to ask directly for, and that thing. So yeah, I don't know. We'll see how these things pay out. Joshua George: Yeah. Yeah, and going to be interesting. It's like when you go into a website, you have a search bar, you can search for whatever you want. Might not even exist, but no one's looking at it and you can get away with saying things wrong, asking stupid questions and no one can judge you. Yes, that was- Lidia Infante: Everything you type is on someone's analytics. Joshua George: I know now, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah, I got to say. Joshua George: When I was younger, I did not know that. And yeah, I think using AI for chatbot stuff is literally the same trend as the search box. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's very interesting. Cool. Lidia Infante: When we have to search for something stupid. My husband and I split. Now you look stupid to the algorithm, of course. Or something embarrassing, or something that we definitely should not be asking any search engine. We take it in turns, because we don't want the algorithm to judge us. Crystal Carter: I think also it's one of those things like site search. Site search is always such a goldmine of things that people are looking for that maybe you don't have, or things that people are not understanding. And you're like, "We totally have that on the website," but people can't find it and that thing. So I think that it'd be interesting to see how those things work as people adopt more native AI-powered chat conversations and things like that. Okay, so now we're going to talk about another section called Going, Going Google, which is looking at a few Google trends. So this one is one that I've seen recently. I was very pleased with myself 'cause I spotted it on the SERP and I was like, "Oh, I found this." And Barry reminded me that it is not new, that Brody Clark had actually found it two hours earlier or something, so unlucky there. But this is mentioned in... So I was looking at Santa Monica Pier, and I found this entry. And this was not the first entry, it was further down, for Pacific Park, which is the amusement park on Santa Monica Pier. And you'll see it says, "Mentioned in AAC animals, mentioned in travel awaits, mentioned in other things as well." I don't know if y'all have seen this or how you feel about this. Rebecca Tomasis: For me, it's a little bit... Because like this, I don't... As an SEO, I don't necessarily control... This now is like taking the SERP beyond what I can influence and optimize it. Now, I got to take... Anyway, we're having those conversations. But now, I really need to talk to digital PR. Now, I really need to talk to the affiliates team. Now, I really need to... It's That whole world of ORM, and it's... My number one thought was, how do I manipulate it? Joshua George: Straight away, yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: How do I get in there? Lidia Infante: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Because it's a question of who else is ranking for your brand, or who else is ranking for that mention in that brand? Lidia Infante: It seems like an authority thing. 'Cause if you're looking for Santa Monica Pier, you're maybe looking for things to do. And things to do in Santa Monica Pier might be a common follow-up search- Things to do in Santa Monica Pier might be a common follow-up search- Crystal Carter: Right. Lidia Infante: That people are making. It changes the perceived intent of the serve. Typically, when you're doing a what to do type of search, you're looking for lists of people, your brands you trust. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: Here, they're showing you the thing to do, validated by the brands you might trust. Crystal Carter: Right. Rebecca Tomasis: This is what I see, the queries that I'm looking at. The mentioned in, you see the brands. And then you click and it opens up, and then it's like, Wix was mentioned in dah dah dah. And generally obviously the connection is like, these are the brands we understand to be closely related with this kind of topic, right? So in that sense, we can manipulate it. Joshua George: I think this is good though. Crystal Carter: Yeah? Joshua George: Think SEO is coming from a big change. At the moment, I think we're quite lazy with what we do. To rank page a bit of content, bit of backlink. Rebecca Tomasis: We know this works. Joshua George: This is more of a holistic approach, right? You can't just do this, you can't just do link building. You need to be acting on social media, do some PR and that gets better results to the clients at the end of the day. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Joshua George: The ones who don't want to adapt are the ones that are going to lose out. Rebecca Tomasis: Okay. A hundred percent. Crystal Carter: I think it kind of keeps brands, it's going to keep brands honest about how they're approaching their brand relationships and things like that. The other thing, I think the thing that's worrisome, so I see where you're like, oh, this is great. So as a user, I think this is great. Because as a user, I'm definitely looking at multiple websites if I'm going to be doing a thing. So if I want to go to Santa Monica Pier, yeah. I'm like, oh great, I can hear more details about this. So I think that that's Google answering that user journey. They know that you're going to search around for stuff. As a brand, I share your, Ah, what about this? Because what if somebody says something that... What if, I don't know, the people could say something else. So there's potentially some worrisome things there. Joshua George: Yeah. You got to bury it. Crystal Carter: No, no, we don't want to bury it. No, but I think you have to... But I think it does mean that SEOs need to think more about how they're balancing their brand relationships overall. So as you're saying, talking to PR, talking to acquisition or talking to affiliates, talking to different teams to help bring that up. Lidia Infante: It's all brand, brand, brand. Especially when you're on the product end of things. You and I are in a very similar space, if not competitors. And people are looking for the concept. When they're looking for informational, they're looking for best keyword, whatever when they're looking to buy. But if you're looking for best keyword, whatever, you're not going to rank for it. And you really need to be speaking to all of the people who are creating those lists to be included. Otherwise, you're not going to be there. And being included if you're not actively talking to them is all about being top of mind for the journalist that's writing it. So a lot of the SEO work that's coming, it's going to be very brand related. Watching out for your brand serves, watching out for EAT now. EAT, yeah. Another “E”. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see how this relates to where does that rank? Are you ranking in that position? If you're AZ animals, are you ranking number...? If Pac Park is number seven, are you now number eight? How's it going to affect the click-through rate on that? So I don't know. I'm interested, I'm curious. I'm watching the space. The next one that I want to talk about is perspectives. Perspectives has a similar sort of thing. Perspectives, I have mixed feelings about this because I generally see this when it's a news item, so it'll be like a news thing that's happening. Coco Gauff recently won the US Open. Triumphantly. She was amazing, any other tennis fans. She was fantastic. And when you look at Coco Gauff, again, not at the top, but after the news you see perspectives. And it's like people putting in their 2 cents about what happened at the US Open, for instance. So we have, thanks to Coco Goff from Roxanne Jones, we have Roger Federer wishing her well. And then we have just generally related, I think it's the other person who won the US Open as well. So I think that this is a similar thing. Have you all seen perspectives pop up with things or do you find it helpful as a user? Do you think it will be helpful to users? Lidia Infante: I don't find it helpful as a user, but I think it's pointing you at what I've been saying since I sat down here. It's about people. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: People, people. The human perspective is what we are seeking right now. I feel validated. I don't use it. Rebecca Tomasis: I agree, but I've been thinking about it like, there are levels of human perspective that's valuable and not. This is fairly valuable, but you could... Something, I don't know. To go back to the Reddit thread, if you Google how to start a blog and that Reddit thread on how to start a blog is not helpful. So again, it's like quality content, or really answering the question. Does that make sense? This is where I struggle with it a little bit. Like the quality of the results for it Joshua George: Sounds like, I've seen it. I never use it. I don't see the value in this at all. It pulls in... Rebecca Tomasis: Maybe the CNN one. Joshua George: Then you can just go directly onto CNN and read that article. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah, that's true. Joshua George: I don't get it. It's pulling information from Twitter. Twitter. What is it? Is it like a combination of all social media platforms? Is it pulling... I think it's messy. I don't know how it uses... Rebecca Tomasis: I think it's telling us you need to be on everything as much as possible. Joshua George: Coming back to brand, just being different platforms and stepping away from SEO and doing other stuff. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it's definitely pulling in omnichannel elements there. It'll be interesting to see if this one sticks, because Google sometimes drops different features. So it'll be interesting to see if this one sticks. I've seen mixed value from it. A lot of times it seems to repeat some of the news items. And we already have Twitter carousels. We already have news carousels. So it's interesting. And I think also I would expect it to show up for things where there's kind of a debate. So for instance, I'm from Devon and in Devon... Or I'm not from Devon, I'm from California. I live in Devon. And in Devon we have the cream tea and the correct way to put …. Rebecca Tomasis: Jam on it. Crystal Carter: Exactly. Rebecca Tomasis: Cream's first. Crystal Carter: It's cream first. Rebecca Tomasis: So my parents are from Devon, but I like it the Cornwall way.. Crystal Carter: It's controversial. This is my whole point. So if you look up how to do a cream tea, they just put an answer, which is incorrect. And really they should be having... Rebecca Tomasis: The discussion. Crystal Carter: The discussion of this back and forth about where we do a cream tea, although we all know it's first. Because you obviously put the butter on your toast first before you put the jam on. So why would you put the cream .. Rebecca Tomasis: But the cream is the best part. It needs to be on the top. Crystal Carter: Okay, we'll agree to disagree. Lidia Infante: I wonder if perspective is also coming from a place where Google sees that they're losing some share of search to TikTok and to Instagram. Personally, whenever I need to care for my plants, which are alive by some miracle of, I don't know. I look it up on TikTok, because I don't want to read how to report it. I want to see it. Because I will mess it up if it's just written instructions. So for that, for DIY, for recipes, I'd rather search on TikTok. But if I go on Google and I get TikTok results, then I keep searching on Google while consuming on TikTok. Crystal Carter: I think they're definitely trying to mix it up. I think they're trying a lot of things to see what sticks. And I think TikTok is a challenger for them at the moment. Bing is obviously a challenger for them and from a sort of development point of view. So I think they're trying out lots of different things to see how that works. And I think perspectives is one. Joshua George: Don't you feel like they're losing their focus on what they're made to do? Search. Coming back to users, if you want to learn to make a lasagna dish or whatever, you want to see someone doing that. If you Google how to make lasagna, you'll get a blog post, like, turn the oven on. That's not a great user experience. Lidia Infante: Well the blog post will be.. my grandmother used to make lasagna every day. Joshua George: I'd still rather watch the video on TikTok. Same example, five best restaurants in Brighton. You'll get a TikTok, it'll show the restaurant, show you the meal. You just watch the whole thing in a minute and you know exactly what's going on. Lidia Infante: When you go to a restaurant- Joshua George: It's way better. Lidia Infante: You look it up on Instagram to see what you're going to order. I don't know, am I only one who does this? Joshua George: No, I do. Crystal Carter: I think though, folks succeed when they have a mix of intents and things like that. So one of the ones, I'm not a Daily Mail reader, particularly. Lidia Infante: Promise? Crystal Carter: I'm not. However, one of the things that they do, one of the things that they do really well when they were the first folks to do this, and then I've seen more people do it since, but they do a TLDR three bullet points of the article. As soon as you get on the article, they're like, lasagna sales are up. Everybody loves the marinara. And Lydia says it's great. They'll hit you with the three main points from the article. And then you can get into the deep dive of it and you know there's going to be a million pictures and you know there's going to be... They rank really, really well for lots of stuff because they're able to hit that, I've got five minutes, I need that top information. Lidia Infante: Yeah, time is value. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. So I've got five minutes, I can get some value out of this and I can also bookmark it for when I do have time to deep dive into it. I know there's going to be pictures, if I just want to look at pictures. There's going to be a link to a video if I want to watch a video, that sort of stuff as well. So I think that when you're able to hit multiple points in an efficient way, I think that that's what they're trying to do. I think that that's what good blogs, good content folks are doing as well. So I don't know. Lidia Infante: That's something that I've done with AI, with the assist of AI to have it read my blog and be like, okay, give me the five key takeaways in bullet point form. You can ask it to go on a specific markup. And then plug it directly onto a headless CMS and then you A/B test it. Is this working better for my user or is it not? Right? And if it is, I do it on scale, and then review for the thesis that have the most traffic. If it's not good or better, I remove it. Crystal Carter: Right? These are things you can test, you can see, you can see how they're working for folks to get the best value. Lidia Infante: See the challenge is just putting the user at the center. Rebecca Tomasis: So I think a secondary challenge right now though is even though we know we're in a stage where Google is testing a lot of things, it's also a question of we all want to be the first to understand it and be able to optimize for it. And know what to do. But if next week, it's disappeared again. And it was like, okay, so we were tracking where we are mentioned, we were tracking what kind of things were coming up here, we were tracking what social media is coming up on these perspectives. And it's really a question of how do we go for this? But at the same time- Lidia Infante: And should you? Rebecca Tomasis: We can't go for this because.... Lidia Infante: What's the return as well? Joshua George: Like Threads, right? Instagram release Threads literally just copied Twitter, should I invest time in Threads now, is it going to blow up in five years time? Crystal Carter: You just don't know what's going to be here and what's going to …. Crystal Carter: Right. Or it's like, web stories, web stories. They were like, yeah, web stories. And to make a web story was a total pain, and then it's just not really a thing. So I don't know, you don't always know what's going to hit. But I guess that's the thing that's exciting about being an SEO. Lidia Infante: You need to chill and focus on strategy. Because if you're chasing everything, you're going to lose your mind. Crystal Carter: I agree. Okay. The last one I wanted to talk about is, so on Google, if you click the little three dots, you can get more about this search result. I find this fascinating and I think this sort of sits in the same sort of area as the two things we've seen before, which is essentially where, so if you click on a webpage, it'll like, about this source. And it will quote you Wikipedia. So here it says DeviantArt, and says DeviantArt is this. And it was created by this, and it has headquarters in Los Angeles, et cetera. And that's from Wikipedia. And then they'll have a section that's in their own words and it'll say, DeviantArt is this, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes it will have links to other things as well. If you don't have a Wikipedia page, then they'll just say, we couldn't find any third party sources, but this is what it says on the website. And it will just quote some stuff from the website. Now this is currently in beta, but I think this is an interesting evolution, and I think it's an interesting perspective to get an idea of what Google thinks of your brand. Lidia Infante: So excited. I love this feature so much. Crystal Carter: Okay, so what do you love about it? Lidia Infante: I love that through this feature, I got to get budget for several projects. Joshua George: Nice. Lidia Infante: By showing this to leadership. This feature is absolutely awesome. It shows you what page Google has chosen within your site, as what you say about yourself. So I've been trying to get a knowledge panel for the longest time. Now I have one. But someone that had one for a long time was Lazarina Stoy, who's an amazing human SEO. Crystal Carter: She's fantastic. Lidia Infante: Yes. So what I do is I try to reverse engineer her stuff. So I go Google Lazarina Stoy about this source on her personal website, and I noticed that her, in their own words, was coming from, not her homepage, but a page that she made that says, who is Lazarina Stoy? And then it made me look at my own thing and look up in their own words, where's Google pulling my, who am I? It was using the homepage, it was using a specific paragraph that I didn't really want them to use that one. So what I did is I kind of restructured my homepage and I rewrote that specific paragraph. And it worked. And now Google understands me better and I have a knowledge pile. And then I did the same thing for my company, for Sanity. I went on, and we've called ourselves many things. When you're trying to position your brand, you will go through phases. We've been a structured content platform, we've been content is data. We've been the unified content platform. We've been a composable content cloud. Finally, we are embracing that we are a headless CMS, but we've been spoken about throughout the web as headless CMS. Crystal Carter: It's not uncommon for longstanding brands though. Lidia Infante: Yeah. And for us it's super common. So throughout the site we've called ourselves many things. It's very inconsistent. I go on about the source and I know that they're using a short introduction to Sanity as the page where they're pulling what we're saying about ourselves. So I went in there and Google was highlighting structured content platform. And I'm like, no, that was like three positionings ago. So I went in there, changed it to headless CMS, and I've seen us grow in rankings for headless CMS, headless, and CMS related queries by positioning myself as clearly a headless CMS. I'm saying it, others are saying it, therefore I am. I rank, therefore I am. And then we don't have a Wikipedia page. We have one in Norwegian. Which obviously is not getting a lot of traffic. And I'm working on getting us a Wikipedia page in English so that we can get trusted sources on the section in there. But I also dived into the trusted sources in there, in the docs. Because they link you to what are our third party trusted sources. And it's not just Wikipedia, it's also Crunchbase and some others. But they are not actually using it. The only thing that's pulling up on the third party is Wikipedia. I have a Crunchbase profile that's in my same as schema. So it's not hard to find. And Google's not pulling that. So yeah, this is my story with this feature. I love it. I love it. Joshua George: I love it as well. Because if you look at this, it's telling you why it ranked. Because it featured here, here. And again, it's another example of Google saying backlinks are super important. Although don't build it because they're not going to help you. And even like EAT, it's predominantly based on link based signals. People think it's just adding an author on your page. It's really not. You just say where you've been featured and again, it's a backlink. Yeah, I think with all that whole AI content coming out, backlink's going to get more and more impactful in algo. They're really the number one ranking factor, in my opinion anyway, besides content user metrics. So yeah, I love this. Because you can manipulate backlinks, you could build them at scale. And you mentioned you featured on Crunchbase, wherever these websites, like Forbes, you can pay to get featured there. And I think that's going to be the big difference. Who has the higher quality links because they're seen as more credible brand, they have more authority in the space. And they'll have bigger about the source mentions that no one else can have. Wikipedia you can pay to create a Wikipedia page as well. So yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting times. Rebecca Tomasis: I think it relates also to how you build your content, how you cluster your content, what you write about, how you connect it to your domain. The schema that you build to reinforce this is what my brand is an authority in. And I think it's also Google making all of those connections for the user. I think it's super, super important. It's just when you want to be an authority in a lot of things, it's more tricky. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think it can be interesting. I think it's also interesting that it also shows up for particular articles. So for instance, if an article has been ranking for a while, it'll say this page was first indexed at this time. And this is what we know about this page and this is what we know about this source as well. So it can be really great for helping to validate the sort of quality of both your brand rep positioning and your entity positioning, but also a particular piece of content and things. I love it. I love that you're using it as proof. That's one of my favorite things. People are like, oh, we're doing this. It's like, yeah, but look what Google says. Look what it says on this earth, because it says something different. So, yeah. Crystal Carter: ... look what it says on the SERP, because it says something different. Yeah, that's fantastic. I think I found it a really fascinating feature. I think the first time I saw it was on Better Homes & Gardens, and then I was like, "I love this. We need more of this." Yeah, I think we all agree that it's something that goes along with Google's general sort of E-E-A-T, evolution, and all of that in the SERP, which I think is even more important in the age of AI. Have you all responded much to the experience thing? Have you added more experience as well to your strategies, as well as the expertise, authority and trust]? Joshua George: Yeah. We just try to make our clients the authors of everything we publish on the site, and just leverage their name at whatever. Hair transplant clinic in Turkey, so that the doctor writes it. We write it, but put it under the doctor, and we try and get it in all the content the best that we can. But other than that, there's not much you can really do. I've got 10 years of experience in every update, 11, 12, 13. Lidia Infante: I think the E in experience is not exactly going in that direction. The way that I see it, when you talk to a subject matter expert, and they're excited about it and they get passionate, and you're probably going to have these experiences here at brightonSEO. If you approach anyone, they speak about their subject of expertise in a very specific way- Crystal Carter: Right. Lidia Infante: ... with excitement, with love and with anecdotes. They're so excited to share their silly little anecdotes with you. I have shifted to not only talking about best practice, but the specific anecdotes that my subject matter experts have. That's something that I cannot really get anywhere else, and it's really hard to insert afterwards. It feels a little bit unnatural. What I've been doing is I interview my subject matter experts, and I've briefed my ghostwriter to not eliminate anecdotes, to actually highlight them, and use storytelling of their personal experience. Yeah, I've incorporated it. I love it. I think it makes for better content, more human content. Rebecca Tomasis: I think for us, also, it's a positive on several fronts, because for us, the experience, this use of a product, we are a product-led company. It's making that double connection of like, "This is a user that has used our product for this intent," and then also then to take them down the funnel. Yeah, it's really... we have to think of product more. Yes. Crystal Carter: I think you're also starting to see things like the bubble that's for examples on Google. People will say... I don't know, "Cat, umbrellas." They'll be like, "Oh, what examples of cat umbrellas." People want to see the pictures of the cat. I literally just invented a product. I don't know if the cats need umbrellas, but there we go. Anyway. Okay. Now predictive text. Okay, so what do we think we have here? If you type in SEO, the first thing you get is SEO is dead. Rebecca Tomasis: I love this one. Look at the second one. Crystal Carter: Well- Lidia Infante: Don't look at the second one. Crystal Carter: Look at the second one. Don't look ahead. Rebecca Tomasis: I'm so sorry. I'm very new to this. Crystal Carter: Don't look ahead, agree or disagree? Joshua George: No. Rebecca Tomasis: Disagree. Joshua George: Disagree. Crystal Carter: Okay, so this is something. The interesting thing I found out about this was that the total number of entries for SEO is dead was 105 million. Joshua George: Wow. Crystal Carter: That's how many research results there are for SEO is dead. A lot of people who are checking the pulse on SEO all the time, and I think we can all agree that SEO is not dead. Okay, so next one, SEO is ruining the internet. Are we ruining the internet? Lidia Infante: Yes. Joshua George: I agree. Lidia Infante: Literally. Crystal Carter: What? Joshua George: I do agree this one. Crystal Carter: What? Why do you agree? Lidia Infante: I would qualify it. I would- Crystal Carter: Are you saying it depends? Is that what you're saying about this? Lidia Infante: Yeah. Joshua George: It depends. Lidia Infante: I think the flood of shit content... I didn't want to say shit. Sorry. Crystal Carter: You've now said it three times Lidia Infante: I was doing so well. I think the flood of bad content to the internet, it's definitely our fault. The fact that myths that we're old about, "You need this many characters to run. You need this many words," have separated us from what the user actually wants. We have low-key ruined the internet. Now when I look for, "I want to buy a coffee maker," and how do I know that this person is not making money to sell me the specific coffee maker? I just want a reliable opinion- Rebecca Tomasis: But I need a coffee maker. Who cares who makes money off the fact that I need a coffee maker? Lidia Infante: Yes, but you want to- Rebecca Tomasis: ... if the coffee maker works for me. I don't know for me... and maybe it's an age thing, so I put... but for me, what I find more value, if I'm looking for a coffee maker, even though I know maybe somebody is being paid to recommend that coffee maker, you're giving me a list, you're giving me a choice, and I can do my own research. Somebody on the internet recommending how many reviews of those you would need to read. Somebody likes this one, and somebody likes that one- Joshua George: Yeah, right. Rebecca Tomasis: ... and somebody likes this one. There are a million coffee makers, give me 10, or give me 10 in this price budget, or give me 10 unique coffee makers, and 10 classy. You know what I mean? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: This is a case of dummy's better than perfect, and I am like, "My coffee maker needs to be perfect." Rebecca Tomasis: No, but wait, not coffee makers. We live in a world of so much choice and again, so much information on the internet- Lidia Infante: Overwhelming. Rebecca Tomasis: ... for me, I actually appreciate that... I don't know that it's so straightforward, "Here are 10 coffee makers, go and choose one." Joshua George: I agree. SEO is definitely ruining the internet. Crystal Carter: No. Joshua George: But it's Google's fault. If you ask Google, "What is the best coffee machine?" You have to read a, "Coffee machines were created by this guy," and then you don't care about that. But if you just say, "This is the best machine," you're never going to rank, you'll get no traffic. Lidia Infante: Right. Joshua George: You have to put in all this waffle to build your relevancy up. Lidia Infante: Right. Joshua George: They should have... instead of basing the algorithm on links and content, it should be more brand signals early on, and that would then leverage the better brands, and better results at the top, and you don't have to … Rebecca Tomasis: The expertise, the E-E-A-T. Yeah. Joshua George: E-E-A-T. Again, that's influenced by links though. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think it has to do... we have to work with what we've got. I think Gus was at dinner, and he was wearing a shirt that said, "Bots are users too." That's the thing is we have to talk to the bots, and the bots need certain things. You have to put in those things to do that. You have to balance what the bots need with what the humans need. It's just, we're doing our best, is what I think. Lidia Infante: I think we've also used... we've become gatekeepers of the quality of websites, on a technical level, and SEOs have done a lot of advocacy for faster websites and more accessible websites. Even though we output bad content sometimes, we are making a more sensible web ecosystem, which by the way also helps the planet. Crystal Carter: Exactly. This is good. You'll be pleased to know that there are only 550... 595,000 people that think that SEO is ruining the internet. Rebecca Tomasis: But maybe it doesn't matter because SEO is dead. Crystal Carter: Okay, so next up is SEO... oh, SEO is a long-term strategy. Would you agree or disagree? Joshua George: Both. Rebecca Tomasis: Never ending. Joshua George: I'm in the middle. It can be short-term strategy as well. Crystal Carter: I think- Lidia Infante: It's a waterfall. The waterfall, when it starts running, it pours, then it keeps pouring. Joshua George: I say it's long-term as in it compounds, right? With more links we have more content- Lidia Infante: Right. Yeah, exactly. Joshua George: ... that's more long term, but some clients... I've had clients come on board for one month just gone, but they've got loads of results in that one month. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Joshua George: We had a client, one of the biggest clients in the UK called Humax Direct. They sell Freeview boxes. Crystal Carter: Okay. Joshua George: They had things from Independent, Telegraph, every mass... Argus, all these massive companies. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Joshua George: They had no H1 Tech, no Title Tech, nothing. I just came and like, "Yeah, put that there." Boom, top of page one, organic revenue through the roof. Crystal Carter: Right. Joshua George: They're like, "Yeah, I think we're happy now." Short-term strategy, you're winning. See us next year. Crystal Carter: I agree. It's definitely been the case where you get a client and they're like, "Yeah," and you're like, "There are easy wins here. You can definitely- Joshua George: I love this. I love it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: They're so fun. They love you afterwards. They're like, "Yeah, definitely works for us." Joshua George: "So clever." Crystal Carter: Good. I think we say it depends. Is that an, it depends? Lidia Infante: No, it's both. It's both. Joshua George: It's both. It's both. Lidia Infante: It compounds, but it can have short-term wins impact. Joshua George: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. We have 42 million people that agree, or that are running content that says that SEO is a long-term strategy. Rebecca Tomasis: That would be the SEO. Crystal Carter: Last one, which you'll be very pleased to know, has the most search results of... coming in at 394 million search results. SEO is important. Agree, disagree. I can guess. Joshua George: If you like money, yes. Rebecca Tomasis: I like my job. Lidia Infante: Basically, yeah. What do you think, is SEO important? Yeah. Crystal Carter: Agree. We agree. Everybody agrees. Rebecca Tomasis: If we raise our standards, then we raise the standard of the internet, right? Maybe that's our shared responsibility with Google, to- Crystal Carter: We make the world a better place. That's how, "We are the world." Rebecca Tomasis: Somebody said, "You don't do brain surgery." It's not the end of the world. Lidia Infante: Yes. Rebecca Tomasis: Oh, great. That's fine. Crystal Carter: I heard somebody who said- Lidia Infante: "This is my email in an emergency." What emergency? Crystal Carter: I heard somebody who was like, "It's PR, not ER." I was like, "You know what? That's honestly... it'll be okay. It's fine. We can optimize that page later," and stuff. But I certainly think that it can be a challenge sometimes pointing out... advocating for SEO in a space where sometimes... I don't know, PPC is seen as a big win, or maybe the team doesn't quite understand SEO, or maybe they got burned by... that's... if you- Joshua George: Yeah, I hear that all the time. Lidia Infante: That is so common. There's been such bad actors, doing bad jobs, that have put people off SEO. We have a brand problem as an industry. People still think content creators, or the content teams still are worried that you're going to make them write very long things that are not good for the user, or... and I heard this in 2023. Do I need to include any misspellings of the keyword? Crystal Carter: No. Lidia Infante: Do not. Rebecca Tomasis: Wow. Joshua George: I hear those same questions, that I do all the sales calls at the agency now, and it's like, "I've been burnt in the past. I've worked with this guy, he told me this," and half of my job on the sales calls is just convincing the person that by the way, you search for a keyword, we rank, you booked a call with us. But it does work by the way. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Lidia Infante: Yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Joshua George: You've got here. It does work. Yeah, I don't know. There's a lot of people that aren't even doing SEO properly as well. We actually work with a client in Brighton. We met them yesterday before I was speaking, and they've been working for a big agency in London... I'm not going to name, for four or five months, and they built no backlinks whatsoever- Rebecca Tomasis: Right. Joshua George: ... and they haven't even implemented all the findings from the audit they'd done. Rebecca Tomasis: Right. Joshua George: It's just how do people get away with that? Then when that client goes to a good agency... not saying we are, there's other good agencies out there as well. You're already at a disadvantage. You have to then convince the person that- Lidia Infante: Yeah. Joshua George: ... you are good at what you do and you are different. Crystal Carter: I think trust is so important with clients, and with working with projects and things, because if you don't have... I've seen working agency side... I remember we walked in, and we did an audit of a site and I was like, "This is wrong, and that's wrong, and this is wrong, and that's wrong." We were pitching, we were prospecting for this client, and the guy who ran their website, who had been doing their SEO and dev stuff, where they'd be like, "Oh yeah, the devs doing the SEO." He just sat there with his arms folded the whole time, and was not bothered. Then after we finished our audit, he kept the client. Joshua George: Yeah. Rebecca Tomasis: Yeah. Crystal Carter: We didn't get the client, but they trusted him implicitly. Broken things, fixed things, whatever, they trusted him immensely. I think that if you don't have the trust of the client, then it's very difficult to convey that SEO is important, that SEO matters to get the budget sign off, and things like that. You have to be transparent, open. Joshua George: Is it hard sell though? You're saying, "Hey, pay me two grand a month, for seven months. No guarantee, but you might rank number one." It's difficult. We actually only introduced recently offering PPC alongside SEO, a blended search approach. Crystal Carter: Right. Joshua George: You get the instant results in the ads, and you get more long-term strategy with the SEO as well. It works really well, and so much easier to sell. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and I think also that PPC layering can be really useful with testing things, and with also shoring up different parts of the SEO, if there's algo shenanigans and you're like, "But we need this content up here." Rebecca Tomasis: But the best is when they're like, "Well, we're going to drop this spend, and let's see if organic picks it over." Then you don't even need to think about it, and you're like, "It will." Then it does. Wow. It's like the best... no offense. Lidia Infante: Then you can move that budget to 100 words that you're not- Rebecca Tomasis: If you think about it, it's not necessarily about cutting that budget unpaid, right? It's like let's move it to something else, where it'll have more ROI- Lidia Infante: Or experiment with different PPC types of content, to see if they're going to actually deliver customers. Crystal Carter: Right. Lidia Infante: If they do, you'll go and make it for organic, ta da. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. Exactly, so you can create content on video for instance, instead of... let's say you were promoting blogs on PPC, if you cut that PPC spend, you could spend that producing videos, then you can add that to the et cetera, all of it, and just make it all work, and all of that sort of stuff. Yeah. Lidia Infante: It's 3D chess. Crystal Carter: Exactly. This is the thing. It's a lot of strands. There should be one here that says SEO is complicated, and you should pay people to help you with it, and things. Yes, finishing up with that, this has been SERPS UP Live. If you like SERPS UP, we talk about this kind of thing with all fantastic, wonderful people. Y'all have all contributed to our many things that we've done, so thank you very much for joining us in this beautiful, incredible room. Thank you so much to Lidia for being here and sharing her incredible insights. Thank you so much to Joshua for being here, sharing her incredible insights. Thank you so much to Rebecca for being here. Thank you all. Enjoy your lunch, and have a great, BrighonSEO. Mordy Oberstein: We hope you enjoyed Crystal's session with Rebecca, with Lidia, and with Joshua. We'll link to all of their social media profiles in the show notes. There's no SEO news today, because this is a different little version of the SERPS UP Podcast. Little teaser, we are going to do more live conference recordings of the SERPS UP Podcast in the future, so look out for that. That's a warning. Look out for that. Crystal Carter: Find us at a conference near you doing some fantastic SERPS UP information. We hope to get some fantastic guests. We may very well do at our next one as well, so if you see us live, come and check it out. Say hello- Mordy Oberstein: Say hello. Crystal Carter: ... and yeah, get yourself into the real life podcast experience. Mordy Oberstein: With that, thank you for joining the SERFS UP Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with the new episodes, we dive into keyword cannibalization. Is it real? It is, but there's more to it. We'll dive in, look forward wherever you consume your podcast, or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all 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 a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace and 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

Did you know Google calls its own SERP an ecosystem? That’s right. Today’s SERP is its own living, breathing thing. Google is constantly coming up with new SERP features & changes which impact rankings and placement of content. How do you adapt to all these changes, you ask? That’s exactly what we’ll discuss in this episode of the SERPs Up SEO Podcast! With over 12 years of SEO experience, Lily Ray has led SEO campaigns for dozens of major retailers and brands. She joins the SERP’s Up team this week to discuss SERP changes and their impact on CTRs. Join Mordy and Crystal, and learn how to cope with SERP changes. Back How to adapt to changes on the SERP? Did you know Google calls its own SERP an ecosystem? That’s right. Today’s SERP is its own living, breathing thing. Google is constantly coming up with new SERP features & changes which impact rankings and placement of content. How do you adapt to all these changes, you ask? That’s exactly what we’ll discuss in this episode of the SERPs Up SEO Podcast! With over 12 years of SEO experience, Lily Ray has led SEO campaigns for dozens of major retailers and brands. She joins the SERP’s Up team this week to discuss SERP changes and their impact on CTRs. Join Mordy and Crystal, and learn how to cope with SERP changes. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 20 | January 11, 2023 | 36 MIN 00:00 / 36:25 This week’s guests Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERPS Up. Aloha, Mahalo for joining the SERPS Up podcast. We're pointing out some groovy new insights around what's happened in an SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO branding at Wix, and I'm joined by the lustrous, the fabulous, the amazingly whatever, whatever, whatever, I've run out of adjectives yet again, the head of SEO communications here at Wix's Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: That was an amazing introduction, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I know. I totally nailed it, right? Nailed it. Crystal Carter: You nailed it. Mordy Oberstein: I nailed it. I had all the words in my head and I forgot them. Crystal Carter: But whatever, whatever, whatever, I think I should get that on a business card. Mordy Oberstein: I want that on my tombstone, whatever, whatever, whatever, Mordy Oberstein. Crystal Carter: I mean, to be fair, it's normally a shower of compliments, which I'll take that. I'll take that. Mordy Oberstein: I meant, whatever best adjectives you can think of and that's what I meant. Crystal Carter: Insert adjective here. Mordy Oberstein: That's in my heart. Crystal Carter: Someone posted an outreach email that was like, insert name. Mordy Oberstein: I saw that on Twitter. Crystal Carter: Here, insert name. I hope, insert current event and or whether and/or blank, we would be delighted to have you, blah, blah, blah. I was just like, "Wow." It's like you were sincerely, insert name, again. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Wow. They have one job to do. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Honestly. Honestly. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Well, cold outreach is hard. Let's be fair. Crystal Carter: Oh man. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, it's so hard. Crystal Carter: The thing that used to drive me crazy is when people would call you up and they'd be like, "Oh, can I have five minutes of your time?" I'd be like, "No. My God." Mordy Oberstein: Telemarketers back in the day... Now I just get spam on my text messages and scams in my text messages. It used to be scam phone calls at home, at dinner. Crystal Carter: Scam calls at home, at dinner. Right, right. I used to get them at the agency. People would call us up and they'd be like, "Can I have five minutes of your time?" I was like, "I don't know, how much money you got. I have billable hours. These are billable hours, sir." Like, "No, I don't have time for you, because I'm on billable hours. Goodbye." Mordy Oberstein: But aren't you interested in the Renoco slow cooker? Crystal Carter: I'm not doing a survey for you for free. What? No. Mordy Oberstein: The SERPS Up podcast is brought to you by Wix's, where you can manage your local citations, respond to user reviews across various platforms, and even set up Google posts. All right. From Wix with our overall app. Look for it in the app market within the Wix dashboard. We're talking about the Uberall app and all that local stuff, because local stuff is full of SERP feature stuff and SERP feature stuff is what we're talking about, because it's constantly changing. The SERP is constantly changing, which is why today we're talking about how you can adapt to the changes on the Google results page. Things like why, oh why is Google changing all the time, all the time, and how to keep up with these changes. Why you should keep up with these changes and what you should do with all of these changes. Also, the Great Lily Ray stops by to share the most significant changes and trends she's seen on the SERP and we dive into a tool to help you keep track of those changes. Of course, we got some snappy news for you and a very special edition of who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. Episode number 20 of the SERPS Up podcast is on the move. Crystal Carter: I can't believe we're at episode 20. Mordy Oberstein: Isn't that nuts? Crystal Carter: This is crazy, Mordy. What have we been doing with ourselves? Mordy Oberstein: I've been podcasting this whole time. I don't know what you've been doing. Crystal Carter: I feel like a celebration is an order or something. I don't know. What is it like- Mordy Oberstein: Well, in the last episode, I think we mentioned every time we dance when we celebrate. Crystal Carter: This is true. This is true. We'll do a little's podcast dance. Mordy Oberstein: This is a time on sprockets when we dance, for all you Saturday Night Live folks from back in the '90s. Crystal Carter: If anybody is listening to this podcast, I hope people are listening to this podcast, but everyone who's listening to this podcast, the dance moves that I'm doing right now are incredible. But you've never seen dance this…. Mordy Oberstein: You're not even dancing anymore. Crystal Carter: I am dancing, Mordy, and the moves are incredible and amazing and they're world changing. Oh, now Mordy's doing some very strange dancing. Mordy Oberstein: The John Volta thing from Pulp Fiction. Anyway, let's talk Google and it's search results, because the SERP is an ecosystem. I was at a Google event recently in Tel Aviv a little while ago, and that's how Google described themselves and the SERP. They called it an ecosystem, a little spoiler, not sure I'm allowed to share that are not. Too late. They called it an ecosystem. And because it is an ecosystem, it's not just a spattering of URLs and do-hickeys, aka SERP features. It's a living, breathing dynamic and it is indeed a dynamic. Things in a dynamic constantly change and on Google and this dynamic, it is very much constantly changing. I don't just mean URLs and changing in rank. I mean the very fabric of that ecosystem. The ether that is the SERP is always changing. I'm talking about, again, not just the results that Google's showing, but also the media format Google tends to prefer for various keyword intents, how it goes about showing that information. It's not just what Google shows, but how is it showing it to searchers and how is that changing over time? Then what does that say about the way we consume content? Because there are a lot of lessons you can learn from what Google is doing on the results page and how it's changing. Of course, I'm talking about the format of the very SERP itself and the tests and the changes that it makes inside of SERP features. Things like boxes and carousels and do-hickeys, SERP features, which we spoke about on the podcast a couple weeks ago with Kevin Indig. By the way, from now on, calling SERP features do-hickeys officially. Crystal Carter: I'm totally on board with that. I think that's fine. Mordy Oberstein: SERP do-hickeys. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think in the animated Spiderman that was recently out, I think Spiderman calls it like a dongle or a dougle or something. The thing that you've got to go get to save the day. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, dougle. Yeah, sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and that sort of thing. Mordy Oberstein: That's what these SERP features are and Google's always testing new functionality inside of them and new elements inside of them. Sometimes keeping up with them at least can sometimes feel voyeuristic, but as someone who tries to keep up with all of it, if you take a step back and you try to aggregate all of the changes that Google's making on the SERP, it does kind of paint a picture of how that ecosystem is functioning and working and what kind of things Google wants from you. So let's start off with why is Google always changing this thingamajigger around so much, Crystal? Crystal Carter: I think the reason why they make a lot of these updates is because the way that we search for information and the way that we access information is constantly changing. So if you think about mobile first, for instance, and the mobile age, when Google first started way, way, way back in the day, there was pretty much one way to access the internet and it was on your computer in your house or in your office. That was one way to access information online. Now there's lots of ways to access information online, your computer, your phone, your car, your refrigerator, your washing machine. There's lots of different ways that you can access information from the web and Google has to be there to meet those requests and to satisfy those queries. The features that we see, a lot of the SERP features are actually very mobile first, for instance. Those big boxes are really easy to click. They're much easier to click than a single word. The SERP features where if you think about recipes, for instance, they have a video, they'll often have a video card that's animated. Again, these are things that are really useful for people. Also, there's a lot of input on Google now. I don't know if you've watched that Wednesday series on Netflix, and if you watch a new series on Netflix or whatever it is, then you can go onto Google. When you look that up, you can also submit a review there. If I go to a restaurant somewhere, for instance, I can also submit a review there. I can say I'm here right now and it's busy, for instance. So it's a two-way conversation. In order for Google to keep up with that, they have to adapt and they have to adapt to new features that are available on phones. They have to adapt to new ways that people are accessing the web. They have to adapt to lots of different things so that they can provide the most accurate and the most accessible in lots of different ways, both accessible with a small A, of both accessible on a phone and also accessible for people who have different abilities and different accessibility challenges. Yeah, they have to make sure that the web is most accurate and most accessible and that the information that people are getting from them is good. Mordy Oberstein: The mobile case is a really good example of that. It's a really stark example of that, how the web changes, user behavior changes, consumer expectations, user expectations change, and Google has to adapt and you can really dive into... That's why I think by the way, that when you look at what Google's changing on the results page, it's a good way of looking and seeing how Google thinks users and their content consumption experience and expectations are also changing. You can always take away lessons from that. The thing that speaks out to me the most, and you really dive into this, is you see the way that Google has changed the formatting of the SERP, it's very visual now. Or for example, it used to be you searched for Jameson Tyrone, who's a pitcher in baseball, used to be for the Yankees. he got traded to the Cubs, not traded, signed with the Cubs recently. It doesn't matter. Crystal Carter: Oh yeah, of course. