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With over 15 years of experience and a focus in large scale website optimization, Nati was the CEO of a prominent SEO agency catering to some of Israel’s biggest brands. As the Head of SEO at Wix, he focuses on helping platforms be search-engine friendly and building SEO products. Nati Elimelech Head of SEO, Wix With over 15 years of experience and a focus in large scale website optimization, Nati was the CEO of a prominent SEO agency catering to some of Israel’s biggest brands. As the Head of SEO at Wix, he focuses on helping platforms be search-engine friendly and building SEO products. Articles & Resources 16 Nov 2023 Rethinking AMP: Is it time for SEOs to let go? 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

Looking to get started with your international SEO strategy? Then who better to tune into than the renowned Aleyda Solis. Wix’s Head of SEO Branding, Mordy Oberstein, and Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, dive into the ins and outs of international SEO as the one and only Aleyda Solis guest hosts. Take your content strategy global as Giuseppe Caltabiano, VP of Marketing at Rock Content, offers his "Deep Thoughts" on global content marketing initiatives. Adaptability, strategies, and common mistakes in international SEO & content marketing are uncovered on this week's episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Get going with international SEO Looking to get started with your international SEO strategy? Then who better to tune into than the renowned Aleyda Solis. Wix’s Head of SEO Branding, Mordy Oberstein, and Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, dive into the ins and outs of international SEO as the one and only Aleyda Solis guest hosts. Take your content strategy global as Giuseppe Caltabiano, VP of Marketing at Rock Content, offers his "Deep Thoughts" on global content marketing initiatives. Adaptability, strategies, and common mistakes in international SEO & content marketing are uncovered on this week's episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 40 | May 31, 2023 | 49 MIN 00:00 / 49:23 This week’s guests Aleyda Solis Aleyda Solis is an SEO consultant and founder of Orainti, speaker, and author. She shares the latest news and resources in SEO in the #SEOFOMO newsletter with +25K subscribers and Digital Marketing in #MarketingFOMO, SEO tips in the Crawling Mondays video series, and a free SEO Learning Roadmap called LearningSEO.io. Awarded as the European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 and included as one of the 10 Most Influential SEO Experts of 2022 by List Wire from USA Today, she's also co-founder of Remoters.net, a remote work hub, featuring a free remote job board, tools, guides, and more to empower remote work. Giuseppe Caltabiano Giuseppe is a senior global marketing, brand, and content executive with more than 20 years of experience. Today he leads marketing at Rock Content; he has worked for and advised brands in B2B and B2C and has designed global marketing strategies to successfully support growth of B2B SaaS businesses. Giuseppe is a marketing and storytelling instructor at business schools in London and Milan. He was recognised as one of the most influential European B2B marketers in 2018 and 2019. He has an MBA from Milan’s SDA Bocconi and is trained in M&A at the London Business School. 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, Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the very international woman of SEO, Head of Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, internet people. Hello, everyone around the world, in all of the different countries and all of the different languages. Bon Jour. Hello, everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Hint! Hint! Well, I didn't do the whole like, the amazing, fantastic ... I only did one. I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's fine. I think you've run out. I think that's it. I think we’re all done. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: It's interesting because when we first joined, people were saying congratulations and I said Thank you a million times and then I moved on to thank you in other languages as well, which is totally up for this podcast. Mordy Oberstein: It is. Crystal Carter: Because we're talking about international SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, spoiler, spoiler. Before we get to that, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can now subscribe to our new monthly newsletter, Searchlight, where you get full coverage of the SEO world with tips, updates, and links to great SEO content from the Wix SEO hub. The same Wix, by the way, that automatically adds HF link to your pages as part of a wider multilingual offering. Of course, you can add custom texts and to the head element as well. Why am I telling you this? Well, Crystal already told you. Because today we're talking about international SEO. Crystal Carter: Worldwide. Mordy Oberstein: Worldwide. Forget going mobile, today we're going global. Well, don't forget going mobile. We're diving into the ins and outs of international SEO with special guest host, a leader of all the SEOs herself. Aleyda Solis will stop by to share about how to get started, international SEO and what you need to know, what to focus on, what not to focus on, and common mistakes and miss from the world of international SEO. Plus, we have a special deep thought for you today as Rock Content's own Giuseppe Caltabiano shares his thoughts on building a global content strategy and of course with the snappies of SEO News for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So [foreign language 00:02:21] and welcome as episode number 40 of the SERP's Up podcast is here to help show you that an SEO, it's a small world after all. Crystal Carter: I wasn't really expecting that reference, but it was entirely worth it. Yes, we're super, super excited to have Aleyda here, Aleyda, the queen of SEO, of all SEO but particularly fantastic at international SEO. I remember using the tool that Aleyda had on her website for HF link back in the day. It's still awesome, so do check that out and it's incredibly useful. So amazingly pleased to have Aleyda here talking about this incredible, super useful, really valuable topic. Mordy Oberstein: So if you have a website and you're trying to grow your business beyond just the region where you exist now you're going to need international SEO, which is kind of complicated. Which is why, if aliens were to come to Earth and say to all the SEOs, take us to your leader, we would take them to Aleyda. With that, here's Aleyda. Hi Aleyda. Aleyda Solis: Hello Mordy. How are you? Hello, crystal. You're too kind and oh my God, Mordy, if this SEO thing goes ever to hell because of AI or whatever, you can definitely become a radio announcer because I am so, so very impressed. Mordy Oberstein: I've always wanted to be a baseball color commentator. That's like my dream job, outside of SEO. Aleyda Solis: You can tell. Mordy Oberstein: I’ll bring Glenn Gabe with me. We'll do it together. Aleyda Solis: You totally should, isn't it? I mean, why not? Mordy please and you can launch definitely- Mordy Oberstein: I already have too many podcasts going on. I don't know if I can handle another. Aleyda Solis: Please. And you can launch our Wix website too. Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Really quickly. That's good point. Before we get going in this, we need to do some plugging. There's learning.io, there's the SEOFOMO newsletter, which I freaking love because I don't have time to scour the internet for good SEO resources. So you do it for me. Crystal Carter: It's amazing. Aleyda Solis: Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. No, I'm so very happy that it's read, that it's useful. Learningseo.io, by the way, is getting a refresh look in the following weeks and I'm very excited about that. And yes, hopefully with this I help people to clarify the most... On one hand, the most common doubts about SEO, which I get asked all the time, so I just refer them to the website on one hand. And then on the other hand, with SEOFOMO, it's interesting because the other day, I think it was Cindy Crum, who did this poll over Twitter about why was the reason or main reasons why SEOs had imposter syndrome. Crystal Carter: Yes, I saw that. Aleyda Solis: And one of the top reasons that got most votes was like the fear of missing out. So I can definitely see the how SEO promo definitely address that particular problem, which I have to say I am totally there. That is the reason of why I launch it in the first place. And I can also definitely see how in recent months because of AI, this new launches and the race of search engine engines to trying to be the first ones and all of these updates that Google is right now launching and conflating many, many times. So important to keep up. Mordy Oberstein: And it's so hard. There's so many updates Crystal Carter: And I think particularly one of the things that can be a challenge for somebody who's working across international markets is not only do you have to keep up with it for the general SEO, but you also have to keep up with it for international SEO. And you also have to keep up with it for all the different versions of the same website that you might have and making sure that all of those things work all together. So yeah, it can be a big challenge and we are so appreciative to you for making the effort to help with that. It's incredibly valuable. Mordy Oberstein: Since we're talking about international SEO, what's the first thing you think our audience should know about international SEO before anything else? Aleyda Solis: Yes. Well, the number one thing probably, because I think that that is the main mistake or assumption that many people do when they want to go international, is that it's not only about hreflang annotations, I mean hreflang annotations is a method, is a mechanism. It's a configuration that is helpful to specify and inform Google that we have other versions of our website pages that can be in different languages or the same or different languages targeting other countries. However, is not the only way to specify that. There are many signals that will take into account and it is a must to align them all because at the end of the day, it's the consistency and alignment of all of the signals that will let go realize that, oh yes, this is not a duplication of product A page, but it's actually product A page targeted to the UK, while you have already your version for the US. So it is fundamental that we are all aware about this different signals and it's just not about just hreflang annotations and that's it. And I believe that all the potentially most common issue that I see, most common problem, that I have clients, even larger enterprises, that you will think that they have all of these resources in the world. But at the end of the day, there are always restrictions and always limits of what you can do in your time and where it makes sense to allocate resources to. It's this problem when they end up having too many international versions when you launch a lot because you want to target abroad. Somebody has told you that, oh, there's opportunity to grow, launch in Spanish, in Italian, launch to the UK in English, you already know the language. So you launched the UK to Australia, et cetera. And then you realize you cannot maintain, you cannot support all of these different websites and then all of a sudden it's like, oh yes, I understand that. Then they learn that they need to localize their... Even if it is in the same language, their version for the UK, because they may be sell sneakers in the US and all of a sudden they realize that they are not called sneakers in the UK, but they are called trainers for example, or runners or whatever. So they need to optimize the content accordingly, but they don't have the resources. So it is fundamental to well initially assess the different international markets that actually makes sense for your business. What is the search potential? What is the search demand? If it is worth it for you? The market will be able to generate at some point enough traffic for you to have successful conversions and a successful ROI? And from an investment standpoint, it's something also doable for you? If you have the capacity to localize the content, if you have the capacity to translate it, if it is a market that speak a completely different language, for example. And then be able to give the, let's say a good support for users coming from those countries too, because it's not only like a one-off type of investment too. So all of the things, I believe that these two areas of let's say misunderstanding and I'll say that these are the most to, let's say, think or understand or when starting. And based on that to be able to start with the proper process of yes audience research, keyword research, completion research, to then establish the best web structure to use to tackle the different markets. And start with those markets where there's a much higher potential with less competition, et cetera, et cetera. Crystal Carter: So you talked a lot about assessing whether or not the market's worth it, the ROI from a sort of a monetary point of view, but also the capacity within your team. In the past, I've used PPC as a sort of little bit of a litmus test there because you can sort of do a quick PPC test and see did we get any bites. And if not, then we'll turn the PPC off and come back. I don't know if there's other tools or other things you would recommend for testing a market. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean I believe with the most forward is assessing the search volume of the queries, of the top queries that are search of your relevant topic, to describe your product or your services or your content. And then you can do a topological market type of assessment and say, okay, if I end up even getting at some point in a year, like 10% of this potential search volume and traffic and with my current conversion rate, how many conversions and is this going to be ROI positive at that point? But the point of the PPC campaign, I think is very smart to do, especially when there are markets that might look to be very big. But again, it depends on the context and depends on your offering. Because the markets that, for example, like Brazil or India are huge or Indonesia, these are huge market. However, they also have a different type of, let's say capacity of an online investment or buying online their type of behavior and capacity to buying things because of how much they earned et cetera, it's different than in the US or in Europe. For example, I have clients that there might be getting more traffic from a few Latin American markets like Mexico, that is a big, big market. But because of the type of offering or product or sophistication and also price point, most of the conversions happen in Spain. In their case like 60% of the search potential or traffic, but the conversions and revenue is much higher. So it's not only a purely search potential, but also the behavior, the sophistication, the price point. So for that PPC is 100% a very small way to do it. Just launching your top products. Actually, this is also another misunderstanding, right? Thinking that you need to go all in. No, you can launch a pilot project with your homepage and your top three, top five products, those that you have identified that have a higher search potential in that market. And then, yeah, a PPC campaign landing page is well optimized to see what is the buying behavior, the buying journey, and the conversion rate that you get and if it's ROI positive or not, and it's aligned to your expectations or not. Crystal Carter: And I think there's so much there around the cultural understandings as well. So you talked about market capabilities and things like that. I either worked with a client who did a lot of stuff in the... It was a health test and they were working in the UK. They also wanted to do stuff in South Africa because it was a really good market for them. And they were like, we want to put a video on the page. And the team we were working with in South Africa was like, we have the most expensive mobile data in the world. Do not put a video on the page because no one will watch it, for instance. And so I think understanding some of those cultural machinations can be such a big, big player. Aleyda Solis: It's interesting that you mentioned that, because also it's not only about... And I think that in SEO, purely in SEO, we tend to think about how to maximize the signals to the Googlebot at the end and yes, the Googlebot tries to, let's say, simulate the experience of the user. But at the end of the day, depending on the location and depending on the context of what particular product or information or not, users will have their own, let's say, bias or cultural bias. So for example, I have this company right now in France and their offering has to do a lot about healthcare or fitness type of products. And because health, there's a universal search system in France, so they use the French users, visitors, people, they are very used to see whatever health information in with the .Fr ccTLD. So anything that is not in the .Fr ccTLD and it has to do about health, they double question it, if it is really for them and if it's really worthy and if it is really reliable, because they are so used that it is a national thing. So in their case, they were very well optimized, very well ranking already for their core terms, but their conversions and the click rate of the SERPs, you could tell that they were poorer, the ones that should be expected for those positions. So the solution here beyond and before they grow much further is to, okay, let's start doing a few tests with a .Fr ccTLD and if the tests are successful, we will need to migrate. And this is something crazy that for 99% of the cases or scenarios, I will say, are you crazy? Why are you going to migrate just because of this? Migration is the worst case scenario that some of the higher efforts type of actions in SEO. But this one of those edge cases that we can see that from a business standpoint, it actually will make a lot of sense for them in the future. So it is now or never pretty much to assess that. Mordy Oberstein: How do you get ahead of that as opposed to realizing after the fact? Do you have a process? How do you find whether it be something like culturally like that or it's like we don't call sneakers, sneakers, we call them runners, whatever it is. I'm from New York, so we call soda, soda, we're from Brooklyn, it's soda or whatever. If you're from Michigan, it's called pop. I know that because I'm from the US. But if you're coming from say England and you want to target the Michigan soda population, you better call it pop. How do you get ahead of that? Aleyda Solis: The best way to do it is with good old keyword research, competition research, analysis research. Also the more localized, the more granular it can be, the best it will be of course, because there might be variations in the different terms depending on the specific location. And many, many services or products are not launched at a national level either, even if we're targeting countries. So some things might make sense more than others and they change a lot based on the context or industry. It also depends a lot on the, let's say, on your particular business model too. So for example SaaS, you might think about all SaaS have... There are the same type of product, the same business models. So they will tend to have the same type of international targeting and it's not the case. So for example, if you are an accounting SaaS software, it does make sense for you and you can go and take a look at a lot of accounting softwares out there. They will tend to be country targeted. Not because you search necessarily about accounting software or accounting systems in different ways. In English for example, in across the different English-speaking countries, no, but because their offering actually changes for country because their tax solution or accounting solution is integrated with local banking and local taxing and different type of rules and conditions depending on the country taxing and accounting laws. However, if we go to other type of SaaS like productivity SaaS or product management SaaS, you can see that in this other type of offering, most of them are language targeted because most of project management tools are called in the same way, independently of the country. In English for example, you call project management software in the UK, in the US, in Australia. And they're offering, their personality won't change. It's changes is trivial. It's like the pricing and they can change that dynamically and it's not such a big change that is worth it to create different type of versions. So you can see that there's a very... From red it doesn't changes it all to green. It doesn't change to nothing or there's a midpoint that it changes just a bit, but it doesn't compensate to create country versions. And the best way to assess that is really to do very granular keyword competition research. See which are the websites ranking for your top queries in that particular location that you want to run for and see which are the terms that are actually used of those best ranking ones, see how they address and what is their offering, what is their web structure are their ccTLDs? Are they subdomains, subdirectories and how they are explaining, describing, wording the product or the service and take that as an input to assess further. Mordy Oberstein: And that's a really good point about laws, because I think it's multiple times where the laws of Pacific region around them say... I think one of the case I was looking at was car insurance. The laws in different countries around car insurance will create different needs within the market and totally different queries that are now relevant, that won't be relevant in other markets. Let me ask you another question though. What if you're targeting, let's say a country like Belgium, where it's not just, okay, they have different laws, let's say England. It's in the country itself, they speak different languages. Aleyda Solis: Yeah, 100%. It's the same with Canada, right? English and French too. And there are quite a few countries like that. Well, it depends on really the search volume and the search potential that each one of these languages have, right? In the case of Belgium for example, most of the searches are the most popular languages will be French and then also Flemish, which is very, very like Dutch. But again, it's like, okay, again, your capacity where most of the searches for your product are happening in French or in Flemish and based on that to prioritize accordingly. Because indeed, so for example, in Spain actually, you can take that to the very extreme and it might not necessarily be worthy. Spanish is the language that everybody knows internationally about Spain. But the original languages are very well used regionally too. So in Catalonia it's Catalan. I live in the Basque Country actually in Spain and the Basque language is completely different to anything else out there. And then the Galician language. So I mean you can go very granular if you want, but again, this is not about being let's say politically correct or being super granular because of course that will be the ideal work, whatever. But we don't have unlimited resources. What we really want is that this new versions generate money, generate sales, generate traffic, and these are ROI positives. So at the end of the day, just think about what are the languages that your audience in that country are actually searching for your products on services. And here, coincidentally again, speaking about car rentals, is one of those sectors or businesses where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain for your website because of the target market, the audience. These are a lot of international travelers, holiday makers, whatever, coming here, renting cars. So there is a non-trivial search volume about hiring cars in Barcelona, renting cars in Madrid. Actually that is another edge case where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain, in France, in non-speaking English countries, 100%. Crystal Carter: I think it can get very complicated, but I think it's worthwhile because I think it demonstrates trust. So we have a great article from Adriana Stein talking about translation versus localization. And I think that when people can see that... And again, it's worthwhile. So for instance, if you were a hyper-local business that was in the Basque Country and was serving people for traditional Basque Country activities or something like that, it would make sense for you to connect with them in that language. And if you're searching on the SERP and you see that that's written in that language and they know the terms that are related to the thing, then you go, okay, these people know what they're talking about, they actually know what's going on. This isn't somebody who just pressed a button to translate this. They actually know they actually care. And I think that that can be really useful. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean if you do really have the capacity and the resources and if it is an important market for you, you should totally go ahead. And if it is a minimum effort too, you should definitely go ahead and do the extra mile and personalize because that can make a complete difference for it. So for example, in my case, I was back in the day, I am originally from Nicaragua. When I was living still in Nicaragua and Nicaragua is such a small country, it's also a poor country. So we were so very used to get all of this marketing actions in TV even or in Billboard or whatever, that we're so obviously not targeted at Nicaragua because we actually speak, like the way that we word things in Spanish is like in Argentina, like with the dos. So we put an accent at the end of each, pretty much conjugation and the verbs. And we don't say two, we say dos. And we had a lot of these billboards and TV ads and whatever with the two and we were like, oh, this was just generic ads for all Latin American people, whatever is not for us. But then it made all, little by little you could tell that they were making more efforts toward things to change things. And it was a minimum thing really pretty much to change up a couple of wordings. The rest was exactly the same, but at least they took care and this is actually really for us. The engagement and I think the connection with the brand or the offering increase. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I've heard SEOs talk about some of the communities where you get sort of hybrid languages. So there was somebody who was from Mexico and she was from the north of Mexico. Ms. Marie White actually was talking about this and she's from the north of Mexico and she was like, we need Spanglish. And they were like, what? She was like, people on the border of the United States and Mexico, everybody speaks Spanglish. And so they started adding in some of that into some of their copy and they started to get a lot of good response from that because also people have phones where they're searching both in English and in Spanish. And this is going to happen in lots of places where there's people who speak multiple languages. I don't know if you have any tips or any examples from sort of hybrid searches and adapting for that. Aleyda Solis: So for example, again, it depends a lot on the industry, but the industry, that can be crazy. Speaking about car rental, car rental in Spanish, you can say in so many different ways. So this is one industry that if you are for in, it really needs to be very well localized, especially because also a lot of the queries are also with location, connected with location, with your current city or the city where you want to go. And you can call “carro”, “coche”, just three terms for the same thing, for car. And the same also where the property... I have had quite a lot of clients across different countries in the property market. And for apartment in Spanish you can call it [foreign language 00:24:35]. So three different ways again for the same thing. And well, it's the same in the UK and the US flats and apartment. But in Spanish I think that because there are so many different countries that have it as a native language, there's so many different correct ways to say it. So especially for this very localized services and products, car rental, property, it's very, very worthy to go very granular, double check and validate how they are the right way or the relevant way to call it in that particular market. Because it's definitely going to change not only the name of the locations or the countries, but the term too, very likely. Crystal Carter: Can I ask you one question about attending technical? So sometimes when I worked on the international SEO campaigns or international SEO projects. I've seen it where sometimes Google can't figure out which one is the main one, even when you canonicalize it. And I don't know if you've seen that and if you have any sort of recommendations for how to address that particular challenge. Aleyda Solis: Yes, thank you very much for asking that. Actually, I think that this scenarios happen when you have a very, very established powerful, popular original version that you had... Usually the US one, that then it perform a little bit also like the global one for a while. And then you have, let's say a UK version or an Indian version, they are also in the same language. However, well they target their own audience. And in those particular scenarios we may see that the copy might be very, very similar because it actually makes sense because in that particular context, the product, the service is actually searched with the same terms. And in general the behavior of the user connecting to them, it's very similar. And so it's harder for Google to understand which is the right version. Even if you implement hreflang, remember that hreflang is one of many signals. So for those particular scenarios, what I highly, highly recommend to do to help Google further, is to add the name of the country in the metadata, add the name of the country or the location or the offices in case you have offices or subsidiaries or partners within the copy. The information that you are targeting those particular markets, personalize the message. So whatever examples or testimonials or information, give additional signals that, oh, this is for India, this is for the UK. And also a typical mistake that I see websites doing all the time is that in the country picker that the menu, the global menu that you may have, many of these are JavaScript generated, they are not crawlable. The links are always going to the homepage of the alternate version. Know your product A page should cross-link to your product A page in India, to your product A page in the US, in the UK. So the product A page in the US that has millions of backlinks can pass that link popularity accordingly to the product page of other countries. Rather than product page in other countries never be able to rank or not showing enough popularity to rule and not ranking because of that, right? So I believe that good crosslinking is critical. Localizing everything, every single signal that you can give to Google. This is especially important when you are targeting different countries with the same language. As examples of indeed like how your product make the life easier for relevant audience within that country. All these additional signals also help a lot. And of course hreflang notations, correct canonicalization too, in each one of these pages, that is also important. And if you have the capacity to promote within the relevant country to attract backlinks of local specific websites that will point to that particular country web version, the best will be, because many, many times the US slash global version was the one that existed before. All of the backlinks from India are still pointing also only to the US and the UK point to the US one rather than the relevant version. So little by little like that, you are able to give the right signals for Google to run the relevant version of the website. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great way to put it. You're helping Google. It's really complicated. I think they have a really hard time as somebody who lives in a non-English speaking country, but only searches for the most part in English. I get all sorts of cross results all the time. Google really does sometimes have a really hard time figuring it out. I've worked on sites where they're showing the wrong page and it was completely on Google's end to understand what was what. Aleyda Solis: Google thinks that I am a British living in Spain. I am all the time shown ads. And in Google discover too, recommend reads for British in Spain because I guess that's because they identified that a lot of British expat here or live in Spain by the way, that since I am searching in English so much, I should be a British living in Spain. Mordy Oberstein: The opposite I have. I only search in English basically, and Google discover will show me stuff in Hebrew now. I never search, I don't know what I'm looking at. Don't show that to me. But I'm getting used to knowledge panels- Aleyda Solis: Opportunity for you to learn Hebrew. Mordy Oberstein: Nati, Head of SEO, he gives me a hard time about knowing Hebrew well enough. So I think it's him behind the scenes pushing Google to let me learn more Hebrew. Aleyda Solis: 100%. Mordy Oberstein: It's a conspiracy. Aleyda, thank you so much for coming on. Don't forget to follow Aleyda on Twitter, on LinkedIn. Aleyda Solis: If you're not following Aleyda Solis. Mordy Oberstein: If you're not already, it's @aleyda on Twitter. We'll link to your profile in the show notes. And of course it's learningseo.io and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to the SEOFOMO and now the marketing FOMO newsletters. Aleyda Solis: Just reached a thousand subscribers a week ago and I'm actually preparing it for this Wix edition too. I'm so very excited too. Because in SEO we are also sometimes too isolated focusing on it. And there's so much happening in other markets, in other channels of marketing by the way. And we can learn a lot from them and leverage, learn to leverage them and to, yeah... That's definitely interesting. Crystal Carter: As well as Crawling Mondays as well as remoters.net. Aleyda Solis: Oh right. Crystal Carter: As well as Remoters.net SEO. So yes. Mordy Oberstein: Aleyda, thank you for everything you do for the community. Aleyda Solis: No, thank you for the opportunity to share with you and everything what you do too. Really appreciate it. Mordy Oberstein: So one of the things that Aleyda touched on, which as a content person and as an expat myself kind of irks me about international strategies, that sometimes you don't fully appreciate how hard it is to actually localize the content to best align, not with the GEO’s language, but with the cultural idiosyncrasies and so forth. So we thought we get a serious expert on content to share their thoughts on building an international content strategy so that Crystal and I could offer you a very, very special version of a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Except this time it's not a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Let's get into what Giuseppe had to say first. Take it away, Giuseppe. Giuseppe Caltabiano: Well thank you for having me first of all. That's a very good question. Now let me say, despite the pandemic, my passion for traveling has not changed. In a way, it has been a constant of my life, whether I was on road for business or pleasure. The reason why I'm saying this is that travel really fueled my passion for global marketing, specifically for global content marketing. My travels have given me a better understanding of the world. But the reality is, when I launched my first new global content marketing program for Schneider Electric, that was 10 years ago. I thought I knew the world, but when you have to develop content for different geographies, well it feels like you have never stepped outside your front door, while I've always covered international or global roles. I remember, my first global content marketing journey started 10 years ago, when my team and I began defining Schneider Electric IT division global content strategy. Our goals were two fold: Lead Gen, first of all, marketing opportunities and secondly, increased brand awareness. Now after defining our strategy, we spent eight months preparing for the global launch through multiple pilots. We learned an incredible amount from our success and mistakes. And then one year later I replicated the same model with global clients when I moved to NewsCred, which is now part of Optimizely, at the beginning of 2017 and then later in Contently in 2019. Now the issue I found in most of the cases is that content marketers just try to replicate at global level what they have done in some cases with some success at central or local level. Well that's a big mistake. The thing is that global content marketing is not just content marketing deployed across multiple countries. Enterprise will need to plan, find the right balance between global and local. They have