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, of course. Obviously, right? It used to be a kind of linear, it would give you a picture of him, maybe some stats about him, but now it's way more immersive. Google shows you a video up there and a bunch of these little bubble things about how tall he is, how much salary is, a little snippet about him. It's a lot more dynamic than it used to be, because consumer expectations around consuming content have change and Google's trying to align with that. I think it's a good lesson just as to why it's important to keep up with these things. Content is malleable, the expectations around them are very, very malleable. It's always changing. I always go back to the 1960s, six '60s, it's got to be '60, presidential debate between Richard Nixon and JFK. Crystal's looking at me like, "What the hell are you going to say now?" It was the first televised debate on TV, that's where things are televised obviously, that's not redundant. If you listened on the radio, you thought Nixon won the debate. But if you watched it on TV, you thought that Kennedy won the debate and always say it like this, because why? Because Richard Nixon looked like Richard Nixon and JFK looked like JFK. But it changed expectations around what people want out of that kind of content. They want to be much more visual. That includes certain implications about how the content is delivered. It's the same thing with web content. It's constantly changing. People are expecting different things out of it. They're expecting to be way more quality now than they did in the past. Why? You see this conversation about Google and quality results and are Google's results quality, because what people expect constantly changes and the SERP changes along with that. So that's why it's really important to keep up with it. But now I guess the question is, how do you keep up with all of it? Crystal Carter: I mean Barry Schwartz is one, shout out to Senior Roasty Break. Mordy Oberstein: Is this new? Crystal Carter: Is this new? So yeah, so that's really useful. I think also it's important to remember that Google doesn't even always know when... I'm sure someone at Google knows, but there's a lot of tests being run in conjunction with each other a lot of the time. So I think that there are particular verticals where there's going to be a lot of action. I think in e-commerce there's a lot of changes very regularly. That's a very dynamic SERP. So if you are in an e-commerce space regularly check in on some of your keywords and on how- Mordy Oberstein: It's been nuts. Crystal Carter: Yeah, how they're displayed on the SERP. You won't even see those displayed in third party tools necessarily, because they're adding new elements to the SERP all the time. They can't tell you much more about them, because there isn't really a metric for it yet, because it only just showed up. If there's particular SERPS that are really valuable to you, actually Google them every now and then. I don't know, once a week, maybe once a day, but depending on what it is, because they will change. I don't think necessarily you need to know every single SERP feature that's ever existed for every single thing. Mordy Oberstein: What? Crystal Carter: So for instance, there's- Mordy Oberstein: What? Wait, you don't? Crystal Carter: No, I don't think so? I mean, if it's not at the- Mordy Oberstein: You're killing me here. Crystal Carter: I mean from an SEO point of view, it's useful, but if you are somebody who is a business owner, you don't necessarily need to know.. Mordy Oberstein: No, you're totally right. I'm a freak. I get it. Crystal Carter: But Google for instance, also some of the sort of features on Google are also tools. For instance, I looked up timer, I needed a timer and I didn't want to dig around in my phone to find the timer. I just typed in timer into Google and there's a timer and I can just use a timer. There's also, I was doing some sewing and I needed to get the circumference so I could do a circle and stuff and they have it. There's a pie conference, pie R squared, find the diameter, solve for R, all of that sort of stuff. You can just put in one of the metrics and it'll spit out the others. There's lots of tools like that that are in the SERP. Some of those elements will push down other parts of the SERP and might change the things. For instance, if you have an article about circumference or the origins of pie or how to solve pie for, I don't know, 1700 places or whatever it is, you might be lowered down and you might see different click-through rate before, if there's now a tool on that SERP. Understand which queries are relevant to you and keep an eye on those queries actually in the SERP or those queries. I don't think it necessarily has to be every single one, but if there's particular ones that you know you get a lot of traffic or you know are head terms that have a knock on effect for the rest of your keyword profile, then make sure that you're checking in on those SERPS regularly. Mordy Oberstein: Oh my god, I have so much to say now. I don't know where to start. You said so much.. I actually do that. I have a thing, I put it on my notes, check the SERP once a week. Yeah, you're right, you can't do it for everything, but I just kind of want to see what's happening in the ecosystem. Two, your point about e-com is amazing, because back in the day when I was really first getting started, checking in all these SERP features all the time, I'm thinking like 2016, 2017, a lot of the changes were around local, local packs, local finder, map, all those kind of stuff. They kind of told you where Google's focus was, which was very much local. If you look at what Google's changing today and what they're announcing today about how they're changing the results page, it's almost all, not say all, but a lot of it is about e-com. Then it just goes to show you where Google thinks opportunity is, where Google's focus, maybe we speaks to where Google thinks the web is heading. Maybe the web itself is coming more e-com focused as opposed to informational focused. So seeing where Google's making these changes is another reason why it's important to keep track. Kind of shows you where they think things are at and what's important to them. In terms of tracking it? Yeah, Barry is an amazing resource. We're going to talk about more resources a little bit later on, but definitely one of the things I like doing is looking at seroundtable.com every day, because Barry will keep track of what's been happening. Again, it kind of seems like, wow, they changed the line here, who cares? Sometimes legit is that, they changed a line here, who cares? But sometimes when you aggregate it all together, it kind of helps you to understand directionally what's happening. Again, as you mentioned, there's definitely real impact. One of the things that Google announced recently is there's like these filters or carousel filtered to the top of the results page. I've been screaming about this forever, not forever, for two years, because they've been there for two years in a different format. They've been more bubble filter kind of things. You'd search, where to go on vacation? And there'd be a filter of with kids, without kids, without kids, for your parents, I don't know, whatever it is. In the summertime? Instead of seeing your feature snippet there, I would just bypass and then go without kids and see results for all the vacation results without kids, just so I can dream. Yes, all of that. Oh my gosh, I just said a lot there, I know. Crystal Carter: I know, I know and I agree with you. I think that for those topic levels, again, that is something that is around mobile first, because without kids it's easier to just click it than it is to type it all in again. Also, I think that you were talking about back in the day it was about local and now it's more about e-com, some of these things have to do with some of the tools that Google has available, some of the new shiny tools that Google has available. Google Maps was the big thing for Google for a while. They have gone all in on that. They covered every inch of the globe. I've personally seen them driving around the streets of my town. Mordy Oberstein: It's a weird camera thingy. Crystal Carter: Right, and I'm like, "Oh look, there's Google. It's Google." Mordy Oberstein: There they are. Crystal Carter: Right. I've seen people who've tagged, they're like, "There's my dad in a Google Maps picture." These are the things. So Google Maps was the big one. At the moment they're going really big on visual search. A lot of stuff from vision AI and they're adding loads of that to the e-commerce experience, partially, because you can think about the wider ecosystem. Within Amazon, they have a visual search thing. I could take a picture of a handbag and they could be like, "Oh, this handbag?" And Google's trying to follow suit using a lot of the tools that they have. I think that thinking about that and thinking about where they're going is really useful. We talked about Barry Schwartz. It's also really useful if you want to have a bird's eye view of some of the things that Google's going to be rolling out. Things like Google IO and search on our amazing resources so they're free. Google has a couple of big annual events where they'll say the kinds of things that they're doing over the next year or so and then over the next few months you'll see them sort of slowly rolled out. Mordy Oberstein: The filter thing is from IO. Crystal Carter: Exactly. So it's worth paying attention to those. You can watch them at a time and a half if you want to save some time. Failed to do a little recap of it as well. Mordy Oberstein: That makes me nuts by the way, does FYI. The time and a half, I know people love that... Glen Gabe loves that. I love that. Crystal Carter: I love it. Mordy Oberstein: It makes me crazy. Crystal Carter: It's my favorite. I love it. Mordy Oberstein: One thing I do want to hit on, which we kind of barely touched on, which you really dive into is the SEO tools and the third party tracking. Because one, as you mentioned, they don't always track these things and show them how it impacts your rank, but they do track that they exist on the SERP. Sometimes you see a lot of posts about go after those SERP features, go into the SEO tool, see what SERP features are showing for the queries that are important for you and get those SERP features. There's this kind of pressure of better go get those SERP features, I won't get any traffic. I feel like as anything in SEO, that really depends. I think that comes down to opportunity costs. What's there for you? Look, PAA box is great. Sometimes the questions are wonky. So if the SEO tool is telling you, "Yeah, you better get a PAA box, people also ask, there's four questions there, you expand the box, you get your URL in there, people will grab that URL and go to your website." Yeah, they would if the questions are relevant, but if the questions are wonky, they're not. Crystal Carter: Yeah. The other thing I would say about that is good about third party tools particularly, and that sort feature element that you're talking about is they'll tell you if a SERP is particularly spicy. So if you're seeing that for your query, there's like four different SERP features that they're saying are available for that, then that's telling you that that's a busy SERP and that if you've just got a page of text, that probably ain't going to cut it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, there's multiple kind of intent there. There's image intent, video intent. There's all kinds of things there. Yeah, I'm not knocking the tools. Tools are great. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. But I think that if it's telling you that there's a busy SERP, then that means that we got to mix it up here, people. We can't just do text, we need to have texts, maybe some images, maybe some video, maybe something else going through there. I don't know, I don't know, I said lots of things. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. But take it all with opportunity costs, because again, you can have a feeder snippet there and Wikipedia's in there. Let me tell you something about that Wikipedia URL, that's not going anywhere. Crystal Carter: Not going anywhere. It's not going anywhere at all. Yeah, there's a few different things you can think about, but I think that it can also tell you that there are other opportunities. Because I think when we think about SERP features, we sometimes think about SERP features on the main part of Google, but there are SERP features within SERP features and there's also lots of different parts of Google. So there's the images, there's shopping, there's news, there's travel, there's things like that. There's lots of stuff within that. You can pitch for one part at one heavy SERP feature and potentially make your way onto the main as well. So it's complex, but it's worth doing. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, definitely worthwhile to track all this. Definitely worthwhile to read up on all of this. If a new feature does get announced and you think it might impact you, don't freak out. Let's see how it goes. I look at these things very directionally and I would take thematically, analyze what's kind of happening on the SERP and see where's Google going with all this? So many filters, oh I guess I should probably write much more specific information than it was in the past, because Google's getting more filters. But I don't want to get lost in all this, because we have an amazing guest. Lily Ray is here. She is phenomenal. Crystal Carter: Lily Ray. She's the best. Mordy Oberstein: She the best. We did a wonderful webinar with her and Glen Gabe all about content and what you should be doing with content around your website. But today Lily's here to talk about, because she very much keep us up with all of this, what's the most significant change or trend on the SERP that's been out there in the relatively recent past? So Lily's here to tell us what's she seen. Lily Ray: So the most significant change to the SERP that I've seen maybe in the last year or so is really just Google becoming a lot more visual with the types of results that it's showing. Not just in terms of showing Google images for example, but making the knowledge panel more colorful and robust. If you Google celebrity names, you might see a really colorful panel at the top with a lot of different news about that celebrity or different information about them and they're just kind of tweaking the way that looks. But it does take up a lot of real estate on the page, especially on mobile. That's kind of a big trend with Google in general. I think that they're rolling out a lot of features that are more interactive directly in the search results. They're more colorful, they're more engaging. There's things like journeys and interesting finds and all these different ways that you can get a lot of interactive information directly on Google. Also, there's a lot of new accordions that they've been rolling out in the last year or two. So of course we see people also ask across the board for most queries these days. I know sometimes the tools show that it comes and goes, but really there's definitely been a big rise and people also ask in the last few years. But beyond that, Google's using that same kind of functionality to roll out across different types of accordions. So things like buy-in guides and things to know, for example. If you'd Google specific medical conditions or products that you might be reviewing, Google can show something like things to know or buy-in guides. That's actually information taken from various different websites and kind of integrated into this accordion where you can learn about specifications about the product or different symptoms and treatments for medical conditions and things like that. So I think the trend is and always has been that Google's taking information from different sites, repurposing it into different ways that they display directly on the SERP. I mean even as a searcher myself, sometimes I find myself not clicking on any sites, because everything that I need is directly there. These people also ask, accordions are also kind of like if you click on one and then you click on a second one, they just scroll infinitely. So you can click on it, just kind of stay on Google and keep clicking on them. So we've all known this in the SEO space, but it definitely seems to be the case that Google is experimenting with a lot of different features that make it easy to just get all the information you need directly on Google without clicking on anything. As much as a lot of these things appear to be SEO opportunities, I see a lot of people saying, "Hey, how do you get into the people..." Also ask accordion or buy-in guide accordion and yeah, you should probably do that. But unfortunately, realistically, I don't know how many people are actually clicking into those links and it's very hard to track with search consoles. Yes, optimize in all the different ways that you can, but unfortunately I think the trend continues that a lot of these new features kind of cut into click through rates. It'll be interesting to see what happens in 2023. Hopefully there are some changes that benefit SEO a little bit more and drive more traffic to our sites. So good luck with your rankings. Mordy Oberstein: That was amazing as always. Definitely follow Lily on Twitter at Lily Ray NYC. She's all over the place. There's not enough praise I can heap on her and not enough links we can link to where we can find the things that she's talking about. So find all of it. Crystal Carter: Yeah, find all of it. She's really active on Twitter, she's really active on LinkedIn as well. She writes loads, she presents at many, many conferences around the world. Mordy Oberstein: Many, many. Crystal Carter: Around the world. So keep your eye out and yeah, do give Lily a follow, because she shares a lot of great tips and a lot of great insights. Mordy Oberstein: Now keeping with the Lily theme, because I actually found out about this from Lily, she shared it on Twitter. I'm like, "Oh, that is cool." It's important to keep up with what's happening on the SERP, not just SERP features, but what's happening with rankings. What I mean by that is not like, "Okay, I'm here now I'm there." I mean what's switched with who and who switched where, because what does that mean? I'll give you a really clear example. All of a sudden you had, I don't know, five ultimate guides are ranking at the top of the SERP and then you see Google swap those five top ultimate guides with that really specific one and shorter answers to that particular query. That kind of tells you that, well the whole intent is flipped. There's a tool out there that Lily has shared a long time ago that I've always loved. It means that for the second week in a row, we're going tool time on the SERPS Up podcast When you're trying to see who switched with who, who's up, who's down, who got replaced by who on the results page, Crystal Carter: Who's on first. Mordy Oberstein: Who's on first, now is on second on the second page of the SERP. SISTRIX has a great tool, I don't know the name of it, I don't know if it has a name, but it is part of their trend and I guess it's called Compare SERPS. What it does is, it shows you the date. So let's say on January 1st, it shows you all the URLs that are ranking one through 20 for particular keyword. Then you pull another date, let's say a week later and you can see who went down and who went up and who switched with who. Sometimes there's direct swaps, like this one was number nine and that one went up to number 10 and they actually replaced each other. Those are the ones I really like, because you can see, okay, Google's purposely switching these two URLs around for the same kind of intent or whatever is on the SERP. It's a great tool. Crystal Carter: It's a great tool. It's really, really useful and it can help you track activity over time. It can also help you to see the volatility of a SERP over time. So sometimes things will change on the SERP because somebody's published something new and sometimes recency it can be a factor. Let's say nobody's written on a topic since 2018 or something and then you write something in 2022, then Google's like, "Okay, well this is probably more up to date than the thing before." So that might be one of the reasons why, but it's very interesting when you're saying some of these swaps, it's like have they updated something on the content or has Google updated how they understand that content? Mordy Oberstein: That's why I like looking at this kind of stuff after an update, because then you can see, okay, I can see this swap. Before the update here was the top 20, after the update, you can see who switched with who. Then take a look at, okay, the one that went up, what did they have on the page that the other one that lost didn't have? Or these five went up, these five went down. Is there a common theme between them? Because then you can try to pull the needle out of the haystack, which is what did Google add to the algorithm that now they're looking for that they couldn't do before? Which is the magic billion-dollar question. Crystal Carter: Exactly. I think that this can help you to plan your content, to optimize your content. You talked about opportunity costs to see which opportunities might have the most value for you. I think it's a really, really useful tool, especially as it can sometimes feel a little bit like a memory hole , because you're like, "What? Was that there? Is that new? I'm not sure." So being able to- Mordy Oberstein: Were they really ranking number seven last week? I don't remember. But now you know. Crystal Carter: Also, I think because sometimes clients will be like, "Oh, it's not on online." And I'm like, "Well it's on mine." Or like, "Oh, it's not on my desktop, we're here." I'm like, "Well mobile, you're there," and that sort of thing. So this is a great example of where a tool is really satisfying at really valuable need from SEO. Mordy Oberstein: If you want to look at it, I have the documentation on it, I found it. I will link to it in the show notes for you so you could take a look at it if it's new to you. Now, if that's new to you, what I know what else is new to you is actual news. Every week I get so corny about this pivot, I feel so corny inside, but that's me. Crystal Carter: Nailed it. Mordy Oberstein: Slightly corny. So anyway, here's Snappy News. Snappy news. Snappy news. Reports are abound that ChatGPT is coming to Bing. Search from Barry Schwartz, over at Search Engine Land. Microsoft to add ChatGPT features to Bing search. It's not official, but there are reports coming out that Bing could be adding everyone's favorite new technology ChatGPT to Bing search. To quote the source of the, I'll call it rumors, but maybe it's more than rumors. Anyway, to quote them, "Microsoft could soon get a return on its 1 billion investment in open AI creative ChatGPT, Chatbot, which gives human-like text answers to questions. Microsoft is preparing to launch a version of its Bing search engine that uses the artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT to answer some search queries rather than just showing a list of links according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans." I know there's all sorts of talk about ChatGPT being a search engine killer and that we don't need search engines anymore. We're just going to ask AI writers like ChatGPT questions and it'll spit back answers. I don't see it that way. I'm curious to see how they do integrate it into the platform, obviously makes sense that they invested so much money to do that. However, even if you provide a summary, and now I'm also curious about authorship or attribution, who do you attribute the source of the information. If the source is an AI writer scraping the entire web and regurgitating it back for you, different question. That's more of an ethical question I guess. But either way, even if the AI writer can give a short summary of something, you're, much like a feature snippet, going to need links in order to allow the user to extend the journey they want to learn more about it. I guess unless it's like a direct answer where they're like, how many home runs did Babe Ruth hit? 714, whatever. Also, there's questions about how it would handle a long tail queries where the information is a little bit more nuanced and so forth. We're probably getting this at a future episode of the SERPS UP podcast we haven't planned already, so stay tuned for that. But I don't think it's a search engine killer. Also, story number two, here's a fun little one for you. From Barry Schwartz again, over at seroundtable this time, Google's John Mueller says, "SEO skills needed for 2023 are curiosity and persistent." When asked what skills an SEO needs in 2023, Google's John Mueller said, "Curiosity and persistence." What does he mean by that? Who knows. My take, it highlights the creative end of SEO and that SEO is a slow grind with lots of trial and error. That'll do it for this week's version of the Snappy News. Wasn't that news? Snappy... Crystal Carter: Oh, because I mentioned the Wednesday. Mordy Oberstein: Because you mentioned Wednesday. See, I haven't watched that yet. I've been like binging an old show I've watched a long time ago. I'm almost through it. It's one of the ones I want to go to. Crystal Carter: Go on, what is it? What have you been watching? Mordy Oberstein: It's such a guilty pleasure. I don't know if I want to say. Crystal Carter: Come on. Mordy Oberstein: Are you going to judge me? Crystal Carter: No. Probably. Mordy Oberstein: Friday Night Lights. Crystal Carter: Friday Night Lights. I've heard good things about this. Do you know what that's completely on brand, Mordy. It's a football show. Mordy Oberstein: It's a football show. Yeah, there's parts of high school drama and that's a guilty pleasure part. My wife was like, "What are you watching?" I'm like, "Oh, Friday Night Lights," and there's a movie. Don't get confused. It's duplicate content and they're not canonicalised. There's a movie and that's based on a book and that's a true story. That's crazy in its own right, because these people are nuts. Then there's a TV show that's kind of based off the movie format wise, but that's not true at all. And there's a high school drama part of it, which is the guilty... My wife's like, "What the hell are you watching?" But part of it's real and it's good and everyone wants the coach to be their dad kind of thing. It's amazing. Crystal Carter: The cool kids are talking to the other kids and somebody's going to go to the dance and all of those things. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, there's a little bit of that. But there's also a little bit like my dad's off fighting in... It's the old show, fighting in Iraq and I'm stuck watching my grandmother who has dementia while I'm going to school and on the football team, kind of thing. Crystal Carter: Wow. I wasn't expecting that. This is a deeper show than I was expecting it to... Mordy Oberstein: See, it's deeper than you think. Okay. It's deeper than you think. Crystal Carter: I thought you were going to say Dawson's Creek or something when you said that. Mordy Oberstein: No, I'm not. Who do you think I am? Crystal Carter: Lot's of people love Dawson's Creek. Mordy Oberstein: Only thing I like my Dawson is the meme with the guy crying. Anyway, okay, follow of the week before we leave, follow week. I mentioned before, we have a very special section of the follow of the week this week, because we're talking about changes on the SERP. There are so many people who cover these things who are keeping up on that and reporting on the news site. I thought instead of giving you one person, because I couldn't narrow it down, I'm going to give you one, two, three, four, five, six people to follow this week. Oh boy. It's a lot. I'm going to do it. One breath. You ready? Barry Schwartz... I can't give it one breath. Sorry. Barry Schwartz at Rusty Brick, Matt Southern, who writes for SEJ, that's @MattGSouthern, Danny Goodwin, who used to be at SEJ, but now he's a Search Engine Land. That's probably a whole bunch of SEO soap operaness, @MrDannyGoodwin, Goodwin with an I, not a Y. Then there's Lauren Baker, who is the founder of SEJ, which just happens to be a member of our SEO advisory board. He's @LaurenBaker. Then there's Roger Monty who writes for SEJ also and he's @MartinIBuster. Then there's Brody Clark who doesn't write for anybody, but who's just keeping up on all this stuff all the time. He writes his own blog, but he's keeping up on all this stuff on Twitter and he's @BrodySEO. I'm not going to go through spelling all these for you, but I'll link them in the show notes. Crystal Carter: Can I also throw out a special mention to Glen Gabe? To Mr. Glen Gabe? Mordy Oberstein: Yes, I'm so sorry. I was debating do we have Glen again? Because we had Glen as a follow week in the past, but yes, and @MarieHaines also. Crystal Carter: @MarieHaines. @MarieHaines as well. There's so many people who keep up with this. It's so much fun. It's super fun. Also, if you add Barry Schwartz, is this new, it's a lot of fun. Even if he tells you it's not new. If it is new, then you may very well get yourself a little bit of internet fun times. Mordy Oberstein: Celebrity and fun. I have a whole website dedicated by the way, isthisnew.com, the Wix site. You can check that out. You can also buy DA from Barry there. Crystal Carter: These are all lies, people. Mordy Oberstein: No, the fact I have a website called isthisnew.com is not a lie. Crystal Carter: Oh, that's not a lie. That's not a lie at all. Mordy has talked a lot about this website. And he's extremely proud of himself. Mordy Oberstein: I love it. It's my favorite website. There's a Easter egg, our head of SEO editorial, George Winn who used to work at Search Engine Land and Run SMX. I have a little GIF of him there also. So it's a little fun little one pager website. It shows I have no life. Crystal Carter: Follow the whole crew who are keeping up with the SERP, because they will keep you up with the SERP. They're amazing. Mordy Oberstein: They'll keep you up on the SERP. It's kind of like SERPS Up. Get it? Oh, amazing. That was amazing. Anyway, we'll link all their profiles in the show notes, because there's way too many spellings to do for you. I'm going to lose all my audience if I do that. Like Mordy, why are you spelling so many names out? I can't write them down fast enough. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERPS Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back with the new episode as we talk about site migrations, thundercloud, lightning, ominous. Look wherever you consume your podcast or our SEO learning hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Look and learn more about SEO. Check out all the great content and webinars we have at the Wix 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: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Lily Ray Barry Schwartz Matt Southern Danny Goodwyn Loren Baker Roger Montti Brodie Clark Glenn Gabe Marie Haynes Resources : SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub SERP's Up SEO Podcast on SERP Features What Google Want From Your Content Sistrix News: Microsoft to add ChatGPT features to Bing Search Google's John Mueller Said SEO Skills Needed For 2023 Are Curiosity & Persistence Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Lily Ray Barry Schwartz Matt Southern Danny Goodwyn Loren Baker Roger Montti Brodie Clark Glenn Gabe Marie Haynes Resources : SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub SERP's Up SEO Podcast on SERP Features What Google Want From Your Content Sistrix News: Microsoft to add ChatGPT features to Bing Search Google's John Mueller Said SEO Skills Needed For 2023 Are Curiosity & Persistence Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERPS Up. Aloha, Mahalo for joining the SERPS Up podcast. We're pointing out some groovy new insights around what's happened in an SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO branding at Wix, and I'm joined by the lustrous, the fabulous, the amazingly whatever, whatever, whatever, I've run out of adjectives yet again, the head of SEO communications here at Wix's Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: That was an amazing introduction, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I know. I totally nailed it, right? Nailed it. Crystal Carter: You nailed it. Mordy Oberstein: I nailed it. I had all the words in my head and I forgot them. Crystal Carter: But whatever, whatever, whatever, I think I should get that on a business card. Mordy Oberstein: I want that on my tombstone, whatever, whatever, whatever, Mordy Oberstein. Crystal Carter: I mean, to be fair, it's normally a shower of compliments, which I'll take that. I'll take that. Mordy Oberstein: I meant, whatever best adjectives you can think of and that's what I meant. Crystal Carter: Insert adjective here. Mordy Oberstein: That's in my heart. Crystal Carter: Someone posted an outreach email that was like, insert name. Mordy Oberstein: I saw that on Twitter. Crystal Carter: Here, insert name. I hope, insert current event and or whether and/or blank, we would be delighted to have you, blah, blah, blah. I was just like, "Wow." It's like you were sincerely, insert name, again. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Wow. They have one job to do. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Honestly. Honestly. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Well, cold outreach is hard. Let's be fair. Crystal Carter: Oh man. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, it's so hard. Crystal Carter: The thing that used to drive me crazy is when people would call you up and they'd be like, "Oh, can I have five minutes of your time?" I'd be like, "No. My God." Mordy Oberstein: Telemarketers back in the day... Now I just get spam on my text messages and scams in my text messages. It used to be scam phone calls at home, at dinner. Crystal Carter: Scam calls at home, at dinner. Right, right. I used to get them at the agency. People would call us up and they'd be like, "Can I have five minutes of your time?" I was like, "I don't know, how much money you got. I have billable hours. These are billable hours, sir." Like, "No, I don't have time for you, because I'm on billable hours. Goodbye." Mordy Oberstein: But aren't you interested in the Renoco slow cooker? Crystal Carter: I'm not doing a survey for you for free. What? No. Mordy Oberstein: The SERPS Up podcast is brought to you by Wix's, where you can manage your local citations, respond to user reviews across various platforms, and even set up Google posts. All right. From Wix with our overall app. Look for it in the app market within the Wix dashboard. We're talking about the Uberall app and all that local stuff, because local stuff is full of SERP feature stuff and SERP feature stuff is what we're talking about, because it's constantly changing. The SERP is constantly changing, which is why today we're talking about how you can adapt to the changes on the Google results page. Things like why, oh why is Google changing all the time, all the time, and how to keep up with these changes. Why you should keep up with these changes and what you should do with all of these changes. Also, the Great Lily Ray stops by to share the most significant changes and trends she's seen on the SERP and we dive into a tool to help you keep track of those changes. Of course, we got some snappy news for you and a very special edition of who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. Episode number 20 of the SERPS Up podcast is on the move. Crystal Carter: I can't believe we're at episode 20. Mordy Oberstein: Isn't that nuts? Crystal Carter: This is crazy, Mordy. What have we been doing with ourselves? Mordy Oberstein: I've been podcasting this whole time. I don't know what you've been doing. Crystal Carter: I feel like a celebration is an order or something. I don't know. What is it like- Mordy Oberstein: Well, in the last episode, I think we mentioned every time we dance when we celebrate. Crystal Carter: This is true. This is true. We'll do a little's podcast dance. Mordy Oberstein: This is a time on sprockets when we dance, for all you Saturday Night Live folks from back in the '90s. Crystal Carter: If anybody is listening to this podcast, I hope people are listening to this podcast, but everyone who's listening to this podcast, the dance moves that I'm doing right now are incredible. But you've never seen dance this…. Mordy Oberstein: You're not even dancing anymore. Crystal Carter: I am dancing, Mordy, and the moves are incredible and amazing and they're world changing. Oh, now Mordy's doing some very strange dancing. Mordy Oberstein: The John Volta thing from Pulp Fiction. Anyway, let's talk Google and it's search results, because the SERP is an ecosystem. I was at a Google event recently in Tel Aviv a little while ago, and that's how Google described themselves and the SERP. They called it an ecosystem, a little spoiler, not sure I'm allowed to share that are not. Too late. They called it an ecosystem. And because it is an ecosystem, it's not just a spattering of URLs and do-hickeys, aka SERP features. It's a living, breathing dynamic and it is indeed a dynamic. Things in a dynamic constantly change and on Google and this dynamic, it is very much constantly changing. I don't just mean URLs and changing in rank. I mean the very fabric of that ecosystem. The ether that is the SERP is always changing. I'm talking about, again, not just the results that Google's showing, but also the media format Google tends to prefer for various keyword intents, how it goes about showing that information. It's not just what Google shows, but how is it showing it to searchers and how is that changing over time? Then what does that say about the way we consume content? Because there are a lot of lessons you can learn from what Google is doing on the results page and how it's changing. Of course, I'm talking about the format of the very SERP itself and the tests and the changes that it makes inside of SERP features. Things like boxes and carousels and do-hickeys, SERP features, which we spoke about on the podcast a couple weeks ago with Kevin Indig. By the way, from now on, calling SERP features do-hickeys officially. Crystal Carter: I'm totally on board with that. I think that's fine. Mordy Oberstein: SERP do-hickeys. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think in the animated Spiderman that was recently out, I think Spiderman calls it like a dongle or a dougle or something. The thing that you've got to go get to save the day. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, dougle. Yeah, sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and that sort of thing. Mordy Oberstein: That's what these SERP features are and Google's always testing new functionality inside of them and new elements inside of them. Sometimes keeping up with them at least can sometimes feel voyeuristic, but as someone who tries to keep up with all of it, if you take a step back and you try to aggregate all of the changes that Google's making on the SERP, it does kind of paint a picture of how that ecosystem is functioning and working and what kind of things Google wants from you. So let's start off with why is Google always changing this thingamajigger around so much, Crystal? Crystal Carter: I think the reason why they make a lot of these updates is because the way that we search for information and the way that we access information is constantly changing. So if you think about mobile first, for instance, and the mobile age, when Google first started way, way, way back in the day, there was pretty much one way to access the internet and it was on your computer in your house or in your office. That was one way to access information online. Now there's lots of ways to access information online, your computer, your phone, your car, your refrigerator, your washing machine. There's lots of different ways that you can access information from the web and Google has to be there to meet those requests and to satisfy those queries. The features that we see, a lot of the SERP features are actually very mobile first, for instance. Those big boxes are really easy to click. They're much easier to click than a single word. The SERP features where if you think about recipes, for instance, they have a video, they'll often have a video card that's animated. Again, these are things that are really useful for people. Also, there's a lot of input on Google now. I don't know if you've watched that Wednesday series on Netflix, and if you watch a new series on Netflix or whatever it is, then you can go onto Google. When you look that up, you can also submit a review there. If I go to a restaurant somewhere, for instance, I can also submit a review there. I can say I'm here right now and it's busy, for instance. So it's a two-way conversation. In order for Google to keep up with that, they have to adapt and they have to adapt to new features that are available on phones. They have to adapt to new ways that people are accessing the web. They have to adapt to lots of different things so that they can provide the most accurate and the most accessible in lots of different ways, both accessible with a small A, of both accessible on a phone and also accessible for people who have different abilities and different accessibility challenges. Yeah, they have to make sure that the web is most accurate and most accessible and that the information that people are getting from them is good. Mordy Oberstein: The mobile case is a really good example of that. It's a really stark example of that, how the web changes, user behavior changes, consumer expectations, user expectations change, and Google has to adapt and you can really dive into... That's why I think by the way, that when you look at what Google's changing on the results page, it's a good way of looking and seeing how Google thinks users and their content consumption experience and expectations are also changing. You can always take away lessons from that. The thing that speaks out to me the most, and you really dive into this, is you see the way that Google has changed the formatting of the SERP, it's very visual now. Or for example, it used to be you searched for Jameson Tyrone, who's a pitcher in baseball, used to be for the Yankees. he got traded to the Cubs, not traded, signed with the Cubs recently. It doesn't matter. Crystal Carter: Oh yeah, of course. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, of course. Obviously, right? It used to be a kind of linear, it would give you a picture of him, maybe some stats about him, but now it's way more immersive. Google shows you a video up there and a bunch of these little bubble things about how tall he is, how much salary is, a little snippet about him. It's a lot more dynamic than it used to be, because consumer expectations around consuming content have change and Google's trying to align with that. I think it's a good lesson just as to why it's important to keep up with these things. Content is malleable, the expectations around them are very, very malleable. It's always changing. I always go back to the 1960s, six '60s, it's got to be '60, presidential debate between Richard Nixon and JFK. Crystal's looking at me like, "What the hell are you going to say now?" It was the first televised debate on TV, that's where things are televised obviously, that's not redundant. If you listened on the radio, you thought Nixon won the debate. But if you watched it on TV, you thought that Kennedy won the debate and always say it like this, because why? Because Richard Nixon looked like Richard Nixon and JFK looked like JFK. But it changed expectations around what people want out of that kind of content. They want to be much more visual. That includes certain implications about how the content is delivered. It's the same thing with web content. It's constantly changing. People are expecting different things out of it. They're expecting to be way more quality now than they did in the past. Why? You see this conversation about Google and quality results and are Google's results quality, because what people expect constantly changes and the SERP changes along with that. So that's why it's really important to keep up with it. But now I guess the question is, how do you keep up with all of it? Crystal Carter: I mean Barry Schwartz is one, shout out to Senior Roasty Break. Mordy Oberstein: Is this new? Crystal Carter: Is this new? So yeah, so that's really useful. I think also it's important to remember that Google doesn't even always know when... I'm sure someone at Google knows, but there's a lot of tests being run in conjunction with each other a lot of the time. So I think that there are particular verticals where there's going to be a lot of action. I think in e-commerce there's a lot of changes very regularly. That's a very dynamic SERP. So if you are in an e-commerce space regularly check in on some of your keywords and on how- Mordy Oberstein: It's been nuts. Crystal Carter: Yeah, how they're displayed on the SERP. You won't even see those displayed in third party tools necessarily, because they're adding new elements to the SERP all the time. They can't tell you much more about them, because there isn't really a metric for it yet, because it only just showed up. If there's particular SERPS that are really valuable to you, actually Google them every now and then. I don't know, once a week, maybe once a day, but depending on what it is, because they will change. I don't think necessarily you need to know every single SERP feature that's ever existed for every single thing. Mordy Oberstein: What? Crystal Carter: So for instance, there's- Mordy Oberstein: What? Wait, you don't? Crystal Carter: No, I don't think so? I mean, if it's not at the- Mordy Oberstein: You're killing me here. Crystal Carter: I mean from an SEO point of view, it's useful, but if you are somebody who is a business owner, you don't necessarily need to know.. Mordy Oberstein: No, you're totally right. I'm a freak. I get it. Crystal Carter: But Google for instance, also some of the sort of features on Google are also tools. For instance, I looked up timer, I needed a timer and I didn't want to dig around in my phone to find the timer. I just typed in timer into Google and there's a timer and I can just use a timer. There's also, I was doing some sewing and I needed to get the circumference so I could do a circle and stuff and they have it. There's a pie conference, pie R squared, find the diameter, solve for R, all of that sort of stuff. You can just put in one of the metrics and it'll spit out the others. There's lots of tools like that that are in the SERP. Some of those elements will push down other parts of the SERP and might change the things. For instance, if you have an article about circumference or the origins of pie or how to solve pie for, I don't know, 1700 places or whatever it is, you might be lowered down and you might see different click-through rate before, if there's now a tool on that SERP. Understand which queries are relevant to you and keep an eye on those queries actually in the SERP or those queries. I don't think it necessarily has to be every single one, but if there's particular ones that you know you get a lot of traffic or you know are head terms that have a knock on effect for the rest of your keyword profile, then make sure that you're checking in on those SERPS regularly. Mordy Oberstein: Oh my god, I have so much to say now. I don't know where to start. You said so much.. I actually do that. I have a thing, I put it on my notes, check the SERP once a week. Yeah, you're right, you can't do it for everything, but I just kind of want to see what's happening in the ecosystem. Two, your point about e-com is amazing, because back in the day when I was really first getting started, checking in all these SERP features all the time, I'm thinking like 2016, 2017, a lot of the changes were around local, local packs, local finder, map, all those kind of stuff. They kind of told you where Google's focus was, which was very much local. If you look at what Google's changing today and what they're announcing today about how they're changing the results page, it's almost all, not say all, but a lot of it is about e-com. Then it just goes to show you where Google thinks opportunity is, where Google's focus, maybe we speaks to where Google thinks the web is heading. Maybe the web itself is coming more e-com focused as opposed to informational focused. So seeing where Google's making these changes is another reason why it's important to keep track. Kind of shows you where they think things are at and what's important to them. In terms of tracking it? Yeah, Barry is an amazing resource. We're going to talk about more resources a little bit later on, but definitely one of the things I like doing is looking at seroundtable.com every day, because Barry will keep track of what's been happening. Again, it kind of seems like, wow, they changed the line here, who cares? Sometimes legit is that, they changed a line here, who cares? But sometimes when you aggregate it all together, it kind of helps you to understand directionally what's happening. Again, as you mentioned, there's definitely real impact. One of the things that Google announced recently is there's like these filters or carousel filtered to the top of the results page. I've been screaming about this forever, not forever, for two years, because they've been there for two years in a different format. They've been more bubble filter kind of things. You'd search, where to go on vacation? And there'd be a filter of with kids, without kids, without kids, for your parents, I don't know, whatever it is. In the summertime? Instead of seeing your feature snippet there, I would just bypass and then go without kids and see results for all the vacation results without kids, just so I can dream. Yes, all of that. Oh my gosh, I just said a lot there, I know. Crystal Carter: I know, I know and I agree with you. I think that for those topic levels, again, that is something that is around mobile first, because without kids it's easier to just click it than it is to type it all in again. Also, I think that you were talking about back in the day it was about local and now it's more about e-com, some of these things have to do with some of the tools that Google has available, some of the new shiny tools that Google has available. Google Maps was the big thing for Google for a while. They have gone all in on that. They covered every inch of the globe. I've personally seen them driving around the streets of my town. Mordy Oberstein: It's a weird camera thingy. Crystal Carter: Right, and I'm like, "Oh look, there's Google. It's Google." Mordy Oberstein: There they are. Crystal Carter: Right. I've seen people who've tagged, they're like, "There's my dad in a Google Maps picture." These are the things. So Google Maps was the big one. At the moment they're going really big on visual search. A lot of stuff from vision AI and they're adding loads of that to the e-commerce experience, partially, because you can think about the wider ecosystem. Within Amazon, they have a visual search thing. I could take a picture of a handbag and they could be like, "Oh, this handbag?" And Google's trying to follow suit using a lot of the tools that they have. I think that thinking about that and thinking about where they're going is really useful. We talked about Barry Schwartz. It's also really useful if you want to have a bird's eye view of some of the things that Google's going to be rolling out. Things like Google IO and search on our amazing resources so they're free. Google has a couple of big annual events where they'll say the kinds of things that they're doing over the next year or so and then over the next few months you'll see them sort of slowly rolled out. Mordy Oberstein: The filter thing is from IO. Crystal Carter: Exactly. So it's worth paying attention to those. You can watch them at a time and a half if you want to save some time. Failed to do a little recap of it as well. Mordy Oberstein: That makes me nuts by the way, does FYI. The time and a half, I know people love that... Glen Gabe loves that. I love that. Crystal Carter: I love it. Mordy Oberstein: It makes me crazy. Crystal Carter: It's my favorite. I love it. Mordy Oberstein: One thing I do want to hit on, which we kind of barely touched on, which you really dive into is the SEO tools and the third party tracking. Because one, as you mentioned, they don't always track these things and show them how it impacts your rank, but they do track that they exist on the SERP. Sometimes you see a lot of posts about go after those SERP features, go into the SEO tool, see what SERP features are showing for the queries that are important for you and get those SERP features. There's this kind of pressure of better go get those SERP features, I won't get any traffic. I feel like as anything in SEO, that really depends. I think that comes down to opportunity costs. What's there for you? Look, PAA box is great. Sometimes the questions are wonky. So if the SEO tool is telling you, "Yeah, you better get a PAA box, people also ask, there's four questions there, you expand the box, you get your URL in there, people will grab that URL and go to your website." Yeah, they would if the questions are relevant, but if the questions are wonky, they're not. Crystal Carter: Yeah. The other thing I would say about that is good about third party tools particularly, and that sort feature element that you're talking about is they'll tell you if a SERP is particularly spicy. So if you're seeing that for your query, there's like four different SERP features that they're saying are available for that, then that's telling you that that's a busy SERP and that if you've just got a page of text, that probably ain't going to cut it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, there's multiple kind of intent there. There's image intent, video intent. There's all kinds of things there. Yeah, I'm not knocking the tools. Tools are great. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. But I think that if it's telling you that there's a busy SERP, then that means that we got to mix it up here, people. We can't just do text, we need to have texts, maybe some images, maybe some video, maybe something else going through there. I don't know, I don't know, I said lots of things. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. But take it all with opportunity costs, because again, you can have a feeder snippet there and Wikipedia's in there. Let me tell you something about that Wikipedia URL, that's not going anywhere. Crystal Carter: Not going anywhere. It's not going anywhere at all. Yeah, there's a few different things you can think about, but I think that it can also tell you that there are other opportunities. Because I think when we think about SERP features, we sometimes think about SERP features on the main part of Google, but there are SERP features within SERP features and there's also lots of different parts of Google. So there's the images, there's shopping, there's news, there's travel, there's things like that. There's lots of stuff within that. You can pitch for one part at one heavy SERP feature and potentially make your way onto the main as well. So it's complex, but it's worth doing. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, definitely worthwhile to track all this. Definitely worthwhile to read up on all of this. If a new feature does get announced and you think it might impact you, don't freak out. Let's see how it goes. I look at these things very directionally and I would take thematically, analyze what's kind of happening on the SERP and see where's Google going with all this? So many filters, oh I guess I should probably write much more specific information than it was in the past, because Google's getting more filters. But I don't want to get lost in all this, because we have an amazing guest. Lily Ray is here. She is phenomenal. Crystal Carter: Lily Ray. She's the best. Mordy Oberstein: She the best. We did a wonderful webinar with her and Glen Gabe all about content and what you should be doing with content around your website. But today Lily's here to talk about, because she very much keep us up with all of this, what's the most significant change or trend on the SERP that's been out there in the relatively recent past? So Lily's here to tell us what's she seen. Lily Ray: So the most significant change to the SERP that I've seen maybe in the last year or so is really just Google becoming a lot more visual with the types of results that it's showing. Not just in terms of showing Google images for example, but making the knowledge panel more colorful and robust. If you Google celebrity names, you might see a really colorful panel at the top with a lot of different news about that celebrity or different information about them and they're just kind of tweaking the way that looks. But it does take up a lot of real estate on the page, especially on mobile. That's kind of a big trend with Google in general. I think that they're rolling out a lot of features that are more interactive directly in the search results. They're more colorful, they're more engaging. There's things like journeys and interesting finds and all these different ways that you can get a lot of interactive information directly on Google. Also, there's a lot of new accordions that they've been rolling out in the last year or two. So of course we see people also ask across the board for most queries these days. I know sometimes the tools show that it comes and goes, but really there's definitely been a big rise and people also ask in the last few years. But beyond that, Google's using that same kind of functionality to roll out across different types of accordions. So things like buy-in guides and things to know, for example. If you'd Google specific medical conditions or products that you might be reviewing, Google can show something like things to know or buy-in guides. That's actually information taken from various different websites and kind of integrated into this accordion where you can learn about specifications about the product or different symptoms and treatments for medical conditions and things like that. So I think the trend is and always has been that Google's taking information from different sites, repurposing it into different ways that they display directly on the SERP. I mean even as a searcher myself, sometimes I find myself not clicking on any sites, because everything that I need is directly there. These people also ask, accordions are also kind of like if you click on one and then you click on a second one, they just scroll infinitely. So you can click on it, just kind of stay on Google and keep clicking on them. So we've all known this in the SEO space, but it definitely seems to be the case that Google is experimenting with a lot of different features that make it easy to just get all the information you need directly on Google without clicking on anything. As much as a lot of these things appear to be SEO opportunities, I see a lot of people saying, "Hey, how do you get into the people..." Also ask accordion or buy-in guide accordion and yeah, you should probably do that. But unfortunately, realistically, I don't know how many people are actually clicking into those links and it's very hard to track with search consoles. Yes, optimize in all the different ways that you can, but unfortunately I think the trend continues that a lot of these new features kind of cut into click through rates. It'll be interesting to see what happens in 2023. Hopefully there are some changes that benefit SEO a little bit more and drive more traffic to our sites. So good luck with your rankings. Mordy Oberstein: That was amazing as always. Definitely follow Lily on Twitter at Lily Ray NYC. She's all over the place. There's not enough praise I can heap on her and not enough links we can link to where we can find the things that she's talking about. So find all of it. Crystal Carter: Yeah, find all of it. She's really active on Twitter, she's really active on LinkedIn as well. She writes loads, she presents at many, many conferences around the world. Mordy Oberstein: Many, many. Crystal Carter: Around the world. So keep your eye out and yeah, do give Lily a follow, because she shares a lot of great tips and a lot of great insights. Mordy Oberstein: Now keeping with the Lily theme, because I actually found out about this from Lily, she shared it on Twitter. I'm like, "Oh, that is cool." It's important to keep up with what's happening on the SERP, not just SERP features, but what's happening with rankings. What I mean by that is not like, "Okay, I'm here now I'm there." I mean what's switched with who and who switched where, because what does that mean? I'll give you a really clear example. All of a sudden you had, I don't know, five ultimate guides are ranking at the top of the SERP and then you see Google swap those five top ultimate guides with that really specific one and shorter answers to that particular query. That kind of tells you that, well the whole intent is flipped. There's a tool out there that Lily has shared a long time ago that I've always loved. It means that for the second week in a row, we're going tool time on the SERPS Up podcast When you're trying to see who switched with who, who's up, who's down, who got replaced by who on the results page, Crystal Carter: Who's on first. Mordy Oberstein: Who's on first, now is on second on the second page of the SERP. SISTRIX has a great tool, I don't know the name of it, I don't know if it has a name, but it is part of their trend and I guess it's called Compare SERPS. What it does is, it shows you the date. So let's say on January 1st, it shows you all the URLs that are ranking one through 20 for particular keyword. Then you pull another date, let's say a week later and you can see who went down and who went up and who switched with who. Sometimes there's direct swaps, like this one was number nine and that one went up to number 10 and they actually replaced each other. Those are the ones I really like, because you can see, okay, Google's purposely switching these two URLs around for the same kind of intent or whatever is on the SERP. It's a great tool. Crystal Carter: It's a great tool. It's really, really useful and it can help you track activity over time. It can also help you to see the volatility of a SERP over time. So sometimes things will change on the SERP because somebody's published something new and sometimes recency it can be a factor. Let's say nobody's written on a topic since 2018 or something and then you write something in 2022, then Google's like, "Okay, well this is probably more up to date than the thing before." So that might be one of the reasons why, but it's very interesting when you're saying some of these swaps, it's like have they updated something on the content or has Google updated how they understand that content? Mordy Oberstein: That's why I like looking at this kind of stuff after an update, because then you can see, okay, I can see this swap. Before the update here was the top 20, after the update, you can see who switched with who. Then take a look at, okay, the one that went up, what did they have on the page that the other one that lost didn't have? Or these five went up, these five went down. Is there a common theme between them? Because then you can try to pull the needle out of the haystack, which is what did Google add to the algorithm that now they're looking for that they couldn't do before? Which is the magic billion-dollar question. Crystal Carter: Exactly. I think that this can help you to plan your content, to optimize your content. You talked about opportunity costs to see which opportunities might have the most value for you. I think it's a really, really useful tool, especially as it can sometimes feel a little bit like a memory hole , because you're like, "What? Was that there? Is that new? I'm not sure." So being able to- Mordy Oberstein: Were they really ranking number seven last week? I don't remember. But now you know. Crystal Carter: Also, I think because sometimes clients will be like, "Oh, it's not on online." And I'm like, "Well it's on mine." Or like, "Oh, it's not on my desktop, we're here." I'm like, "Well mobile, you're there," and that sort of thing. So this is a great example of where a tool is really satisfying at really valuable need from SEO. Mordy Oberstein: If you want to look at it, I have the documentation on it, I found it. I will link to it in the show notes for you so you could take a look at it if it's new to you. Now, if that's new to you, what I know what else is new to you is actual news. Every week I get so corny about this pivot, I feel so corny inside, but that's me. Crystal Carter: Nailed it. Mordy Oberstein: Slightly corny. So anyway, here's Snappy News. Snappy news. Snappy news. Reports are abound that ChatGPT is coming to Bing. Search from Barry Schwartz, over at Search Engine Land. Microsoft to add ChatGPT features to Bing search. It's not official, but there are reports coming out that Bing could be adding everyone's favorite new technology ChatGPT to Bing search. To quote the source of the, I'll call it rumors, but maybe it's more than rumors. Anyway, to quote them, "Microsoft could soon get a return on its 1 billion investment in open AI creative ChatGPT, Chatbot, which gives human-like text answers to questions. Microsoft is preparing to launch a version of its Bing search engine that uses the artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT to answer some search queries rather than just showing a list of links according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans." I know there's all sorts of talk about ChatGPT being a search engine killer and that we don't need search engines anymore. We're just going to ask AI writers like ChatGPT questions and it'll spit back answers. I don't see it that way. I'm curious to see how they do integrate it into the platform, obviously makes sense that they invested so much money to do that. However, even if you provide a summary, and now I'm also curious about authorship or attribution, who do you attribute the source of the information. If the source is an AI writer scraping the entire web and regurgitating it back for you, different question. That's more of an ethical question I guess. But either way, even if the AI writer can give a short summary of something, you're, much like a feature snippet, going to need links in order to allow the user to extend the journey they want to learn more about it. I guess unless it's like a direct answer where they're like, how many home runs did Babe Ruth hit? 714, whatever. Also, there's questions about how it would handle a long tail queries where the information is a little bit more nuanced and so forth. We're probably getting this at a future episode of the SERPS UP podcast we haven't planned already, so stay tuned for that. But I don't think it's a search engine killer. Also, story number two, here's a fun little one for you. From Barry Schwartz again, over at seroundtable this time, Google's John Mueller says, "SEO skills needed for 2023 are curiosity and persistent." When asked what skills an SEO needs in 2023, Google's John Mueller said, "Curiosity and persistence." What does he mean by that? Who knows. My take, it highlights the creative end of SEO and that SEO is a slow grind with lots of trial and error. That'll do it for this week's version of the Snappy News. Wasn't that news? Snappy... Crystal Carter: Oh, because I mentioned the Wednesday. Mordy Oberstein: Because you mentioned Wednesday. See, I haven't watched that yet. I've been like binging an old show I've watched a long time ago. I'm almost through it. It's one of the ones I want to go to. Crystal Carter: Go on, what is it? What have you been watching? Mordy Oberstein: It's such a guilty pleasure. I don't know if I want to say. Crystal Carter: Come on. Mordy Oberstein: Are you going to judge me? Crystal Carter: No. Probably. Mordy Oberstein: Friday Night Lights. Crystal Carter: Friday Night Lights. I've heard good things about this. Do you know what that's completely on brand, Mordy. It's a football show. Mordy Oberstein: It's a football show. Yeah, there's parts of high school drama and that's a guilty pleasure part. My wife was like, "What are you watching?" I'm like, "Oh, Friday Night Lights," and there's a movie. Don't get confused. It's duplicate content and they're not canonicalised. There's a movie and that's based on a book and that's a true story. That's crazy in its own right, because these people are nuts. Then there's a TV show that's kind of based off the movie format wise, but that's not true at all. And there's a high school drama part of it, which is the guilty... My wife's like, "What the hell are you watching?" But part of it's real and it's good and everyone wants the coach to be their dad kind of thing. It's amazing. Crystal Carter: The cool kids are talking to the other kids and somebody's going to go to the dance and all of those things. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, there's a little bit of that. But there's also a little bit like my dad's off fighting in... It's the old show, fighting in Iraq and I'm stuck watching my grandmother who has dementia while I'm going to school and on the football team, kind of thing. Crystal Carter: Wow. I wasn't expecting that. This is a deeper show than I was expecting it to... Mordy Oberstein: See, it's deeper than you think. Okay. It's deeper than you think. Crystal Carter: I thought you were going to say Dawson's Creek or something when you said that. Mordy Oberstein: No, I'm not. Who do you think I am? Crystal Carter: Lot's of people love Dawson's Creek. Mordy Oberstein: Only thing I like my Dawson is the meme with the guy crying. Anyway, okay, follow of the week before we leave, follow week. I mentioned before, we have a very special section of the follow of the week this week, because we're talking about changes on the SERP. There are so many people who cover these things who are keeping up on that and reporting on the news site. I thought instead of giving you one person, because I couldn't narrow it down, I'm going to give you one, two, three, four, five, six people to follow this week. Oh boy. It's a lot. I'm going to do it. One breath. You ready? Barry Schwartz... I can't give it one breath. Sorry. Barry Schwartz at Rusty Brick, Matt Southern, who writes for SEJ, that's @MattGSouthern, Danny Goodwin, who used to be at SEJ, but now he's a Search Engine Land. That's probably a whole bunch of SEO soap operaness, @MrDannyGoodwin, Goodwin with an I, not a Y. Then there's Lauren Baker, who is the founder of SEJ, which just happens to be a member of our SEO advisory board. He's @LaurenBaker. Then there's Roger Monty who writes for SEJ also and he's @MartinIBuster. Then there's Brody Clark who doesn't write for anybody, but who's just keeping up on all this stuff all the time. He writes his own blog, but he's keeping up on all this stuff on Twitter and he's @BrodySEO. I'm not going to go through spelling all these for you, but I'll link them in the show notes. Crystal Carter: Can I also throw out a special mention to Glen Gabe? To Mr. Glen Gabe? Mordy Oberstein: Yes, I'm so sorry. I was debating do we have Glen again? Because we had Glen as a follow week in the past, but yes, and @MarieHaines also. Crystal Carter: @MarieHaines. @MarieHaines as well. There's so many people who keep up with this. It's so much fun. It's super fun. Also, if you add Barry Schwartz, is this new, it's a lot of fun. Even if he tells you it's not new. If it is new, then you may very well get yourself a little bit of internet fun times. Mordy Oberstein: Celebrity and fun. I have a whole website dedicated by the way, isthisnew.com, the Wix site. You can check that out. You can also buy DA from Barry there. Crystal Carter: These are all lies, people. Mordy Oberstein: No, the fact I have a website called isthisnew.com is not a lie. Crystal Carter: Oh, that's not a lie. That's not a lie at all. Mordy has talked a lot about this website. And he's extremely proud of himself. Mordy Oberstein: I love it. It's my favorite website. There's a Easter egg, our head of SEO editorial, George Winn who used to work at Search Engine Land and Run SMX. I have a little GIF of him there also. So it's a little fun little one pager website. It shows I have no life. Crystal Carter: Follow the whole crew who are keeping up with the SERP, because they will keep you up with the SERP. They're amazing. Mordy Oberstein: They'll keep you up on the SERP. It's kind of like SERPS Up. Get it? Oh, amazing. That was amazing. Anyway, we'll link all their profiles in the show notes, because there's way too many spellings to do for you. I'm going to lose all my audience if I do that. Like Mordy, why are you spelling so many names out? I can't write them down fast enough. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERPS Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back with the new episode as we talk about site migrations, thundercloud, lightning, ominous. Look wherever you consume your podcast or our SEO learning hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Look and learn more about SEO. Check out all the great content and webinars we have at the Wix 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 . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

How do you view the relationship between SEO and marketing? Should SEO be primarily associated with marketing, or should it have a broader scope? SEO is multi-faceted by nature and can lead to diverse perspectives on its classification and delegation within an organization. Wix’s Head of SEO Branding, Mordy Oberstein, and Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, are joined once again by SEO legend Barry Adams to discuss how SEO fits into a broader marketing approach and how to incorporate these overlapping aspects of SEO as a discipline into your strategy. PM at Groundworks, Kristal Audain, also joins the show to unveil her insights into how SEO can impact product decisions. Plus, prepare yourself for Google’s August 2023 broad core update… based on rank instability, this is going to be a big one. If you want to utilize SEO and marketing as tools, this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast will help you surpass all of your goals! Back Is SEO part of marketing? How do you view the relationship between SEO and marketing? Should SEO be primarily associated with marketing, or should it have a broader scope? SEO is multi-faceted by nature and can lead to diverse perspectives on its classification and delegation within an organization. Wix’s Head of SEO Branding, Mordy Oberstein, and Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, are joined once again by SEO legend Barry Adams to discuss how SEO fits into a broader marketing approach and how to incorporate these overlapping aspects of SEO as a discipline into your strategy. PM at Groundworks, Kristal Audain, also joins the show to unveil her insights into how SEO can impact product decisions. Plus, prepare yourself for Google’s August 2023 broad core update… based on rank instability, this is going to be a big one. If you want to utilize SEO and marketing as tools, this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast will help you surpass all of your goals! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 53 | August 30, 2023 | 35 MIN 00:00 / 34:29 This week’s guests Barry Adams Barry Adams has been building and ranking websites since 1998. Through his Polemic Digital consultancy business, he focuses on technical SEO and specialised services for news publishers. Barry counts some of the world’s biggest media brands among his clients including News UK, The Guardian, FOX, Future Publishing, Euronews, and Hearst. He is a regular speaker at conferences and events around the world, delivers annual guest lectures for local universities, and writes an irregular newsletter on SEOforGoogleNews.com. Kristal Audain Manick Bhan is the Founder and CTO of The Search Atlas Group, an SEO automation platform used by thousands of brands and agencies. Search Atlas is chosen as the #1 SEO platform on Gartner, a ProductHunt product of the day and week, and has been nominated for the Best SEO Platform by the Global Search Awards. With over 10 years of experience in SEO from both the in-house and agency sides, Bhan has taught startups and Fortune 500 companies how to scale their brands with a data-driven SEO strategy that can break into any market with ease and outrank even the biggest competitors. His thought leadership has appeared in leading publications like Forbes, Search Engine Journal, and VentureBeat, and he has spoken at events such as TechCrunch Disrupt, Traffic & Conversion Summit, and Ad World. Bhan enjoys writing and speaking on topics ranging from digital marketing to artificial intelligence and machine learning to socially conscious brand building. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's a new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing us with groovy new insights round what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I am joined one of the best, most fabulous, most proficient marketers on the planet you can possibly find. She's brilliant. She's a fabulous marketer. She is our head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: I'm going to have to increase the fee for the introductions that you give me because- Mordy Oberstein: Just Venmo me later. Crystal Carter: ... it's getting ridiculous. Right. Okay. Will do. I will do. Mordy Oberstein: $1 per compliment. Crystal Carter: Very kind of you. You're not so bad yourself there, Mordy. You're fantastic as well. Mordy Oberstein: As you have told me many times when people compliment you, Mordy, just say thank you, which I have a hard time doing. Crystal Carter: Exactly. It's good. Mordy Oberstein: Jamar Rainwell's called me out on Twitter was like, "Can you take a compliment?" I'm like, "Nope." Crystal Carter: Which is why it's so good on your birthday... Which everyone should know that his birthday is in February- Mordy Oberstein: March. Crystal Carter: So- Mordy Oberstein: But no- Crystal Carter: Oh sorry. Mordy Oberstein: ... Not March. It's make up a month. What doesn't exist? Marchtober. My birthday is in Marchtober. Crystal Carter: Mordy's a Pisces. Anyways, so Mordy's a Pisces. When his birthday comes up, make sure that you shower him with compliments and appreciation because he absolutely hates it. So it does two things. It tells him you appreciate him and also irritates him to no end, so- Mordy Oberstein: Can I say, so you were at a conference when it was my birthday. You went around to all the conference people had them wish me and they thought they were doing a great thing, and it was making me nuts. What do I do now? Crystal Carter: Mordy was like, "No, stop. No, really no stop." And I was like, "No, keep going." Mordy Oberstein: Best is Barry Schwartz who just writes thank you with the period for everything. Happy birthday, Barry. Thank you. The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix. Where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, searchlight over wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also dive into our suite of marketing tools and inbuilt integrations. Or you could bring your own as you can add scripts to your Wix website and pull in tools like Hotjar and far beyond, do marketing the way you want to with Wix. As today, I ask, is SEO part of marketing? I've been teasing this the entire intro because we're going to get into it. It's the age-old question. Is SEO part of product? Is it part of IT? Is it part marketing? If you're wondering, is there a place for you and SEO, I think this is your episode because today we're asking is SEO marketing? Is it beyond marketing? Do you need to be a good marketer to be a good SEO? What's the difference anyway? Who actually caress? And to help us work our way through this, we have our first, second time guest, one of our personal favorites, the one the only Barry Adams, who'll be buying just a few minutes to join us as we dive into SEO and marketing. We'll also get into some hard decisions, decisions, decisions. How does SEO inform product decisions? Kristal Audain will share her outlook. Plus we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social media. So grab your place card and hope for the best as episode number 53 of the SERP's Up podcast welcomes you to the reception and tells you which table you are sitting at. Crystal Carter: This is a great discussion because it comes up a lot. So I've heard a lot of people discuss this, Areej AbuAli has discussed this as well. So whether or not SEO sits in development with the dev teams or whether or not it sits in marketing. Some people think that it's just at a more strategic level, and I think that not to start too soon with the SEO platitude, but it kind of depends. I think it absolutely depends on your business, but I'm sure we'll get into that. But I think one of the reasons why this comes up is because there's a lot of overlap. And the reason why I say it depends is because what's going on in your business will cause some of the reasons why it might overlap. So for instance, if there's lots of technical fixes that are needed, then your SEO might want to sit more with the tech team, more with the dev team. If it's more a content thing, they might want to sit more with a marketing team, that sort of thing potentially. But because SEO as a discipline is so vast, I think this is where some of the challenges arise. So I'm really excited to get into this with our guest, Barry, who's absolutely somebody who's worked with lots and lots of teams around SEO and around marketing and around other things as well to discuss this in more detail. Mordy Oberstein: So cue dramatic music, because the founder of Polemic Digital, SEO legend himself, Barry Adams is here right now with us. Hey, Barry. Barry Adams: Hey Mordy. Hey Crystal, how are you doing? Crystal Carter: We are very, very pleased to have you here on the podcast. We've both spent some good amount of time with you at conferences and things around the world, so it's a real pleasure to have you here on the podcast today. Barry Adams: Thank you. Thank you very much. But I may be in the wrong room. Because I hear that I'm in the room with marketers. I mean, I'm not a marketer. What am I doing here? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I set that up, right. It's okay. A little bit of background. First off, Barry likes to say that I get him drunk at conferences and it's all my fault, which it is. Barry Adams: Every time I'm hung over, Mordy, I blame you, every time. Mordy Oberstein: As well you should. And for all other things, you should just blame me. But I know that we might have a little bit of a different of opinion here about where SEO fits in and out. Spoiler alert, I think at the end of this we're going to conclude that there's all sorts of ways that you can fit into SEO, which is great because SEO is for everybody at the end of the day. By the way, and I did set up Crystal as a great marketer to sort of put her on my camp to start off, which I feel is horrible Barry Adams: You're stacked the deck today Mordy, you're stacked the deck today. You're cheating. Mordy Oberstein: I'm putting my thumb on the scale, but I do think that there's a large overlap between SEO and marketing, and I'm wondering if you disagree. Barry Adams: I definitely disagree. I mean, I have been doing SEO for, well, probably way too long, to be entirely honest. In-house for about of 15 years, agency side and now freelance. I think my touchpoint with marketing in all those years have been fairly minimal. Most of my work has been focused on what you would call development or product. And in recent years, a lot of it has been focused on editorial, working with journalists and editors when it comes to publishing and writing content optimized for visibility in SERP's, and none of those would ever come close to marketing. In fact, in some of the circles that I work in, especially in publishing, marketing is seen as a dirty word because it has a very different connotation in the news industry. Marketing is monetization, marketing is the commercial side. It's selling ads and content partnerships, and that's not what the dev team nor the editorial teams really want to worry themselves with. Now, I do agree there are aspects of SEO that are what I call marketing adjacent. But at its core, I don't think that most of what SEO does is marketing, because SEO is very process driven. I think it's more of a product discipline or even a project discipline than it is a marketing discipline. Mordy Oberstein: So if I could counter- Barry Adams: Please do. Mordy Oberstein: Say, pull my gloves off, and then slip on the brass knuckles. No, just kidding. Crystal Carter: Mordy, you'll not stand a chance. Mordy Oberstein: They're not brass. They're gold. Barry Adams: We have met Mordy. You do realize there's a significant size difference. Mordy Oberstein: So what do my favorite things about going to conferences, after so many years of talking to people and then you finally meet them in real life and then you realize I am a short person, and everybody is taller. Crystal Carter: To be fair, Barry's taller than most people. Mordy Oberstein: It's true. Crystal Carter: So, there's also that. Mordy Oberstein: But right now we're sitting down on Zoom, so we're all the same height. Crystal Carter: On Zoom, everyone's the same. Mordy Oberstein: Everyone is the same. No, but in all serious, I definitely understand where you're coming from and I definitely agree, and I think it's one of those things where we're going to end up saying, well, there's different ways to look at it, and all of them are great ways to look at it. I came into SEO from the content side, I got into SEO because someone asked me, Hey, could you write content for our company that ranks? And I'm like, sure. How do I do that? And a lot of the things that I ended up doing over the years when I was at Rank Ranger, I was managing their blog, was a lot of content strategy focused on SEO. So finding opportunities to rank, finding opportunities to pivot the brand, finding opportunities for expansion, and all of those things are very, very heavy on the SEO side. But at the end of the day, I'm also going to be talking to a lot of marketers. I'm going to talk to brag. Okay, great, you're writing this content, but does the tone fit the brand? How does it position the brand? That kind of thing. So there's a lot of SEO work, but because it's very heavy on the content side, you're going into content marketing. Now we're talking the pivoting to other channels. Now we're talking about brand marketing. And I feel that a lot of the work I've done over the years has very, very, very easily slid into marketing. And especially because I think what some of the things Google's done on the... Mordy Oberstein: ... marketing, and especially because I think some of the things Google's done on the algorithmic side around quality and content have kind of united content marketing and SEO closer than ever before. So, hah! Take that. Barry Adams: I'd love to disagree but I can't really. But what you just portrayed is definitely part of SEO and I don't dispute that. I do think there is a very big part of SEO that is, like you said, marketing adjacent, has some overlap. But there's an equally big part, if not a bigger part, that has nothing to do with marketing. And I think calling that marketing by saying all SEO is marketing, you're doing a disservice to both marketing and to SEO as well as to the dev side, tech side, product side, editorial side that the other aspects overlap with. In that regard, I don't think SEO is unique. If you talk to UI/UX developers, the designers for example, they don't like to be boxed in either. They're not marketing. They're not design. They're not product. They're all of those things and none of those things. So, I think we need to try not to box SEO into, "Oh, SEO is marketing," or, "Oh no, SEO is product." SEO is SEO, and it has a lot of different touchpoints and it needs to have the freedom to spread out in a process-focused way throughout organizations so that every part of the organization that has a role to play in SEO has the right processes in place to facilitate that and to help make websites a success in search. Mordy Oberstein: Barry, I brought you on to have a Royal Rumble, but I completely agree with everything you just said. Crystal Carter: I think it comes down to also thinking of SEO, thinking of marketing, thinking of whatever as a tool for achieving your goals. So, to offer another journey, I studied marketing. So, I studied CIM, the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I did all of that stuff and I learned about PEST analysis and I learned about SWOT analysis and I learned about the cash cow and the star and all of that sort of stuff, all of this classic old school marketing stuff. And I apply that to SEO things. I was reading something and they were saying, "Oh, you need to be looking at technical considerations and political...." I was like, "That's a PEST analysis. That's a PEST analysis. There's a diagram for that that somebody made years and years ago." And it's the same thing. You do that in SEO. You do need to look at those factors when you're making your assessments and things like that. And it's a tool for it. And I think that when you think of these things as a tool for achieving your goals overall, I think that's when it works really well. Probably the biggest example that I've seen recently of SEO and marketing working really well together is the Barbie movie SERP. So, I don't know if people have seen this, but if you Google the Barbie movie, the marketing team have worked with the actual SERP and the whole SERP turns pink and sparkles. And that- Barry Adams: I loved that. I absolutely loved it. I was googling Margo Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and they all just show up as big sparkly pink SERPs. It was fantastic. Crystal Carter: It's fantastic. And that's a fantastic example of marketing and SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, it sparkles! If you do Oppenheimer, does the whole thing blow up? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that they've taken the whole thing into consideration, but I think that when you see those things work really well, they work really well. And I think it's a question of, again, thinking of these things as a tool in order to achieve your goals. And you mentioned editorial teams and the business arm and things like that, and sometimes there's a bit of overlap. Sometimes that makes sense. The ad team, that's going to help the editorial team pay the bills as well. But I think that, yeah, like you said, people don't want to be boxed in, but people want resources to be able to execute the things that they want. So, do you find when you're working with marketing teams that being able to speak their language helps you to achieve your goals? Barry Adams: That's a very good question. I'll be honest, it's been a while since I've actually worked with a marketing team specific in SEO. I work with audience growth teams. I work with development and product teams. Marketing teams, yes, I think sometimes marketing teams, it helps when you cast it in a certain format and sell it as a process or a part of what they have budget and sign off for. But it also informs me when I start talking with prospective clients or other businesses that I have an understanding of where they see SEO fit in, because it tells me how far along in the SEO journey they actually are. And I'll be entirely honest with you, when I see that SEO is seen as part of marketing or even online marketing or digital marketing, I'm a little bit worried because it means that they're probably not as far along as they think they are. It is very much a cross-disciplinary effort. And if you box it into one thing, "Oh, that's marketing," then I like, "Right, okay, we might need to change some habits here." Because in those scenarios, in my experience, it tends to be very difficult to get them to release resources on the product dev side, because that's not part of the remit and it's only about the onsite content and it's about the link building efforts and all of that stuff. I'm like, "Yeah, but if we need to make technical changes to the website, we're sort of hindered. We're sort of boxed in there." Mordy Oberstein: It's funny because that's how we operate at Wix, because we have an SEO team that's under marketing. They're a growth marketing team. And then we have SEO on the actual product side. And one of the nice things is that we work really well together, and it really is a cross-company endeavor, and SEO isn't boxed in. Crystal Carter: And I think that your point about marketing team maturity is absolutely clutch, certainly when you're talking about a very granulated marketing team. So, they'll all sit maybe under the overall umbrella of marketing, but there'll be a growth team and a UX team and a whatever. And like you were saying, that's a sign that somebody has thought about the journey here. Barry Adams: Yeah. But at the same, and let's be honest, a lot of small businesses don't have those sort of resources. They might have one person responsible for the whole website. And I work with those sorts of businesses as well, in which case you have to adjust expectations and be almost more of an educational resource rather than a transactional resource. Where you teach them the good habits. You teach them what the long-term pathway is. And I always have the same advice for all clients that always... I get asked a lot, "What do we need to do in the long-term to become successful in search?" And I say, "Hire in-house people who have the mandate to do that." If you don't commit internal resources for it and you're always going to be relying on external agencies and consultants, you're never really going to develop that specialty and that internal focus that you need. And that's a business decision for a company to make, how important they see search as a channel, whether or not they want to invest in that. And I also think it's a perfectly valid decision not to keep relying on external resources because there's other channels that are more important to you, be that a B2B channel or some other channel that drives revenue for your business, but it needs to be an informed business decision. But in terms of the aspect of marketing versus product versus tech or whatever you call it, I also feel very, very strongly that SEO is one of those very rare disciplines where pretty much anyone can be successful regardless of your background, and that we should be welcoming to people from all kinds of different walks of life into our industry because of the incredibly wide and varied skillset that is useful for SEO. So, I have an almost allergic reaction to people saying, "Oh, that's not SEO." Because I used to be, in my earlier days of SEO, I was part of an SEO community that everything that wasn't on onsite, like link building, wasn't seen as SEO. And I sort of rebelled against that because I felt then that no, you need to do more than just the onsite stuff to be successful. You need to do something in brand marketing, link building, PR, whatever you call it, to help your website succeed. Now, well, that's not something I'm good at because I think to be a good marketer and a good digital PR person, you need to be a people person. You need to like people. I don't like people generally, so give me a computer any day of the week. But I do realize it's part of the whole SEO ecosystem and it needs to be recognized. As I say, everybody has their role to play. Everybody brings something strong and unique to the table. I don't think we need to be exclusionary and very focused on specific niches and say, "Oh, if you don't do that, you're not an SEO." It's like, "No." Pretty much anything that a person can be good at can be useful for SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Barry, you're like Meat Loaf, because you took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to ask how you felt the fact that SEO is so dynamic and it's so broad and it can't be boxed in impacts someone coming into the industry, someone just trying to find a career in SEO, but you kind of answered my question. And that's sort of, I guess, the practical implication of this discussion. Does it matter? Who cares if it's marketing or not marketing? I think the answer, it does matter. Because if you look at it as just marketing or just IT or just whatever you want to pigeonhole SEO, it does set up a barrier to entry like, "Oh, I can't do SEO because I'm coming from this angle," or, "I can't do SEO because I'm coming from another angle." No, the answer is, you can do SEO. Especially in today's market, I feel like SEO has become far more specialized than it was back in the day when there only was an SEO generalist. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think also, you know when you're talking about different channels as well, when we say... I'm a big advocate of omnichannel marketing, and again, I've been fascinated by the Barbie movie campaign. I think there's a lot of old school marketing going on there. There's a lot of billboards just everywhere. I've never seen so many... Crystal Carter: Going on there. There's a lot of billboards just everywhere. I've never seen so many billboards in recently. And I think that when we think about that, even if you, as an SEO, aren't on the team that's handling the billboards, for whatever it is, or maybe buses or something, even if you're not doing that sort of thing, it's worth having a good relationship with them so that they have some SEO in mind, so that they make sure that they put the website on the billboard as well, so that they make sure that they put the website on the side of the bus as well, so that you are using terminology on the page that reflects what they've put into the newspaper print ad, for instance. Barry Adams: But also, for example, that you have a webpage or set of pages dedicated to showing the billboards that you have, like have big images and downloadable images for that and let people download wallpapers and all that sort of stuff. So that when people search in Barbie billboard in Google, your web pages show up first so that you are in control over that particular part of the narrative. Mordy Oberstein: There's so many times that's actually happened when you see an in-person ad or a non-digital ad and you go, "Okay, I need to Google that now and get more information about it." That's, I guess, the point, SEO is not the only, or head of SEO likes to say, SEO touches everything, including billboards. Billboard optimization. Barry Adams: Billboard optimization. We're going to be rebranding SEO for the 15th time. Mordy Oberstein: Have you all seen the Barbie movie? Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Barry Adams: Not yet, but that's because I've been flu-ridden and I don't want to spread germs in the movie theater, but I want to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer, ideally back to back. Mordy Oberstein: Back to back. That's my goal. Barry Adams: I'm just not sure which I want to see first. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly what, I want the contrast of life. Crystal Carter: I've been told that you should see Barbie first. I've heard on the radio that if you see Oppenheimer first, it's like... Barry Adams: Yeah, I think that in the back of my head, I want to see Barbie first and then go straight into Oppenheimer to come down from the hyper Barbie experience. Mordy Oberstein: By the time you walk out, you're balanced and have a well- Barry Adams: Exactly. Mordy Oberstein: Well centered outlook. Barry Adams: Well, Barbie will make me feel good about life and the world and then Oppenheimer will make me feel like nothing ever matters and everything's going to die, so will come out as a perfectly balanced person in the end. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Like therapy, basically. Crystal Carter: Like a well-balanced marketing team. Mordy Oberstein: You become optimized. It's movie optimization. Crystal Carter: Entirely. Barry Adams: Mind state optimization. Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Barry Adams: MSO. Mordy Oberstein: Barry, where can folks find you? Barry Adams: Well, I'd like to say Twitter, but who the hell knows what it's called? Crystal Carter: X now. Barry Adams: Yeah, I'll be entirely honest. Mordy Oberstein: We're recording the day after Twitter decided to rebrand. So by the time this episode comes out, we don't know what Twitter will be. Barry Adams: Yeah, find me on x.com/badams. No, I'm on LinkedIn. That's actually probably one of the most reliable- Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Barry Adams: Channels. I have my own newsletter, SEOforgooglenews.com, and polemicdigital.com is my consultancy website. Crystal Carter: And almost certainly at an SEO conference near you, because Barry Adams gets to the places and tells the people the things. Barry Adams: They keep asking me to come back, Crystal, and why would I say no? It's nice. Nice to see people and hang out and go on stage and talk. Yeah, it's lovely. Mordy Oberstein: And be taller than most of the other people there. We get it. Barry Adams: Well, not if you go to conferences in the Netherlands, I'm slightly below average height there. Mordy Oberstein: That's why don't go, I don't want to feel too bad about myself. Barry Adams: We do enough to make that happen already, don't we, Mordy? Mordy Oberstein: It's inherent. If you have a question about SEO and news related websites, definitely look for Barry on all of those locations. We'll link to all of his profiles and all of his websites in the show notes. Barry, thank you so much for coming on and offering your perspective on where SEO fits in. Barry Adams: Thank you very much for having me. It's been a blast. Mordy Oberstein: All right. Thank you very much, Barry. Again, again, I cannot repeat how amazing Barry is. Please give him a follow on whatever social media platform you so choose to follow people on. So as SEO straddles multiple areas of the digital world, from marketing to tech, and beyond as we already discussed, we wanted to explore how SEO might impact your product decisions. Whether you're creating something as complex as a SaaS product or spitting up an ebook, how should SEO impact your product decisions? And to help us, we asked Kristal Audain, the PM at Groundworks, how she factors SEO into her decisions, as we launch a brand new segment, first time ever on the SERP's Up Podcast, and we're calling it Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. Kristal Audain: Hey, Mordy and Crystal. So as a product manager, where my primary product is websites, well not just one, but 19 different websites, SEO definitely plays a role in my product decisions every single day. It's actually pretty cool though because our scrum master is a former SEO, our head of data is a former SEO, our senior director of product ran SEO for a while, and then as a product manager, I am a former SEO as well. So SEO is definitely top of mind when it comes to our team. But also working directly hand in hand with our head of SEO and our technical SEO, making sure that everything that we do as far as development wise, features and benefits on the site, any new dev work that we do doesn't play too hard with our Core Web Vitals. Making sure LCP stays pretty firm. It's actually one of our QA process items that we have for everything that we put out there to make sure that PACE performance stays peak and on top of things. Also looking at our content team for that on page keyword targeting, making sure that they have exactly what they need as far as layout, any blocks that they need, any new features that they need that might help them do their job a little bit better, we're on top of that. As well as talking to them about new things that we're putting out to make sure it's helpful to them. And also looking at URL structure, that's something we're taking a look at right now to make sure that our users can utilize our sites in the best way, UX is important, but also that we are giving them what they need in order to target those keywords that they need without cannibalizing themselves by having resource articles and glossary terms and service pages trying to target the same keyword more than once. So working hand in hand with our SEO team and head of content on that to make sure that we're good to go across the board. So I would definitely say that SEO is top of mind in my day-to-day. We used to sit in marketing and report to the CMO. Now we're over in IT, but we are definitely still on a daily basis having those conversations, making sure that whatever they need, we can get into our sprints, and just nurturing that relationship across the board. So SEO and content and product can work together, it doesn't have to work in silos. We can be friends and work across the aisle without much of an issue, especially when you have so many SEOs on the team of either former or current, putting it all together. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Kristal, for that. Make sure you follow Kristal over @SEOKristal. It's @S-E-O-K-R-I-S-T-A-L on the Twitter. It's a great point, kind of speaking to what Barry was saying before, we were talking about this whole time, that there's so many things that SEO touches, SEO considers, that border on SEO. That if you don't consider SEO into the decision making process, relate to whatever product that you're touching, whatever product you're developing, you're missing out. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and I think it's really interesting that she described her team as being very SEO rich in terms of knowledge, that they will all be considering the SEO potential of every decision because they all have a grounding in SEO knowledge. And again, this also ties in a little bit with what Barry was saying about making sure that there's the education piece, that everyone has a base level knowledge of how search works and why certain things matter and what things should be prioritized in order to make sure that the SEO is baked in. And I think that when you have that, it makes a lot of the decisions a lot more streamlined, and it sounds ideal and it sounds like they think about it a lot. Mordy Oberstein: And the thing is, when you don't consider SEO into the decision process from the outset, it gets messy, and you're either faced with two decisions. One is you don't consider the SEO aspects, or you have to go back and work them in and that could be a little bit messy. So let's just say for example, you're working on, I don't know, an ebook, you have a landing page built around the ebook, and the landing page doesn't think about SEOs, a really simple classic example. And you've used a lot of the language from the book itself on the landing page, but that doesn't really jive with what you need to do from an SEO point of view and now you have to take one style, which is very much like a branding and marketing messaging, and integrate it with an SEO content strategy. And sometimes when you do that, it can be not harmonious or not seamless, but that's what you're left with now because you didn't consider SEO early on in the process when you're considering, okay, what's going into the ebook? What are the various assets? And where does SEO come in? Crystal Carter: Right, and the worst case scenario you get is when nobody's considered it, nobody's thought about it, and then the thing launches. Crystal Carter: Is when nobody's considered it, nobody's thought about it, and then the thing launches, and then it's a complete catastrophe from a search point of view because no one spoke to an SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly, which is why you need, when you're deciding on what to do for a product, decide on SEO first, or SEO at the beginning, maybe second. Could be third. Crystal Carter: First. First people. Mordy Oberstein: First. Fine, SEO is first, no matter what. Crystal Carter: Always start with the SEOs first. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, forget like even the product, just SEO. On what, we don't know. It doesn't matter. Just SEO, first. That's all that matters. Okay, again, big thanks to Crystal and make sure you're putting your SEO decisions, prioritizing your SEO decisions early on in the product stage, and now, you know what's a really important thing to consider into your process, that's a really important decision to make about your SEO? Crystal Carter: What could it be? Mordy Oberstein: It's to follow the news every day because you never know what's going to be in there, and it gives you a nice little directional understanding of where things are heading, what's coming down the pike, and how the ecosystem is changing. So, decide on SEO news. Crystal Carter: I agree. Let's decide on some SEO news. Let's get into some snappy... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, we should make it snappy. Crystal Carter: I think so. Mordy Oberstein: We could make it snappy too. We decided on this. It should be snappy. All right, let's snap to it with some snappy SEO news. Snappy news. Snappy News. Snappy News. Oh boy, it's here. Burberry Schwartz over on search engine land, Google releases August 2023, broad core update. So Google actually, prior to this at some point, John Muller over the course of the summer said, "Yeah, well kind of expect one to come." So here it is, the official release of the August 2023 broad core update. Generally speaking, the updates take around two weeks to complete. My recommendation to you is to wait for it to completely roll out. Google will announce when it's done rolling out before you start freaking out about anything, because at the very tail end of updates, there's often another set of fluctuations that occur and they can reverse what you saw at the very beginning of the updates. So we saw great wins in the beginning. Don't get over joyous, those can reverse by the time the update is over. If you see ranking losses at the beginning of the update, don't freak out. Those can reverse. By the time the update is completely finished out, wait until the update's finished before you really get either super happy or super upset about it. Also, this is a really tricky one because your rankings most likely happen off the wall, up and down, back and forth, in and out. Well, not in and out, up and down, over the course of the last month, if not more. If you look at the SEO weather tools, whether it's summer sensor or MozCast, you'll have noticed that there has been an insane amount of rank volatility. Rank has been moving more than ever before. My personal opinion. I don't think I've ever recalled a period where some of the tools are just showing such a high level of rank movement up and down for such a long period of time. Meaning, usually before an update you might've seen a little bit here, a little bit there, maybe more than normal, but when the update comes, you're like, "Oh wow, this update's really moving by rankings around." You might've been seeing that for the past month or so, so it'll be hard to see the exact impact of the update, at least at the onset of it. It's been a really weird time. The bones in my body tell me this is going to be a big one. I'm recording this at the early onset of the update, so I could be wrong. I could be right. Just my gut tells me it's going to be a big one. Again, we've seen the weather tools, the summer sensor for example, showing incredible amounts of very, very unusually long sustained periods of incredible rank volatility, of rank instability on the Google results pages. That coupled with the fact that there's just so much going on in the ecosystem now between AI content, SG, everything is sort of changing at the moment. My gut just sort of tells me this is going to be a big one. I guess we'll have to wait until the update completes its rollout to really see. May the force be with you and with us all, and that is this week's Snappy News. I'm really glad we decided to do that. Snappy SEO news. Crystal Carter: I mean, I definitely felt like a decider in that process, which is always something that is important to me. Mordy Oberstein: I always decide to see what Barry has to say. Crystal Carter: He's got some good news. Mordy Oberstein: Sometimes, not the greatest news, but sometimes important news nonetheless, like, "Oh, no big update. Ah, freak out." Crystal Carter: That's a song, isn't it, by Chic, isn't it? Mordy Oberstein: Yes, it's. "Ah! Google Algorithm Update Freak Out!" Crystal Carter: That's what I always think of every time there's a Google algorithm update, I think what we need right now is a little bit of disco. That's what's required. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, but beyond now you know what I think about when I hear about all the various SEO topics that are out there. I think of Jackie Chu who is a follow of the week. It's at Jackie Chu over on Twitter, this's at J-A-C-K-I-E-C-C-H-U, on the Twitter. She's the SEO over at Uber, and she talks about all sorts of SEO topics and no matter where you are coming from into the SEO ecosystem to the SEO industry, she's got something to say for you, which is why she's our follow of the week this week. Crystal Carter: She's a great follow. She speaks at a select few conferences and whenever she does, it's always such a treat because she has a really wide marketing knowledge and when we're talking about marketing and SEO and where they overlap and that sort of thing, and she has a great grounding in both. I think she started in, I think doing YouTube way back in the day and she's now working at Uber and does some great stuff there, and she's got a really good grounding in a wide range of marketing skills and knowledge. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like today's episode is like the Mr. Rogers of SERP's Up podcast episodes, "So no matter where you are, no matter who you are, you are special and you have a seat at the SEO table just because of who you are." Crystal Carter: I feel like I could put on my cardigan, get out some comfortable shoes, put my shopping down... Mordy Oberstein: I need some comfortable shoes. Invite the mailman over. Crystal Carter: Right. And then just as a grown adult, just play with some puppets in my house by myself. Mordy Oberstein: As we ride the trolley to the land of SEO make believe. Crystal Carter: I really did love Mr. Rogers. That was really good... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, good. Crystal Carter: That that was a good time of day. Like you had Sesame Street, you got Mr. Rogers, your Reading Rainbow. Just like wholesome. Just some wholesomeness. Mordy Oberstein: It's a whole different wormhole. That's not our podcast. That's a different podcast somewhere out there, I guess is a Mr. Rogers podcast. Thank you for joining this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with the new episode as we dive into the power of SEO fundamentals, we're pour the fun back in SEO fun-damentals. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content, all the great 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, oral rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace of love and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Barry Adams Kristal Audain Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Polemic Digital SEO for Google News Groundworks News: Google releases August 2023 broad core update Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Barry Adams Kristal Audain Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Polemic Digital SEO for Google News Groundworks News: Google releases August 2023 broad core update Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's a new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing us with groovy new insights round what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I am joined one of the best, most fabulous, most proficient marketers on the planet you can possibly find. She's brilliant. She's a fabulous marketer. She is our head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: I'm going to have to increase the fee for the introductions that you give me because- Mordy Oberstein: Just Venmo me later. Crystal Carter: ... it's getting ridiculous. Right. Okay. Will do. I will do. Mordy Oberstein: $1 per compliment. Crystal Carter: Very kind of you. You're not so bad yourself there, Mordy. You're fantastic as well. Mordy Oberstein: As you have told me many times when people compliment you, Mordy, just say thank you, which I have a hard time doing. Crystal Carter: Exactly. It's good. Mordy Oberstein: Jamar Rainwell's called me out on Twitter was like, "Can you take a compliment?" I'm like, "Nope." Crystal Carter: Which is why it's so good on your birthday... Which everyone should know that his birthday is in February- Mordy Oberstein: March. Crystal Carter: So- Mordy Oberstein: But no- Crystal Carter: Oh sorry. Mordy Oberstein: ... Not March. It's make up a month. What doesn't exist? Marchtober. My birthday is in Marchtober. Crystal Carter: Mordy's a Pisces. Anyways, so Mordy's a Pisces. When his birthday comes up, make sure that you shower him with compliments and appreciation because he absolutely hates it. So it does two things. It tells him you appreciate him and also irritates him to no end, so- Mordy Oberstein: Can I say, so you were at a conference when it was my birthday. You went around to all the conference people had them wish me and they thought they were doing a great thing, and it was making me nuts. What do I do now? Crystal Carter: Mordy was like, "No, stop. No, really no stop." And I was like, "No, keep going." Mordy Oberstein: Best is Barry Schwartz who just writes thank you with the period for everything. Happy birthday, Barry. Thank you. The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix. Where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, searchlight over wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also dive into our suite of marketing tools and inbuilt integrations. Or you could bring your own as you can add scripts to your Wix website and pull in tools like Hotjar and far beyond, do marketing the way you want to with Wix. As today, I ask, is SEO part of marketing? I've been teasing this the entire intro because we're going to get into it. It's the age-old question. Is SEO part of product? Is it part of IT? Is it part marketing? If you're wondering, is there a place for you and SEO, I think this is your episode because today we're asking is SEO marketing? Is it beyond marketing? Do you need to be a good marketer to be a good SEO? What's the difference anyway? Who actually caress? And to help us work our way through this, we have our first, second time guest, one of our personal favorites, the one the only Barry Adams, who'll be buying just a few minutes to join us as we dive into SEO and marketing. We'll also get into some hard decisions, decisions, decisions. How does SEO inform product decisions? Kristal Audain will share her outlook. Plus we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social media. So grab your place card and hope for the best as episode number 53 of the SERP's Up podcast welcomes you to the reception and tells you which table you are sitting at. Crystal Carter: This is a great discussion because it comes up a lot. So I've heard a lot of people discuss this, Areej AbuAli has discussed this as well. So whether or not SEO sits in development with the dev teams or whether or not it sits in marketing. Some people think that it's just at a more strategic level, and I think that not to start too soon with the SEO platitude, but it kind of depends. I think it absolutely depends on your business, but I'm sure we'll get into that. But I think one of the reasons why this comes up is because there's a lot of overlap. And the reason why I say it depends is because what's going on in your business will cause some of the reasons why it might overlap. So for instance, if there's lots of technical fixes that are needed, then your SEO might want to sit more with the tech team, more with the dev team. If it's more a content thing, they might want to sit more with a marketing team, that sort of thing potentially. But because SEO as a discipline is so vast, I think this is where some of the challenges arise. So I'm really excited to get into this with our guest, Barry, who's absolutely somebody who's worked with lots and lots of teams around SEO and around marketing and around other things as well to discuss this in more detail. Mordy Oberstein: So cue dramatic music, because the founder of Polemic Digital, SEO legend himself, Barry Adams is here right now with us. Hey, Barry. Barry Adams: Hey Mordy. Hey Crystal, how are you doing? Crystal Carter: We are very, very pleased to have you here on the podcast. We've both spent some good amount of time with you at conferences and things around the world, so it's a real pleasure to have you here on the podcast today. Barry Adams: Thank you. Thank you very much. But I may be in the wrong room. Because I hear that I'm in the room with marketers. I mean, I'm not a marketer. What am I doing here? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I set that up, right. It's okay. A little bit of background. First off, Barry likes to say that I get him drunk at conferences and it's all my fault, which it is. Barry Adams: Every time I'm hung over, Mordy, I blame you, every time. Mordy Oberstein: As well you should. And for all other things, you should just blame me. But I know that we might have a little bit of a different of opinion here about where SEO fits in and out. Spoiler alert, I think at the end of this we're going to conclude that there's all sorts of ways that you can fit into SEO, which is great because SEO is for everybody at the end of the day. By the way, and I did set up Crystal as a great marketer to sort of put her on my camp to start off, which I feel is horrible Barry Adams: You're stacked the deck today Mordy, you're stacked the deck today. You're cheating. Mordy Oberstein: I'm putting my thumb on the scale, but I do think that there's a large overlap between SEO and marketing, and I'm wondering if you disagree. Barry Adams: I definitely disagree. I mean, I have been doing SEO for, well, probably way too long, to be entirely honest. In-house for about of 15 years, agency side and now freelance. I think my touchpoint with marketing in all those years have been fairly minimal. Most of my work has been focused on what you would call development or product. And in recent years, a lot of it has been focused on editorial, working with journalists and editors when it comes to publishing and writing content optimized for visibility in SERP's, and none of those would ever come close to marketing. In fact, in some of the circles that I work in, especially in publishing, marketing is seen as a dirty word because it has a very different connotation in the news industry. Marketing is monetization, marketing is the commercial side. It's selling ads and content partnerships, and that's not what the dev team nor the editorial teams really want to worry themselves with. Now, I do agree there are aspects of SEO that are what I call marketing adjacent. But at its core, I don't think that most of what SEO does is marketing, because SEO is very process driven. I think it's more of a product discipline or even a project discipline than it is a marketing discipline. Mordy Oberstein: So if I could counter- Barry Adams: Please do. Mordy Oberstein: Say, pull my gloves off, and then slip on the brass knuckles. No, just kidding. Crystal Carter: Mordy, you'll not stand a chance. Mordy Oberstein: They're not brass. They're gold. Barry Adams: We have met Mordy. You do realize there's a significant size difference. Mordy Oberstein: So what do my favorite things about going to conferences, after so many years of talking to people and then you finally meet them in real life and then you realize I am a short person, and everybody is taller. Crystal Carter: To be fair, Barry's taller than most people. Mordy Oberstein: It's true. Crystal Carter: So, there's also that. Mordy Oberstein: But right now we're sitting down on Zoom, so we're all the same height. Crystal Carter: On Zoom, everyone's the same. Mordy Oberstein: Everyone is the same. No, but in all serious, I definitely understand where you're coming from and I definitely agree, and I think it's one of those things where we're going to end up saying, well, there's different ways to look at it, and all of them are great ways to look at it. I came into SEO from the content side, I got into SEO because someone asked me, Hey, could you write content for our company that ranks? And I'm like, sure. How do I do that? And a lot of the things that I ended up doing over the years when I was at Rank Ranger, I was managing their blog, was a lot of content strategy focused on SEO. So finding opportunities to rank, finding opportunities to pivot the brand, finding opportunities for expansion, and all of those things are very, very heavy on the SEO side. But at the end of the day, I'm also going to be talking to a lot of marketers. I'm going to talk to brag. Okay, great, you're writing this content, but does the tone fit the brand? How does it position the brand? That kind of thing. So there's a lot of SEO work, but because it's very heavy on the content side, you're going into content marketing. Now we're talking the pivoting to other channels. Now we're talking about brand marketing. And I feel that a lot of the work I've done over the years has very, very, very easily slid into marketing. And especially because I think what some of the things Google's done on the... Mordy Oberstein: ... marketing, and especially because I think some of the things Google's done on the algorithmic side around quality and content have kind of united content marketing and SEO closer than ever before. So, hah! Take that. Barry Adams: I'd love to disagree but I can't really. But what you just portrayed is definitely part of SEO and I don't dispute that. I do think there is a very big part of SEO that is, like you said, marketing adjacent, has some overlap. But there's an equally big part, if not a bigger part, that has nothing to do with marketing. And I think calling that marketing by saying all SEO is marketing, you're doing a disservice to both marketing and to SEO as well as to the dev side, tech side, product side, editorial side that the other aspects overlap with. In that regard, I don't think SEO is unique. If you talk to UI/UX developers, the designers for example, they don't like to be boxed in either. They're not marketing. They're not design. They're not product. They're all of those things and none of those things. So, I think we need to try not to box SEO into, "Oh, SEO is marketing," or, "Oh no, SEO is product." SEO is SEO, and it has a lot of different touchpoints and it needs to have the freedom to spread out in a process-focused way throughout organizations so that every part of the organization that has a role to play in SEO has the right processes in place to facilitate that and to help make websites a success in search. Mordy Oberstein: Barry, I brought you on to have a Royal Rumble, but I completely agree with everything you just said. Crystal Carter: I think it comes down to also thinking of SEO, thinking of marketing, thinking of whatever as a tool for achieving your goals. So, to offer another journey, I studied marketing. So, I studied CIM, the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I did all of that stuff and I learned about PEST analysis and I learned about SWOT analysis and I learned about the cash cow and the star and all of that sort of stuff, all of this classic old school marketing stuff. And I apply that to SEO things. I was reading something and they were saying, "Oh, you need to be looking at technical considerations and political...." I was like, "That's a PEST analysis. That's a PEST analysis. There's a diagram for that that somebody made years and years ago." And it's the same thing. You do that in SEO. You do need to look at those factors when you're making your assessments and things like that. And it's a tool for it. And I think that when you think of these things as a tool for achieving your goals overall, I think that's when it works really well. Probably the biggest example that I've seen recently of SEO and marketing working really well together is the Barbie movie SERP. So, I don't know if people have seen this, but if you Google the Barbie movie, the marketing team have worked with the actual SERP and the whole SERP turns pink and sparkles. And that- Barry Adams: I loved that. I absolutely loved it. I was googling Margo Robbie, Ryan Gosling, and they all just show up as big sparkly pink SERPs. It was fantastic. Crystal Carter: It's fantastic. And that's a fantastic example of marketing and SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, it sparkles! If you do Oppenheimer, does the whole thing blow up? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I don't know. I don't think that they've taken the whole thing into consideration, but I think that when you see those things work really well, they work really well. And I think it's a question of, again, thinking of these things as a tool in order to achieve your goals. And you mentioned editorial teams and the business arm and things like that, and sometimes there's a bit of overlap. Sometimes that makes sense. The ad team, that's going to help the editorial team pay the bills as well. But I think that, yeah, like you said, people don't want to be boxed in, but people want resources to be able to execute the things that they want. So, do you find when you're working with marketing teams that being able to speak their language helps you to achieve your goals? Barry Adams: That's a very good question. I'll be honest, it's been a while since I've actually worked with a marketing team specific in SEO. I work with audience growth teams. I work with development and product teams. Marketing teams, yes, I think sometimes marketing teams, it helps when you cast it in a certain format and sell it as a process or a part of what they have budget and sign off for. But it also informs me when I start talking with prospective clients or other businesses that I have an understanding of where they see SEO fit in, because it tells me how far along in the SEO journey they actually are. And I'll be entirely honest with you, when I see that SEO is seen as part of marketing or even online marketing or digital marketing, I'm a little bit worried because it means that they're probably not as far along as they think they are. It is very much a cross-disciplinary effort. And if you box it into one thing, "Oh, that's marketing," then I like, "Right, okay, we might need to change some habits here." Because in those scenarios, in my experience, it tends to be very difficult to get them to release resources on the product dev side, because that's not part of the remit and it's only about the onsite content and it's about the link building efforts and all of that stuff. I'm like, "Yeah, but if we need to make technical changes to the website, we're sort of hindered. We're sort of boxed in there." Mordy Oberstein: It's funny because that's how we operate at Wix, because we have an SEO team that's under marketing. They're a growth marketing team. And then we have SEO on the actual product side. And one of the nice things is that we work really well together, and it really is a cross-company endeavor, and SEO isn't boxed in. Crystal Carter: And I think that your point about marketing team maturity is absolutely clutch, certainly when you're talking about a very granulated marketing team. So, they'll all sit maybe under the overall umbrella of marketing, but there'll be a growth team and a UX team and a whatever. And like you were saying, that's a sign that somebody has thought about the journey here. Barry Adams: Yeah. But at the same, and let's be honest, a lot of small businesses don't have those sort of resources. They might have one person responsible for the whole website. And I work with those sorts of businesses as well, in which case you have to adjust expectations and be almost more of an educational resource rather than a transactional resource. Where you teach them the good habits. You teach them what the long-term pathway is. And I always have the same advice for all clients that always... I get asked a lot, "What do we need to do in the long-term to become successful in search?" And I say, "Hire in-house people who have the mandate to do that." If you don't commit internal resources for it and you're always going to be relying on external agencies and consultants, you're never really going to develop that specialty and that internal focus that you need. And that's a business decision for a company to make, how important they see search as a channel, whether or not they want to invest in that. And I also think it's a perfectly valid decision not to keep relying on external resources because there's other channels that are more important to you, be that a B2B channel or some other channel that drives revenue for your business, but it needs to be an informed business decision. But in terms of the aspect of marketing versus product versus tech or whatever you call it, I also feel very, very strongly that SEO is one of those very rare disciplines where pretty much anyone can be successful regardless of your background, and that we should be welcoming to people from all kinds of different walks of life into our industry because of the incredibly wide and varied skillset that is useful for SEO. So, I have an almost allergic reaction to people saying, "Oh, that's not SEO." Because I used to be, in my earlier days of SEO, I was part of an SEO community that everything that wasn't on onsite, like link building, wasn't seen as SEO. And I sort of rebelled against that because I felt then that no, you need to do more than just the onsite stuff to be successful. You need to do something in brand marketing, link building, PR, whatever you call it, to help your website succeed. Now, well, that's not something I'm good at because I think to be a good marketer and a good digital PR person, you need to be a people person. You need to like people. I don't like people generally, so give me a computer any day of the week. But I do realize it's part of the whole SEO ecosystem and it needs to be recognized. As I say, everybody has their role to play. Everybody brings something strong and unique to the table. I don't think we need to be exclusionary and very focused on specific niches and say, "Oh, if you don't do that, you're not an SEO." It's like, "No." Pretty much anything that a person can be good at can be useful for SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Barry, you're like Meat Loaf, because you took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to ask how you felt the fact that SEO is so dynamic and it's so broad and it can't be boxed in impacts someone coming into the industry, someone just trying to find a career in SEO, but you kind of answered my question. And that's sort of, I guess, the practical implication of this discussion. Does it matter? Who cares if it's marketing or not marketing? I think the answer, it does matter. Because if you look at it as just marketing or just IT or just whatever you want to pigeonhole SEO, it does set up a barrier to entry like, "Oh, I can't do SEO because I'm coming from this angle," or, "I can't do SEO because I'm coming from another angle." No, the answer is, you can do SEO. Especially in today's market, I feel like SEO has become far more specialized than it was back in the day when there only was an SEO generalist. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think also, you know when you're talking about different channels as well, when we say... I'm a big advocate of omnichannel marketing, and again, I've been fascinated by the Barbie movie campaign. I think there's a lot of old school marketing going on there. There's a lot of billboards just everywhere. I've never seen so many... Crystal Carter: Going on there. There's a lot of billboards just everywhere. I've never seen so many billboards in recently. And I think that when we think about that, even if you, as an SEO, aren't on the team that's handling the billboards, for whatever it is, or maybe buses or something, even if you're not doing that sort of thing, it's worth having a good relationship with them so that they have some SEO in mind, so that they make sure that they put the website on the billboard as well, so that they make sure that they put the website on the side of the bus as well, so that you are using terminology on the page that reflects what they've put into the newspaper print ad, for instance. Barry Adams: But also, for example, that you have a webpage or set of pages dedicated to showing the billboards that you have, like have big images and downloadable images for that and let people download wallpapers and all that sort of stuff. So that when people search in Barbie billboard in Google, your web pages show up first so that you are in control over that particular part of the narrative. Mordy Oberstein: There's so many times that's actually happened when you see an in-person ad or a non-digital ad and you go, "Okay, I need to Google that now and get more information about it." That's, I guess, the point, SEO is not the only, or head of SEO likes to say, SEO touches everything, including billboards. Billboard optimization. Barry Adams: Billboard optimization. We're going to be rebranding SEO for the 15th time. Mordy Oberstein: Have you all seen the Barbie movie? Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Barry Adams: Not yet, but that's because I've been flu-ridden and I don't want to spread germs in the movie theater, but I want to see both Barbie and Oppenheimer, ideally back to back. Mordy Oberstein: Back to back. That's my goal. Barry Adams: I'm just not sure which I want to see first. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly what, I want the contrast of life. Crystal Carter: I've been told that you should see Barbie first. I've heard on the radio that if you see Oppenheimer first, it's like... Barry Adams: Yeah, I think that in the back of my head, I want to see Barbie first and then go straight into Oppenheimer to come down from the hyper Barbie experience. Mordy Oberstein: By the time you walk out, you're balanced and have a well- Barry Adams: Exactly. Mordy Oberstein: Well centered outlook. Barry Adams: Well, Barbie will make me feel good about life and the world and then Oppenheimer will make me feel like nothing ever matters and everything's going to die, so will come out as a perfectly balanced person in the end. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Like therapy, basically. Crystal Carter: Like a well-balanced marketing team. Mordy Oberstein: You become optimized. It's movie optimization. Crystal Carter: Entirely. Barry Adams: Mind state optimization. Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Barry Adams: MSO. Mordy Oberstein: Barry, where can folks find you? Barry Adams: Well, I'd like to say Twitter, but who the hell knows what it's called? Crystal Carter: X now. Barry Adams: Yeah, I'll be entirely honest. Mordy Oberstein: We're recording the day after Twitter decided to rebrand. So by the time this episode comes out, we don't know what Twitter will be. Barry Adams: Yeah, find me on x.com/badams. No, I'm on LinkedIn. That's actually probably one of the most reliable- Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Barry Adams: Channels. I have my own newsletter, SEOforgooglenews.com, and polemicdigital.com is my consultancy website. Crystal Carter: And almost certainly at an SEO conference near you, because Barry Adams gets to the places and tells the people the things. Barry Adams: They keep asking me to come back, Crystal, and why would I say no? It's nice. Nice to see people and hang out and go on stage and talk. Yeah, it's lovely. Mordy Oberstein: And be taller than most of the other people there. We get it. Barry Adams: Well, not if you go to conferences in the Netherlands, I'm slightly below average height there. Mordy Oberstein: That's why don't go, I don't want to feel too bad about myself. Barry Adams: We do enough to make that happen already, don't we, Mordy? Mordy Oberstein: It's inherent. If you have a question about SEO and news related websites, definitely look for Barry on all of those locations. We'll link to all of his profiles and all of his websites in the show notes. Barry, thank you so much for coming on and offering your perspective on where SEO fits in. Barry Adams: Thank you very much for having me. It's been a blast. Mordy Oberstein: All right. Thank you very much, Barry. Again, again, I cannot repeat how amazing Barry is. Please give him a follow on whatever social media platform you so choose to follow people on. So as SEO straddles multiple areas of the digital world, from marketing to tech, and beyond as we already discussed, we wanted to explore how SEO might impact your product decisions. Whether you're creating something as complex as a SaaS product or spitting up an ebook, how should SEO impact your product decisions? And to help us, we asked Kristal Audain, the PM at Groundworks, how she factors SEO into her decisions, as we launch a brand new segment, first time ever on the SERP's Up Podcast, and we're calling it Decisions, Decisions, Decisions. Kristal Audain: Hey, Mordy and Crystal. So as a product manager, where my primary product is websites, well not just one, but 19 different websites, SEO definitely plays a role in my product decisions every single day. It's actually pretty cool though because our scrum master is a former SEO, our head of data is a former SEO, our senior director of product ran SEO for a while, and then as a product manager, I am a former SEO as well. So SEO is definitely top of mind when it comes to our team. But also working directly hand in hand with our head of SEO and our technical SEO, making sure that everything that we do as far as development wise, features and benefits on the site, any new dev work that we do doesn't play too hard with our Core Web Vitals. Making sure LCP stays pretty firm. It's actually one of our QA process items that we have for everything that we put out there to make sure that PACE performance stays peak and on top of things. Also looking at our content team for that on page keyword targeting, making sure that they have exactly what they need as far as layout, any blocks that they need, any new features that they need that might help them do their job a little bit better, we're on top of that. As well as talking to them about new things that we're putting out to make sure it's helpful to them. And also looking at URL structure, that's something we're taking a look at right now to make sure that our users can utilize our sites in the best way, UX is important, but also that we are giving them what they need in order to target those keywords that they need without cannibalizing themselves by having resource articles and glossary terms and service pages trying to target the same keyword more than once. So working hand in hand with our SEO team and head of content on that to make sure that we're good to go across the board. So I would definitely say that SEO is top of mind in my day-to-day. We used to sit in marketing and report to the CMO. Now we're over in IT, but we are definitely still on a daily basis having those conversations, making sure that whatever they need, we can get into our sprints, and just nurturing that relationship across the board. So SEO and content and product can work together, it doesn't have to work in silos. We can be friends and work across the aisle without much of an issue, especially when you have so many SEOs on the team of either former or current, putting it all together. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Kristal, for that. Make sure you follow Kristal over @SEOKristal. It's @S-E-O-K-R-I-S-T-A-L on the Twitter. It's a great point, kind of speaking to what Barry was saying before, we were talking about this whole time, that there's so many things that SEO touches, SEO considers, that border on SEO. That if you don't consider SEO into the decision making process, relate to whatever product that you're touching, whatever product you're developing, you're missing out. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and I think it's really interesting that she described her team as being very SEO rich in terms of knowledge, that they will all be considering the SEO potential of every decision because they all have a grounding in SEO knowledge. And again, this also ties in a little bit with what Barry was saying about making sure that there's the education piece, that everyone has a base level knowledge of how search works and why certain things matter and what things should be prioritized in order to make sure that the SEO is baked in. And I think that when you have that, it makes a lot of the decisions a lot more streamlined, and it sounds ideal and it sounds like they think about it a lot. Mordy Oberstein: And the thing is, when you don't consider SEO into the decision process from the outset, it gets messy, and you're either faced with two decisions. One is you don't consider the SEO aspects, or you have to go back and work them in and that could be a little bit messy. So let's just say for example, you're working on, I don't know, an ebook, you have a landing page built around the ebook, and the landing page doesn't think about SEOs, a really simple classic example. And you've used a lot of the language from the book itself on the landing page, but that doesn't really jive with what you need to do from an SEO point of view and now you have to take one style, which is very much like a branding and marketing messaging, and integrate it with an SEO content strategy. And sometimes when you do that, it can be not harmonious or not seamless, but that's what you're left with now because you didn't consider SEO early on in the process when you're considering, okay, what's going into the ebook? What are the various assets? And where does SEO come in? Crystal Carter: Right, and the worst case scenario you get is when nobody's considered it, nobody's thought about it, and then the thing launches. Crystal Carter: Is when nobody's considered it, nobody's thought about it, and then the thing launches, and then it's a complete catastrophe from a search point of view because no one spoke to an SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly, which is why you need, when you're deciding on what to do for a product, decide on SEO first, or SEO at the beginning, maybe second. Could be third. Crystal Carter: First. First people. Mordy Oberstein: First. Fine, SEO is first, no matter what. Crystal Carter: Always start with the SEOs first. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, forget like even the product, just SEO. On what, we don't know. It doesn't matter. Just SEO, first. That's all that matters. Okay, again, big thanks to Crystal and make sure you're putting your SEO decisions, prioritizing your SEO decisions early on in the product stage, and now, you know what's a really important thing to consider into your process, that's a really important decision to make about your SEO? Crystal Carter: What could it be? Mordy Oberstein: It's to follow the news every day because you never know what's going to be in there, and it gives you a nice little directional understanding of where things are heading, what's coming down the pike, and how the ecosystem is changing. So, decide on SEO news. Crystal Carter: I agree. Let's decide on some SEO news. Let's get into some snappy... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, we should make it snappy. Crystal Carter: I think so. Mordy Oberstein: We could make it snappy too. We decided on this. It should be snappy. All right, let's snap to it with some snappy SEO news. Snappy news. Snappy News. Snappy News. Oh boy, it's here. Burberry Schwartz over on search engine land, Google releases August 2023, broad core update. So Google actually, prior to this at some point, John Muller over the course of the summer said, "Yeah, well kind of expect one to come." So here it is, the official release of the August 2023 broad core update. Generally speaking, the updates take around two weeks to complete. My recommendation to you is to wait for it to completely roll out. Google will announce when it's done rolling out before you start freaking out about anything, because at the very tail end of updates, there's often another set of fluctuations that occur and they can reverse what you saw at the very beginning of the updates. So we saw great wins in the beginning. Don't get over joyous, those can reverse by the time the update is over. If you see ranking losses at the beginning of the update, don't freak out. Those can reverse. By the time the update is completely finished out, wait until the update's finished before you really get either super happy or super upset about it. Also, this is a really tricky one because your rankings most likely happen off the wall, up and down, back and forth, in and out. Well, not in and out, up and down, over the course of the last month, if not more. If you look at the SEO weather tools, whether it's summer sensor or MozCast, you'll have noticed that there has been an insane amount of rank volatility. Rank has been moving more than ever before. My personal opinion. I don't think I've ever recalled a period where some of the tools are just showing such a high level of rank movement up and down for such a long period of time. Meaning, usually before an update you might've seen a little bit here, a little bit there, maybe more than normal, but when the update comes, you're like, "Oh wow, this update's really moving by rankings around." You might've been seeing that for the past month or so, so it'll be hard to see the exact impact of the update, at least at the onset of it. It's been a really weird time. The bones in my body tell me this is going to be a big one. I'm recording this at the early onset of the update, so I could be wrong. I could be right. Just my gut tells me it's going to be a big one. Again, we've seen the weather tools, the summer sensor for example, showing incredible amounts of very, very unusually long sustained periods of incredible rank volatility, of rank instability on the Google results pages. That coupled with the fact that there's just so much going on in the ecosystem now between AI content, SG, everything is sort of changing at the moment. My gut just sort of tells me this is going to be a big one. I guess we'll have to wait until the update completes its rollout to really see. May the force be with you and with us all, and that is this week's Snappy News. I'm really glad we decided to do that. Snappy SEO news. Crystal Carter: I mean, I definitely felt like a decider in that process, which is always something that is important to me. Mordy Oberstein: I always decide to see what Barry has to say. Crystal Carter: He's got some good news. Mordy Oberstein: Sometimes, not the greatest news, but sometimes important news nonetheless, like, "Oh, no big update. Ah, freak out." Crystal Carter: That's a song, isn't it, by Chic, isn't it? Mordy Oberstein: Yes, it's. "Ah! Google Algorithm Update Freak Out!" Crystal Carter: That's what I always think of every time there's a Google algorithm update, I think what we need right now is a little bit of disco. That's what's required. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, but beyond now you know what I think about when I hear about all the various SEO topics that are out there. I think of Jackie Chu who is a follow of the week. It's at Jackie Chu over on Twitter, this's at J-A-C-K-I-E-C-C-H-U, on the Twitter. She's the SEO over at Uber, and she talks about all sorts of SEO topics and no matter where you are coming from into the SEO ecosystem to the SEO industry, she's got something to say for you, which is why she's our follow of the week this week. Crystal Carter: She's a great follow. She speaks at a select few conferences and whenever she does, it's always such a treat because she has a really wide marketing knowledge and when we're talking about marketing and SEO and where they overlap and that sort of thing, and she has a great grounding in both. I think she started in, I think doing YouTube way back in the day and she's now working at Uber and does some great stuff there, and she's got a really good grounding in a wide range of marketing skills and knowledge. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like today's episode is like the Mr. Rogers of SERP's Up podcast episodes, "So no matter where you are, no matter who you are, you are special and you have a seat at the SEO table just because of who you are." Crystal Carter: I feel like I could put on my cardigan, get out some comfortable shoes, put my shopping down... Mordy Oberstein: I need some comfortable shoes. Invite the mailman over. Crystal Carter: Right. And then just as a grown adult, just play with some puppets in my house by myself. Mordy Oberstein: As we ride the trolley to the land of SEO make believe. Crystal Carter: I really did love Mr. Rogers. That was really good... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, good. Crystal Carter: That that was a good time of day. Like you had Sesame Street, you got Mr. Rogers, your Reading Rainbow. Just like wholesome. Just some wholesomeness. Mordy Oberstein: It's a whole different wormhole. That's not our podcast. That's a different podcast somewhere out there, I guess is a Mr. Rogers podcast. Thank you for joining this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with the new episode as we dive into the power of SEO fundamentals, we're pour the fun back in SEO fun-damentals. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content, all the great 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, oral rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace of 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

What role does AI play in modern marketing? Can you leverage AI in your marketing? How do you use AI the ‘right’ way? Wix’s Mordy Oberstien and Crystal Carter are joined by best-selling author and marketing influencer, Kim Garst, to discuss leveraging AI to expand your creativity and knowledge base in marketing. Kim discusses her experience using AI to fill certain skill gaps and shares her preferred chatbox for marketing purposes. Plus, learn all of the tools you need to be using to maximize your marketing efforts. Artificial intelligence meets marketing in this episode of the SERP’s Up+ Podcast! Back How marketers can best leverage AI What role does AI play in modern marketing? Can you leverage AI in your marketing? How do you use AI the ‘right’ way? Wix’s Mordy Oberstien and Crystal Carter are joined by best-selling author and marketing influencer, Kim Garst, to discuss leveraging AI to expand your creativity and knowledge base in marketing. Kim discusses her experience using AI to fill certain skill gaps and shares her preferred chatbox for marketing purposes. Plus, learn all of the tools you need to be using to maximize your marketing efforts. Artificial intelligence meets marketing in this episode of the SERP’s Up+ Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode SERP's Up+ 03 | October 2, 2023 | 37 MIN 00:00 / 37:10 This week’s guests Kim Garst Kim is also internationally recognized as a thought leader in the social media space. Forbes named her as one of the Top 10 Social Media Power Influencers. She has provided social and digital marketing advice to some of the world’s top brands like Microsoft, IBM, and Mastercard as well and hundreds of influential business leaders on digital and social media business strategies. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of marketing 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 digital marketing. I'm Mordy Oberstein, head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the amazingly fabulous, the very not artificial intelligence but pure genius, natural genius, the head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carver. Crystal Carver: I am not artificial intelligence. I do have artificial nails this week though. I got my nails done. Mordy Oberstein: Me too. Crystal Carver: That was exciting. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, precisely. I haven't had that done in a while. It's been fun typing with nails like this. I had to adjust. Mordy Oberstein: I literally freak out when my nails are slightly too long. I got to cut it, because it makes me crazy typing. Crystal Carver: My sister, she goes and gets her nails done all the time. I was in the States, I was like, "I want my nails, I want my feet. I'm going to get my eyebrows done. The whole thing." Visiting my family and my sister was like, "Oh no, you just type with the tips." I was like, "Okay. All right. I'm getting used to it. It's fine." It's fun on my phone though. I feel very fancy on my phone with just using the pads with my fingers, like exactly. Mordy Oberstein: Very daintely pressing the keys. Crystal Carver: I know. I feel like, "Oh, I'm just going to- Mordy Oberstein: What happens when you write that angry email? Crystal Carver: Yeah, no, for those ones, that's when you do the voice type, that's when you do the, "Excuse me, I'd like to say just one more thing." And then you run out of time, and you're like, "And another thing. I got cut off." But I also had another thing to say. Mordy Oberstein: Like 50 WhatsApps. Crystal Carver: To be fair though, you WhatsApp me sometimes with like, "Yeah, okay." I'm like, "For serious, you couldn't type that? You couldn't type? Yeah. Okay." Mordy Oberstein: Because I’m with my kids. I have two hands on the kids, and I got to send a message somehow. I once voice messaged Barry Schwarz one time. He was like, "Never voice message me again." Fair point, Barry. Crystal Carver: I mean, we have all this technology to help us these days. There's lots of different ways to communicate, so you got to pick what works best. Mordy Oberstein: You know what works best? The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can build a site that implements responsive design powered by AI, and where you can use a Wix-enriched AI model with inter IDE to generate code examples, troubleshoot your code and query product answers by using Wix Studio, a new platform built specifically for agencies. Power success for your clients with Wix Studio. Get more details over wix.com/studio. I'm pitching AI because in this episode, we're going all in on AI. This month's SERP's Up+ is all about the full AI treatment, the role of AI in modern marketing. Can you leverage AI in your marketing? If so, how do you use AI the right way? What problems and solutions does the integration of AI into marketing bring to the table? To help us wade through the murky yet highly interesting waters of AI in the marketing context, bestselling author and marketing personality, Kim Garst will be joining us in just a few moments. Bring your wrench and a few bolts and some screws as we fine tune the AI bots on this, the third episode of the SERP's Up+ podcast so that the bots can deliver the goods to your audience. I'm not good with wrenches by the way. Crystal Carver: What's that? Mordy Oberstein: I'm not good with wrenches. Crystal Carver: With wrenches, Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. If I had to fine tune a bot with a wrench, I wouldn't succeed. Crystal Carver: Yeah, I don't take you as a handyman. I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: No, I could be handy. I just don't like wrenches. Crystal Carver: Are you handy? Mordy Oberstein: A little bit. My stepdad was an electrician, so I used to go do... Yeah. Crystal Carver: What are the ones... Is it a ratchet where you put it on the thing, and then you move it and then it comes back? I love a ratchet. I like when it comes back, I'm like, "Oh, look at that." And then, I didn't have to move it and I didn't have to hurt my hand. I love that. Mordy Oberstein: I have a whole set, don't like them. Crystal Carver: A whole set of ratchet. Mordy Oberstein: I have a ratchet set. We can talk about ratchets all day long. Usually, we do a little bit of a whole intro about the topic we're going to discuss, but I think everyone kind of gets it, right? AI is here, it's not going away. It's here to stay, and it all depends on how you use it. From task to task, it's going to be different. But one of the areas or verticals where I feel like there's a natural case for using AI is marketing. I think there's so much content creation and so much ideation and so much research that goes into marketing that AI easily, more easily than maybe other verticals, becomes super relevant. But as I said, it's really easy to misstep, and for that reason, we need to really dive into where AI is relevant, because it does solve a lot of pain points or seemingly solve a lot of pain points for marketers, which is why we wanted to explore what does AI really mean for marketers. To do that, we have a legend with us. She's one of the most well-known marketers on this or any other earth. She's written some fantastic pieces around AI and marketing. Welcome to the show, Kim Garst. How are you? Kim Garst: I'm thrilled to be here. I was just going back to the wrench concept you mentioned a minute ago. It's all about how you work it in order to make it come out on the other side with something valuable. I just tying that back into your intro, which was fabulous, by the way. Mordy Oberstein: So you think AI is like a box of wrenches? Kim Garst: Yes, absolutely. All part of your marketing tool set. Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Just to get us started, when we say AI for marketing, when we say AI, what do we mean? Kim Garst: I think, personally, that a lot of times when people own businesses, their zone of genius is around whatever their business is. If they are selling ice cream or they're selling shoes or they're an online marketer, regardless of what it is that they're selling, their passion really is around the thing that they're selling. The marketing element is usually not their zone of genius, and it is difficult for them to really get a toehold sometimes in the marketing space. The best thing, product, or service doesn't win the day. The best-marketed product or service wins the day. So, I think that AI gives us the ability to not necessarily have to be a marketing genius today. All the things that have held us back from achieving an outcome or result is now at our fingertips without us having to be a marketing pro. I think that is, for me, is really serves my passion, because that's something I've done for years, is demystify marketing for those people who aren't marketers, trying to help them grow their businesses online. That's exciting for me. But enter the problem, I think so many people are still... There's so many factors, people are fearful of it, or they're buying these 2,000 prompt banks, and I'm like, "Really?" Prompts alone are not the answer. If you've bought a bunch of prompts, that's okay, but just know that they're not really what you need. So, I think we just have to start approaching it. I mean, AI has been around even before we knew it was around, but now, we have a mechanism to use it each and every one of us with all these tools that are coming out. You just have to use it smartly and with intention and geared towards your individual business. Crystal Carver: Yeah. I think that you touch on a lot of things there about using AI to fill some of your skills gaps and things, but using them to amplify your skills. I recently went to a conference and heard Wil Reynolds talk about a marketing application where he had this great content optimization thing that he wanted to do with Python or something, but he'd never gotten around to actually getting to grips with Python really, really well. And so, he was able to say he knew the data set, he knew exactly what wanted to do, how he would measure if it would work, how he would measure the implementation, all that sort of stuff. But there was this one gap that he was really struggling with. So, he used the tool and said, "Can you help me with this Python?" The tool was like, "Yes, I can." And then, he was able to get from A to B. I think that, like you're saying, there's a lot of people who have great intelligence about whatever it is they're doing, selling ice cream, selling shoes, whatever it may be, and they want to get from A to B. Sometimes, people get stuck with the middle and Google describes it as the messy middle. I don't know if you've seen some good examples of people using AI to help them with that messy marketing middle. Kim Garst: Yeah, it really is. One of the things that I'm teaching is really about... It's a learning model. Just assuming, and I think this is one of those things that's like, "Oh, it's a big old world out there, just assuming we're the only ones in it," kind of that concept. When you approach AI with the mindset that it knows all before you ever get started with it is the wrong mindset. You need to approach it through the lens of how do I train it to know my stuff, know my voice, know my business details, know all of it. I mean, we've taken somebody who has struggled for years to define an ascension model in her business, and just by giving it the right input, we were able to build a really amazing ascension model now for her. Now, she has a path that she has struggled with for years. I have a very similar story where my brother-in-law actually has a PhD. He works at Virginia Tech. He's in a room full of PhDs, super smart people, and they're trying to figure out how to crunch some data and they're like, "Well, it's going to take two weeks to figure this out, just crunching that much information." He approaches AI. Again, going back to they knew what they wanted, they knew the output. In two minutes, they solved this problem. There's so many applications for it that I think we have to get creative in how we approach it and what we want from it, whether it's an offer, whether it's a marketing plan, whether it's really any marketing collateral can be created and with AI today. That's very fascinating and exciting for me when it comes to being an educator and trying to help people affect these transformations in their business when they've not been able to do it before. Mordy Oberstein: I was wondering, because I find when I work with AI, if I give it, like you're saying, if you're very specific, if you have a really unique and specific intent around what you're trying to do, you can usually get it to do mainly what you want it to do. I'm just wondering, I do a lot of content, I work on a lot of content side. Outside of pure content creation, I think everybody understands, yeah, you could feed a prompt, you can get some content output. I can have it maybe write a product description. I wouldn't say you should say, "Hey, write me a blog about which Air Jordans are the best Air Jordans," because when you give it less of a confine, it generally kind of is too vague and too general. But outside of that pure content generation, pure content creation, where can marketers kind of leverage AI where it does kind of work well? Kim Garst: Well, I have two core ways that I'm using it to save me an immense amount of time. Research is one. I find that the research value is different and unique to what you're going to get in the Google machine, which I think is fascinating because, again, I think... But this is my 2 cents on it, because I don't know the backend tech, how all this works. The way I think it works is its ability to synthesize massive amounts of information at a super accelerated rate is giving me better output when I'm asking for specific things from a research perspective. I have to wade through all that when I'm in the Google machine. I have to do that legwork. So, research, for sure, is a critical time saver. The other thing that has been really value-based for me is I have trained a, I call it a brand speak chat thread. I've done this both in Claude as well as ChatGPT. I find that Claude is way better with conversational engagement, and I have been able to really engage with my audience at a whole new level because it gives me the time to be able to do that, because it crafts responses that are pretty much on target when it comes to my voice and things that I would say and how I would say it and the empathy piece of engagement. So, customer service, I think, or engagement in the social space is another huge time saver for me. I think both of those are value-based that are outside of the content wheelhouse. I would just like to add to your comment there. I've been doing a lot of testing when it comes to content creation. I would never recommend that you just, at face value, accept the output from ChatGPT when it comes to content creation. My experience with it has been, it's an iteration. You have to continually ask it for better with direction and grown internal creativity. Crystal Carver: Right. I've seen it work really well. If you're like, "I need some ideas. I want to do something that has a pun about fish around this. Give me some ideas." It'll spit out something you're like, "That's not good. Oh, that is good. Oh, I could work with that." That sort of thing. The ideation element is really interesting. I also think it's interesting the way you break it down. I was looking at Rand Fishkin recently posted an article about the ways that people are using ChatGPT for their work. Similar to you, around 23% of people are using it for education, research purposes, which is interesting. Around 20% of people are using it for content. Around 13% of people are using it for marketing, like meat marketing. A lot of folks are using it for programming. I don't know if you're finding this as well in your work, but I certainly, one of the major benefits of ChatGPT in particular for me has been just cutting down the time I spend arguing with spreadsheets. I do not begrudge that time. Again, it removes some of those roadblocks from getting you from A to B and from crunching that data, things that you were talking about as well. Kim Garst: Or just creating comparison tables, for example, on a blog post. Simple things that would've taken so much time before. With the right input now, you can create these things very quickly, and it'll create the code for you to your point. All you have to do is copy and paste it into your WordPress and the way you go. It's just so many fascinating, I think, lanes. I think another thing, I know I'm deviating slightly from ChatGPT, but imagery. I am using AI for unique imagery that is brand specific and on target with what I'm trying to project. No more stock images, saving money there, but getting really specific on the message in the image that I'm trying to project. That's been really fascinating evolution too. I feel like every time I put something out now, it's more on target maybe with what I'm trying to project. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'm actually surprised you don't see as many people using the image tools than you do. I know there are a lot of people who are using it. For example, in Wix, when you go to the image upload center, there's an AI generation tool and I use that now for all of my images because I don't like stock images. I do think across social media, you need to have an image. I think it's great on LinkedIn where you can't really use a gif the same kind of way as you could, say, on Twitter or X, whatever we're calling it now. It doesn't matter. But it's really good. I find with all of these kinds of tools, you have to really feed it to get it to go exactly where you want it to go. But I do think there's a tremendous branding opportunity. They're also for yourself, because you could be really consistent. Because what they'll generally do, like in the Wix one, we have different categories of image styles, fantasy, 3D, whatever it is. You can create really on-brand images all the time and be consistent all the way through. I actually experimented with this on LinkedIn for a while. I was trying with one style and people were saying, "Where'd you get those images? I keep noticing, you keep posting all those types of images," so you really could leverage those for a brand identity, as part of your brand identity. A lot of them are really, really good, and I'm fascinated why I don't see as many people using them as possible. Kim Garst: Well, my 2 cents on that, just from pouring over trying to learn all this stuff, especially with Midjourney, I think it's very difficult to match Midjourney's output from the perspective of how detailed and intricate and the resolution and everything. It's just so spot on, I think, with Midjourney. But enter the problem, the iteration of it is very difficult trying to get... If you find one you like but it's red glasses versus purple glasses, it doesn't hear you. It doesn't listen to the input that you give it, and it's so darn frustrating. From that perspective, I think it's really about the fact that it's not always understanding what you're asking from an iteration perspective. ChatGPT will listen and try to iterate based on what you tell it. So, I think the iteration issue is a problem. And trying to create images with texts and things like that, it's just not good for that. But Ideogram, I don't know if you guys have tested that out, but that is a really... It's fairly new. I think a Google exec founded that particular tool, and it's become known just in a very short window of time because it does create a text on images which allows for real customization. I can make an image that has AI brand speak on it, and it specifically says that. From that perspective, I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, I think the whole AI space is evolving, one, very rapidly. There's like, I don't know, 50 new tools a day, most of which are probably not too awesome, but how we can find the goodies, the good ones, and then leverage them to create a better outcome or time saver for us and our business. I think that's the end goal. Crystal Carver: I'm really interested in... I want to circle back to something you mentioned almost in passing, but it kind of builds on Mordy's discussion around brand, was you were talking about training AI on your brand voice. Now, you as somebody who has written prolifically, published and things, I'm sure the process might be easier for you than for somebody who's maybe written less. But I'd be really interested to know more about the process of training in AI on your particular brand voice and building that consistency. Kim Garst: I so love this question, and it's the very first thing I do when I work with someone. We just did a masterclass on this, and it's about the process that you go through to train ChatGPT, specifically ChatGPT. But honestly, you could use it for any AI learning model. You could use it on Claude or Bard or whatever. But I call it a brand speak chat thread. The goal, I start with research because so many businesses do not have any... They just randomly pick a niche that they think is their person. So, I challenge that on the front side because we traditionally, as business owners, have not had the access to the data points to be able to do research without spending a ton of money to do it. Or we do it haphazardly or most don't do it at all. So, we start with research on the niche or the area that you think, and I usually do it through the lens of... It's not about necessarily who you think your niche is, it's what problem solving piece of that. What problem are you solving? What is your transformation? Because I'm a big proponent of if you're clear on your transformation, your person is going to self-select in. You don't necessarily have to figure out who that person is. We approach it through what are you serving, what's the outcome, transformation, et cetera. And then, do the research. From there, we build a buyer persona based on real research. And then from there, we start educating it on voice, dropping in specific pieces of content that you might have created. Maybe you've done an interview where you're speaking. I'm a big proponent of natural language. When you write a blog post, it's different. The writing style is different than when you're just speaking to people. So using real speak, I call it, instances where you had real speak as well as writing style so that it learns both, within the confines of the limitations of how ChatGPT consumes content or inputs. And then, we also have a very specific strategy around stories. If you have stories, what your origin story, all the components, like the different types of stories that you might have in your business, using all of that synthesis that you've fed it, then it is able to give you really good output. We also have a piece where you give it your business details. What are you selling? What are the names of your offers? All the components so that it gets a real clear picture, not only from a realistic perspective of who your buyer is from research based, to the independent components. And then from there, you can start to really get clarity on things that you might have not had clarity on, like a message. And what's going to resonate with my buyer based on research, not guessing. It really does streamline the process and the output is just so much richer because it's based around you, your business details, and the person that you're here to serve. Crystal Carver: And then, thinking of some of the layering some of these tactics. We talked about data extraction is really, really useful, and qualitative data, the kind of qualitative data research that you need to do to get good audience research, where you're taking interviews or taking surveys or survey responses or reviews and things. You can take that information and you can put it into something like ChatGPT and say, "Where are the common themes from this set of information?" Kim Garst: That is such a great point. I have a free community and we ask three questions when they come in. One, obviously email, do you want a phone call, and the third and most important piece, "What are you struggling with the most?" Trying to get a problem set. And then, we feed those problems routinely back into ChatGPT, so that we know. We do that for every workshop every month. What's the highest outcome based on what they're telling us? What do they want? It's just no more guessing and no more going all places. It synthesizes all that information for you. It goes back to the ideation. It gives you ideas and you can go from there. It's just so many amazing outcomes if you just approach it right. Crystal Carver: Right. And then, to take that and put that into your brand voice and put it into the thing. I think we had a great webinar with Ross Hutchins who was also talking about break it into chunks. I think we talked a little bit about organizing. Before the discussion, we were discussing, "Oh, AI is great, but it's a little bit like a closet organizer. You still have to put your clothes away. You still have to know what shelf is for the shirts and where your socks go." Yeah, I think if you organize yourself in order to use these tools well, you should get some great results. Kim Garst: I tell people all the time, I feel like my value when it comes to AI is my marketing knowledge. I know I have a framework for what I want to do. So if you're not a marketer, you need to find somebody who's teaching this correctly, in my humble opinion, so that you... Again, it's not about the prompt. It's not about the prompt. I'm going to say it again. It's not about the prompt. Crystal Carver: It's not the prompt. Kim Garst: It's about how do you leverage a framework of prompts to get a specific outcome. I think that is going to be a total game changer. Once you understand there is a flow, there is a process to go through, but coming out on the other side with something amazing that you can customize and where it can be mostly customized for you already. Some people use it out of the box, because they don't know any better. But I do believe that you can do amazing things faster, smarter, and potentially better than you could do it absolutely yourself if you just follow a process to get good outcomes. Mordy Oberstein: That's always the thing people were talking about. Well, AI's going to take my job. And I’d say “how is AI going to be good for me?”. In the SEO world, SEO is going to be dead. AI will write your title tags for you, and AI will write that for you, and AI write... The reality is that it really just ups the value of you as a marketer, as an SEO. I feel yes, if you're... I hate to put it this way, a low level marketer or a low level SEO, and all you're doing is creating title tags and, yes, maybe that's an area where maybe AI could just do that for you. But if you are at a substantial marketing mind or SEO mind or whatever it is that you do, your value just went up because now you need to think a lot more. There's a lot more strategy, there's a lot more that goes into things now. If you want to use AI for this, what are the implications? What are the consequences? What are the best ways to do this? What are the worst ways to do this? How do I go about using this the right way? How do I leverage things now? What's the right strategy? Your mind is right now the commodity, which is great. Kim Garst: I've told said this to several people. I don't believe that AI is going to replace true expertise ever. To your point, if you do have an expertise, and I think everybody does, regardless of where it is on the spectrum, you may be 10 steps behind somebody else that has some expertise in the same lane, but we all have something that we know that somebody else would be willing to pay for. My challenge to you would be, how do you leverage AI to be more creative with the knowledge base that you have? It's really not about it's going to replace you. It's not. Absolutely. I do believe that that's one of... I said this a minute ago. I feel like matching what I know already to how I can integrate and be more creative, and ultimately save myself a bunch of time with AI. That's the way I've married it. I think that that's the way I would encourage everybody to look at it. It's not a way of replacing it, but if you do have an expertise, then you need to figure out how can I leverage AI in such a way that's going to be my creative partner, not the other way around. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. Crystal Carver: Absolutely. I think one thing I say fairly often is that AI should be used to amplify actual intelligence, not just any intelligence, but your actual intelligence. Use it to help you with your actual intelligence. In Buddhism, they have a saying write speech. So if you're using AI, don't talk about something you don't know about. I shouldn't be using AI to write podiatry blogs, because I don't know anything about podiatry. I couldn't possibly attest whether or not the information it was giving me was relevant to that or accurate or anything like that. Mordy Oberstein: What about the podiatry device you gave me last week? Crystal Carver: How's your foot doing? Mordy Oberstein: It still hurts. Kim Garst: But if you have a, let's say... I'll give you a specific example. One of our clients, when you are in a client service-based business... Let me reframe that. One of the challenges has always been to know that business model. To your point, the podiatry. We're not podiatrists. Knowing that space, knowing the voice of that brand has always been a struggle when I had a social media business, an agency. But now, we do a lot of messaging and specific to content creation in particular. One of the things that we have found has worked so well is we train... We use the same methodology that I just talked about. We train a brand speak chat for that person's business. We don't know it. We don't have any frame of reference for... I'm not a doctor. I'll give you an example. We have a doctor who has an anti-aging product, and I know nothing about that. That's not my zone of genius, but we created a whole content strategy for her specific to short form content. She's like, "How are you nailing my voice so well?" I'm like... Mordy Oberstein: I'm just so good at it. Kim Garst: Like that. Crystal Carver: She's like, "I'm the queen of anti-aging. I'm forever young. I don't know what your problem is." How do you know this stuff? Kim Garst: "How do you know this stuff? How do you know that my person has these problems?" She said, "You've identified problems I didn't even know they had." That's the way you marry your expertise. It's like you literally, you've been training on your business, but if you're in a service-based business, you can train it on your client's businesses as well. Yeah, and it makes such a big difference because the outcome, your clients are thrilled. They're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing," and super happy with the outcome. Crystal Carver: I've heard someone say from Google, and I might've seen it on an AI conferences as well, is that people are worried about AI replacing their jobs. It's like if you're a marketer, don't worry about AI replacing you. Worry about another marketer using AI replacing you. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Kim Garst: AI won't replace you. I say that too. AI's not going to replace you, but you will be replaced by somebody using it. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of all these AI tools, what are some... Because we spoke it. Note to the audience. While we were prepping for the episode before we actually recorded, we were running through some tools, some not so great tools, and it's amazing to see what's out there. We're discussing that I found a tool that helps you find God, which is fascinating that you're using a large language model to answer life's most meaningful questions, but to each their own, I guess. I hope those answers are good, probably not. But what are some good tools that you're using that you can recommend that our audience might want to check out for themselves? Kim Garst: Yeah, absolutely. I do a tools review every week in my newsletter, so I look at a lot of tools. The ones though that I use daily are ChatGPT. I still think it's the gold standard when it comes to AI tools. Will it ever be replaced? Unknown at this point. A lot of the plugin features are also super valuable, I think, within ChatGPT for research and things like that. Just knowing that, I feel like that's been more evolved. It's built on the back of OpenAI, like we were talking, Mordy, a lot of other tools are also built off the back of OpenAI. I also use Claude daily. Claude still has another paid plan, so it throttles me pretty quickly, unfortunately, which is annoying. But still, for somebody who's a light user, I think Claude would be a really great alternative. For images, Midjourney, Ideogram, it's I-D-E-O gram.ai. Love it for custom images. There's a few for... Capso is really great for meme, if you are creating memes. It's a great little tool for meme content. But I found using some plugins with ChatGPT that you can create memes with ChatGPT as well. So, there's so many ways to leverage the tools. It's just really based on the creative piece, and then what do you want as an outcome. I know a lot of people started with Jasper. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Jasper. I think ChatGPT took the thunder out from under it a little bit. But there's just so many great tools out there. Short form content, if you want to repurpose content, there's tools like Dumme, D-U-M-M-E. I love that. The reason I like Dumme over some of the other short form repurposing tools is because if we're doing an interview, like we're talking right now, and you ask a question and I answer, it keys in on the question and the answer, so that there's a frame of reference for the repurpose clip. I think that's just really smart. Those are just a few. I mean, I could keep going. Mordy Oberstein: We’ll be here all day, there's so many tools. Crystal Carver: I should shout out, Kim has a toolbox that is immense, that is full of lots of wonderful, fantastic things. I was going through it, and there's some great stuff in there. I was like, "Oh yeah, Canva. I do love Canva." That's another thing, is that a lot of things, like Wix has added lots of AI elements into our CMS. Canva's added some AI elements into the Notion, has AI built into it. I think that that's another useful thing as well. But yeah, check out that great toolbox. Kim Garst: Most all of the tools are integrating AI in some capacity, because they know. Canva just released a plugin for ChatGPT, I think just yesterday or maybe the day before. I just took a peek at it yesterday, and I think it has some application but I don't think it's where it needs to be yet. I was a little disappointed. I thought it was going to create images for me, and it's really just kind of a search engine for finding something that would a template on Canva. It was meh. Mordy Oberstein: They can't all be great. One of the things we'd like to do with the audience before we sort of wrap it up is give them some other people around social media they can learn more from around, whatever topic and marketing that it is. I'm just kind of wondering if you have AI tool recommendations, what are some actual intelligence recommendations that you might have? Kim Garst: Yeah. I love my friend Chalene Johnson, just basically because she's just so real and authentic in her social engagement, and I think we could all learn from that. Yeah, check her out definitely. She's mostly teaches Instagram, but she has a lot of business knowledge and she's very robust in that approach to how she does things. She also has a very unique strategy when it comes to being authentically sharing content or ideas or products that are affiliate-based, so that she can use that as an income stream for her. She does it so naturally that nobody really even notices because they're just personal recommendations for things that she uses. There's just a couple of things I think you could really key in from her platform. I have a friend that I just met recently. We were both speaking at the same conference. His name is Phil Phallen, P-H-A-L-L-E-N. Phil is just a sweetheart, and he has really got a heart for the entrepreneur. He's also teaching a lot of AI-related content. I think you could really key in and learn something from him. But there's just so many amazing people honestly, to tune in to today. I guess my best recommendation to you would be to find two or three amazing people and stop. Mordy Oberstein: You're right. There's been so much AI. There was a while where it was like, "Everything AI." I was like, "It's a lot." Kim Garst: Yeah, find somebody leaning into the outcome that you're trying to affect and then just hang in there. Learn from them or absorb their content or whatever. Because what I have found, and I've been in this space for a long time, is you get inundated with all the information. When I started online 30 some years ago, there was no information. You had to teach yourself anything. Now, we're inundated with so much information, it becomes overload, and you're at three o'clock in the afternoon. You've not done anything in your business because you've been paying attention to everybody else's. So, let's just keep your number down to two or three, and you can still have time for your business. Crystal Carver: That's fantastic advice. Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: One final question, Kim, where can we find you? Kim Garst: Well, you can find me pretty much anywhere in the social space under my name Kim Garst. My website is kimgarst.com. I have a free community. If you're interested in learning more about AI specific to marketing, you can join us at kimgarst.com/community. I have a whole post of things that'll be value-based to you there. Mordy Oberstein: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. Please make sure to find Kim all across the web. Her content is amazing. It's literally the reason why we asked her to come on. A bunch of great posts about AI. Check those out. We'll link them in the show notes, and really appreciate you being able to stop by and share your expertise and knowledge with us. Kim Garst: Well, thanks for having me. It's been so much fun. Mordy Oberstein: As for the next episode of SERP's Up... Well, that's it. Thanks for joining us for this SERP's Up+ podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode of SERP's Up, our regular SEO podcast. And back again next month with a SERP's Up+ for more marketing talk. Look for wherever you can see your podcast or on our SEO learning hub over wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO and digital marketing, check out all the great content and webinars and newsletters and podcasts that we have 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 rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and marketing. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Kim Garst Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Kim Garst Consulting Claude 2 vs GPT-4 in 2023: Comparing the Top AI Models ChatGPT Claude AI Ideogram Midjourney Supermeme Dumme Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Kim Garst Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Kim Garst Consulting Claude 2 vs GPT-4 in 2023: Comparing the Top AI Models ChatGPT Claude AI Ideogram Midjourney Supermeme Dumme Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of marketing 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 digital marketing. I'm Mordy Oberstein, head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the amazingly fabulous, the very not artificial intelligence but pure genius, natural genius, the head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carver. Crystal Carver: I am not artificial intelligence. I do have artificial nails this week though. I got my nails done. Mordy Oberstein: Me too. Crystal Carver: That was exciting. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, precisely. I haven't had that done in a while. It's been fun typing with nails like this. I had to adjust. Mordy Oberstein: I literally freak out when my nails are slightly too long. I got to cut it, because it makes me crazy typing. Crystal Carver: My sister, she goes and gets her nails done all the time. I was in the States, I was like, "I want my nails, I want my feet. I'm going to get my eyebrows done. The whole thing." Visiting my family and my sister was like, "Oh no, you just type with the tips." I was like, "Okay. All right. I'm getting used to it. It's fine." It's fun on my phone though. I feel very fancy on my phone with just using the pads with my fingers, like exactly. Mordy Oberstein: Very daintely pressing the keys. Crystal Carver: I know. I feel like, "Oh, I'm just going to- Mordy Oberstein: What happens when you write that angry email? Crystal Carver: Yeah, no, for those ones, that's when you do the voice type, that's when you do the, "Excuse me, I'd like to say just one more thing." And then you run out of time, and you're like, "And another thing. I got cut off." But I also had another thing to say. Mordy Oberstein: Like 50 WhatsApps. Crystal Carver: To be fair though, you WhatsApp me sometimes with like, "Yeah, okay." I'm like, "For serious, you couldn't type that? You couldn't type? Yeah. Okay." Mordy Oberstein: Because I’m with my kids. I have two hands on the kids, and I got to send a message somehow. I once voice messaged Barry Schwarz one time. He was like, "Never voice message me again." Fair point, Barry. Crystal Carver: I mean, we have all this technology to help us these days. There's lots of different ways to communicate, so you got to pick what works best. Mordy Oberstein: You know what works best? The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can build a site that implements responsive design powered by AI, and where you can use a Wix-enriched AI model with inter IDE to generate code examples, troubleshoot your code and query product answers by using Wix Studio, a new platform built specifically for agencies. Power success for your clients with Wix Studio. Get more details over wix.com/studio. I'm pitching AI because in this episode, we're going all in on AI. This month's SERP's Up+ is all about the full AI treatment, the role of AI in modern marketing. Can you leverage AI in your marketing? If so, how do you use AI the right way? What problems and solutions does the integration of AI into marketing bring to the table? To help us wade through the murky yet highly interesting waters of AI in the marketing context, bestselling author and marketing personality, Kim Garst will be joining us in just a few moments. Bring your wrench and a few bolts and some screws as we fine tune the AI bots on this, the third episode of the SERP's Up+ podcast so that the bots can deliver the goods to your audience. I'm not good with wrenches by the way. Crystal Carver: What's that? Mordy Oberstein: I'm not good with wrenches. Crystal Carver: With wrenches, Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. If I had to fine tune a bot with a wrench, I wouldn't succeed. Crystal Carver: Yeah, I don't take you as a handyman. I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: No, I could be handy. I just don't like wrenches. Crystal Carver: Are you handy? Mordy Oberstein: A little bit. My stepdad was an electrician, so I used to go do... Yeah. Crystal Carver: What are the ones... Is it a ratchet where you put it on the thing, and then you move it and then it comes back? I love a ratchet. I like when it comes back, I'm like, "Oh, look at that." And then, I didn't have to move it and I didn't have to hurt my hand. I love that. Mordy Oberstein: I have a whole set, don't like them. Crystal Carver: A whole set of ratchet. Mordy Oberstein: I have a ratchet set. We can talk about ratchets all day long. Usually, we do a little bit of a whole intro about the topic we're going to discuss, but I think everyone kind of gets it, right? AI is here, it's not going away. It's here to stay, and it all depends on how you use it. From task to task, it's going to be different. But one of the areas or verticals where I feel like there's a natural case for using AI is marketing. I think there's so much content creation and so much ideation and so much research that goes into marketing that AI easily, more easily than maybe other verticals, becomes super relevant. But as I said, it's really easy to misstep, and for that reason, we need to really dive into where AI is relevant, because it does solve a lot of pain points or seemingly solve a lot of pain points for marketers, which is why we wanted to explore what does AI really mean for marketers. To do that, we have a legend with us. She's one of the most well-known marketers on this or any other earth. She's written some fantastic pieces around AI and marketing. Welcome to the show, Kim Garst. How are you? Kim Garst: I'm thrilled to be here. I was just going back to the wrench concept you mentioned a minute ago. It's all about how you work it in order to make it come out on the other side with something valuable. I just tying that back into your intro, which was fabulous, by the way. Mordy Oberstein: So you think AI is like a box of wrenches? Kim Garst: Yes, absolutely. All part of your marketing tool set. Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: There we go. Just to get us started, when we say AI for marketing, when we say AI, what do we mean? Kim Garst: I think, personally, that a lot of times when people own businesses, their zone of genius is around whatever their business is. If they are selling ice cream or they're selling shoes or they're an online marketer, regardless of what it is that they're selling, their passion really is around the thing that they're selling. The marketing element is usually not their zone of genius, and it is difficult for them to really get a toehold sometimes in the marketing space. The best thing, product, or service doesn't win the day. The best-marketed product or service wins the day. So, I think that AI gives us the ability to not necessarily have to be a marketing genius today. All the things that have held us back from achieving an outcome or result is now at our fingertips without us having to be a marketing pro. I think that is, for me, is really serves my passion, because that's something I've done for years, is demystify marketing for those people who aren't marketers, trying to help them grow their businesses online. That's exciting for me. But enter the problem, I think so many people are still... There's so many factors, people are fearful of it, or they're buying these 2,000 prompt banks, and I'm like, "Really?" Prompts alone are not the answer. If you've bought a bunch of prompts, that's okay, but just know that they're not really what you need. So, I think we just have to start approaching it. I mean, AI has been around even before we knew it was around, but now, we have a mechanism to use it each and every one of us with all these tools that are coming out. You just have to use it smartly and with intention and geared towards your individual business. Crystal Carver: Yeah. I think that you touch on a lot of things there about using AI to fill some of your skills gaps and things, but using them to amplify your skills. I recently went to a conference and heard Wil Reynolds talk about a marketing application where he had this great content optimization thing that he wanted to do with Python or something, but he'd never gotten around to actually getting to grips with Python really, really well. And so, he was able to say he knew the data set, he knew exactly what wanted to do, how he would measure if it would work, how he would measure the implementation, all that sort of stuff. But there was this one gap that he was really struggling with. So, he used the tool and said, "Can you help me with this Python?" The tool was like, "Yes, I can." And then, he was able to get from A to B. I think that, like you're saying, there's a lot of people who have great intelligence about whatever it is they're doing, selling ice cream, selling shoes, whatever it may be, and they want to get from A to B. Sometimes, people get stuck with the middle and Google describes it as the messy middle. I don't know if you've seen some good examples of people using AI to help them with that messy marketing middle. Kim Garst: Yeah, it really is. One of the things that I'm teaching is really about... It's a learning model. Just assuming, and I think this is one of those things that's like, "Oh, it's a big old world out there, just assuming we're the only ones in it," kind of that concept. When you approach AI with the mindset that it knows all before you ever get started with it is the wrong mindset. You need to approach it through the lens of how do I train it to know my stuff, know my voice, know my business details, know all of it. I mean, we've taken somebody who has struggled for years to define an ascension model in her business, and just by giving it the right input, we were able to build a really amazing ascension model now for her. Now, she has a path that she has struggled with for years. I have a very similar story where my brother-in-law actually has a PhD. He works at Virginia Tech. He's in a room full of PhDs, super smart people, and they're trying to figure out how to crunch some data and they're like, "Well, it's going to take two weeks to figure this out, just crunching that much information." He approaches AI. Again, going back to they knew what they wanted, they knew the output. In two minutes, they solved this problem. There's so many applications for it that I think we have to get creative in how we approach it and what we want from it, whether it's an offer, whether it's a marketing plan, whether it's really any marketing collateral can be created and with AI today. That's very fascinating and exciting for me when it comes to being an educator and trying to help people affect these transformations in their business when they've not been able to do it before. Mordy Oberstein: I was wondering, because I find when I work with AI, if I give it, like you're saying, if you're very specific, if you have a really unique and specific intent around what you're trying to do, you can usually get it to do mainly what you want it to do. I'm just wondering, I do a lot of content, I work on a lot of content side. Outside of pure content creation, I think everybody understands, yeah, you could feed a prompt, you can get some content output. I can have it maybe write a product description. I wouldn't say you should say, "Hey, write me a blog about which Air Jordans are the best Air Jordans," because when you give it less of a confine, it generally kind of is too vague and too general. But outside of that pure content generation, pure content creation, where can marketers kind of leverage AI where it does kind of work well? Kim Garst: Well, I have two core ways that I'm using it to save me an immense amount of time. Research is one. I find that the research value is different and unique to what you're going to get in the Google machine, which I think is fascinating because, again, I think... But this is my 2 cents on it, because I don't know the backend tech, how all this works. The way I think it works is its ability to synthesize massive amounts of information at a super accelerated rate is giving me better output when I'm asking for specific things from a research perspective. I have to wade through all that when I'm in the Google machine. I have to do that legwork. So, research, for sure, is a critical time saver. The other thing that has been really value-based for me is I have trained a, I call it a brand speak chat thread. I've done this both in Claude as well as ChatGPT. I find that Claude is way better with conversational engagement, and I have been able to really engage with my audience at a whole new level because it gives me the time to be able to do that, because it crafts responses that are pretty much on target when it comes to my voice and things that I would say and how I would say it and the empathy piece of engagement. So, customer service, I think, or engagement in the social space is another huge time saver for me. I think both of those are value-based that are outside of the content wheelhouse. I would just like to add to your comment there. I've been doing a lot of testing when it comes to content creation. I would never recommend that you just, at face value, accept the output from ChatGPT when it comes to content creation. My experience with it has been, it's an iteration. You have to continually ask it for better with direction and grown internal creativity. Crystal Carver: Right. I've seen it work really well. If you're like, "I need some ideas. I want to do something that has a pun about fish around this. Give me some ideas." It'll spit out something you're like, "That's not good. Oh, that is good. Oh, I could work with that." That sort of thing. The ideation element is really interesting. I also think it's interesting the way you break it down. I was looking at Rand Fishkin recently posted an article about the ways that people are using ChatGPT for their work. Similar to you, around 23% of people are using it for education, research purposes, which is interesting. Around 20% of people are using it for content. Around 13% of people are using it for marketing, like meat marketing. A lot of folks are using it for programming. I don't know if you're finding this as well in your work, but I certainly, one of the major benefits of ChatGPT in particular for me has been just cutting down the time I spend arguing with spreadsheets. I do not begrudge that time. Again, it removes some of those roadblocks from getting you from A to B and from crunching that data, things that you were talking about as well. Kim Garst: Or just creating comparison tables, for example, on a blog post. Simple things that would've taken so much time before. With the right input now, you can create these things very quickly, and it'll create the code for you to your point. All you have to do is copy and paste it into your WordPress and the way you go. It's just so many fascinating, I think, lanes. I think another thing, I know I'm deviating slightly from ChatGPT, but imagery. I am using AI for unique imagery that is brand specific and on target with what I'm trying to project. No more stock images, saving money there, but getting really specific on the message in the image that I'm trying to project. That's been really fascinating evolution too. I feel like every time I put something out now, it's more on target maybe with what I'm trying to project. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'm actually surprised you don't see as many people using the image tools than you do. I know there are a lot of people who are using it. For example, in Wix, when you go to the image upload center, there's an AI generation tool and I use that now for all of my images because I don't like stock images. I do think across social media, you need to have an image. I think it's great on LinkedIn where you can't really use a gif the same kind of way as you could, say, on Twitter or X, whatever we're calling it now. It doesn't matter. But it's really good. I find with all of these kinds of tools, you have to really feed it to get it to go exactly where you want it to go. But I do think there's a tremendous branding opportunity. They're also for yourself, because you could be really consistent. Because what they'll generally do, like in the Wix one, we have different categories of image styles, fantasy, 3D, whatever it is. You can create really on-brand images all the time and be consistent all the way through. I actually experimented with this on LinkedIn for a while. I was trying with one style and people were saying, "Where'd you get those images? I keep noticing, you keep posting all those types of images," so you really could leverage those for a brand identity, as part of your brand identity. A lot of them are really, really good, and I'm fascinated why I don't see as many people using them as possible. Kim Garst: Well, my 2 cents on that, just from pouring over trying to learn all this stuff, especially with Midjourney, I think it's very difficult to match Midjourney's output from the perspective of how detailed and intricate and the resolution and everything. It's just so spot on, I think, with Midjourney. But enter the problem, the iteration of it is very difficult trying to get... If you find one you like but it's red glasses versus purple glasses, it doesn't hear you. It doesn't listen to the input that you give it, and it's so darn frustrating. From that perspective, I think it's really about the fact that it's not always understanding what you're asking from an iteration perspective. ChatGPT will listen and try to iterate based on what you tell it. So, I think the iteration issue is a problem. And trying to create images with texts and things like that, it's just not good for that. But Ideogram, I don't know if you guys have tested that out, but that is a really... It's fairly new. I think a Google exec founded that particular tool, and it's become known just in a very short window of time because it does create a text on images which allows for real customization. I can make an image that has AI brand speak on it, and it specifically says that. From that perspective, I think that's pretty cool. Yeah, I think the whole AI space is evolving, one, very rapidly. There's like, I don't know, 50 new tools a day, most of which are probably not too awesome, but how we can find the goodies, the good ones, and then leverage them to create a better outcome or time saver for us and our business. I think that's the end goal. Crystal Carver: I'm really interested in... I want to circle back to something you mentioned almost in passing, but it kind of builds on Mordy's discussion around brand, was you were talking about training AI on your brand voice. Now, you as somebody who has written prolifically, published and things, I'm sure the process might be easier for you than for somebody who's maybe written less. But I'd be really interested to know more about the process of training in AI on your particular brand voice and building that consistency. Kim Garst: I so love this question, and it's the very first thing I do when I work with someone. We just did a masterclass on this, and it's about the process that you go through to train ChatGPT, specifically ChatGPT. But honestly, you could use it for any AI learning model. You could use it on Claude or Bard or whatever. But I call it a brand speak chat thread. The goal, I start with research because so many businesses do not have any... They just randomly pick a niche that they think is their person. So, I challenge that on the front side because we traditionally, as business owners, have not had the access to the data points to be able to do research without spending a ton of money to do it. Or we do it haphazardly or most don't do it at all. So, we start with research on the niche or the area that you think, and I usually do it through the lens of... It's not about necessarily who you think your niche is, it's what problem solving piece of that. What problem are you solving? What is your transformation? Because I'm a big proponent of if you're clear on your transformation, your person is going to self-select in. You don't necessarily have to figure out who that person is. We approach it through what are you serving, what's the outcome, transformation, et cetera. And then, do the research. From there, we build a buyer persona based on real research. And then from there, we start educating it on voice, dropping in specific pieces of content that you might have created. Maybe you've done an interview where you're speaking. I'm a big proponent of natural language. When you write a blog post, it's different. The writing style is different than when you're just speaking to people. So using real speak, I call it, instances where you had real speak as well as writing style so that it learns both, within the confines of the limitations of how ChatGPT consumes content or inputs. And then, we also have a very specific strategy around stories. If you have stories, what your origin story, all the components, like the different types of stories that you might have in your business, using all of that synthesis that you've fed it, then it is able to give you really good output. We also have a piece where you give it your business details. What are you selling? What are the names of your offers? All the components so that it gets a real clear picture, not only from a realistic perspective of who your buyer is from research based, to the independent components. And then from there, you can start to really get clarity on things that you might have not had clarity on, like a message. And what's going to resonate with my buyer based on research, not guessing. It really does streamline the process and the output is just so much richer because it's based around you, your business details, and the person that you're here to serve. Crystal Carver: And then, thinking of some of the layering some of these tactics. We talked about data extraction is really, really useful, and qualitative data, the kind of qualitative data research that you need to do to get good audience research, where you're taking interviews or taking surveys or survey responses or reviews and things. You can take that information and you can put it into something like ChatGPT and say, "Where are the common themes from this set of information?" Kim Garst: That is such a great point. I have a free community and we ask three questions when they come in. One, obviously email, do you want a phone call, and the third and most important piece, "What are you struggling with the most?" Trying to get a problem set. And then, we feed those problems routinely back into ChatGPT, so that we know. We do that for every workshop every month. What's the highest outcome based on what they're telling us? What do they want? It's just no more guessing and no more going all places. It synthesizes all that information for you. It goes back to the ideation. It gives you ideas and you can go from there. It's just so many amazing outcomes if you just approach it right. Crystal Carver: Right. And then, to take that and put that into your brand voice and put it into the thing. I think we had a great webinar with Ross Hutchins who was also talking about break it into chunks. I think we talked a little bit about organizing. Before the discussion, we were discussing, "Oh, AI is great, but it's a little bit like a closet organizer. You still have to put your clothes away. You still have to know what shelf is for the shirts and where your socks go." Yeah, I think if you organize yourself in order to use these tools well, you should get some great results. Kim Garst: I tell people all the time, I feel like my value when it comes to AI is my marketing knowledge. I know I have a framework for what I want to do. So if you're not a marketer, you need to find somebody who's teaching this correctly, in my humble opinion, so that you... Again, it's not about the prompt. It's not about the prompt. I'm going to say it again. It's not about the prompt. Crystal Carver: It's not the prompt. Kim Garst: It's about how do you leverage a framework of prompts to get a specific outcome. I think that is going to be a total game changer. Once you understand there is a flow, there is a process to go through, but coming out on the other side with something amazing that you can customize and where it can be mostly customized for you already. Some people use it out of the box, because they don't know any better. But I do believe that you can do amazing things faster, smarter, and potentially better than you could do it absolutely yourself if you just follow a process to get good outcomes. Mordy Oberstein: That's always the thing people were talking about. Well, AI's going to take my job. And I’d say “how is AI going to be good for me?”. In the SEO world, SEO is going to be dead. AI will write your title tags for you, and AI will write that for you, and AI write... The reality is that it really just ups the value of you as a marketer, as an SEO. I feel yes, if you're... I hate to put it this way, a low level marketer or a low level SEO, and all you're doing is creating title tags and, yes, maybe that's an area where maybe AI could just do that for you. But if you are at a substantial marketing mind or SEO mind or whatever it is that you do, your value just went up because now you need to think a lot more. There's a lot more strategy, there's a lot more that goes into things now. If you want to use AI for this, what are the implications? What are the consequences? What are the best ways to do this? What are the worst ways to do this? How do I go about using this the right way? How do I leverage things now? What's the right strategy? Your mind is right now the commodity, which is great. Kim Garst: I've told said this to several people. I don't believe that AI is going to replace true expertise ever. To your point, if you do have an expertise, and I think everybody does, regardless of where it is on the spectrum, you may be 10 steps behind somebody else that has some expertise in the same lane, but we all have something that we know that somebody else would be willing to pay for. My challenge to you would be, how do you leverage AI to be more creative with the knowledge base that you have? It's really not about it's going to replace you. It's not. Absolutely. I do believe that that's one of... I said this a minute ago. I feel like matching what I know already to how I can integrate and be more creative, and ultimately save myself a bunch of time with AI. That's the way I've married it. I think that that's the way I would encourage everybody to look at it. It's not a way of replacing it, but if you do have an expertise, then you need to figure out how can I leverage AI in such a way that's going to be my creative partner, not the other way around. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. Crystal Carver: Absolutely. I think one thing I say fairly often is that AI should be used to amplify actual intelligence, not just any intelligence, but your actual intelligence. Use it to help you with your actual intelligence. In Buddhism, they have a saying write speech. So if you're using AI, don't talk about something you don't know about. I shouldn't be using AI to write podiatry blogs, because I don't know anything about podiatry. I couldn't possibly attest whether or not the information it was giving me was relevant to that or accurate or anything like that. Mordy Oberstein: What about the podiatry device you gave me last week? Crystal Carver: How's your foot doing? Mordy Oberstein: It still hurts. Kim Garst: But if you have a, let's say... I'll give you a specific example. One of our clients, when you are in a client service-based business... Let me reframe that. One of the challenges has always been to know that business model. To your point, the podiatry. We're not podiatrists. Knowing that space, knowing the voice of that brand has always been a struggle when I had a social media business, an agency. But now, we do a lot of messaging and specific to content creation in particular. One of the things that we have found has worked so well is we train... We use the same methodology that I just talked about. We train a brand speak chat for that person's business. We don't know it. We don't have any frame of reference for... I'm not a doctor. I'll give you an example. We have a doctor who has an anti-aging product, and I know nothing about that. That's not my zone of genius, but we created a whole content strategy for her specific to short form content. She's like, "How are you nailing my voice so well?" I'm like... Mordy Oberstein: I'm just so good at it. Kim Garst: Like that. Crystal Carver: She's like, "I'm the queen of anti-aging. I'm forever young. I don't know what your problem is." How do you know this stuff? Kim Garst: "How do you know this stuff? How do you know that my person has these problems?" She said, "You've identified problems I didn't even know they had." That's the way you marry your expertise. It's like you literally, you've been training on your business, but if you're in a service-based business, you can train it on your client's businesses as well. Yeah, and it makes such a big difference because the outcome, your clients are thrilled. They're like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing," and super happy with the outcome. Crystal Carver: I've heard someone say from Google, and I might've seen it on an AI conferences as well, is that people are worried about AI replacing their jobs. It's like if you're a marketer, don't worry about AI replacing you. Worry about another marketer using AI replacing you. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Kim Garst: AI won't replace you. I say that too. AI's not going to replace you, but you will be replaced by somebody using it. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of all these AI tools, what are some... Because we spoke it. Note to the audience. While we were prepping for the episode before we actually recorded, we were running through some tools, some not so great tools, and it's amazing to see what's out there. We're discussing that I found a tool that helps you find God, which is fascinating that you're using a large language model to answer life's most meaningful questions, but to each their own, I guess. I hope those answers are good, probably not. But what are some good tools that you're using that you can recommend that our audience might want to check out for themselves? Kim Garst: Yeah, absolutely. I do a tools review every week in my newsletter, so I look at a lot of tools. The ones though that I use daily are ChatGPT. I still think it's the gold standard when it comes to AI tools. Will it ever be replaced? Unknown at this point. A lot of the plugin features are also super valuable, I think, within ChatGPT for research and things like that. Just knowing that, I feel like that's been more evolved. It's built on the back of OpenAI, like we were talking, Mordy, a lot of other tools are also built off the back of OpenAI. I also use Claude daily. Claude still has another paid plan, so it throttles me pretty quickly, unfortunately, which is annoying. But still, for somebody who's a light user, I think Claude would be a really great alternative. For images, Midjourney, Ideogram, it's I-D-E-O gram.ai. Love it for custom images. There's a few for... Capso is really great for meme, if you are creating memes. It's a great little tool for meme content. But I found using some plugins with ChatGPT that you can create memes with ChatGPT as well. So, there's so many ways to leverage the tools. It's just really based on the creative piece, and then what do you want as an outcome. I know a lot of people started with Jasper. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of Jasper. I think ChatGPT took the thunder out from under it a little bit. But there's just so many great tools out there. Short form content, if you want to repurpose content, there's tools like Dumme, D-U-M-M-E. I love that. The reason I like Dumme over some of the other short form repurposing tools is because if we're doing an interview, like we're talking right now, and you ask a question and I answer, it keys in on the question and the answer, so that there's a frame of reference for the repurpose clip. I think that's just really smart. Those are just a few. I mean, I could keep going. Mordy Oberstein: We’ll be here all day, there's so many tools. Crystal Carver: I should shout out, Kim has a toolbox that is immense, that is full of lots of wonderful, fantastic things. I was going through it, and there's some great stuff in there. I was like, "Oh yeah, Canva. I do love Canva." That's another thing, is that a lot of things, like Wix has added lots of AI elements into our CMS. Canva's added some AI elements into the Notion, has AI built into it. I think that that's another useful thing as well. But yeah, check out that great toolbox. Kim Garst: Most all of the tools are integrating AI in some capacity, because they know. Canva just released a plugin for ChatGPT, I think just yesterday or maybe the day before. I just took a peek at it yesterday, and I think it has some application but I don't think it's where it needs to be yet. I was a little disappointed. I thought it was going to create images for me, and it's really just kind of a search engine for finding something that would a template on Canva. It was meh. Mordy Oberstein: They can't all be great. One of the things we'd like to do with the audience before we sort of wrap it up is give them some other people around social media they can learn more from around, whatever topic and marketing that it is. I'm just kind of wondering if you have AI tool recommendations, what are some actual intelligence recommendations that you might have? Kim Garst: Yeah. I love my friend Chalene Johnson, just basically because she's just so real and authentic in her social engagement, and I think we could all learn from that. Yeah, check her out definitely. She's mostly teaches Instagram, but she has a lot of business knowledge and she's very robust in that approach to how she does things. She also has a very unique strategy when it comes to being authentically sharing content or ideas or products that are affiliate-based, so that she can use that as an income stream for her. She does it so naturally that nobody really even notices because they're just personal recommendations for things that she uses. There's just a couple of things I think you could really key in from her platform. I have a friend that I just met recently. We were both speaking at the same conference. His name is Phil Phallen, P-H-A-L-L-E-N. Phil is just a sweetheart, and he has really got a heart for the entrepreneur. He's also teaching a lot of AI-related content. I think you could really key in and learn something from him. But there's just so many amazing people honestly, to tune in to today. I guess my best recommendation to you would be to find two or three amazing people and stop. Mordy Oberstein: You're right. There's been so much AI. There was a while where it was like, "Everything AI." I was like, "It's a lot." Kim Garst: Yeah, find somebody leaning into the outcome that you're trying to affect and then just hang in there. Learn from them or absorb their content or whatever. Because what I have found, and I've been in this space for a long time, is you get inundated with all the information. When I started online 30 some years ago, there was no information. You had to teach yourself anything. Now, we're inundated with so much information, it becomes overload, and you're at three o'clock in the afternoon. You've not done anything in your business because you've been paying attention to everybody else's. So, let's just keep your number down to two or three, and you can still have time for your business. Crystal Carver: That's fantastic advice. Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: One final question, Kim, where can we find you? Kim Garst: Well, you can find me pretty much anywhere in the social space under my name Kim Garst. My website is kimgarst.com. I have a free community. If you're interested in learning more about AI specific to marketing, you can join us at kimgarst.com/community. I have a whole post of things that'll be value-based to you there. Mordy Oberstein: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. Please make sure to find Kim all across the web. Her content is amazing. It's literally the reason why we asked her to come on. A bunch of great posts about AI. Check those out. We'll link them in the show notes, and really appreciate you being able to stop by and share your expertise and knowledge with us. Kim Garst: Well, thanks for having me. It's been so much fun. Mordy Oberstein: As for the next episode of SERP's Up... Well, that's it. Thanks for joining us for this SERP's Up+ podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode of SERP's Up, our regular SEO podcast. And back again next month with a SERP's Up+ for more marketing talk. Look for wherever you can see your podcast or on our SEO learning hub over wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO and digital marketing, check out all the great content and webinars and newsletters and podcasts that we have 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 rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and marketing. 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

Audits are always fun, right? SEO Audits doubly so! On this episode of the SERP’s Up Podcast, we dive into the different types of SEO audits. Learn how deep you should go with your site audits, how to handle all the information these audits throw your way, and when to ignore half the information. Specializing in technical SEO audits with 10+ years of experience and over 100+ audits, Olga Zarr’s the one to join the SERP’s Up team this week. She breaks down SEO audits in a simple manner so you can do it right the first time and with ultimate efficiency. Join Mordy and Crystal and learn how to audit your SEO efforts with less friction. Back How far do you go down the site audit wormhole? Audits are always fun, right? SEO Audits doubly so! On this episode of the SERP’s Up Podcast, we dive into the different types of SEO audits. Learn how deep you should go with your site audits, how to handle all the information these audits throw your way, and when to ignore half the information. Specializing in technical SEO audits with 10+ years of experience and over 100+ audits, Olga Zarr’s the one to join the SERP’s Up team this week. She breaks down SEO audits in a simple manner so you can do it right the first time and with ultimate efficiency. Join Mordy and Crystal and learn how to audit your SEO efforts with less friction. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 19 | January 4, 2023 | 28 MIN 00:00 / 27:33 This week’s guests Olga Zarzeczna Olga Zarzeczna is an SEO consultant with 10+ years of experience. She has experience working as an in-house SEO, at an SEO agency, as a freelancer, and as an SEO consultant. Olga specializes in technical SEO and conducting in-depth SEO audits. She is the founder and CEO of SEOSLY. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast reporting. Got some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein Head of SEO Branding over here at Wix, and I'm joined by our wonderful, fantastic, our fabulous head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, glorious Internet people. I hope you're having a wonderful, fantastic, incredible, top-ranking day. Mordy Oberstein: We are. Crystal Carter: We are. Mordy Oberstein: We just talked about the SERP's Up podcast and where we're ranking on Google and in the Google variant, the multiple carousels that show SEO podcast. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's a really cool carousel. And yeah, we're on there. We're very pleased. We've done some work on that. We've optimized ourselves. Mordy Oberstein: The SERP’s Up is up. Always important to celebrate wins in SEO. Crystal Carter: This is true. It's very important. I literally do a dance at my desk whenever I win, and that's cool. Mordy Oberstein: So you're always dancing at your desk? Crystal Carter: I'm always dancing. It's really good for you. It's good for the lumbar, it's good for making sure you keep everything circulating. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. All right. That's a way to optimize your life right here. Crystal Carter: Life hacks. Yeah. Do you know what, actually, I did give a live hack. I found one the other day and I was like, oh my God, I should post this. The world needs to know, basically, if you have something that you want to send as a gift and it's got a price tag on it, one of those little sticker price tags, take a nice hot cup of coffee or something and sit it on the price tag and it'll warm up the adhesive and then you can... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's also great for when my kids put stickers on the floor, on the tile floor. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Like if you got a mug of coffee, it's got a flat bottom on the mug, like stick it on there. Mordy Oberstein: All right, SEO tips and life hacks here on the service sub podcast, which by the way is brought to you by Wix, where you can audit your site's accessibility with ease, with our very own and very novel accessibility wizard. So you can see things like where your color contrast is not suited for the visually impaired, where you're missing alt texts, which is also really important for those relying on TTS readers and more all of the accessibility wizard inside of Wix and a good thing we're talking about accessibility audits, because today's show is all about SEO audits. Wow, look at that. Totally right into that. Crystal Carter: Almost as if you planned it. Mordy Oberstein: Celebrate your wins. Celebrate your wins. Crystal Carter: Every day. Mordy Oberstein: Every time you celebrate your wins, check this one out. You might say, we're running an audible today. Get it, an audible? As in an audible, it's a terrible American football joke. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Should I celebrate a win there? Crystal Carter: Yeah, no. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe not. Okay. Okay. Jokes aside, SEO audits are no joke. And for many they are no fun, but have no fear. We're all about fun here as we dive into the different types of SEO audits, how deep you should go with your site audits, how to handle all the information these audits throw your way and when to know when ignore half of all the information these audits throw your way. Don't you feel better already, don't you feel better already? Crystal Carter: I feel like we've done an exhaustive survey and I feel much better, and I feel like we have some actionable things that we can do… Mordy Oberstein: And we're telling you not to worry about half the stuff, so it's perfect. Plus, we'll look at a great tool to help you as you march towards site audit success. And of course, we have your snappy news and who you should be following on social for more SEO awesomeness as we open an investigation that is Episode 19 of the SERP'Up SEO podcast. Hooray. Crystal Carter: Cool. Okay, so today we're going to be talking about SEO audits. And essentially when we think about as an intro to auditing, I think it's important to think about the different kinds of SEO audit types that there are. So broadly speaking, speaking super broadly, because of course it depends because this is SEO, there tends to be three different kinds of SEO sections shall we say, so there's like on-page SEO, there's off-page SEO, and there's technical SEO just as a super broad thing so we can move forward. I know it gets very nuanced, but just stay with me here. So within each of those, there's different kinds of audits within that. So if you think about on-page SEO for instance, there are content audits. So you might do a content audit around the content quality. So you might look at the keywords and whether or not they're relevant, you might look at the performance of the pages that have the content on them. You might also look at the visibility compared to your competitors. You might also look at the visibility compared to different SERP features and things like that. In the on-page space, there's also things like your content framework. So things like your H-1s, your H-2s, your titles, your meta descriptions, your images, whether you have images, whether you should have images, that sort of thing. So that on-page SEO can have a lot of different audits. And even within that there are further audits that you can do drilling down into some of those things. But those two tend to be some of the main ones, the main types of audits that people will get into. We think about off-page SEO, this tends to be about backlinks and referral traffic and referrers, so those two can tend to fall into two categories. One is sort of backlink quality and quantity, which is essentially where you're looking at the number of back links that you have and you're looking at whether or not they're relevant, and you're looking at how they compare to your competitors and things like that. And the other one kind of going on from that is backlink gaps. So it might be that you're looking at your vertical, let's say you're in, I don't know, biking and you have a bike shop and you might see that across your vertical lots of people have backlinks from mountain bike.com or Mountain Bike Magazine or something like that. That's a backlink gap that you might need to think about and think about maybe getting on there. So finding that information is really, really valuable going forward. And then you get into technical SEO, and technical SEO can have a couple of different audits, but I think as somebody who's done a lot of these segment SEO audits, I think you can split them into essentially two camps. And then again they get more nuanced after that, but the things that are around your tech stack, which is essentially the tools that connect to your website to make your website work all together, which they tend to be lots of different things. So this might include your security framework, like your RSS and your server security might also have to do with your server configuration, and whether or not that works for what you need or whether you not you should be on a cloud server or that sort of thing. And also things around page feed and performance, which again can have to do with on-page things, can have to do with your infrastructure elements, things like that. Then we have within that also tech implementation, so things like schema validation and whether or not your schema is working on your site or if it should be on your site. Things like crawl management, whether pages are being indexed and that sort of thing. So from that description you can understand that there's lots of different types of audits. And within SEO you can have somebody who does a full deep dive on one thing or another depending on what's required and depending on what they see from their initial audit. But what's really important for any kind of audit is that it gives you a broad overview of what you're looking but that also gives you actionables. One thing that I cannot stand that drives me absolutely mad is when people do an audit and they just say, "Oh, all these things are broken," an audit without recommendations is not helpful to anyone. It's really, really useful to include in an audit, you should always include some recommendation and you should always include some priorities of what to do next. And that I think is really, really valuable. And I think it's a really great thing about a good SEO audit. Mordy Oberstein: So the one thing about SEO audits is, by the way, that was prolific in an explanation, we should take that out and frame it somewhere. Crystal Carter: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know how you'd frame an audio clip, but I would love to try. But I think one of the things about audits are, because there's so vast, there's so many things we can do with it that, and you get so much information back, it could be a little bit overwhelming. Even if you're running your traditional, we'll call it a "site audit." You take a tool, you take in your Semrush, aHREFs or Lumars of the world, there's plenty of tools out there, Screaming Frog, and you can get a ton of information back. You get information back related to are you missing title tags or are you missing meta descriptions? But do you have real errors, do you have broken links? So you have duplicate content, thin content, structured, it's kind of overwhelming. And then beyond that, there's all sorts of, they're typically called "warnings" inside of the tools and the warnings, I have warnings about warnings. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. The warnings are interesting, because sometimes they can be dependent on each other. So sometimes it can say like, "Oh, you have a broken image on this." And then it'll also say like, "Oh, you have a 404 on this." So it'll say you've got two errors or warnings, but actually there's just one, there's one broken link that's an image link and it's causing, it's flagging up two errors. So it's important to understand when you're auditing what they're looking at and what they're covering. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and then so when you look at all of that and you see these astronomical numbers, 5 million errors and 300 warnings and blah, blah, blah, blah, it's a little overwhelming, and my best advice to you is it's all about opportunity cost. You don't get a medal or a star or trophy for whatever it is for getting a zero in all these audits saying "No, no errors, no warnings. You get an award, you get an award and you get an award." It's all about what's the value to the site, and what's important to the site. And it might be that ignoring a whole bunch of warnings, even some of the errors, and writing a new piece of content or putting your blast blog post on social media and it has nothing to do with the site audit is actually more of an opportunity cost, more valuable than fixing that particular error or warning. Crystal Carter: I did a recent video with Google and I was talking about redirect loops that I found out on a site, and I've had people who were junior SEOs ring their hands being like, oh, I have to fix all these 404s. How do I fix all these 404s? And again, thinking about opportunity costs, and I talked about this on the Google session, was that sometimes you can just delete the link. Instead of going through and fixing all those 404s, ask yourself, do I need to have that link there anyway? If not, just delete it. If you delete it, it's not broken because it ain't there. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point. Crystal Carter: Sometimes it's just like you don't actually need to fix it, you can just get rid of it. Mordy Oberstein: And a great framework for what I was asking, I talked to Ari Zilberstein about this one time on Twitter, ask why it's important. Ask like, why this like oh, oh, broken links, broken links, okay, why is that a problem? Crystal Carter: So I do a lot of stuff around schema and Google's rich results testing tool. I always get a lot of people who are super confused about that because it will give you warnings. It'll say, "Oh, you don't have the offer on this particular product," or "Oh, you don't have this brand," or "Oh, you don't have that," or "Oh, you don't have this." And it'll say "yellow, warning." Well, the thing about yellow warning is that it's optional. It says a lot of times it'll say optional. And sometimes having something that has some of the information is better than having nothing. And sometimes if it says optional, sometimes you don't need it. Sometimes a lot of those tools will... They're great and fantastic tools and I use them all the time, but they're trying to serve everyone on the web and not everyone on the web needs every single line of schema. Sometimes they just need the essentials. And that's fine. You need to make that quality assessment and judgment. Mordy Oberstein: And speaking to everyone on the web, I feel like a lot of the tools are trying to speak to everybody on the web and that could be a little bit problematic. And I'm not trying to make any judgments on any of the tools out there, but one of the things that they try to do is they try to speak to everybody about all the various things on their website. And because by the way, I think historically speaking, a lot of these tools were developed during an era of SEO that was a lot more spammy-ish than it is now, I think, putting my foot on a landmine there, but there'll be things that they'll come back to you on that just aren't real. Low code to text A to HTML ratio, blah, blah, blah is not a thing. You can go on Twitter, you can find John Mueller saying, "Not a thing." Crystal Carter: And then sometimes I've seen it where people will flag you on duplicate content for having the same meta title, the same page title, and the same like H-1. And I'm like, "That's not really a big deal." You could argue that, you could argue that there's an opportunity to add another keyword or something to that effect. You could argue that, but it's not really that big a deal. It's not really something that you should be keeping yourself up at night about. Mordy Oberstein: Brace yourself. I mean, maybe you'll disagree with me, but when the tools come back and they say, "Oh, meta description too long," I say, "Snore, don't care." Crystal Carter: This is the reason why I think it's important to prioritize your audit findings, because there's going to be tons of those things where that are a snore or that are not a big deal, or that historically speaking, so for instance, there's sometimes tech debt on websites where they tried it one time or there's just a thing that they just can't fix because it's not a thing. And that happens on lots of websites. So somebody who knows the tech debt for instance can go, "No, we don't even want to go down that route." I know somebody who used to live in a really old house, but do you know people that have ever done remodeling where you think, "Oh, we'll just change the wallpaper and you pull the wallpaper off and half the wall comes out." That's the thing that can happen with websites, essentially. So sometimes if you know the tech debt of the website, you can say, "No, we're just not going to poke that bear today, but we can do this other thing." Like you said, we can do this other thing. We're going to write this content, we can keep moving forward. That's what I find generally is when you do an audit, you want to find ways where you can just keep moving forward. And some of the things in your audit might be things that you can work at, work towards over a long term fixing, but you want to find things that you can prior- and this is again where the prioritizing comes from, where you say, well this thing will give us a big impact fairly quickly and then this thing will take us a little bit longer to do, but will give us a big impact after that. And so if you just keep building and keep building momentum, then that can help you to see SEO growth because Google can see that you're constantly improving the website. Mordy Oberstein: It's not about being perfect, it's about making progress. It's about prioritizing and scrutinizing the tools. And how deep do you have to go into your SEO audit? It depends on what you're looking to do and what you need. Crystal Carter: And also use multiple tools. Mordy Oberstein: That's true too. And there are a lot of tools out there. There are free tools out there. Crystal Carter: There's free tools out there. So always compare any third party tool, always compare it to the Google Search console, always check Google Search Console on another tool. If you have no money at all, if you have no budget, zero budget, you can use Google Search Console and you can use Bing Webmaster Tools and you can compare those two and see a lot of information from that. And there's a lot of tools that are freemium as well that will allow you to get some good audits. Mordy Oberstein: And pro tip, if you run an audit and you're like, "Something looks weird here," run it again instead of using a third party tool, because sometimes they are a little wonky, for lack of better word. Crystal Carter: Right. And also for a cloud configuration, sometimes when people connect to a cloud server, you might see different activity at one time or another. So run it a few times, check it a few different ways. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of prioritizing your site audit recommendations, we have the wonderful Olga Zarr from SEO Sly here to share her thoughts on how do you prioritize your SEO audit recommendations. Olga Zarr: We need to take a lot of things into account. First, the most important thing is what type of site you are dealing with and how possible, how likely it is that all or most of your SEO recommendations will be implemented. It is of course a different case if you're dealing with a huge e-comm site and where there is five or 10 people who are going to decide whether they're okay with implementing those changes. And it is a totally different story if you are dealing with a small site over which you have a total control and you yourself can implement all of those recommendations. So in most cases we can assume that just some of them will be implemented. So the way I suggest doing that is always start with the most critical ones, then go to quick SEO wins, and then the things that are kind of nice to have. So the critical optimizations are the ones that actually hinder the site right away, that make the site definitely not realize its full potential or even prevents it from ranking like a no index tag or something on some page where it definitely shouldn't be. Or for example, some crawlability issues where Google is not able to crawl the site or render it correctly. So these are those types of things that have to be implemented right away, and they usually can bring relatively quick effects. For example, if the site is not indexed and the client is coming to you to fix the problem because they're not getting any impressions or any, for example, clicks. And if you just fix that usually you will be able to bring relatively of course, quick results. The second type of optimizations prioritization you should do is quick SEO wins. Again, SEO is not for quick results, but with quick SEO wins, uncovering some hidden potential you usually can bring quicker results. What are quick SEO wins? For example, you can try to find pages which are ranking relatively highly already. For example, on the top of page two or on top of page one. And even with position one, they will actually be able to get some traffic. But because of course you have to take into account like how the SERP looks, because not always position one is going to get you traffic. But there are cases where it's definitely worth being one or you may also try to get this featured snippet or move the site to the map pack, to the carousel, whatever. So those quick wins usually are a good idea and are usually something that will let your audit have biggest and quicker effect. Another type of those prioritizations, quick SEO optimizations is when you work on internal linking, especially if internal linking hasn't been worked on, usually this is a quick, quick SEO win. And then the third part of optimization, nice to have, which are of course will help the site or will help the site in the long run, but those two are the ones you should be paying attention to the most, the critical mistakes and the quick SEO wins. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much Olga. I totally agree. And leave SEO aside for a quick second. When you're dealing with a website and you have all these tasks, whether it be from the site art itself or whatever you're trying to work on, it can feel overwhelming and sometimes as a person, as a human being, you need to have some things that you feel like I can accomplish and do and kind of check off the box. So don't ignore that factor of it because it's so true. Crystal Carter: It's so valuable. And I think that when you're working with clients or you're working with a team, it's also really important to think about, because if people don't see, she talked a little bit about quick wins and about things that are beating you. And if people can't see green shoots within the first sort of month or two of what you're doing, then people start to lose interest. And it can be tricky because if you're working on an SEO project where you want to show that the value of the SEO and things like that. So if you can identify things that are going to be able to show some results, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to set the world on fire straight away, but if you can show that it's moving things forward, that's really, really useful. And again, I think this is one of the places where somebody who has some SEO experience can be really, really of value because they can know not only what to audit and what to prioritize, but also how to evidence it after the fact as well. Mordy Oberstein: Totally true. So don't forget to take that advice and don't forget to follow Olga Zarr over on Twitter at O-L-G-A Z-A-R-R on Twitter. We'll link to it in the show notes. So as we're talking about site audits, obviously we're talking about site audits if you've been listening thus far. There are many, many, many tools out there and we figured out what we would do on this episode is kind of highlight just one of those tools that are out there for you. Again, there's a lot of tools, but here's one for you as we go Tool Time on the SERP's UP Podcast. This week we're looking at a tool that used to be called DeepCrawl. It's kind of like Prince, the artist formerly known as DeepCrawl. Now it's called Lumar. So Lumar has been around, or DeepCrawl previously it's been around, they were, I would say one of the first, first really serious SEO tools that ran all kinds of audits and really deep audits. And you can kind of get lost in it because there's so many different audits that they're offering you, which is why we're recommending that you have a look at Lumar and dive into it because they do things like tell you not just on the technical side, they'll do things on the content side as well. Again, do you have thin content? Which on the content side, again, I don't worry about meta descriptions too much, but if thin content comes back, I might want to look at that. Sometimes you just have thin content, it's a page where you sign up for a newsletter, it's going to be thin, but sometimes maybe I really do need to flush that out. And that by the way, I've personally seen where you find those kind of things, and there's a correlation between that and pages that are not indexed because they're too thin. Crystal Carter: What I really like about Lumar is that they get really into the details, particularly on some of the technical elements and they break it down and you can configure the crawl really easily to your tech configuration. So if you have a site that's using a lot of JavaScript for instance, and you can configure it to show that sort of thing. So they have a really good tool that talks about render count so you can see whether the links are rendered and whether that matches how many links are on the page. And these are things that get right into the details of your website. So I think that's really great, and I think thinking about how you can configure your crawl is absolutely important for any auditing session because it's so easy to pat yourself on the back for a hundred percent when you've only crawled three pages Mordy Oberstein: And they make it real easy on the setup to configure that crawl. It's really something with the tools. You have to dive into a settings button in order to configure the crawl. But it's right as you set up the new project, they walk you through the configuration right there. And they have a really cool internal link reporting, which I think is super valuable to tell you if you have orphan pages and so forth. And it's a whole separate report. So the way they break it down is really nice. And I feel like we have to mention if you're using Wix, it's not called Lumar yet, it's still called DeepCrawl, apologies, I guess there's a DeepCrawl app. It offers you a really nice, pretty simplistic breakdown. I say "simplistic" in a good way because we don't want to get overly involved and overly caught up in the whole reporting world about site audits, if you're an SMB, if you're like, "Hey, I got this thing covered, but I do want to do an audit." It's a pretty inexpensive nice way of getting both the technical breakdown of the website and the content breakdown audit of the website as well. So definitely check out the Wix app market for the DeepCrawl app there. Nice. Lumar. Crystal Carter: It's great. It's a great tool. Mordy Oberstein: I like their design language now. Crystal Carter: I like their design language too. I think they've done some really great stuff. They've got a great team there as well. So I've done a webinar with their team recently actually on site audits and there's a great writeup on it and I think the deck is available there as well. So we did the webinar in the summer, so please check that out because it's really awesome. I'm not just saying that, but I mean there's a lot of, not just saying that it's awesome because of me, but also because there's a lot of good information there and their team is just so knowledgeable and they do some great … Mordy Oberstein: Now have featured them in Indigo in weeks past as a Follow of the Week, so full circle right there. With that, let's audit the latest in what's going on in the SEO news because it's time for the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, just one tidbit of news for you this week because although it's been relatively quiet because of the holiday season. Happy New Year's to you all from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable, Google helpful content update and link spam update delayed rollout due to holidays. According to Barry, Google officially confirmed that the helpful content update needs more time to roll out, but now the link spam update is also past the two-week mark and it is not done rolling out yet either. John Mueller of Google said these updates may take longer to complete due to the holidays and for safety reasons. So before the holidays, Google is running the helpful content update and the link spam update, the helpful content update's roll-out was prolonged. It did not finish yet, neither did the link spam update. It's going to finish sometime, I guess now-ish. Now the holiday season is over. There were reports of elevated rank volatility as seen on tools like the December sensor and Moscas around New Year's time. That clearly is not the link spam update or the helpful content update because Google said they paused that. So you may expect to see some increase in rank volatility either happening right now as we speak, or in the coming days perhaps, who knows? But theoretically it's coming. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news on this new year, but I don't control the news. I just report on it. And with that, that is the snappiest of Snappy News. Back to the show. All right, that was the Snappiest News. Crystal Carter: That news was great, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, I love auditing the news. I love auditing everything except for my taxes. But audits are great til the IRS The which I have been audited, it's not fun. Crystal Carter: Oh my God. Mordy Oberstein: It's not fun. I'm an expat, so my taxes are kind of complicated and by default, I didn't do anything wrong. Everything was fine in the end, but they told me I owe $10,000 dollars, "I'm like, oh my God, I cannot, I cannot..." In the end, it was fine. We're good. So audit your sites. Audit your client sites. Don't be audited by the IRS, that's not fun. Yeah, real life advice, again on the SERP's Up SEO Podcast. Anyway, before we do leave the park, we do need to talk about our Follow of the Week because that's what we do. We leave you with somebody who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness each and every week on social media. And this week your follow of the week is Dan White. Crystal Carter: So yeah, Dan White is a fantastic SEO, I worked with him on my previous team and he is also the president of the DMU, which is the Digital Marketers Union. And he is a great SEO. He has a fantastic article about site audits and he's incredibly knowledgeable. I've seen his work firsthand. I've seen how meticulous he is about updating and auditing websites firsthand. He's a great follow for lots of reasons. And the DMU is a fantastic resource for freelancers and for other SEOs who are involved in the SEO community. And it allows you to sort of connect with other SEOs and it allows you to share resources and share information. So yeah, he's a great follow for lots of reasons. He's also a nice guy. Mordy Oberstein: That's another reason to follow him. I always like following nice people. Crystal Carter: Obviously, of course. Mordy Oberstein: Well, it's not so obvious in social media sometimes, but I'm glad that works out this time. All right, well, I guess that's it. We're done auditing. Crystal Carter: We're done. Do we have some actionables? Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: Surely the actionable is to tune in next week for the next episode of the SERP's Up podcast... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, I love that! Crystal Carter: Where you will have lots more... Mordy Oberstein: We're going to be covering how to adapt the changes on the SERP, look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, checking all the great content 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 we're running on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Olga Zarr Dan White Resources : SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Lumar Lumar (Formerly DeepCrawl) on Wix News: Google Helpful Content Update & Link Spam Update Delayed Rollout Due To Holidays Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Olga Zarr Dan White Resources : SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Lumar Lumar (Formerly DeepCrawl) on Wix News: Google Helpful Content Update & Link Spam Update Delayed Rollout Due To Holidays Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast reporting. Got some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein Head of SEO Branding over here at Wix, and I'm joined by our wonderful, fantastic, our fabulous head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, glorious Internet people. I hope you're having a wonderful, fantastic, incredible, top-ranking day. Mordy Oberstein: We are. Crystal Carter: We are. Mordy Oberstein: We just talked about the SERP's Up podcast and where we're ranking on Google and in the Google variant, the multiple carousels that show SEO podcast. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's a really cool carousel. And yeah, we're on there. We're very pleased. We've done some work on that. We've optimized ourselves. Mordy Oberstein: The SERP’s Up is up. Always important to celebrate wins in SEO. Crystal Carter: This is true. It's very important. I literally do a dance at my desk whenever I win, and that's cool. Mordy Oberstein: So you're always dancing at your desk? Crystal Carter: I'm always dancing. It's really good for you. It's good for the lumbar, it's good for making sure you keep everything circulating. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. All right. That's a way to optimize your life right here. Crystal Carter: Life hacks. Yeah. Do you know what, actually, I did give a live hack. I found one the other day and I was like, oh my God, I should post this. The world needs to know, basically, if you have something that you want to send as a gift and it's got a price tag on it, one of those little sticker price tags, take a nice hot cup of coffee or something and sit it on the price tag and it'll warm up the adhesive and then you can... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's also great for when my kids put stickers on the floor, on the tile floor. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Like if you got a mug of coffee, it's got a flat bottom on the mug, like stick it on there. Mordy Oberstein: All right, SEO tips and life hacks here on the service sub podcast, which by the way is brought to you by Wix, where you can audit your site's accessibility with ease, with our very own and very novel accessibility wizard. So you can see things like where your color contrast is not suited for the visually impaired, where you're missing alt texts, which is also really important for those relying on TTS readers and more all of the accessibility wizard inside of Wix and a good thing we're talking about accessibility audits, because today's show is all about SEO audits. Wow, look at that. Totally right into that. Crystal Carter: Almost as if you planned it. Mordy Oberstein: Celebrate your wins. Celebrate your wins. Crystal Carter: Every day. Mordy Oberstein: Every time you celebrate your wins, check this one out. You might say, we're running an audible today. Get it, an audible? As in an audible, it's a terrible American football joke. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Should I celebrate a win there? Crystal Carter: Yeah, no. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe not. Okay. Okay. Jokes aside, SEO audits are no joke. And for many they are no fun, but have no fear. We're all about fun here as we dive into the different types of SEO audits, how deep you should go with your site audits, how to handle all the information these audits throw your way and when to know when ignore half of all the information these audits throw your way. Don't you feel better already, don't you feel better already? Crystal Carter: I feel like we've done an exhaustive survey and I feel much better, and I feel like we have some actionable things that we can do… Mordy Oberstein: And we're telling you not to worry about half the stuff, so it's perfect. Plus, we'll look at a great tool to help you as you march towards site audit success. And of course, we have your snappy news and who you should be following on social for more SEO awesomeness as we open an investigation that is Episode 19 of the SERP'Up SEO podcast. Hooray. Crystal Carter: Cool. Okay, so today we're going to be talking about SEO audits. And essentially when we think about as an intro to auditing, I think it's important to think about the different kinds of SEO audit types that there are. So broadly speaking, speaking super broadly, because of course it depends because this is SEO, there tends to be three different kinds of SEO sections shall we say, so there's like on-page SEO, there's off-page SEO, and there's technical SEO just as a super broad thing so we can move forward. I know it gets very nuanced, but just stay with me here. So within each of those, there's different kinds of audits within that. So if you think about on-page SEO for instance, there are content audits. So you might do a content audit around the content quality. So you might look at the keywords and whether or not they're relevant, you might look at the performance of the pages that have the content on them. You might also look at the visibility compared to your competitors. You might also look at the visibility compared to different SERP features and things like that. In the on-page space, there's also things like your content framework. So things like your H-1s, your H-2s, your titles, your meta descriptions, your images, whether you have images, whether you should have images, that sort of thing. So that on-page SEO can have a lot of different audits. And even within that there are further audits that you can do drilling down into some of those things. But those two tend to be some of the main ones, the main types of audits that people will get into. We think about off-page SEO, this tends to be about backlinks and referral traffic and referrers, so those two can tend to fall into two categories. One is sort of backlink quality and quantity, which is essentially where you're looking at the number of back links that you have and you're looking at whether or not they're relevant, and you're looking at how they compare to your competitors and things like that. And the other one kind of going on from that is backlink gaps. So it might be that you're looking at your vertical, let's say you're in, I don't know, biking and you have a bike shop and you might see that across your vertical lots of people have backlinks from mountain bike.com or Mountain Bike Magazine or something like that. That's a backlink gap that you might need to think about and think about maybe getting on there. So finding that information is really, really valuable going forward. And then you get into technical SEO, and technical SEO can have a couple of different audits, but I think as somebody who's done a lot of these segment SEO audits, I think you can split them into essentially two camps. And then again they get more nuanced after that, but the things that are around your tech stack, which is essentially the tools that connect to your website to make your website work all together, which they tend to be lots of different things. So this might include your security framework, like your RSS and your server security might also have to do with your server configuration, and whether or not that works for what you need or whether you not you should be on a cloud server or that sort of thing. And also things around page feed and performance, which again can have to do with on-page things, can have to do with your infrastructure elements, things like that. Then we have within that also tech implementation, so things like schema validation and whether or not your schema is working on your site or if it should be on your site. Things like crawl management, whether pages are being indexed and that sort of thing. So from that description you can understand that there's lots of different types of audits. And within SEO you can have somebody who does a full deep dive on one thing or another depending on what's required and depending on what they see from their initial audit. But what's really important for any kind of audit is that it gives you a broad overview of what you're looking but that also gives you actionables. One thing that I cannot stand that drives me absolutely mad is when people do an audit and they just say, "Oh, all these things are broken," an audit without recommendations is not helpful to anyone. It's really, really useful to include in an audit, you should always include some recommendation and you should always include some priorities of what to do next. And that I think is really, really valuable. And I think it's a really great thing about a good SEO audit. Mordy Oberstein: So the one thing about SEO audits is, by the way, that was prolific in an explanation, we should take that out and frame it somewhere. Crystal Carter: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know how you'd frame an audio clip, but I would love to try. But I think one of the things about audits are, because there's so vast, there's so many things we can do with it that, and you get so much information back, it could be a little bit overwhelming. Even if you're running your traditional, we'll call it a "site audit." You take a tool, you take in your Semrush, aHREFs or Lumars of the world, there's plenty of tools out there, Screaming Frog, and you can get a ton of information back. You get information back related to are you missing title tags or are you missing meta descriptions? But do you have real errors, do you have broken links? So you have duplicate content, thin content, structured, it's kind of overwhelming. And then beyond that, there's all sorts of, they're typically called "warnings" inside of the tools and the warnings, I have warnings about warnings. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. The warnings are interesting, because sometimes they can be dependent on each other. So sometimes it can say like, "Oh, you have a broken image on this." And then it'll also say like, "Oh, you have a 404 on this." So it'll say you've got two errors or warnings, but actually there's just one, there's one broken link that's an image link and it's causing, it's flagging up two errors. So it's important to understand when you're auditing what they're looking at and what they're covering. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and then so when you look at all of that and you see these astronomical numbers, 5 million errors and 300 warnings and blah, blah, blah, blah, it's a little overwhelming, and my best advice to you is it's all about opportunity cost. You don't get a medal or a star or trophy for whatever it is for getting a zero in all these audits saying "No, no errors, no warnings. You get an award, you get an award and you get an award." It's all about what's the value to the site, and what's important to the site. And it might be that ignoring a whole bunch of warnings, even some of the errors, and writing a new piece of content or putting your blast blog post on social media and it has nothing to do with the site audit is actually more of an opportunity cost, more valuable than fixing that particular error or warning. Crystal Carter: I did a recent video with Google and I was talking about redirect loops that I found out on a site, and I've had people who were junior SEOs ring their hands being like, oh, I have to fix all these 404s. How do I fix all these 404s? And again, thinking about opportunity costs, and I talked about this on the Google session, was that sometimes you can just delete the link. Instead of going through and fixing all those 404s, ask yourself, do I need to have that link there anyway? If not, just delete it. If you delete it, it's not broken because it ain't there. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point. Crystal Carter: Sometimes it's just like you don't actually need to fix it, you can just get rid of it. Mordy Oberstein: And a great framework for what I was asking, I talked to Ari Zilberstein about this one time on Twitter, ask why it's important. Ask like, why this like oh, oh, broken links, broken links, okay, why is that a problem? Crystal Carter: So I do a lot of stuff around schema and Google's rich results testing tool. I always get a lot of people who are super confused about that because it will give you warnings. It'll say, "Oh, you don't have the offer on this particular product," or "Oh, you don't have this brand," or "Oh, you don't have that," or "Oh, you don't have this." And it'll say "yellow, warning." Well, the thing about yellow warning is that it's optional. It says a lot of times it'll say optional. And sometimes having something that has some of the information is better than having nothing. And sometimes if it says optional, sometimes you don't need it. Sometimes a lot of those tools will... They're great and fantastic tools and I use them all the time, but they're trying to serve everyone on the web and not everyone on the web needs every single line of schema. Sometimes they just need the essentials. And that's fine. You need to make that quality assessment and judgment. Mordy Oberstein: And speaking to everyone on the web, I feel like a lot of the tools are trying to speak to everybody on the web and that could be a little bit problematic. And I'm not trying to make any judgments on any of the tools out there, but one of the things that they try to do is they try to speak to everybody about all the various things on their website. And because by the way, I think historically speaking, a lot of these tools were developed during an era of SEO that was a lot more spammy-ish than it is now, I think, putting my foot on a landmine there, but there'll be things that they'll come back to you on that just aren't real. Low code to text A to HTML ratio, blah, blah, blah is not a thing. You can go on Twitter, you can find John Mueller saying, "Not a thing." Crystal Carter: And then sometimes I've seen it where people will flag you on duplicate content for having the same meta title, the same page title, and the same like H-1. And I'm like, "That's not really a big deal." You could argue that, you could argue that there's an opportunity to add another keyword or something to that effect. You could argue that, but it's not really that big a deal. It's not really something that you should be keeping yourself up at night about. Mordy Oberstein: Brace yourself. I mean, maybe you'll disagree with me, but when the tools come back and they say, "Oh, meta description too long," I say, "Snore, don't care." Crystal Carter: This is the reason why I think it's important to prioritize your audit findings, because there's going to be tons of those things where that are a snore or that are not a big deal, or that historically speaking, so for instance, there's sometimes tech debt on websites where they tried it one time or there's just a thing that they just can't fix because it's not a thing. And that happens on lots of websites. So somebody who knows the tech debt for instance can go, "No, we don't even want to go down that route." I know somebody who used to live in a really old house, but do you know people that have ever done remodeling where you think, "Oh, we'll just change the wallpaper and you pull the wallpaper off and half the wall comes out." That's the thing that can happen with websites, essentially. So sometimes if you know the tech debt of the website, you can say, "No, we're just not going to poke that bear today, but we can do this other thing." Like you said, we can do this other thing. We're going to write this content, we can keep moving forward. That's what I find generally is when you do an audit, you want to find ways where you can just keep moving forward. And some of the things in your audit might be things that you can work at, work towards over a long term fixing, but you want to find things that you can prior- and this is again where the prioritizing comes from, where you say, well this thing will give us a big impact fairly quickly and then this thing will take us a little bit longer to do, but will give us a big impact after that. And so if you just keep building and keep building momentum, then that can help you to see SEO growth because Google can see that you're constantly improving the website. Mordy Oberstein: It's not about being perfect, it's about making progress. It's about prioritizing and scrutinizing the tools. And how deep do you have to go into your SEO audit? It depends on what you're looking to do and what you need. Crystal Carter: And also use multiple tools. Mordy Oberstein: That's true too. And there are a lot of tools out there. There are free tools out there. Crystal Carter: There's free tools out there. So always compare any third party tool, always compare it to the Google Search console, always check Google Search Console on another tool. If you have no money at all, if you have no budget, zero budget, you can use Google Search Console and you can use Bing Webmaster Tools and you can compare those two and see a lot of information from that. And there's a lot of tools that are freemium as well that will allow you to get some good audits. Mordy Oberstein: And pro tip, if you run an audit and you're like, "Something looks weird here," run it again instead of using a third party tool, because sometimes they are a little wonky, for lack of better word. Crystal Carter: Right. And also for a cloud configuration, sometimes when people connect to a cloud server, you might see different activity at one time or another. So run it a few times, check it a few different ways. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of prioritizing your site audit recommendations, we have the wonderful Olga Zarr from SEO Sly here to share her thoughts on how do you prioritize your SEO audit recommendations. Olga Zarr: We need to take a lot of things into account. First, the most important thing is what type of site you are dealing with and how possible, how likely it is that all or most of your SEO recommendations will be implemented. It is of course a different case if you're dealing with a huge e-comm site and where there is five or 10 people who are going to decide whether they're okay with implementing those changes. And it is a totally different story if you are dealing with a small site over which you have a total control and you yourself can implement all of those recommendations. So in most cases we can assume that just some of them will be implemented. So the way I suggest doing that is always start with the most critical ones, then go to quick SEO wins, and then the things that are kind of nice to have. So the critical optimizations are the ones that actually hinder the site right away, that make the site definitely not realize its full potential or even prevents it from ranking like a no index tag or something on some page where it definitely shouldn't be. Or for example, some crawlability issues where Google is not able to crawl the site or render it correctly. So these are those types of things that have to be implemented right away, and they usually can bring relatively quick effects. For example, if the site is not indexed and the client is coming to you to fix the problem because they're not getting any impressions or any, for example, clicks. And if you just fix that usually you will be able to bring relatively of course, quick results. The second type of optimizations prioritization you should do is quick SEO wins. Again, SEO is not for quick results, but with quick SEO wins, uncovering some hidden potential you usually can bring quicker results. What are quick SEO wins? For example, you can try to find pages which are ranking relatively highly already. For example, on the top of page two or on top of page one. And even with position one, they will actually be able to get some traffic. But because of course you have to take into account like how the SERP looks, because not always position one is going to get you traffic. But there are cases where it's definitely worth being one or you may also try to get this featured snippet or move the site to the map pack, to the carousel, whatever. So those quick wins usually are a good idea and are usually something that will let your audit have biggest and quicker effect. Another type of those prioritizations, quick SEO optimizations is when you work on internal linking, especially if internal linking hasn't been worked on, usually this is a quick, quick SEO win. And then the third part of optimization, nice to have, which are of course will help the site or will help the site in the long run, but those two are the ones you should be paying attention to the most, the critical mistakes and the quick SEO wins. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much Olga. I totally agree. And leave SEO aside for a quick second. When you're dealing with a website and you have all these tasks, whether it be from the site art itself or whatever you're trying to work on, it can feel overwhelming and sometimes as a person, as a human being, you need to have some things that you feel like I can accomplish and do and kind of check off the box. So don't ignore that factor of it because it's so true. Crystal Carter: It's so valuable. And I think that when you're working with clients or you're working with a team, it's also really important to think about, because if people don't see, she talked a little bit about quick wins and about things that are beating you. And if people can't see green shoots within the first sort of month or two of what you're doing, then people start to lose interest. And it can be tricky because if you're working on an SEO project where you want to show that the value of the SEO and things like that. So if you can identify things that are going to be able to show some results, it doesn't have to be, you don't have to set the world on fire straight away, but if you can show that it's moving things forward, that's really, really useful. And again, I think this is one of the places where somebody who has some SEO experience can be really, really of value because they can know not only what to audit and what to prioritize, but also how to evidence it after the fact as well. Mordy Oberstein: Totally true. So don't forget to take that advice and don't forget to follow Olga Zarr over on Twitter at O-L-G-A Z-A-R-R on Twitter. We'll link to it in the show notes. So as we're talking about site audits, obviously we're talking about site audits if you've been listening thus far. There are many, many, many tools out there and we figured out what we would do on this episode is kind of highlight just one of those tools that are out there for you. Again, there's a lot of tools, but here's one for you as we go Tool Time on the SERP's UP Podcast. This week we're looking at a tool that used to be called DeepCrawl. It's kind of like Prince, the artist formerly known as DeepCrawl. Now it's called Lumar. So Lumar has been around, or DeepCrawl previously it's been around, they were, I would say one of the first, first really serious SEO tools that ran all kinds of audits and really deep audits. And you can kind of get lost in it because there's so many different audits that they're offering you, which is why we're recommending that you have a look at Lumar and dive into it because they do things like tell you not just on the technical side, they'll do things on the content side as well. Again, do you have thin content? Which on the content side, again, I don't worry about meta descriptions too much, but if thin content comes back, I might want to look at that. Sometimes you just have thin content, it's a page where you sign up for a newsletter, it's going to be thin, but sometimes maybe I really do need to flush that out. And that by the way, I've personally seen where you find those kind of things, and there's a correlation between that and pages that are not indexed because they're too thin. Crystal Carter: What I really like about Lumar is that they get really into the details, particularly on some of the technical elements and they break it down and you can configure the crawl really easily to your tech configuration. So if you have a site that's using a lot of JavaScript for instance, and you can configure it to show that sort of thing. So they have a really good tool that talks about render count so you can see whether the links are rendered and whether that matches how many links are on the page. And these are things that get right into the details of your website. So I think that's really great, and I think thinking about how you can configure your crawl is absolutely important for any auditing session because it's so easy to pat yourself on the back for a hundred percent when you've only crawled three pages Mordy Oberstein: And they make it real easy on the setup to configure that crawl. It's really something with the tools. You have to dive into a settings button in order to configure the crawl. But it's right as you set up the new project, they walk you through the configuration right there. And they have a really cool internal link reporting, which I think is super valuable to tell you if you have orphan pages and so forth. And it's a whole separate report. So the way they break it down is really nice. And I feel like we have to mention if you're using Wix, it's not called Lumar yet, it's still called DeepCrawl, apologies, I guess there's a DeepCrawl app. It offers you a really nice, pretty simplistic breakdown. I say "simplistic" in a good way because we don't want to get overly involved and overly caught up in the whole reporting world about site audits, if you're an SMB, if you're like, "Hey, I got this thing covered, but I do want to do an audit." It's a pretty inexpensive nice way of getting both the technical breakdown of the website and the content breakdown audit of the website as well. So definitely check out the Wix app market for the DeepCrawl app there. Nice. Lumar. Crystal Carter: It's great. It's a great tool. Mordy Oberstein: I like their design language now. Crystal Carter: I like their design language too. I think they've done some really great stuff. They've got a great team there as well. So I've done a webinar with their team recently actually on site audits and there's a great writeup on it and I think the deck is available there as well. So we did the webinar in the summer, so please check that out because it's really awesome. I'm not just saying that, but I mean there's a lot of, not just saying that it's awesome because of me, but also because there's a lot of good information there and their team is just so knowledgeable and they do some great … Mordy Oberstein: Now have featured them in Indigo in weeks past as a Follow of the Week, so full circle right there. With that, let's audit the latest in what's going on in the SEO news because it's time for the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, just one tidbit of news for you this week because although it's been relatively quiet because of the holiday season. Happy New Year's to you all from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable, Google helpful content update and link spam update delayed rollout due to holidays. According to Barry, Google officially confirmed that the helpful content update needs more time to roll out, but now the link spam update is also past the two-week mark and it is not done rolling out yet either. John Mueller of Google said these updates may take longer to complete due to the holidays and for safety reasons. So before the holidays, Google is running the helpful content update and the link spam update, the helpful content update's roll-out was prolonged. It did not finish yet, neither did the link spam update. It's going to finish sometime, I guess now-ish. Now the holiday season is over. There were reports of elevated rank volatility as seen on tools like the December sensor and Moscas around New Year's time. That clearly is not the link spam update or the helpful content update because Google said they paused that. So you may expect to see some increase in rank volatility either happening right now as we speak, or in the coming days perhaps, who knows? But theoretically it's coming. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news on this new year, but I don't control the news. I just report on it. And with that, that is the snappiest of Snappy News. Back to the show. All right, that was the Snappiest News. Crystal Carter: That news was great, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, I love auditing the news. I love auditing everything except for my taxes. But audits are great til the IRS The which I have been audited, it's not fun. Crystal Carter: Oh my God. Mordy Oberstein: It's not fun. I'm an expat, so my taxes are kind of complicated and by default, I didn't do anything wrong. Everything was fine in the end, but they told me I owe $10,000 dollars, "I'm like, oh my God, I cannot, I cannot..." In the end, it was fine. We're good. So audit your sites. Audit your client sites. Don't be audited by the IRS, that's not fun. Yeah, real life advice, again on the SERP's Up SEO Podcast. Anyway, before we do leave the park, we do need to talk about our Follow of the Week because that's what we do. We leave you with somebody who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness each and every week on social media. And this week your follow of the week is Dan White. Crystal Carter: So yeah, Dan White is a fantastic SEO, I worked with him on my previous team and he is also the president of the DMU, which is the Digital Marketers Union. And he is a great SEO. He has a fantastic article about site audits and he's incredibly knowledgeable. I've seen his work firsthand. I've seen how meticulous he is about updating and auditing websites firsthand. He's a great follow for lots of reasons. And the DMU is a fantastic resource for freelancers and for other SEOs who are involved in the SEO community. And it allows you to sort of connect with other SEOs and it allows you to share resources and share information. So yeah, he's a great follow for lots of reasons. He's also a nice guy. Mordy Oberstein: That's another reason to follow him. I always like following nice people. Crystal Carter: Obviously, of course. Mordy Oberstein: Well, it's not so obvious in social media sometimes, but I'm glad that works out this time. All right, well, I guess that's it. We're done auditing. Crystal Carter: We're done. Do we have some actionables? Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: Surely the actionable is to tune in next week for the next episode of the SERP's Up podcast... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, I love that! Crystal Carter: Where you will have lots more... Mordy Oberstein: We're going to be covering how to adapt the changes on the SERP, look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, checking all the great content 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 we're running 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

What industry developments are affecting the way SEO agencies operate? What industry developments are affecting the way SEO agencies operate? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are joined by the founder and managing director of Blink SEO, Sam Wright, as they investigate the difficult changes SEO agencies are facing. Find out how you can provide the best value for your clients in today’s digital paradigm. Additionally, Wincher’s Oscar Lima stops by to give his two cents on how to manage SEO in a way that will help your agency thrive despite today’s changing landscape. Come gather around SEOs in whatever niche of the web you roam, as today we examine how the times they are a-changin’ for SEO agencies. It’s episode #94 of the SERP’s UP SEO Podcast! Back The change coming for SEO agencies What industry developments are affecting the way SEO agencies operate? What industry developments are affecting the way SEO agencies operate? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are joined by the founder and managing director of Blink SEO, Sam Wright, as they investigate the difficult changes SEO agencies are facing. Find out how you can provide the best value for your clients in today’s digital paradigm. Additionally, Wincher’s Oscar Lima stops by to give his two cents on how to manage SEO in a way that will help your agency thrive despite today’s changing landscape. Come gather around SEOs in whatever niche of the web you roam, as today we examine how the times they are a-changin’ for SEO agencies. It’s episode #94 of the SERP’s UP SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 94 | July 3, 2024 | 46 MIN 00:00 / 45:41 This week’s guests Sam Wright Sam is the founder and MD of Blink, a specialist eCommerce SEO agency, and Macaroni, a new end-to-end SEO platform. He has been working in SEO since 2007, and is a regular speaker and writer on the subject of eCommerce digital marketing. Oscar Lima Oscar Lima is the Head of Growth and product specialist at Wincher, an SEO platform to help marketers and business owners improve their SEO performance through better and easy to read ranking data. 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 Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand here at WIX. And I'm joined by the always adaptable, the ever-changing, and aligning with the times and ahead of the times herself, the Head of SEO Communications here at WIX, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: In case anyone is going to ask me about flex capacitors or anything of that nature, no, I cannot time travel. Thank you very much, Mordy, for that lovely introduction. Mordy Oberstein: You know what the problem with that movie is? It's a perfect movie except for the 88 miles per hour because back in the day, that was fast. That's what my grandmother does on the street now. Crystal Carter: Why you putting your grandmother on blast? If she wants to get to bingo quickly, that's her business. Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: She's not going to bingo, she's going to shuffleboard. Crystal Carter: Okay, shuffleboard. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Shuffleboard. Mordy Oberstein: No, none of this is... it's all made up. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I've never shuffleboarded, but I can imagine Grandma overseeing doing the shuffle as it were. Mordy Oberstein: Knowing Grandma Oberstein, I'm picturing this in my mind, it's a little bit disturbing. Anyway, the SERP 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 see who on your team is changing what on what site in real-time with shared working features found on WIX Studio. As today we're talking about how agency SEO, like your websites, are changing. How platform evolution changes the SEO scenario, something Crystal and I noticed a wee bit about. And how the emerges of AI changes the SEO agency paradigm, plus how it all adds up to more digital democratization and what that means for agencies. Sam Wright of Blink SEO will join us in just a Jiffy to weigh in on the matter. Speaking of platform evolution, we'll also talk to Wincher's, Oscar Lima, about why they've doubled down on platform integration. Plus, we have the snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So come gather around agency SEOs wherever you roam and emit the service around you have grown. And except that soon you'll be drenched in the digital unknown, for the agency SEO is a-changing on this the 94th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. Queue harmonica. I am challenging my inner Dylan. You want to hear my Bob Dylan impression? No, we're not doing that. Crystal Carter: No, go for it. I mean, you set it up. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, hey SEO's, are you ready to see what's a-changing? From one nasally Jewish person to another. So this is our second... sorry, scratch that. This is our first episode of our WIX Studio Series. WIX Studio is a platform that helps digital marketers better manage clients, projects, and teams that has all sorts of advanced features such as reusable assets or an AI code assistant to help you do that, which is why this series is focused on helping agency side SEOs and digital marketers gain more knowledge. Now, I've had a heap of conversations with people lately, and it's been so weird because when you talk to SEO and digital marketing people, and I talk to all of them except for the PPC people less so... I'm not a PPC person- Crystal Carter: What are you talking about? We do the thing with Greg every day. Mordy Oberstein: Well, Greg's not a PPC person. So okay, plug, every single day except for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays so not every day, four out of seven days, you can check out it's new, which myself, Crystal, Greg Finn, and Barry Schwartz do each end every day, except again Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we cover the news. The SEO news and PPC news. Look for it in the SEO Hub or on the Rusty Brick YouTube channel. I forget what we were talking about because I was plugging so much. No, but it's hard. I don't talk to as many SEO PPC people and in general, it's hard to get people to agree and share the same sentiments. One sentiment I've seen people talking about, and this is off-the-record conversations, it's just getting harder. It's harder to get clients, it's harder to keep clients. It's just everything is just suddenly harder. I think people are having a hard time figuring out exactly why that is, but if there's one thing I keep hearing, it's that things are just different. So it's hard to get your finger on the pulse of that, which is why I think this episode is really important, which is why we're honored to have Sam Wright, the managing director of Blink SEO at Macaroni Software on the show. Welcome, Sam. Sam Wright: Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Mordy Oberstein: Great having you. So plug away, we're marketers, you're a marketer, marketer's going to market. What do you got for us? Sam Wright: So I'm the founder of Blink and we're a specialist e-commerce marketing agency with a focus on SEO. Our focus really is on Shopify. That's our platform. And I think that ties into a lot of stuff probably we're going to talk about. I'm also the founder of Macaroni as well, which is our SaaS platform built for Shopify. So it's essentially a platform that we've built that takes all of the kind of processes that we've developed over the years and automates them as much as possible and allows us to deliver SEO work on Shopify a lot faster. Currently, around 20 times faster and improving as of our last impact study. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. So a while back, I found this on Traffic Think Tank, which you're currently wearing this sweatshirt for. Sam Wright: Yes, I am indeed. Mordy Oberstein: Look at that. It all ties together Sam Wright: Wearing it today. It's a sign. Mordy Oberstein: It's in the stars. Sam Wright: It is indeed. Mordy Oberstein: And this is why people should promote themselves because in the Traffic Think Tank Slack channel, you shared this post on LinkedIn that you did about how agency SEO is changing and I thought it was brilliant and said we should have you on the show to talk about it. Maybe let's start with just running through what were you talking about on that post and what made you write it. Sam Wright: Yeah, of course. You've summed up what the sentiment is for a lot of people out there at the moment that it is tough. In the agency world, people are taking longer and longer to make decisions, there's less appetite of risk for risk. We've got macro-economic challenges worldwide going on at the moment, particularly in the e-commerce space, which is so kind of susceptible to consumer confidence and things like that. It really is filtering down. So over the last six months, we've seen buying cycles get longer and longer, kind of like sales resistance getting stronger and stronger. And all the time, our kind of attitude has always been we want to understand what the problems are for businesses and help them solve them. It's not a case of us. In the agency space, there's often a kind of self-serve nature of just trying to push all the problems back on the clients. Budgets aren't big enough, you are not good enough for what we need. And that's never kind of sat right with me because a lot of the problems with the sales resistance in terms of SEO is people have concerns about whether it will work, whether it can show a decent ROI. And a lot of people really struggle to answer these questions. And I think that's a whole separate subject in it. Crystal Carter: Right. Sam Wright: But in this environment where people are being much more resistant or that appetite for risk is completely gone, the whole post was triggered around the reasons for that, how we've got to this point. And I think there's a few things that have happened along with all of the macro stuff that's kind of led us there. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And this is something I've heard from a few people, particularly about the sales cycles and I think that SEO is something that they can lend itself to be vulnerable to that long sales cycle as well because if people are seeing that maybe their projections just business-wide are not giving them necessarily what they would normally see as a healthy mark, it's tricky for them to invest in something that might pay off in three months or six months or even a little bit longer in some cases. So I think that you're absolutely right, and Alyeda has talked about this a lot, about the no more it depends so we need to be able to give people information that will help them to make those decisions. Sam Wright: Exactly. Essentially, it's a discretionary purchase for lots of people at the moment. It talks about search being like a nuclear fission before. It sounds amazing, doesn't it? But getting there is really, really hard. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen. But a lot of the work that we're doing with Macaroni is answering those questions like does it work? How fast can you make it work? Being super clear. And again, that's a whole different subject that maybe we don't want to get into the weeds on this one. Crystal Carter: I think that that's something that we've tried to do on the WIX side as well. So with a lot of the tools that we have, we've built that in mind, and you're probably doing this on your side as well, but we have schema markup built into the CMS, we have loads of GVP, you can set up your GVP from the CMS. We have lots of things that are built into the CMS so that people don't have to wait so long for that tooling to be built, for that tooling to be implemented, for that tooling to be validated, to be all of that sort of stuff so that people can cut down on some of those friction points. You mentioned AI in your element as well, and we've built AI into our tools as well, and we've seen an incredible uptick in the number of people who are accessing those SEO tools as a result of including AI. And so I think that where you can reduce some of the friction and show results more quickly, people are more likely to engage. Mordy Oberstein: That was kind of the thrust of the LinkedIn post was that the CMSs, like Crystal's mentioned in the case of our case, they've evolved and they're not the same thing relatively across the board than they were just a few years ago. I'm a certain case, I like to think that we've done an incredible job advancing our SEO side. At the same time, you have all these AI implementations available. So in our case, for example, you can create title tags and meta descriptions just using AI and it's a pretty good job doing it. I use it for all my meta descriptions at this point, I don't feel like I need to write a meta description. And you said that kind of democratizes all that together, democratizes SEO a little bit, and that changes the paradigm for SEO agencies. What did you mean by that? Sam Wright: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. One of the reasons that we chose to focus on Shopify was the lack of technical debt that you get on that platform. If you are using Magento or some of the other big e-commerce platforms, up to 50, 60% of e-commerce work is stopping things breaking or just unseen variables. And from a productivity point of view, that's an absolute nightmare. It means that you're not doing growth. And so our kind of view has always been, there's certain activity that actually makes an impact, whether that's internal linking, on-page optimization, blah, blah, blah. And the problem is people don't do it at scale enough to tip that over into growth. So through Macaroni, one of the things we do is we track each change. If you make an internal link or add a keyword to a page, it all gets timestamped and then run across your data and analytics and Search Console. We run rolling averages before and after, benchmark everything because you can see the impact. And at a granular level, we can see that updating an internal link might impact impressions by 50, 60%. But you need to do that at scale to really make an impact, especially when we're in an environment where say search demand is, or consumer demands down 20% year-on-year. So to tip to growth, you combine that with rising costs. Really you need to see a 50% increase year-on-year for a lot brands to be better than where they were last year. So that's a huge amount of work. So making a few updates here and there is not really going to move the needle. So it's about this kind of scale that you do it. Crystal Carter: Yeah, definitely as a technical SEO, when you have a CMS like WIX for instance, which has dynamic site maps built in, there was times as a technical SEO where I was making site maps for people, adding them to them, uploading- Sam Wright: I don't think I've done that for years now. Crystal Carter: Right. But there was a time when I was doing it, there was a lot of people and it was fairly common where they didn't. And I think that there's a lot of stuff that's taken for granted. And so then when you have a CMS that's like that has a lot of these things built in like in WIX and others, I think that as a technical SEO for instance, your skills are different. You have to have different skills. You have to be able to make sure that everything works correctly as it should. You need to be able to fix some of the things that you know are default and making sure that they're working correctly and that sort of thing. But those checks will take a lot less time. So for instance, I'll say, oh, this CMS has this, I'll check this, this, this, this, and this, great, that's all fine, next, and then you can move on. So the acceleration, the growth part, you're able to get to, as you said, much more quickly. And I think you still need to have those skills, I think you still need to have them, but you maybe don't need to have them in the same way as you did before. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, no, it seems more than... I'll pull down the fourth wall. When we talk about how do we position WIX for SEO agencies, one of the ways that we've talked about positioning is that you can focus on growth. You don't have to focus on the things that you don't want to do. Back in the day, there was concerns internally. Maybe if we push position in that way, then SEOs who are charging for installing this plugin and that plugin, it'll be like, wow, I can't do that. But I think serious and substantial SEOs and SEO agencies who are focused on client satisfaction and client growth will look at the fact that we implement auto redirects, that we produce almost all of your structured data for you automatically on all your most important pages. We automatically compress images, we automatically cache pages. It's endless, endless. The things that we automate is endless at this point. But that lets you focus on the real thing, which is actually growing the website, which kind of goes into the next question that I had anyways. If you have things like AI and I don't need to write a title tag for my clients anymore necessarily, they can use the AI writer inside of the WIX SEO, but go ahead, write your title tag, I'll have a quick look at it then. Then where is the value for SEO agencies going forward? Sam Wright: Well, I think a lot of people are going to be caught out in this new world because they can't provide unique value. And I think there's a lot of magical thinking that goes on in the industry at the moment where people are taking a view that AI isn't that good at the moment and it's going to stay that way and it's not. There's going to be a pretty big wake-up call, I think. And where we see the real moat and the expertise is... well, we're an eCommerce SEO, which is different to any other kind of segment, and we also specialize in large catalogs. So 80% of our work is around taxonomy and architecture and things like that. So we do fasted navigation and that's our kind of area of focus. So the future's going to be different for SaaS or whatever. Because SaaS is all about content and probably links because you've got five sites that all do the same thing. So it's going to be a kind of different world for all of them. Where we see the kind of value is it's really around data engineering. And this is a concept that I feel like lots of people in the SEO world don't really understand. They still lump all of this in with just Python, which is we do Python stuff and they don't really understand the difference between data science, data engineering, and blah blah, blah. Where I'm going with all of this is AI is about input. You put something good in and you get something good out. The way you do that at scale is largely a data engineering challenge. And when we're talking about building a moat around something, what I mean by that is... one example of the things that we do at Macaroni is it generates content for a page, but you need to feed in the primary and secondary keywords that may have been generated using a different process. But then we feed in sales data, we feed in brand positioning, various other metrics to ensure that the quality of the output is unique. So what we're feeding in is unique data to get a kind of unique thing out. And that's essentially the kind of moat around a lot of this stuff. You need to have access to some unique data and process it in a kind of... yeah. Crystal Carter: In an intelligent way, an actually intelligent way, not just from some AI and think, so somebody's looking at the data, assessing the data. And I think you're absolutely right, that that data piece is so critical and it's what good SEOs have been doing the whole time. Anyone can look at a list of keywords and can go, those are keywords with the top search volume, but you have to have data analysis to go, the search volume here is high, the keyword volume here is low, so we won't do that one or this, and pulling out which ones are the seed boards and which ones are the long tail and which ones are combined with all the other things. And I'm actually starting to see a lot of people who have been very good SEOs over the years move into a data role. I can think of two off the top of my head who are top agents, top... no, three actually who are folks who've moved from being SEOs into being data analysts or marketing data folks directly and bringing in all of those skills. And I think as you say, it is manipulating the data. And certainly, from an e-commerce point of view, you're absolutely coming from that because working with all the feeds and all of that sort of stuff is a whole nother thing in itself. Sam Wright: I think what you said there, a lot of that data though is those human insights in it, a lot of those can be automated though. There's like a logic tree for when you are... there's a limited amount of scenarios to go through. And this is kind of something that we call... it's such a big thing in this industry. You go and look on LinkedIn and everyone's got this 20-step post to get some insight. We'll pull some data from Search Console, we compare it to the HTML and analytics data, and blah, blah, blah. That is essentially data engineering by hand. A data pipeline can do that process for you. And that's been kind of like our view. And we're getting to the point now with all of these other parameters being minimized, not having to build site apps anymore or the site's not breaking, you end up with a pool... like, the possibilities of things that can go wrong or get smaller and smaller into the point that you can just build it out into a process. Does that make some kind of sense? Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. No, it does, it does. And I think that agencies in the future, do you think that there's going to be more agencies that are building in that way, that it's not just a question of having... a lot of agencies are sort of service-led businesses, do you think there's going to be a lot more tool-led businesses in that way? Sam Wright: I think we're at a really interesting point where coming back to that idea of democratization, it is going to happen quite fast and the playing field's going to be really, really level. Now, we speak to a lot of marketing people in house and they know how to optimize a page, they know how to do some internal linking. If they're given the tools to be able to do that properly, there's no need for them to hire an agency whatsoever. And that's the kind of market that we're going at with Macaroni. We're kind of enabling them to do that process on Shopify. I'm sure that's the direction WIX is going to be heading in as well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, that's what we've been doing for the better part of three years. On the data side, we pulled in Google Search Console Analytics. So basically if you don't know how to Regex, it's fine, we have all sorts of analytics that help you just pull it right out for you like that. Even for example, you log in... and this is a case where most clients that I initially talked to, smaller clients, at least, they have no idea what Search Console is, right? So we have a one-click connection to Search Console. Just doing this the other week for somebody. And so we'll automatically, for example, pull out which pages and queries are the most incline or decline for clicks and impressions. You don't have to do anything. It's like automatically... you know the email you get from Search Console, here's... I think you still get them. These are your fastest-growing queries. That data is pulled out basically right into the WIX dashboard. So they see it right away. They don't need me anymore to tell them what are the big focuses that I should be focusing on based on my Search Console data. WIX tells them, it's right there, there's no need. Sam Wright: Yeah. And more and more of this is going to happen. Mordy Oberstein: Which is, by the way, I'm fine with because it's like one less hassle I have to worry about. Sam Wright: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And a lot of SEO stuff isn't hard. If you're given the right information, you can make good decisions. And now it's getting to the point where the information is being presented in a much more accessible way, and that's not a problem. But for agencies, it really means can you provide some kind of value that no one else can. Crystal Carter: Yes. Sam Wright: Most of them can't. And that's the problem. Mordy Oberstein: That's the problem. Crystal Carter: This is the thing, I think that the days of being a website mechanic, I think are- Sam Wright: I like that. Crystal Carter: Right. I used to call myself that. I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm a website mechanic. Someone would say, oh, we're not ranking and I'd go and I'd go fix it, and blah, blah, blah. And I think that sometimes there's something... and you've done all the tools and all the tools are working, and sometimes you need a specialist. You had a health problem and your GP was like, I don't know what this is, I need to refer you to a specialist. So sometimes there's somebody who's a specialist who's like, oh, okay, I know how to diagnose this one thing. I know every single thing there is to know about Google Merchant Center or every single single thing there is to know about whatever it is. And those specialist folks who are the people that are, who you going to call when you've got that issue? That's great, that's fine. But I think that- Sam Wright: We might need 10 of them as opposed to hundreds of thousands. Crystal Carter: Right, as everybody doing that for everyone all the time. I think there's also, the other thing you start to see is that there's a lot of agencies who are moving into the education space of being able to upskill new execs, new folks within an in-house team to be able to handle that day-to-day thing. Because the other thing is, it's not super profitable to have 40 people in your team updating meta descriptions necessarily. And I think that that's going to change as well. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, I wrote a whole article about this for advanced web ranking a while back, and it's really long and it's all about how agencies are going to thrive in the AI scenario. And I'll tell you what the article's about in three seconds, you'll make money by using your own brain. That's how you're going to make money. Because the AI can't think for you. It can do stuff for you, but it can't think. Sam Wright: Yeah, absolutely. For now. Crystal Carter: But I think also I've heard people say that, and I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, you won't be replaced by AI, you'll be replaced by somebody using AI really, really well. You said that how much it's changed. I remember when ChatGPT sort of first hit the mainstream, people were showing videos of, I think it's like a pool party or something with video AI and there's red cups and people with weird faces and it just looks an absolute hot mess. And now there's stuff and you couldn't tell the difference. You really, if you were just glancing by this video while you were scrolling or something, you would just assume it was a standard video that was animated by whatever. And then the other thing is that the AI facilitates, the AI facilitates the AI getting faster and all of that sort of stuff. So it's a really fascinating time. And I think the other thing I think is that I think, do you think... I'm thinking... but do you think that clients are feeling this as well? That they're seeing all of this change and sort of maybe hedging in terms of where they're going to put their chips down in terms of tactics? Sam Wright: So I think a lot of them feel like they can do it themselves and a lot of them can as well now. That's a very different environment. And again, if you've got some value to add, there's plenty of room. But yeah, a lot of people do definitely feel like they can do it themselves. I think part of the problem is, in this environment where this cost of pressure is coming from all angle, that really it's because no one can... it's hard to get a clear ROI. That seems to be the kind of big message that we get. There's so many problems with... and solving that is a complex problem as well. Search Console data is poor quality, analytics data is poor quality. Attribution is an industry full of cowboys and sharks, and there's all of those challenges to get around it. As a kind of side note, we're looking more and more at using things like Matomo for analytics reporting because it's open source. They've got no skin in the game about reporting where revenue comes from. But I don't feel the industry really has a handle on how to answer those difficult questions. Clients are always going to ask, is this actually going to make me any more money? And if you don't have a compelling answer to that, it's hard to get through. Mordy Oberstein: So if people are looking and trying to find answers to difficult questions and want to seek your advice, where could they find you? Sam Wright: That's a lovely segue, isn't it? Crystal Carter: Segue King. Sam Wright: I guess on LinkedIn. So do I share the URL here? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, no. We'll link through the show notes. We'll do the hard work for you. It's all automated for your side. Sam Wright: Amazing. This is magic. So yeah, LinkedIn is great. Our website is terrible, but you can get through us on that. Crystal Carter: What's the thing you say? A cobbler's children's- Mordy Oberstein: Shoemakers kids go shoeless. Sam Wright: That's it. There we go. That's it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I know that all too well. Sam Wright: Actually, we decided to do an experiment with Headless a few years ago and we ended up with some very, very experimental, quite fun thing that's really impossible to maintain. And that's a really good kind of... yeah, in the context of what we're speaking about, yeah, I think it's quite an interesting point. Crystal Carter: The more you know. You live and you learn. Mordy Oberstein: Well thank you so much for coming on the show and really appreciate your insights. Again, that was an amazing post and it's right on target. Thanks again. Sam Wright: Yeah, pleasure. Thank you very much. Mordy Oberstein: One thing we took notice of when looking at the changing landscape has been Wincher's focus. The famed SEO toolset, popular Yoast is now available inside of WIX's keyword selection process, the SEO assistant, and the SEO setup checklist, which got us thinking what are they seeing out there that has them taking this route. So we're taking a directional look with a segment that we usually focus on with Google, but today Wincher, a segment we call going, going, going Google. Mordy Oberstein: To help us today, I would like to introduce you to Wincher's own Oscar Lima. Welcome to the SERP's UP Podcast, Oscar. Oscar Lima: Thank you. Thank you, Mordy. It's great to be here. Mordy Oberstein: So first off, tell us, pitch Wincher. What do you guys do? What are you all about? Oscar Lima: Yeah, sure. So we started basically as a rank tracker. That was our main focus for a long time. And we just focused on being the best rank tracker out there, which I believe we were able to achieve somewhat, at least being among the best rank trackers. Lately, we've been seeing the need of many users to have access to more advanced tools. And for that reason, we have been evolving Wincher into other segments inside the SEO tools as well. So now we provide other tools such as the on-page SEO Checker, Keyword Explorer tool, which gives you a lot of insights. And we have been improving this tool a lot in order to deliver the most reliable data possible for the keywords research. And there are a lot of other things that we are developing in order to just offer more value to the SEO community in general. Mordy Oberstein: I have to ask you because again, we mentioned that WIX is a new integration that we have with Wincher. What made you decide to take this route? You don't see many other tools... because you've done this consistently of going out there and making our strategy about integrating with other platforms. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. So we have had a really great experience partnering with other platforms before. One very successful one is with Yoast, for example, which has been really great just to share the knowledge between the companies and trying to... well, together offer more value to the users. And what Wincher is trying to do is to find other companies that would be a great fit for Wincher in order to expand our reach and basically make Wincher available for as many users as possible since we are trying to make it so easy to manage your SEO efforts when it comes to search engine optimization. Yeah. So basically, when we saw this opportunity with WIX, it was mostly because we saw the great effort that you guys have been making when it comes to SEO. We saw that there were a lot of changes being made in WIX. And we believe that, all right, these guys are now serious about SEO. We want to, well basically join them in on that path. So yeah, so we saw this opportunity of, all right, they are trying to bring value to the SEO community that's aligned with what we are trying to do in our own way, which is delivering good tools to the community. Yeah, so basically what we see is that if we can manage to offer our data or our tools inside WIX without your users having to leave your platform, that's just awesome because then you can centralize all your efforts inside one tool only. Crystal Carter: And I think there's some great things that you've got in the tool and a really nice SERP preview tool within there that gives you a lot of information on SERP features. Also gives you an idea of averages, which I really, really like. So within this preview, you give an average breakdown of word count and anyone listening word count is not a ranking factor, but it is useful to give you an idea of whether or not people are really getting into the content expect a long word count or whether or not things can be fairly concise. That's really useful. Gives you an idea of load speed, gives you an idea of the average domain strength, the average backlinks, the average referring domains. And I think that's really interesting from a sort of trend of Google of understanding the competitive landscape because if you can get the average, then you can figure out where you're sitting, where your piece of content sits in that benchmark. I think that's really great. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. And we did a lot of research before coming up with this SERP review and we also questioned ourselves about exactly that, what you just mentioned about the word count. It's not a ranking factor. And a lot of people just, when we mention that, people just say, oh, why would you do that? But you need to look beyond the data like, all right, what does the word count tell me? It'll tell you that, all right, if it's a long content, it's probably a comprehensive one and people are getting a lot of detail. So the content needs to be really well done if you want to compete. Yeah, so we have new stuff coming soon when it comes to that SERP reviewing specific. I can't tell much, but imagine you being able to compare your pages with the averages that- Crystal Carter: Yeah. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. Crystal Carter: So for case in point, I was looking for Beyonce stuff, so Beyonce has her new country music album and I was in the market for a cowboy hat and I looked up women's cowboy hats or cowgirl hats even. And the average SERP that I saw in Wincher said that it had 647 words. The number one ranking page had 3,200 words. The number two one had 61 words. A big difference. And then the one after that was 152, and then you have 549, 727. That tells me that there isn't really a hard and fast in terms of Google in terms of the word count, but it also tells me that the one that's ranking number one has a very comprehensive collection of cowgirl hats, for instance. And what's also interesting, the way that people think about... because you also have the loading speed there, the number one one is their loading time is like 2,600 milliseconds. The 61 word one is 258 milliseconds. Number four is coming in at 798 milliseconds, and number five is coming in at 566 milliseconds. And that's telling you that there's lots of different contributing factors of why something ranks. It's not just word count, it's not just page feed, it's not just backlinks, it's not just that sort of thing. So for instance, the number four there is coming in with more backlinks than the number one, but Google's figuring out, they're trying to balance where they see value there. And you can get all of that just from that little dashboard, which I think is super useful and super helpful to planning out your SEO. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. And well, circling back to what Mordy was saying or asking about the partnerships, these are the types of tools that we want to deliver to just speed up the process. I think that the time people spend on certain tasks and certain stuff that needs to be done like just researching the landscape or the SERPs, if we can manage to make it easier and faster for users to complete those tasks in a streamlined way, well that's exactly what we want. And then they can just focus on what really matters. Like, all right, this is a boring task to be done, let me focus on writing content, on doing the stuff I actually want to do. Yeah, and that's how we believe that we can provide value through these partnerships. Just streamlining these tasks that usually would take a lot of time to be accomplished. Mordy Oberstein: And just before I remind you to check out the Wincher integration inside of WIX, this is to swing full circle back around, it kind of speaks of a marketing lesson from all of this. The power of building brand and perception, creates new opportunities. If we didn't heavily focus on showcasing that WIX is a serious place for serious SEO, this partnership never would've taken place. And I think sometimes people miss that opportunity. Positioning yourself in a very strong way opens up new doors. It's that simple. Oscar Lima: Totally, totally, totally agree. And I can say that if it wasn't for all this great work that you guys have been doing, probably we wouldn't cross our paths. And well, not because we wouldn't be interested, but the awareness that you guys brought, it totally took our attention. Mordy Oberstein: So good brand building opens up new opportunities. And on that note, I will now direct you to check out the Wincher tool inside of WIX and the Wincher tool outside of WIX. Oscar Lima: Yeah, perfect. Mordy Oberstein: Oscar, thanks so much for joining us. Where can people find you if they have any questions about Wincher? Oscar Lima: Yeah, so you can just find everything related to Wincher in our website, wincher.com. If you guys have any questions, we have our chat support always available. If you want to reach me personally and if you have questions that you want to ask myself, you can find me on LinkedIn, Oscar Lima, and yeah, I'll be happy to just talk to everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Thanks so much for stopping by. Oscar Lima: Yeah, thank you, Mordy. Thank you, Chrystal. Mordy Oberstein: You know what's always changing, easiest pivot ever, the SEO news is always changing. Crystal Carter: I mean, they set it up, knock it down. Mordy Oberstein: Just the low-hanging fruit, just right there. So here's this week's Snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news 3. This week from Barry, but from different places. First up from Search Engine Roundtable, Google, June 2024 spam update finished rolling out. That's basically, it sums up in one line, the June 2024 spam update has finished rolling out. If you're not a spammer, you should be totally fine. Obviously, check your rankings, whatnot. If you are doing the various spammy things, don't. Onto search engine land. Google dropping continuous scroll in search results reports, Barry Schwarz. Google launched mobile infinite scroll in October 2021 and desktop infinite scroll search results not in all markets in December 2022. Desktop continuous scroll is gone and Google says that it is coming in the next month or so for mobile. What does that mean? Well, what it basically means, and particularly on more on the mobile side, I think, you could have flick your thumb. Well, I guess you still can because as of the recording of this, Google didn't kill it yet, you can flick your thumb and fly down the search results on mobile really quickly, which means that there's definitely increase in impressions that comes from that possibly clicks because again, you just flying down the SERP. If you have to click to the next page because Google is going to be reinstating classic pagination on mobile, they already did it on desktop, you have to be pretty intentful. That's the word. You have to be intentful, I guess that's the word, whatever, to click onto the next page as opposed to flicking your thumb and seeing more results. So you may see less clicks, probably some less impressions. It is definitely worth making a note of in your reporting. Like, Hey, why did impressions go down? Oh, Google killed infinite scroll. Okay, last upfront, Barry Schwartz over on SEO Roundtable. We're going back to SEO Roundtable with the stop to search engine land in between. Google tests AI overview link cards at the top, which is, you don't need to read the rest of the story, but Barry tells you right there in the headline what it is. Google is testing link cards. So the links to organic results in the AI overviews, not at the bottom of the overview, but at the very top of the overview. This is great news for y'all if this is going to be rolled out, and this is going to be the exclusive or the predominant format of the AI overviews. We don't know. It's a test. It is interesting. I noted this on it's new, which is our Monday through Thursday daily news series with Crystal Carter, myself, Barry Schwartz, and Greg Finn. Then it's a little fun because Google saying, Hey, users want the AI overview because that's what they're looking for and that's what they want, but it's first now giving them the URLs at the top, like a traditional results in a way again. So which one is it? Do the users want the traditional results that show those at the top, or do they want the AI overview, show that at the top? Again, I'm not complaining, I'm happy the URLs are up at the top. It just a little bit of an interesting, I guess, user experience contradiction. And on that happy note, that is this week's snappy news. Now the beauty of the news is, you'll know that you'll need to check it out next week because it'll always be changing or each day if you would like to check out our series, it's new with us and Barry Schwartz and Greg Finn. Look forward on the WIX SEO Learning Hub or on Barry's YouTube channel. You know what's also always changing, our follow of the week is why would recommend the same follow of the week every week. That wouldn't make any sense. It should naturally change. So this week's follow of the week is Jay Cowell. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I wanted to shout out Jay Cowell. She is an agency owner based in southwest of the UK working with clients globally. And she is a really interesting fellow because I was having a really interesting conversation with her and she was talking about how her team has for many years been doing sort of PPC. They're like a Google Ads certified premium partner or whatever it is, and they do some great Google Ads things. But they've recently started taking the approach of being sort of platform-agnostic, which I think is really, really interesting. So generally, they will talk to clients and they're like, we will help you with your paid marketing wherever you need to have clients. And I think that that's a really interesting shift that I'm starting to see from folks. And I think that that goes to the kind of landscape that we're seeing and the fact that users are more dispersed and the online experience is more dispersed. And I think that that's really interesting and I thought that was a really forward-thinking, strategic move on Jay's part. And she also shared some great content, generally speaking, and she's a great agency leader. So yeah, shout out to Jay. Mordy Oberstein: Shout out. And link to her profile in the show notes. I'm all out of changing pivots so I don't have a- Crystal Carter: Change, change, change. No, that's chain. That's not change. Mordy Oberstein: It's changing. Crystal Carter: *Crystal Singing* Mordy Oberstein: Behind the scenes. I'm making a bar mitzvah for my kids in a few weeks, so my wife wants to do a video montage thing. Crystal Carter: Aw. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So I had to Google what are video montage songs for life events and changes came up. I'm like, oh, that's a good one. Crystal Carter: Yeah. That is a good song. That's a good song. Mordy Oberstein: It's a good song. A bunch of other stuff came up that wasn't so good, but whatever. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: These listicles. Anyway, I always end with something spicy. Thanks for joining us on the SERPs Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry? We're back next week with a new episode we dive into how to new SEO clients, low and inside. That's a baseball reference. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the WIX SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great... I can't do it today. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the WIX SEO Learning Hub at you guessed at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us your review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Sam Wright Oscar Lima Jaye Cowle Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube It's New: Daily SEO News Series Wincher Blink SEO Macaroni SEO Software News: Google June 2024 Spam Update Finished Rolling Out Google dropping continuous scroll in search results Google Tests AI Overview Link Cards At The Top Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Sam Wright Oscar Lima Jaye Cowle Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube It's New: Daily SEO News Series Wincher Blink SEO Macaroni SEO Software News: Google June 2024 Spam Update Finished Rolling Out Google dropping continuous scroll in search results Google Tests AI Overview Link Cards At The Top 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 Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand here at WIX. And I'm joined by the always adaptable, the ever-changing, and aligning with the times and ahead of the times herself, the Head of SEO Communications here at WIX, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: In case anyone is going to ask me about flex capacitors or anything of that nature, no, I cannot time travel. Thank you very much, Mordy, for that lovely introduction. Mordy Oberstein: You know what the problem with that movie is? It's a perfect movie except for the 88 miles per hour because back in the day, that was fast. That's what my grandmother does on the street now. Crystal Carter: Why you putting your grandmother on blast? If she wants to get to bingo quickly, that's her business. Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: She's not going to bingo, she's going to shuffleboard. Crystal Carter: Okay, shuffleboard. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Shuffleboard. Mordy Oberstein: No, none of this is... it's all made up. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I've never shuffleboarded, but I can imagine Grandma overseeing doing the shuffle as it were. Mordy Oberstein: Knowing Grandma Oberstein, I'm picturing this in my mind, it's a little bit disturbing. Anyway, the SERP 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 see who on your team is changing what on what site in real-time with shared working features found on WIX Studio. As today we're talking about how agency SEO, like your websites, are changing. How platform evolution changes the SEO scenario, something Crystal and I noticed a wee bit about. And how the emerges of AI changes the SEO agency paradigm, plus how it all adds up to more digital democratization and what that means for agencies. Sam Wright of Blink SEO will join us in just a Jiffy to weigh in on the matter. Speaking of platform evolution, we'll also talk to Wincher's, Oscar Lima, about why they've doubled down on platform integration. Plus, we have the snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So come gather around agency SEOs wherever you roam and emit the service around you have grown. And except that soon you'll be drenched in the digital unknown, for the agency SEO is a-changing on this the 94th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. Queue harmonica. I am challenging my inner Dylan. You want to hear my Bob Dylan impression? No, we're not doing that. Crystal Carter: No, go for it. I mean, you set it up. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, hey SEO's, are you ready to see what's a-changing? From one nasally Jewish person to another. So this is our second... sorry, scratch that. This is our first episode of our WIX Studio Series. WIX Studio is a platform that helps digital marketers better manage clients, projects, and teams that has all sorts of advanced features such as reusable assets or an AI code assistant to help you do that, which is why this series is focused on helping agency side SEOs and digital marketers gain more knowledge. Now, I've had a heap of conversations with people lately, and it's been so weird because when you talk to SEO and digital marketing people, and I talk to all of them except for the PPC people less so... I'm not a PPC person- Crystal Carter: What are you talking about? We do the thing with Greg every day. Mordy Oberstein: Well, Greg's not a PPC person. So okay, plug, every single day except for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays so not every day, four out of seven days, you can check out it's new, which myself, Crystal, Greg Finn, and Barry Schwartz do each end every day, except again Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we cover the news. The SEO news and PPC news. Look for it in the SEO Hub or on the Rusty Brick YouTube channel. I forget what we were talking about because I was plugging so much. No, but it's hard. I don't talk to as many SEO PPC people and in general, it's hard to get people to agree and share the same sentiments. One sentiment I've seen people talking about, and this is off-the-record conversations, it's just getting harder. It's harder to get clients, it's harder to keep clients. It's just everything is just suddenly harder. I think people are having a hard time figuring out exactly why that is, but if there's one thing I keep hearing, it's that things are just different. So it's hard to get your finger on the pulse of that, which is why I think this episode is really important, which is why we're honored to have Sam Wright, the managing director of Blink SEO at Macaroni Software on the show. Welcome, Sam. Sam Wright: Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Mordy Oberstein: Great having you. So plug away, we're marketers, you're a marketer, marketer's going to market. What do you got for us? Sam Wright: So I'm the founder of Blink and we're a specialist e-commerce marketing agency with a focus on SEO. Our focus really is on Shopify. That's our platform. And I think that ties into a lot of stuff probably we're going to talk about. I'm also the founder of Macaroni as well, which is our SaaS platform built for Shopify. So it's essentially a platform that we've built that takes all of the kind of processes that we've developed over the years and automates them as much as possible and allows us to deliver SEO work on Shopify a lot faster. Currently, around 20 times faster and improving as of our last impact study. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. So a while back, I found this on Traffic Think Tank, which you're currently wearing this sweatshirt for. Sam Wright: Yes, I am indeed. Mordy Oberstein: Look at that. It all ties together Sam Wright: Wearing it today. It's a sign. Mordy Oberstein: It's in the stars. Sam Wright: It is indeed. Mordy Oberstein: And this is why people should promote themselves because in the Traffic Think Tank Slack channel, you shared this post on LinkedIn that you did about how agency SEO is changing and I thought it was brilliant and said we should have you on the show to talk about it. Maybe let's start with just running through what were you talking about on that post and what made you write it. Sam Wright: Yeah, of course. You've summed up what the sentiment is for a lot of people out there at the moment that it is tough. In the agency world, people are taking longer and longer to make decisions, there's less appetite of risk for risk. We've got macro-economic challenges worldwide going on at the moment, particularly in the e-commerce space, which is so kind of susceptible to consumer confidence and things like that. It really is filtering down. So over the last six months, we've seen buying cycles get longer and longer, kind of like sales resistance getting stronger and stronger. And all the time, our kind of attitude has always been we want to understand what the problems are for businesses and help them solve them. It's not a case of us. In the agency space, there's often a kind of self-serve nature of just trying to push all the problems back on the clients. Budgets aren't big enough, you are not good enough for what we need. And that's never kind of sat right with me because a lot of the problems with the sales resistance in terms of SEO is people have concerns about whether it will work, whether it can show a decent ROI. And a lot of people really struggle to answer these questions. And I think that's a whole separate subject in it. Crystal Carter: Right. Sam Wright: But in this environment where people are being much more resistant or that appetite for risk is completely gone, the whole post was triggered around the reasons for that, how we've got to this point. And I think there's a few things that have happened along with all of the macro stuff that's kind of led us there. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And this is something I've heard from a few people, particularly about the sales cycles and I think that SEO is something that they can lend itself to be vulnerable to that long sales cycle as well because if people are seeing that maybe their projections just business-wide are not giving them necessarily what they would normally see as a healthy mark, it's tricky for them to invest in something that might pay off in three months or six months or even a little bit longer in some cases. So I think that you're absolutely right, and Alyeda has talked about this a lot, about the no more it depends so we need to be able to give people information that will help them to make those decisions. Sam Wright: Exactly. Essentially, it's a discretionary purchase for lots of people at the moment. It talks about search being like a nuclear fission before. It sounds amazing, doesn't it? But getting there is really, really hard. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen. But a lot of the work that we're doing with Macaroni is answering those questions like does it work? How fast can you make it work? Being super clear. And again, that's a whole different subject that maybe we don't want to get into the weeds on this one. Crystal Carter: I think that that's something that we've tried to do on the WIX side as well. So with a lot of the tools that we have, we've built that in mind, and you're probably doing this on your side as well, but we have schema markup built into the CMS, we have loads of GVP, you can set up your GVP from the CMS. We have lots of things that are built into the CMS so that people don't have to wait so long for that tooling to be built, for that tooling to be implemented, for that tooling to be validated, to be all of that sort of stuff so that people can cut down on some of those friction points. You mentioned AI in your element as well, and we've built AI into our tools as well, and we've seen an incredible uptick in the number of people who are accessing those SEO tools as a result of including AI. And so I think that where you can reduce some of the friction and show results more quickly, people are more likely to engage. Mordy Oberstein: That was kind of the thrust of the LinkedIn post was that the CMSs, like Crystal's mentioned in the case of our case, they've evolved and they're not the same thing relatively across the board than they were just a few years ago. I'm a certain case, I like to think that we've done an incredible job advancing our SEO side. At the same time, you have all these AI implementations available. So in our case, for example, you can create title tags and meta descriptions just using AI and it's a pretty good job doing it. I use it for all my meta descriptions at this point, I don't feel like I need to write a meta description. And you said that kind of democratizes all that together, democratizes SEO a little bit, and that changes the paradigm for SEO agencies. What did you mean by that? Sam Wright: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there. One of the reasons that we chose to focus on Shopify was the lack of technical debt that you get on that platform. If you are using Magento or some of the other big e-commerce platforms, up to 50, 60% of e-commerce work is stopping things breaking or just unseen variables. And from a productivity point of view, that's an absolute nightmare. It means that you're not doing growth. And so our kind of view has always been, there's certain activity that actually makes an impact, whether that's internal linking, on-page optimization, blah, blah, blah. And the problem is people don't do it at scale enough to tip that over into growth. So through Macaroni, one of the things we do is we track each change. If you make an internal link or add a keyword to a page, it all gets timestamped and then run across your data and analytics and Search Console. We run rolling averages before and after, benchmark everything because you can see the impact. And at a granular level, we can see that updating an internal link might impact impressions by 50, 60%. But you need to do that at scale to really make an impact, especially when we're in an environment where say search demand is, or consumer demands down 20% year-on-year. So to tip to growth, you combine that with rising costs. Really you need to see a 50% increase year-on-year for a lot brands to be better than where they were last year. So that's a huge amount of work. So making a few updates here and there is not really going to move the needle. So it's about this kind of scale that you do it. Crystal Carter: Yeah, definitely as a technical SEO, when you have a CMS like WIX for instance, which has dynamic site maps built in, there was times as a technical SEO where I was making site maps for people, adding them to them, uploading- Sam Wright: I don't think I've done that for years now. Crystal Carter: Right. But there was a time when I was doing it, there was a lot of people and it was fairly common where they didn't. And I think that there's a lot of stuff that's taken for granted. And so then when you have a CMS that's like that has a lot of these things built in like in WIX and others, I think that as a technical SEO for instance, your skills are different. You have to have different skills. You have to be able to make sure that everything works correctly as it should. You need to be able to fix some of the things that you know are default and making sure that they're working correctly and that sort of thing. But those checks will take a lot less time. So for instance, I'll say, oh, this CMS has this, I'll check this, this, this, this, and this, great, that's all fine, next, and then you can move on. So the acceleration, the growth part, you're able to get to, as you said, much more quickly. And I think you still need to have those skills, I think you still need to have them, but you maybe don't need to have them in the same way as you did before. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, no, it seems more than... I'll pull down the fourth wall. When we talk about how do we position WIX for SEO agencies, one of the ways that we've talked about positioning is that you can focus on growth. You don't have to focus on the things that you don't want to do. Back in the day, there was concerns internally. Maybe if we push position in that way, then SEOs who are charging for installing this plugin and that plugin, it'll be like, wow, I can't do that. But I think serious and substantial SEOs and SEO agencies who are focused on client satisfaction and client growth will look at the fact that we implement auto redirects, that we produce almost all of your structured data for you automatically on all your most important pages. We automatically compress images, we automatically cache pages. It's endless, endless. The things that we automate is endless at this point. But that lets you focus on the real thing, which is actually growing the website, which kind of goes into the next question that I had anyways. If you have things like AI and I don't need to write a title tag for my clients anymore necessarily, they can use the AI writer inside of the WIX SEO, but go ahead, write your title tag, I'll have a quick look at it then. Then where is the value for SEO agencies going forward? Sam Wright: Well, I think a lot of people are going to be caught out in this new world because they can't provide unique value. And I think there's a lot of magical thinking that goes on in the industry at the moment where people are taking a view that AI isn't that good at the moment and it's going to stay that way and it's not. There's going to be a pretty big wake-up call, I think. And where we see the real moat and the expertise is... well, we're an eCommerce SEO, which is different to any other kind of segment, and we also specialize in large catalogs. So 80% of our work is around taxonomy and architecture and things like that. So we do fasted navigation and that's our kind of area of focus. So the future's going to be different for SaaS or whatever. Because SaaS is all about content and probably links because you've got five sites that all do the same thing. So it's going to be a kind of different world for all of them. Where we see the kind of value is it's really around data engineering. And this is a concept that I feel like lots of people in the SEO world don't really understand. They still lump all of this in with just Python, which is we do Python stuff and they don't really understand the difference between data science, data engineering, and blah blah, blah. Where I'm going with all of this is AI is about input. You put something good in and you get something good out. The way you do that at scale is largely a data engineering challenge. And when we're talking about building a moat around something, what I mean by that is... one example of the things that we do at Macaroni is it generates content for a page, but you need to feed in the primary and secondary keywords that may have been generated using a different process. But then we feed in sales data, we feed in brand positioning, various other metrics to ensure that the quality of the output is unique. So what we're feeding in is unique data to get a kind of unique thing out. And that's essentially the kind of moat around a lot of this stuff. You need to have access to some unique data and process it in a kind of... yeah. Crystal Carter: In an intelligent way, an actually intelligent way, not just from some AI and think, so somebody's looking at the data, assessing the data. And I think you're absolutely right, that that data piece is so critical and it's what good SEOs have been doing the whole time. Anyone can look at a list of keywords and can go, those are keywords with the top search volume, but you have to have data analysis to go, the search volume here is high, the keyword volume here is low, so we won't do that one or this, and pulling out which ones are the seed boards and which ones are the long tail and which ones are combined with all the other things. And I'm actually starting to see a lot of people who have been very good SEOs over the years move into a data role. I can think of two off the top of my head who are top agents, top... no, three actually who are folks who've moved from being SEOs into being data analysts or marketing data folks directly and bringing in all of those skills. And I think as you say, it is manipulating the data. And certainly, from an e-commerce point of view, you're absolutely coming from that because working with all the feeds and all of that sort of stuff is a whole nother thing in itself. Sam Wright: I think what you said there, a lot of that data though is those human insights in it, a lot of those can be automated though. There's like a logic tree for when you are... there's a limited amount of scenarios to go through. And this is kind of something that we call... it's such a big thing in this industry. You go and look on LinkedIn and everyone's got this 20-step post to get some insight. We'll pull some data from Search Console, we compare it to the HTML and analytics data, and blah, blah, blah. That is essentially data engineering by hand. A data pipeline can do that process for you. And that's been kind of like our view. And we're getting to the point now with all of these other parameters being minimized, not having to build site apps anymore or the site's not breaking, you end up with a pool... like, the possibilities of things that can go wrong or get smaller and smaller into the point that you can just build it out into a process. Does that make some kind of sense? Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. No, it does, it does. And I think that agencies in the future, do you think that there's going to be more agencies that are building in that way, that it's not just a question of having... a lot of agencies are sort of service-led businesses, do you think there's going to be a lot more tool-led businesses in that way? Sam Wright: I think we're at a really interesting point where coming back to that idea of democratization, it is going to happen quite fast and the playing field's going to be really, really level. Now, we speak to a lot of marketing people in house and they know how to optimize a page, they know how to do some internal linking. If they're given the tools to be able to do that properly, there's no need for them to hire an agency whatsoever. And that's the kind of market that we're going at with Macaroni. We're kind of enabling them to do that process on Shopify. I'm sure that's the direction WIX is going to be heading in as well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, that's what we've been doing for the better part of three years. On the data side, we pulled in Google Search Console Analytics. So basically if you don't know how to Regex, it's fine, we have all sorts of analytics that help you just pull it right out for you like that. Even for example, you log in... and this is a case where most clients that I initially talked to, smaller clients, at least, they have no idea what Search Console is, right? So we have a one-click connection to Search Console. Just doing this the other week for somebody. And so we'll automatically, for example, pull out which pages and queries are the most incline or decline for clicks and impressions. You don't have to do anything. It's like automatically... you know the email you get from Search Console, here's... I think you still get them. These are your fastest-growing queries. That data is pulled out basically right into the WIX dashboard. So they see it right away. They don't need me anymore to tell them what are the big focuses that I should be focusing on based on my Search Console data. WIX tells them, it's right there, there's no need. Sam Wright: Yeah. And more and more of this is going to happen. Mordy Oberstein: Which is, by the way, I'm fine with because it's like one less hassle I have to worry about. Sam Wright: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And a lot of SEO stuff isn't hard. If you're given the right information, you can make good decisions. And now it's getting to the point where the information is being presented in a much more accessible way, and that's not a problem. But for agencies, it really means can you provide some kind of value that no one else can. Crystal Carter: Yes. Sam Wright: Most of them can't. And that's the problem. Mordy Oberstein: That's the problem. Crystal Carter: This is the thing, I think that the days of being a website mechanic, I think are- Sam Wright: I like that. Crystal Carter: Right. I used to call myself that. I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm a website mechanic. Someone would say, oh, we're not ranking and I'd go and I'd go fix it, and blah, blah, blah. And I think that sometimes there's something... and you've done all the tools and all the tools are working, and sometimes you need a specialist. You had a health problem and your GP was like, I don't know what this is, I need to refer you to a specialist. So sometimes there's somebody who's a specialist who's like, oh, okay, I know how to diagnose this one thing. I know every single thing there is to know about Google Merchant Center or every single single thing there is to know about whatever it is. And those specialist folks who are the people that are, who you going to call when you've got that issue? That's great, that's fine. But I think that- Sam Wright: We might need 10 of them as opposed to hundreds of thousands. Crystal Carter: Right, as everybody doing that for everyone all the time. I think there's also, the other thing you start to see is that there's a lot of agencies who are moving into the education space of being able to upskill new execs, new folks within an in-house team to be able to handle that day-to-day thing. Because the other thing is, it's not super profitable to have 40 people in your team updating meta descriptions necessarily. And I think that that's going to change as well. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, I wrote a whole article about this for advanced web ranking a while back, and it's really long and it's all about how agencies are going to thrive in the AI scenario. And I'll tell you what the article's about in three seconds, you'll make money by using your own brain. That's how you're going to make money. Because the AI can't think for you. It can do stuff for you, but it can't think. Sam Wright: Yeah, absolutely. For now. Crystal Carter: But I think also I've heard people say that, and I'm sure I've said this on the podcast before, you won't be replaced by AI, you'll be replaced by somebody using AI really, really well. You said that how much it's changed. I remember when ChatGPT sort of first hit the mainstream, people were showing videos of, I think it's like a pool party or something with video AI and there's red cups and people with weird faces and it just looks an absolute hot mess. And now there's stuff and you couldn't tell the difference. You really, if you were just glancing by this video while you were scrolling or something, you would just assume it was a standard video that was animated by whatever. And then the other thing is that the AI facilitates, the AI facilitates the AI getting faster and all of that sort of stuff. So it's a really fascinating time. And I think the other thing I think is that I think, do you think... I'm thinking... but do you think that clients are feeling this as well? That they're seeing all of this change and sort of maybe hedging in terms of where they're going to put their chips down in terms of tactics? Sam Wright: So I think a lot of them feel like they can do it themselves and a lot of them can as well now. That's a very different environment. And again, if you've got some value to add, there's plenty of room. But yeah, a lot of people do definitely feel like they can do it themselves. I think part of the problem is, in this environment where this cost of pressure is coming from all angle, that really it's because no one can... it's hard to get a clear ROI. That seems to be the kind of big message that we get. There's so many problems with... and solving that is a complex problem as well. Search Console data is poor quality, analytics data is poor quality. Attribution is an industry full of cowboys and sharks, and there's all of those challenges to get around it. As a kind of side note, we're looking more and more at using things like Matomo for analytics reporting because it's open source. They've got no skin in the game about reporting where revenue comes from. But I don't feel the industry really has a handle on how to answer those difficult questions. Clients are always going to ask, is this actually going to make me any more money? And if you don't have a compelling answer to that, it's hard to get through. Mordy Oberstein: So if people are looking and trying to find answers to difficult questions and want to seek your advice, where could they find you? Sam Wright: That's a lovely segue, isn't it? Crystal Carter: Segue King. Sam Wright: I guess on LinkedIn. So do I share the URL here? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, no. We'll link through the show notes. We'll do the hard work for you. It's all automated for your side. Sam Wright: Amazing. This is magic. So yeah, LinkedIn is great. Our website is terrible, but you can get through us on that. Crystal Carter: What's the thing you say? A cobbler's children's- Mordy Oberstein: Shoemakers kids go shoeless. Sam Wright: That's it. There we go. That's it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I know that all too well. Sam Wright: Actually, we decided to do an experiment with Headless a few years ago and we ended up with some very, very experimental, quite fun thing that's really impossible to maintain. And that's a really good kind of... yeah, in the context of what we're speaking about, yeah, I think it's quite an interesting point. Crystal Carter: The more you know. You live and you learn. Mordy Oberstein: Well thank you so much for coming on the show and really appreciate your insights. Again, that was an amazing post and it's right on target. Thanks again. Sam Wright: Yeah, pleasure. Thank you very much. Mordy Oberstein: One thing we took notice of when looking at the changing landscape has been Wincher's focus. The famed SEO toolset, popular Yoast is now available inside of WIX's keyword selection process, the SEO assistant, and the SEO setup checklist, which got us thinking what are they seeing out there that has them taking this route. So we're taking a directional look with a segment that we usually focus on with Google, but today Wincher, a segment we call going, going, going Google. Mordy Oberstein: To help us today, I would like to introduce you to Wincher's own Oscar Lima. Welcome to the SERP's UP Podcast, Oscar. Oscar Lima: Thank you. Thank you, Mordy. It's great to be here. Mordy Oberstein: So first off, tell us, pitch Wincher. What do you guys do? What are you all about? Oscar Lima: Yeah, sure. So we started basically as a rank tracker. That was our main focus for a long time. And we just focused on being the best rank tracker out there, which I believe we were able to achieve somewhat, at least being among the best rank trackers. Lately, we've been seeing the need of many users to have access to more advanced tools. And for that reason, we have been evolving Wincher into other segments inside the SEO tools as well. So now we provide other tools such as the on-page SEO Checker, Keyword Explorer tool, which gives you a lot of insights. And we have been improving this tool a lot in order to deliver the most reliable data possible for the keywords research. And there are a lot of other things that we are developing in order to just offer more value to the SEO community in general. Mordy Oberstein: I have to ask you because again, we mentioned that WIX is a new integration that we have with Wincher. What made you decide to take this route? You don't see many other tools... because you've done this consistently of going out there and making our strategy about integrating with other platforms. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. So we have had a really great experience partnering with other platforms before. One very successful one is with Yoast, for example, which has been really great just to share the knowledge between the companies and trying to... well, together offer more value to the users. And what Wincher is trying to do is to find other companies that would be a great fit for Wincher in order to expand our reach and basically make Wincher available for as many users as possible since we are trying to make it so easy to manage your SEO efforts when it comes to search engine optimization. Yeah. So basically, when we saw this opportunity with WIX, it was mostly because we saw the great effort that you guys have been making when it comes to SEO. We saw that there were a lot of changes being made in WIX. And we believe that, all right, these guys are now serious about SEO. We want to, well basically join them in on that path. So yeah, so we saw this opportunity of, all right, they are trying to bring value to the SEO community that's aligned with what we are trying to do in our own way, which is delivering good tools to the community. Yeah, so basically what we see is that if we can manage to offer our data or our tools inside WIX without your users having to leave your platform, that's just awesome because then you can centralize all your efforts inside one tool only. Crystal Carter: And I think there's some great things that you've got in the tool and a really nice SERP preview tool within there that gives you a lot of information on SERP features. Also gives you an idea of averages, which I really, really like. So within this preview, you give an average breakdown of word count and anyone listening word count is not a ranking factor, but it is useful to give you an idea of whether or not people are really getting into the content expect a long word count or whether or not things can be fairly concise. That's really useful. Gives you an idea of load speed, gives you an idea of the average domain strength, the average backlinks, the average referring domains. And I think that's really interesting from a sort of trend of Google of understanding the competitive landscape because if you can get the average, then you can figure out where you're sitting, where your piece of content sits in that benchmark. I think that's really great. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. And we did a lot of research before coming up with this SERP review and we also questioned ourselves about exactly that, what you just mentioned about the word count. It's not a ranking factor. And a lot of people just, when we mention that, people just say, oh, why would you do that? But you need to look beyond the data like, all right, what does the word count tell me? It'll tell you that, all right, if it's a long content, it's probably a comprehensive one and people are getting a lot of detail. So the content needs to be really well done if you want to compete. Yeah, so we have new stuff coming soon when it comes to that SERP reviewing specific. I can't tell much, but imagine you being able to compare your pages with the averages that- Crystal Carter: Yeah. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. Crystal Carter: So for case in point, I was looking for Beyonce stuff, so Beyonce has her new country music album and I was in the market for a cowboy hat and I looked up women's cowboy hats or cowgirl hats even. And the average SERP that I saw in Wincher said that it had 647 words. The number one ranking page had 3,200 words. The number two one had 61 words. A big difference. And then the one after that was 152, and then you have 549, 727. That tells me that there isn't really a hard and fast in terms of Google in terms of the word count, but it also tells me that the one that's ranking number one has a very comprehensive collection of cowgirl hats, for instance. And what's also interesting, the way that people think about... because you also have the loading speed there, the number one one is their loading time is like 2,600 milliseconds. The 61 word one is 258 milliseconds. Number four is coming in at 798 milliseconds, and number five is coming in at 566 milliseconds. And that's telling you that there's lots of different contributing factors of why something ranks. It's not just word count, it's not just page feed, it's not just backlinks, it's not just that sort of thing. So for instance, the number four there is coming in with more backlinks than the number one, but Google's figuring out, they're trying to balance where they see value there. And you can get all of that just from that little dashboard, which I think is super useful and super helpful to planning out your SEO. Oscar Lima: Yeah, exactly. And well, circling back to what Mordy was saying or asking about the partnerships, these are the types of tools that we want to deliver to just speed up the process. I think that the time people spend on certain tasks and certain stuff that needs to be done like just researching the landscape or the SERPs, if we can manage to make it easier and faster for users to complete those tasks in a streamlined way, well that's exactly what we want. And then they can just focus on what really matters. Like, all right, this is a boring task to be done, let me focus on writing content, on doing the stuff I actually want to do. Yeah, and that's how we believe that we can provide value through these partnerships. Just streamlining these tasks that usually would take a lot of time to be accomplished. Mordy Oberstein: And just before I remind you to check out the Wincher integration inside of WIX, this is to swing full circle back around, it kind of speaks of a marketing lesson from all of this. The power of building brand and perception, creates new opportunities. If we didn't heavily focus on showcasing that WIX is a serious place for serious SEO, this partnership never would've taken place. And I think sometimes people miss that opportunity. Positioning yourself in a very strong way opens up new doors. It's that simple. Oscar Lima: Totally, totally, totally agree. And I can say that if it wasn't for all this great work that you guys have been doing, probably we wouldn't cross our paths. And well, not because we wouldn't be interested, but the awareness that you guys brought, it totally took our attention. Mordy Oberstein: So good brand building opens up new opportunities. And on that note, I will now direct you to check out the Wincher tool inside of WIX and the Wincher tool outside of WIX. Oscar Lima: Yeah, perfect. Mordy Oberstein: Oscar, thanks so much for joining us. Where can people find you if they have any questions about Wincher? Oscar Lima: Yeah, so you can just find everything related to Wincher in our website, wincher.com. If you guys have any questions, we have our chat support always available. If you want to reach me personally and if you have questions that you want to ask myself, you can find me on LinkedIn, Oscar Lima, and yeah, I'll be happy to just talk to everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Thanks so much for stopping by. Oscar Lima: Yeah, thank you, Mordy. Thank you, Chrystal. Mordy Oberstein: You know what's always changing, easiest pivot ever, the SEO news is always changing. Crystal Carter: I mean, they set it up, knock it down. Mordy Oberstein: Just the low-hanging fruit, just right there. So here's this week's Snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news 3. This week from Barry, but from different places. First up from Search Engine Roundtable, Google, June 2024 spam update finished rolling out. That's basically, it sums up in one line, the June 2024 spam update has finished rolling out. If you're not a spammer, you should be totally fine. Obviously, check your rankings, whatnot. If you are doing the various spammy things, don't. Onto search engine land. Google dropping continuous scroll in search results reports, Barry Schwarz. Google launched mobile infinite scroll in October 2021 and desktop infinite scroll search results not in all markets in December 2022. Desktop continuous scroll is gone and Google says that it is coming in the next month or so for mobile. What does that mean? Well, what it basically means, and particularly on more on the mobile side, I think, you could have flick your thumb. Well, I guess you still can because as of the recording of this, Google didn't kill it yet, you can flick your thumb and fly down the search results on mobile really quickly, which means that there's definitely increase in impressions that comes from that possibly clicks because again, you just flying down the SERP. If you have to click to the next page because Google is going to be reinstating classic pagination on mobile, they already did it on desktop, you have to be pretty intentful. That's the word. You have to be intentful, I guess that's the word, whatever, to click onto the next page as opposed to flicking your thumb and seeing more results. So you may see less clicks, probably some less impressions. It is definitely worth making a note of in your reporting. Like, Hey, why did impressions go down? Oh, Google killed infinite scroll. Okay, last upfront, Barry Schwartz over on SEO Roundtable. We're going back to SEO Roundtable with the stop to search engine land in between. Google tests AI overview link cards at the top, which is, you don't need to read the rest of the story, but Barry tells you right there in the headline what it is. Google is testing link cards. So the links to organic results in the AI overviews, not at the bottom of the overview, but at the very top of the overview. This is great news for y'all if this is going to be rolled out, and this is going to be the exclusive or the predominant format of the AI overviews. We don't know. It's a test. It is interesting. I noted this on it's new, which is our Monday through Thursday daily news series with Crystal Carter, myself, Barry Schwartz, and Greg Finn. Then it's a little fun because Google saying, Hey, users want the AI overview because that's what they're looking for and that's what they want, but it's first now giving them the URLs at the top, like a traditional results in a way again. So which one is it? Do the users want the traditional results that show those at the top, or do they want the AI overview, show that at the top? Again, I'm not complaining, I'm happy the URLs are up at the top. It just a little bit of an interesting, I guess, user experience contradiction. And on that happy note, that is this week's snappy news. Now the beauty of the news is, you'll know that you'll need to check it out next week because it'll always be changing or each day if you would like to check out our series, it's new with us and Barry Schwartz and Greg Finn. Look forward on the WIX SEO Learning Hub or on Barry's YouTube channel. You know what's also always changing, our follow of the week is why would recommend the same follow of the week every week. That wouldn't make any sense. It should naturally change. So this week's follow of the week is Jay Cowell. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I wanted to shout out Jay Cowell. She is an agency owner based in southwest of the UK working with clients globally. And she is a really interesting fellow because I was having a really interesting conversation with her and she was talking about how her team has for many years been doing sort of PPC. They're like a Google Ads certified premium partner or whatever it is, and they do some great Google Ads things. But they've recently started taking the approach of being sort of platform-agnostic, which I think is really, really interesting. So generally, they will talk to clients and they're like, we will help you with your paid marketing wherever you need to have clients. And I think that that's a really interesting shift that I'm starting to see from folks. And I think that that goes to the kind of landscape that we're seeing and the fact that users are more dispersed and the online experience is more dispersed. And I think that that's really interesting and I thought that was a really forward-thinking, strategic move on Jay's part. And she also shared some great content, generally speaking, and she's a great agency leader. So yeah, shout out to Jay. Mordy Oberstein: Shout out. And link to her profile in the show notes. I'm all out of changing pivots so I don't have a- Crystal Carter: Change, change, change. No, that's chain. That's not change. Mordy Oberstein: It's changing. Crystal Carter: *Crystal Singing* Mordy Oberstein: Behind the scenes. I'm making a bar mitzvah for my kids in a few weeks, so my wife wants to do a video montage thing. Crystal Carter: Aw. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So I had to Google what are video montage songs for life events and changes came up. I'm like, oh, that's a good one. Crystal Carter: Yeah. That is a good song. That's a good song. Mordy Oberstein: It's a good song. A bunch of other stuff came up that wasn't so good, but whatever. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: These listicles. Anyway, I always end with something spicy. Thanks for joining us on the SERPs Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry? We're back next week with a new episode we dive into how to new SEO clients, low and inside. That's a baseball reference. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the WIX SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great... I can't do it today. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the WIX SEO Learning Hub at you guessed at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us your 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