to pilot and then scale at global level. If they fail at one of these steps, of course usually they may fail with the full program. I think there are three main steps global marketers need to follow in order to design a proper content marketing strategy. First of all, finding the optimal balance between central and local. Now in most of the regions, I mean take Asia or Europe for example, there are thousands of countries and languages. It's simply unrealistic to make the same content work for each individual market. For this reason, creating content centrally and allowing countries to fill the gaps may represent a good solution. I've been working with both organizations, centralized and decentralized. Some organization have a very unclear understanding of local markets, which is the reason why involvement of countries or regions in content planning is really key. The role of central teams may shift of course as the program progress. In the early stages of the program, the flow of information is very outwards with the central team leading content production and strategy. And then as global content program flourish and progress, the emphasis on the central team shift to providing guidance and building local content skills and competencies. The second step is establishing local editorial board. While of course the central editorial team will generate content, a global level local editorial board have to be placed. And I mean this is really a key. In each country or on geography to manage proper planning and distribution, the local editorial board will agree with the central team on target personas. They lead the decision for distribution, content distribution, they contract local vendors and so on and so forth. The third and final point is piloting your content market strategy. The thing is piloting means starting small. Large enterprises are running pilot programs across geographies. It's a common practice, great ideas often receive resistance. You need to start small, test if your strategy is working, get results, and then finally create a proper business case, in order to allow a global content marketing program. In a global content marketing model, you ideally need to set up the pilot program as a test in one of two countries and usually no more than two different languages if possible. And then you run the pilot program with a full integration with the existing marketing technologies. And finally, of course if it's successful, you may roll out your program to the other geographies. I realize that this is probably super simplification, but it may give you a good overview of what to do in order to create a global content marketing program. Mordy Oberstein: So I don't know where to start with it, because Giuseppe makes a bunch of really, really, really, really good points. But I guess let's talk about a point that I feel I personally probably gloss over all the time in talking about global content strategies, is that the fact that you have to balance the global with the local. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, entirely. It's something that is really, really important. And I think that it applies to lots of elements of international SEO and even regional SEO. Even if you think about the United States for instance, there's different laws in different states, there's different realities. February in Florida is very different from February in New Hampshire for instance. So there are definitely things to consider about which products to put out, which content to put out, what makes sense, where all of these things are really important. Mordy Oberstein: The same thing with local SEO also. You might have a local presence, you might also have a more international presence or a national presence. So balancing this out is really, really important. Because you don't want to go all in on the global and then ignore the fact you also have a local presence or cannibalize a local presence with your global presence. You really have to think about what pages should exist. It's really about planning. What pages should exist, where do they exist on the domain, what are they trying to do? Where are they trying to target? And how do we keep what they're trying to do somewhat separate from each other. Crystal Carter: There's a section where he discussed planning and some of the work that's gone into planning. He was saying they spent eight months planning a particular campaign and that can take a lot of time. So these things should be well thought out and should take all of the things into account. Because of course it's important to have a global presence. If you think of a company like IKEA for instance, IKEA has global things and actually IKEA's approach to marketing tends to be fairly universal worldwide. But that's a distinct strategy that they've taken, which is really very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: It works for them. Crystal Carter: It works for them. Mordy Oberstein: I'm not sure it works for others. Crystal Carter: Exactly. But they will understand that. Even I know that... We recently had an IKEA open near us and they ran a specific hyper-local campaign launching the store. And I know that they have general activities there, but the global brand will impact the local brand and vice versa. So it's really important to make sure that they line up. But that also that if part of your brand is making sure that you care about your customers, making sure that it's very clear that you are respectful of your customers, then respecting the local cultural elements is really, really important. And localizing appropriately will help you to demonstrate that. Mordy Oberstein: Which goes to what Aleyda was saying about the advertisement she would see growing up and really speaks to what Giuseppe was talking about, and just another amazing point, in that there's really no way around having a local expert. Giuseppe was talking about they have a board and that local board offers feedback on the overall global camp. How much do you want to automate, especially in the world of AI and ChatGPT. But in general, how much do you want to try to automate or try to template from the global strategy into the local areas, you can't. You have to have somebody who understands what that region's all about, what works, what doesn't work, the interest, the way of talking, all the idiosyncrasies of that region. There's no way around knowing that other than you having some actual integration into that community, which means you need a local expert Crystal Carter: Indeed. And there's idioms that will make people feel more warmly towards your brand. There are particular celebrations or particular things that are important milestones. So for instance, in the Mediterranean you see a lot of these things with the blue eye for instance. That's something that means good luck or prosperity and things like that. If you have the same symbol and somewhere else it would be less recognized. And there are things that visually, for instance, would be really, really recognizable. And that's something to think about as well. And these are things like you said, that you can't get from a bot necessarily. You have to have humans there. Adriana Stein is someone who has worked with us on some localizing projects and she wrote an article on translation versus localization. And she gets into a lot of these details. She talks about the direct translation from English to German of beating around the bush for instance, which... He did the direct translation, it doesn't convey the same sentiment as if you do a localized translation of their idiom for that same sort of thing. And what you want is the sentiment. You want the sentiment of that statement rather than the direct translation because it's an idiom. Mordy Oberstein: And you have cultural biases and there's no way around them. I'll give you a great example. I think I might have talked about it in the podcast at one point, but growing up every day, I used to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I moved to Israel, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at work one day and someone's like, what's that? I'm like, peanut butter and jelly. And they're like, what is that? They do not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Blew my mind, to this day, absolutely blows my mind. It is the go-to sandwich in America. To this day, I still eat them, because they're so delicious. Crystal Carter: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are suitable for every meal. Mordy Oberstein: Every meal and in between meals, all meals. Crystal Carter: Anytime you eat- Mordy Oberstein: You can live on them. Crystal Carter: You can live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They're quality, quality. Mordy Oberstein: We do not eat them where I currently live. And if you were talking about them, it would be like you if you're trying to target that or if you're using it as a reference and whatever it is, it would be lost because it is not the same thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah, entirely. And I think these are things that you have to get. And I think that it takes... One of the reasons why it takes so long to plan for a sort of global SEO or marketing campaign, is that you have to take those things into account. You have to make sure that you have good experts for wherever you're based. Wix is, we work in 17 different languages and we work in lots of different spaces. Someone that we work with in Japan is someone called Titone. He's fantastic, he's amazing, he's incredible. And we worked with the team at Faber as well to do some SEO webinars. We didn't think like, oh, we should swat in and do the SEO webinar ourselves. From a remote team, we got local experts to help us with that and to help us engage in, because for instance, with search in Japan, for instance, the way that the web is structured is slightly different because they have different kinds of writing. So this is really important to think about. And so there's going to be people who have more experience in that and more experience of the way that the people use the web and the different search engines that they use and the different things that will come up first for that particular audience. And you have to think about the people on your team who are genuine experts and you have to make sure that you build up those relationships. And that takes time. And also I think it's important, particularly from a content point of view, to think about how you get traction an at what point, how much of a foothold you need to have in a market in order to get some traction in a market. Especially if your team isn't specifically based there, but you're trying to connect with an audience in a different place. You have to sort of figure out how much content do we need? What investment do we need? And Aleyda talked about this as well, what investment do you need in order to be able to serve those customers well? And I think that these can take time, but hopefully it's worth it, if that's a market that's good for you. Mordy Oberstein: Now speaking of time, do you know what time it is? Crystal Carter: What time is it? What time is it? Mordy Oberstein: Snappy News. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's here. I mean, snappy news, snappy news, snappy news, but oh my God, it's here. Google has opened its Search Generative Experience, SGE. Two select folks on the wait list, yours truly, not among them. I can't even get on the wait list? Something about it not being open to my account, I don't know. Personal grumblings aside, we got our first look at what Google's Search Generative Experience is going to look like. Follow me here for a second. Danny Goodwin at Search Engine Land covered Barry Schwartz and his covering of his initial experience with the SGE. Barry got access to the SGE or the Search Generative Experience, but had to go offline for a few days. So Danny covered Barry covering the SGE. We'll link to the article in the show notes, because there're already heap of examples and you should definitely look at them. Just looking at it myself, I just want to say, don't panic. It looks like there are plenty of organic link placements all throughout the experience. Mike King from iPullRank, who did a whole webinar with us on AI and SEO, he said quote, "it's basically an interactive feature snippet, but it doesn't feel as threatening to organic search traffic as the original demos made it feel." Good news. All right, who wants some more big news? Yeah, Google held its marketing live event and friend of the show who join us talking about SCOM PPC over at Cypress North, Greg Finn did an amazing job covering all of the updates that Google announced to its ad platform and beyond. Check that out in the show notes as well over at Search Engine Land. Some takeaways, they're personal. When I took a look at the keynote, one of the things I took away was a Google talks about how people search and how it's changing, how they're looking at longer queries and how they're more conversational, what they're looking for, and they're looking for more specific things than ever before. People are being far more specific when they search. Some might say not new. Old, not new. I agree it's not new, but I feel like now this is an official part of the conversation that we as SEOs, the content marketers, the content creators need to get on board with. Also ads will be in the Search Generative Experience, the SGE or as I'm just going to call it the AI box. When Google announced the SGE or the AI box at Google I/O 2023, it made it seem the ads would be above the box itself, not part of the actual Search Generative Experience. But at Marketing Live, they show that yes, it's going to be right there in that whole SGE ecosystem. Also, say goodbye to Google Merchant Center and say hello to Google Merchant Center NEXT. It's next level because it will take a lot of the techier parts of connecting to Google Merchant Center out of the equation by pulling information straight from your site into the Merchant Center feed. Next, well, nothing is next because that's this week's snappy news. And well, that was the news. How newsy was it? So Newsy. Always so newsy. Which brings us to our follow of the week as the episode ebbs away and this week our follow of the week as we're going international SEO is none other than Veruska Anconitano. Crystal Carter: Veruska is fantastic. She's a member of Women in Tech SEO. She's an amazing international SEO- Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: What's this? Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: A contributor to the hub, which I was just going to get to. Yeah, she's a- Mordy Oberstein: Sorry for jumping the gun. Crystal Carter: She's multilingual. And yeah, she wrote an article called Why Cultural Relevance is Key to International SEO Success, and it's absolutely fantastic. So yeah, she speaks many languages and she talks a lot about the different elements that come into play when you're thinking about engaging with international markets that are not just some of the technical SEO elements that can be easy to implement, relatively speaking. But some of the cultural elements in, we're thinking about cultural identity and how that impacts search and what people search for and how people search. It's a great article. She's a great follow. She's also an expert on Rome, so I knew someone who was going to Rome and I tagged her and she was like, oh, let me tell you all of the places that you should eat. Mordy Oberstein: And her Twitter account is really informative. She had a post on skyscraper content the other day that kind of made me laugh. There's a lot of really good content in her feed. It's not just one of these accounts where you're going to file but not really getting SEO value out of it. It's a definite value in the SEO knowledge itself. So it's @LaCuochina on Twitter. We'll link to Veruska's profile in the show notes. But definitely give her a follow. Which means our episode is now over. Crystal Carter: Finito. Mordy Oberstein: Finito. Ooh, very good. Crystal Carter: Finn. Mordy Oberstein: Finn. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, hasta la vista. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know how to say the end in any other language. Crystal Carter: S ayonara! Mordy Oberstein: Sure. Adios. That's really goodbye, not the end. Anyway, thanks for joining us on this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us, not to worry, we're back next week with the brand new episodes. We dive into how to build a content strategy SEO and beyond. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on 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, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Aleyda Solis Giuseppe Caltabiano Veruska Anconitano Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Aleyda Solis International SEO Consultant Orainti SEO Learning SEO SEO FOMO Newsletter Rock Content Guide to International SEO Culture Relevance & International SEO How to approach SEO localization and SEO website translations News: Hands-on with Google’s new Search Generative Experience Google Marketing Live 2023: Everything you need to know Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Aleyda Solis Giuseppe Caltabiano Veruska Anconitano Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Aleyda Solis International SEO Consultant Orainti SEO Learning SEO SEO FOMO Newsletter Rock Content Guide to International SEO Culture Relevance & International SEO How to approach SEO localization and SEO website translations News: Hands-on with Google’s new Search Generative Experience Google Marketing Live 2023: Everything you need to know 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, Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the very international woman of SEO, Head of Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, internet people. Hello, everyone around the world, in all of the different countries and all of the different languages. Bon Jour. Hello, everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Hint! Hint! Well, I didn't do the whole like, the amazing, fantastic ... I only did one. I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's fine. I think you've run out. I think that's it. I think we’re all done. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: It's interesting because when we first joined, people were saying congratulations and I said Thank you a million times and then I moved on to thank you in other languages as well, which is totally up for this podcast. Mordy Oberstein: It is. Crystal Carter: Because we're talking about international SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, spoiler, spoiler. Before we get to that, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can now subscribe to our new monthly newsletter, Searchlight, where you get full coverage of the SEO world with tips, updates, and links to great SEO content from the Wix SEO hub. The same Wix, by the way, that automatically adds HF link to your pages as part of a wider multilingual offering. Of course, you can add custom texts and to the head element as well. Why am I telling you this? Well, Crystal already told you. Because today we're talking about international SEO. Crystal Carter: Worldwide. Mordy Oberstein: Worldwide. Forget going mobile, today we're going global. Well, don't forget going mobile. We're diving into the ins and outs of international SEO with special guest host, a leader of all the SEOs herself. Aleyda Solis will stop by to share about how to get started, international SEO and what you need to know, what to focus on, what not to focus on, and common mistakes and miss from the world of international SEO. Plus, we have a special deep thought for you today as Rock Content's own Giuseppe Caltabiano shares his thoughts on building a global content strategy and of course with the snappies of SEO News for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So [foreign language 00:02:21] and welcome as episode number 40 of the SERP's Up podcast is here to help show you that an SEO, it's a small world after all. Crystal Carter: I wasn't really expecting that reference, but it was entirely worth it. Yes, we're super, super excited to have Aleyda here, Aleyda, the queen of SEO, of all SEO but particularly fantastic at international SEO. I remember using the tool that Aleyda had on her website for HF link back in the day. It's still awesome, so do check that out and it's incredibly useful. So amazingly pleased to have Aleyda here talking about this incredible, super useful, really valuable topic. Mordy Oberstein: So if you have a website and you're trying to grow your business beyond just the region where you exist now you're going to need international SEO, which is kind of complicated. Which is why, if aliens were to come to Earth and say to all the SEOs, take us to your leader, we would take them to Aleyda. With that, here's Aleyda. Hi Aleyda. Aleyda Solis: Hello Mordy. How are you? Hello, crystal. You're too kind and oh my God, Mordy, if this SEO thing goes ever to hell because of AI or whatever, you can definitely become a radio announcer because I am so, so very impressed. Mordy Oberstein: I've always wanted to be a baseball color commentator. That's like my dream job, outside of SEO. Aleyda Solis: You can tell. Mordy Oberstein: I’ll bring Glenn Gabe with me. We'll do it together. Aleyda Solis: You totally should, isn't it? I mean, why not? Mordy please and you can launch definitely- Mordy Oberstein: I already have too many podcasts going on. I don't know if I can handle another. Aleyda Solis: Please. And you can launch our Wix website too. Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Really quickly. That's good point. Before we get going in this, we need to do some plugging. There's learning.io, there's the SEOFOMO newsletter, which I freaking love because I don't have time to scour the internet for good SEO resources. So you do it for me. Crystal Carter: It's amazing. Aleyda Solis: Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. No, I'm so very happy that it's read, that it's useful. Learningseo.io, by the way, is getting a refresh look in the following weeks and I'm very excited about that. And yes, hopefully with this I help people to clarify the most... On one hand, the most common doubts about SEO, which I get asked all the time, so I just refer them to the website on one hand. And then on the other hand, with SEOFOMO, it's interesting because the other day, I think it was Cindy Crum, who did this poll over Twitter about why was the reason or main reasons why SEOs had imposter syndrome. Crystal Carter: Yes, I saw that. Aleyda Solis: And one of the top reasons that got most votes was like the fear of missing out. So I can definitely see the how SEO promo definitely address that particular problem, which I have to say I am totally there. That is the reason of why I launch it in the first place. And I can also definitely see how in recent months because of AI, this new launches and the race of search engine engines to trying to be the first ones and all of these updates that Google is right now launching and conflating many, many times. So important to keep up. Mordy Oberstein: And it's so hard. There's so many updates Crystal Carter: And I think particularly one of the things that can be a challenge for somebody who's working across international markets is not only do you have to keep up with it for the general SEO, but you also have to keep up with it for international SEO. And you also have to keep up with it for all the different versions of the same website that you might have and making sure that all of those things work all together. So yeah, it can be a big challenge and we are so appreciative to you for making the effort to help with that. It's incredibly valuable. Mordy Oberstein: Since we're talking about international SEO, what's the first thing you think our audience should know about international SEO before anything else? Aleyda Solis: Yes. Well, the number one thing probably, because I think that that is the main mistake or assumption that many people do when they want to go international, is that it's not only about hreflang annotations, I mean hreflang annotations is a method, is a mechanism. It's a configuration that is helpful to specify and inform Google that we have other versions of our website pages that can be in different languages or the same or different languages targeting other countries. However, is not the only way to specify that. There are many signals that will take into account and it is a must to align them all because at the end of the day, it's the consistency and alignment of all of the signals that will let go realize that, oh yes, this is not a duplication of product A page, but it's actually product A page targeted to the UK, while you have already your version for the US. So it is fundamental that we are all aware about this different signals and it's just not about just hreflang annotations and that's it. And I believe that all the potentially most common issue that I see, most common problem, that I have clients, even larger enterprises, that you will think that they have all of these resources in the world. But at the end of the day, there are always restrictions and always limits of what you can do in your time and where it makes sense to allocate resources to. It's this problem when they end up having too many international versions when you launch a lot because you want to target abroad. Somebody has told you that, oh, there's opportunity to grow, launch in Spanish, in Italian, launch to the UK in English, you already know the language. So you launched the UK to Australia, et cetera. And then you realize you cannot maintain, you cannot support all of these different websites and then all of a sudden it's like, oh yes, I understand that. Then they learn that they need to localize their... Even if it is in the same language, their version for the UK, because they may be sell sneakers in the US and all of a sudden they realize that they are not called sneakers in the UK, but they are called trainers for example, or runners or whatever. So they need to optimize the content accordingly, but they don't have the resources. So it is fundamental to well initially assess the different international markets that actually makes sense for your business. What is the search potential? What is the search demand? If it is worth it for you? The market will be able to generate at some point enough traffic for you to have successful conversions and a successful ROI? And from an investment standpoint, it's something also doable for you? If you have the capacity to localize the content, if you have the capacity to translate it, if it is a market that speak a completely different language, for example. And then be able to give the, let's say a good support for users coming from those countries too, because it's not only like a one-off type of investment too. So all of the things, I believe that these two areas of let's say misunderstanding and I'll say that these are the most to, let's say, think or understand or when starting. And based on that to be able to start with the proper process of yes audience research, keyword research, completion research, to then establish the best web structure to use to tackle the different markets. And start with those markets where there's a much higher potential with less competition, et cetera, et cetera. Crystal Carter: So you talked a lot about assessing whether or not the market's worth it, the ROI from a sort of a monetary point of view, but also the capacity within your team. In the past, I've used PPC as a sort of little bit of a litmus test there because you can sort of do a quick PPC test and see did we get any bites. And if not, then we'll turn the PPC off and come back. I don't know if there's other tools or other things you would recommend for testing a market. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean I believe with the most forward is assessing the search volume of the queries, of the top queries that are search of your relevant topic, to describe your product or your services or your content. And then you can do a topological market type of assessment and say, okay, if I end up even getting at some point in a year, like 10% of this potential search volume and traffic and with my current conversion rate, how many conversions and is this going to be ROI positive at that point? But the point of the PPC campaign, I think is very smart to do, especially when there are markets that might look to be very big. But again, it depends on the context and depends on your offering. Because the markets that, for example, like Brazil or India are huge or Indonesia, these are huge market. However, they also have a different type of, let's say capacity of an online investment or buying online their type of behavior and capacity to buying things because of how much they earned et cetera, it's different than in the US or in Europe. For example, I have clients that there might be getting more traffic from a few Latin American markets like Mexico, that is a big, big market. But because of the type of offering or product or sophistication and also price point, most of the conversions happen in Spain. In their case like 60% of the search potential or traffic, but the conversions and revenue is much higher. So it's not only a purely search potential, but also the behavior, the sophistication, the price point. So for that PPC is 100% a very small way to do it. Just launching your top products. Actually, this is also another misunderstanding, right? Thinking that you need to go all in. No, you can launch a pilot project with your homepage and your top three, top five products, those that you have identified that have a higher search potential in that market. And then, yeah, a PPC campaign landing page is well optimized to see what is the buying behavior, the buying journey, and the conversion rate that you get and if it's ROI positive or not, and it's aligned to your expectations or not. Crystal Carter: And I think there's so much there around the cultural understandings as well. So you talked about market capabilities and things like that. I either worked with a client who did a lot of stuff in the... It was a health test and they were working in the UK. They also wanted to do stuff in South Africa because it was a really good market for them. And they were like, we want to put a video on the page. And the team we were working with in South Africa was like, we have the most expensive mobile data in the world. Do not put a video on the page because no one will watch it, for instance. And so I think understanding some of those cultural machinations can be such a big, big player. Aleyda Solis: It's interesting that you mentioned that, because also it's not only about... And I think that in SEO, purely in SEO, we tend to think about how to maximize the signals to the Googlebot at the end and yes, the Googlebot tries to, let's say, simulate the experience of the user. But at the end of the day, depending on the location and depending on the context of what particular product or information or not, users will have their own, let's say, bias or cultural bias. So for example, I have this company right now in France and their offering has to do a lot about healthcare or fitness type of products. And because health, there's a universal search system in France, so they use the French users, visitors, people, they are very used to see whatever health information in with the .Fr ccTLD. So anything that is not in the .Fr ccTLD and it has to do about health, they double question it, if it is really for them and if it's really worthy and if it is really reliable, because they are so used that it is a national thing. So in their case, they were very well optimized, very well ranking already for their core terms, but their conversions and the click rate of the SERPs, you could tell that they were poorer, the ones that should be expected for those positions. So the solution here beyond and before they grow much further is to, okay, let's start doing a few tests with a .Fr ccTLD and if the tests are successful, we will need to migrate. And this is something crazy that for 99% of the cases or scenarios, I will say, are you crazy? Why are you going to migrate just because of this? Migration is the worst case scenario that some of the higher efforts type of actions in SEO. But this one of those edge cases that we can see that from a business standpoint, it actually will make a lot of sense for them in the future. So it is now or never pretty much to assess that. Mordy Oberstein: How do you get ahead of that as opposed to realizing after the fact? Do you have a process? How do you find whether it be something like culturally like that or it's like we don't call sneakers, sneakers, we call them runners, whatever it is. I'm from New York, so we call soda, soda, we're from Brooklyn, it's soda or whatever. If you're from Michigan, it's called pop. I know that because I'm from the US. But if you're coming from say England and you want to target the Michigan soda population, you better call it pop. How do you get ahead of that? Aleyda Solis: The best way to do it is with good old keyword research, competition research, analysis research. Also the more localized, the more granular it can be, the best it will be of course, because there might be variations in the different terms depending on the specific location. And many, many services or products are not launched at a national level either, even if we're targeting countries. So some things might make sense more than others and they change a lot based on the context or industry. It also depends a lot on the, let's say, on your particular business model too. So for example SaaS, you might think about all SaaS have... There are the same type of product, the same business models. So they will tend to have the same type of international targeting and it's not the case. So for example, if you are an accounting SaaS software, it does make sense for you and you can go and take a look at a lot of accounting softwares out there. They will tend to be country targeted. Not because you search necessarily about accounting software or accounting systems in different ways. In English for example, in across the different English-speaking countries, no, but because their offering actually changes for country because their tax solution or accounting solution is integrated with local banking and local taxing and different type of rules and conditions depending on the country taxing and accounting laws. However, if we go to other type of SaaS like productivity SaaS or product management SaaS, you can see that in this other type of offering, most of them are language targeted because most of project management tools are called in the same way, independently of the country. In English for example, you call project management software in the UK, in the US, in Australia. And they're offering, their personality won't change. It's changes is trivial. It's like the pricing and they can change that dynamically and it's not such a big change that is worth it to create different type of versions. So you can see that there's a very... From red it doesn't changes it all to green. It doesn't change to nothing or there's a midpoint that it changes just a bit, but it doesn't compensate to create country versions. And the best way to assess that is really to do very granular keyword competition research. See which are the websites ranking for your top queries in that particular location that you want to run for and see which are the terms that are actually used of those best ranking ones, see how they address and what is their offering, what is their web structure are their ccTLDs? Are they subdomains, subdirectories and how they are explaining, describing, wording the product or the service and take that as an input to assess further. Mordy Oberstein: And that's a really good point about laws, because I think it's multiple times where the laws of Pacific region around them say... I think one of the case I was looking at was car insurance. The laws in different countries around car insurance will create different needs within the market and totally different queries that are now relevant, that won't be relevant in other markets. Let me ask you another question though. What if you're targeting, let's say a country like Belgium, where it's not just, okay, they have different laws, let's say England. It's in the country itself, they speak different languages. Aleyda Solis: Yeah, 100%. It's the same with Canada, right? English and French too. And there are quite a few countries like that. Well, it depends on really the search volume and the search potential that each one of these languages have, right? In the case of Belgium for example, most of the searches are the most popular languages will be French and then also Flemish, which is very, very like Dutch. But again, it's like, okay, again, your capacity where most of the searches for your product are happening in French or in Flemish and based on that to prioritize accordingly. Because indeed, so for example, in Spain actually, you can take that to the very extreme and it might not necessarily be worthy. Spanish is the language that everybody knows internationally about Spain. But the original languages are very well used regionally too. So in Catalonia it's Catalan. I live in the Basque Country actually in Spain and the Basque language is completely different to anything else out there. And then the Galician language. So I mean you can go very granular if you want, but again, this is not about being let's say politically correct or being super granular because of course that will be the ideal work, whatever. But we don't have unlimited resources. What we really want is that this new versions generate money, generate sales, generate traffic, and these are ROI positives. So at the end of the day, just think about what are the languages that your audience in that country are actually searching for your products on services. And here, coincidentally again, speaking about car rentals, is one of those sectors or businesses where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain for your website because of the target market, the audience. These are a lot of international travelers, holiday makers, whatever, coming here, renting cars. So there is a non-trivial search volume about hiring cars in Barcelona, renting cars in Madrid. Actually that is another edge case where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain, in France, in non-speaking English countries, 100%. Crystal Carter: I think it can get very complicated, but I think it's worthwhile because I think it demonstrates trust. So we have a great article from Adriana Stein talking about translation versus localization. And I think that when people can see that... And again, it's worthwhile. So for instance, if you were a hyper-local business that was in the Basque Country and was serving people for traditional Basque Country activities or something like that, it would make sense for you to connect with them in that language. And if you're searching on the SERP and you see that that's written in that language and they know the terms that are related to the thing, then you go, okay, these people know what they're talking about, they actually know what's going on. This isn't somebody who just pressed a button to translate this. They actually know they actually care. And I think that that can be really useful. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean if you do really have the capacity and the resources and if it is an important market for you, you should totally go ahead. And if it is a minimum effort too, you should definitely go ahead and do the extra mile and personalize because that can make a complete difference for it. So for example, in my case, I was back in the day, I am originally from Nicaragua. When I was living still in Nicaragua and Nicaragua is such a small country, it's also a poor country. So we were so very used to get all of this marketing actions in TV even or in Billboard or whatever, that we're so obviously not targeted at Nicaragua because we actually speak, like the way that we word things in Spanish is like in Argentina, like with the dos. So we put an accent at the end of each, pretty much conjugation and the verbs. And we don't say two, we say dos. And we had a lot of these billboards and TV ads and whatever with the two and we were like, oh, this was just generic ads for all Latin American people, whatever is not for us. But then it made all, little by little you could tell that they were making more efforts toward things to change things. And it was a minimum thing really pretty much to change up a couple of wordings. The rest was exactly the same, but at least they took care and this is actually really for us. The engagement and I think the connection with the brand or the offering increase. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I've heard SEOs talk about some of the communities where you get sort of hybrid languages. So there was somebody who was from Mexico and she was from the north of Mexico. Ms. Marie White actually was talking about this and she's from the north of Mexico and she was like, we need Spanglish. And they were like, what? She was like, people on the border of the United States and Mexico, everybody speaks Spanglish. And so they started adding in some of that into some of their copy and they started to get a lot of good response from that because also people have phones where they're searching both in English and in Spanish. And this is going to happen in lots of places where there's people who speak multiple languages. I don't know if you have any tips or any examples from sort of hybrid searches and adapting for that. Aleyda Solis: So for example, again, it depends a lot on the industry, but the industry, that can be crazy. Speaking about car rental, car rental in Spanish, you can say in so many different ways. So this is one industry that if you are for in, it really needs to be very well localized, especially because also a lot of the queries are also with location, connected with location, with your current city or the city where you want to go. And you can call “carro”, “coche”, just three terms for the same thing, for car. And the same also where the property... I have had quite a lot of clients across different countries in the property market. And for apartment in Spanish you can call it [foreign language 00:24:35]. So three different ways again for the same thing. And well, it's the same in the UK and the US flats and apartment. But in Spanish I think that because there are so many different countries that have it as a native language, there's so many different correct ways to say it. So especially for this very localized services and products, car rental, property, it's very, very worthy to go very granular, double check and validate how they are the right way or the relevant way to call it in that particular market. Because it's definitely going to change not only the name of the locations or the countries, but the term too, very likely. Crystal Carter: Can I ask you one question about attending technical? So sometimes when I worked on the international SEO campaigns or international SEO projects. I've seen it where sometimes Google can't figure out which one is the main one, even when you canonicalize it. And I don't know if you've seen that and if you have any sort of recommendations for how to address that particular challenge. Aleyda Solis: Yes, thank you very much for asking that. Actually, I think that this scenarios happen when you have a very, very established powerful, popular original version that you had... Usually the US one, that then it perform a little bit also like the global one for a while. And then you have, let's say a UK version or an Indian version, they are also in the same language. However, well they target their own audience. And in those particular scenarios we may see that the copy might be very, very similar because it actually makes sense because in that particular context, the product, the service is actually searched with the same terms. And in general the behavior of the user connecting to them, it's very similar. And so it's harder for Google to understand which is the right version. Even if you implement hreflang, remember that hreflang is one of many signals. So for those particular scenarios, what I highly, highly recommend to do to help Google further, is to add the name of the country in the metadata, add the name of the country or the location or the offices in case you have offices or subsidiaries or partners within the copy. The information that you are targeting those particular markets, personalize the message. So whatever examples or testimonials or information, give additional signals that, oh, this is for India, this is for the UK. And also a typical mistake that I see websites doing all the time is that in the country picker that the menu, the global menu that you may have, many of these are JavaScript generated, they are not crawlable. The links are always going to the homepage of the alternate version. Know your product A page should cross-link to your product A page in India, to your product A page in the US, in the UK. So the product A page in the US that has millions of backlinks can pass that link popularity accordingly to the product page of other countries. Rather than product page in other countries never be able to rank or not showing enough popularity to rule and not ranking because of that, right? So I believe that good crosslinking is critical. Localizing everything, every single signal that you can give to Google. This is especially important when you are targeting different countries with the same language. As examples of indeed like how your product make the life easier for relevant audience within that country. All these additional signals also help a lot. And of course hreflang notations, correct canonicalization too, in each one of these pages, that is also important. And if you have the capacity to promote within the relevant country to attract backlinks of local specific websites that will point to that particular country web version, the best will be, because many, many times the US slash global version was the one that existed before. All of the backlinks from India are still pointing also only to the US and the UK point to the US one rather than the relevant version. So little by little like that, you are able to give the right signals for Google to run the relevant version of the website. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great way to put it. You're helping Google. It's really complicated. I think they have a really hard time as somebody who lives in a non-English speaking country, but only searches for the most part in English. I get all sorts of cross results all the time. Google really does sometimes have a really hard time figuring it out. I've worked on sites where they're showing the wrong page and it was completely on Google's end to understand what was what. Aleyda Solis: Google thinks that I am a British living in Spain. I am all the time shown ads. And in Google discover too, recommend reads for British in Spain because I guess that's because they identified that a lot of British expat here or live in Spain by the way, that since I am searching in English so much, I should be a British living in Spain. Mordy Oberstein: The opposite I have. I only search in English basically, and Google discover will show me stuff in Hebrew now. I never search, I don't know what I'm looking at. Don't show that to me. But I'm getting used to knowledge panels- Aleyda Solis: Opportunity for you to learn Hebrew. Mordy Oberstein: Nati, Head of SEO, he gives me a hard time about knowing Hebrew well enough. So I think it's him behind the scenes pushing Google to let me learn more Hebrew. Aleyda Solis: 100%. Mordy Oberstein: It's a conspiracy. Aleyda, thank you so much for coming on. Don't forget to follow Aleyda on Twitter, on LinkedIn. Aleyda Solis: If you're not following Aleyda Solis. Mordy Oberstein: If you're not already, it's @aleyda on Twitter. We'll link to your profile in the show notes. And of course it's learningseo.io and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to the SEOFOMO and now the marketing FOMO newsletters. Aleyda Solis: Just reached a thousand subscribers a week ago and I'm actually preparing it for this Wix edition too. I'm so very excited too. Because in SEO we are also sometimes too isolated focusing on it. And there's so much happening in other markets, in other channels of marketing by the way. And we can learn a lot from them and leverage, learn to leverage them and to, yeah... That's definitely interesting. Crystal Carter: As well as Crawling Mondays as well as remoters.net. Aleyda Solis: Oh right. Crystal Carter: As well as Remoters.net SEO. So yes. Mordy Oberstein: Aleyda, thank you for everything you do for the community. Aleyda Solis: No, thank you for the opportunity to share with you and everything what you do too. Really appreciate it. Mordy Oberstein: So one of the things that Aleyda touched on, which as a content person and as an expat myself kind of irks me about international strategies, that sometimes you don't fully appreciate how hard it is to actually localize the content to best align, not with the GEO’s language, but with the cultural idiosyncrasies and so forth. So we thought we get a serious expert on content to share their thoughts on building an international content strategy so that Crystal and I could offer you a very, very special version of a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Except this time it's not a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Let's get into what Giuseppe had to say first. Take it away, Giuseppe. Giuseppe Caltabiano: Well thank you for having me first of all. That's a very good question. Now let me say, despite the pandemic, my passion for traveling has not changed. In a way, it has been a constant of my life, whether I was on road for business or pleasure. The reason why I'm saying this is that travel really fueled my passion for global marketing, specifically for global content marketing. My travels have given me a better understanding of the world. But the reality is, when I launched my first new global content marketing program for Schneider Electric, that was 10 years ago. I thought I knew the world, but when you have to develop content for different geographies, well it feels like you have never stepped outside your front door, while I've always covered international or global roles. I remember, my first global content marketing journey started 10 years ago, when my team and I began defining Schneider Electric IT division global content strategy. Our goals were two fold: Lead Gen, first of all, marketing opportunities and secondly, increased brand awareness. Now after defining our strategy, we spent eight months preparing for the global launch through multiple pilots. We learned an incredible amount from our success and mistakes. And then one year later I replicated the same model with global clients when I moved to NewsCred, which is now part of Optimizely, at the beginning of 2017 and then later in Contently in 2019. Now the issue I found in most of the cases is that content marketers just try to replicate at global level what they have done in some cases with some success at central or local level. Well that's a big mistake. The thing is that global content marketing is not just content marketing deployed across multiple countries. Enterprise will need to plan, find the right balance between global and local. They have to pilot and then scale at global level. If they fail at one of these steps, of course usually they may fail with the full program. I think there are three main steps global marketers need to follow in order to design a proper content marketing strategy. First of all, finding the optimal balance between central and local. Now in most of the regions, I mean take Asia or Europe for example, there are thousands of countries and languages. It's simply unrealistic to make the same content work for each individual market. For this reason, creating content centrally and allowing countries to fill the gaps may represent a good solution. I've been working with both organizations, centralized and decentralized. Some organization have a very unclear understanding of local markets, which is the reason why involvement of countries or regions in content planning is really key. The role of central teams may shift of course as the program progress. In the early stages of the program, the flow of information is very outwards with the central team leading content production and strategy. And then as global content program flourish and progress, the emphasis on the central team shift to providing guidance and building local content skills and competencies. The second step is establishing local editorial board. While of course the central editorial team will generate content, a global level local editorial board have to be placed. And I mean this is really a key. In each country or on geography to manage proper planning and distribution, the local editorial board will agree with the central team on target personas. They lead the decision for distribution, content distribution, they contract local vendors and so on and so forth. The third and final point is piloting your content market strategy. The thing is piloting means starting small. Large enterprises are running pilot programs across geographies. It's a common practice, great ideas often receive resistance. You need to start small, test if your strategy is working, get results, and then finally create a proper business case, in order to allow a global content marketing program. In a global content marketing model, you ideally need to set up the pilot program as a test in one of two countries and usually no more than two different languages if possible. And then you run the pilot program with a full integration with the existing marketing technologies. And finally, of course if it's successful, you may roll out your program to the other geographies. I realize that this is probably super simplification, but it may give you a good overview of what to do in order to create a global content marketing program. Mordy Oberstein: So I don't know where to start with it, because Giuseppe makes a bunch of really, really, really, really good points. But I guess let's talk about a point that I feel I personally probably gloss over all the time in talking about global content strategies, is that the fact that you have to balance the global with the local. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, entirely. It's something that is really, really important. And I think that it applies to lots of elements of international SEO and even regional SEO. Even if you think about the United States for instance, there's different laws in different states, there's different realities. February in Florida is very different from February in New Hampshire for instance. So there are definitely things to consider about which products to put out, which content to put out, what makes sense, where all of these things are really important. Mordy Oberstein: The same thing with local SEO also. You might have a local presence, you might also have a more international presence or a national presence. So balancing this out is really, really important. Because you don't want to go all in on the global and then ignore the fact you also have a local presence or cannibalize a local presence with your global presence. You really have to think about what pages should exist. It's really about planning. What pages should exist, where do they exist on the domain, what are they trying to do? Where are they trying to target? And how do we keep what they're trying to do somewhat separate from each other. Crystal Carter: There's a section where he discussed planning and some of the work that's gone into planning. He was saying they spent eight months planning a particular campaign and that can take a lot of time. So these things should be well thought out and should take all of the things into account. Because of course it's important to have a global presence. If you think of a company like IKEA for instance, IKEA has global things and actually IKEA's approach to marketing tends to be fairly universal worldwide. But that's a distinct strategy that they've taken, which is really very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: It works for them. Crystal Carter: It works for them. Mordy Oberstein: I'm not sure it works for others. Crystal Carter: Exactly. But they will understand that. Even I know that... We recently had an IKEA open near us and they ran a specific hyper-local campaign launching the store. And I know that they have general activities there, but the global brand will impact the local brand and vice versa. So it's really important to make sure that they line up. But that also that if part of your brand is making sure that you care about your customers, making sure that it's very clear that you are respectful of your customers, then respecting the local cultural elements is really, really important. And localizing appropriately will help you to demonstrate that. Mordy Oberstein: Which goes to what Aleyda was saying about the advertisement she would see growing up and really speaks to what Giuseppe was talking about, and just another amazing point, in that there's really no way around having a local expert. Giuseppe was talking about they have a board and that local board offers feedback on the overall global camp. How much do you want to automate, especially in the world of AI and ChatGPT. But in general, how much do you want to try to automate or try to template from the global strategy into the local areas, you can't. You have to have somebody who understands what that region's all about, what works, what doesn't work, the interest, the way of talking, all the idiosyncrasies of that region. There's no way around knowing that other than you having some actual integration into that community, which means you need a local expert Crystal Carter: Indeed. And there's idioms that will make people feel more warmly towards your brand. There are particular celebrations or particular things that are important milestones. So for instance, in the Mediterranean you see a lot of these things with the blue eye for instance. That's something that means good luck or prosperity and things like that. If you have the same symbol and somewhere else it would be less recognized. And there are things that visually, for instance, would be really, really recognizable. And that's something to think about as well. And these are things like you said, that you can't get from a bot necessarily. You have to have humans there. Adriana Stein is someone who has worked with us on some localizing projects and she wrote an article on translation versus localization. And she gets into a lot of these details. She talks about the direct translation from English to German of beating around the bush for instance, which... He did the direct translation, it doesn't convey the same sentiment as if you do a localized translation of their idiom for that same sort of thing. And what you want is the sentiment. You want the sentiment of that statement rather than the direct translation because it's an idiom. Mordy Oberstein: And you have cultural biases and there's no way around them. I'll give you a great example. I think I might have talked about it in the podcast at one point, but growing up every day, I used to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I moved to Israel, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at work one day and someone's like, what's that? I'm like, peanut butter and jelly. And they're like, what is that? They do not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Blew my mind, to this day, absolutely blows my mind. It is the go-to sandwich in America. To this day, I still eat them, because they're so delicious. Crystal Carter: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are suitable for every meal. Mordy Oberstein: Every meal and in between meals, all meals. Crystal Carter: Anytime you eat- Mordy Oberstein: You can live on them. Crystal Carter: You can live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They're quality, quality. Mordy Oberstein: We do not eat them where I currently live. And if you were talking about them, it would be like you if you're trying to target that or if you're using it as a reference and whatever it is, it would be lost because it is not the same thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah, entirely. And I think these are things that you have to get. And I think that it takes... One of the reasons why it takes so long to plan for a sort of global SEO or marketing campaign, is that you have to take those things into account. You have to make sure that you have good experts for wherever you're based. Wix is, we work in 17 different languages and we work in lots of different spaces. Someone that we work with in Japan is someone called Titone. He's fantastic, he's amazing, he's incredible. And we worked with the team at Faber as well to do some SEO webinars. We didn't think like, oh, we should swat in and do the SEO webinar ourselves. From a remote team, we got local experts to help us with that and to help us engage in, because for instance, with search in Japan, for instance, the way that the web is structured is slightly different because they have different kinds of writing. So this is really important to think about. And so there's going to be people who have more experience in that and more experience of the way that the people use the web and the different search engines that they use and the different things that will come up first for that particular audience. And you have to think about the people on your team who are genuine experts and you have to make sure that you build up those relationships. And that takes time. And also I think it's important, particularly from a content point of view, to think about how you get traction an at what point, how much of a foothold you need to have in a market in order to get some traction in a market. Especially if your team isn't specifically based there, but you're trying to connect with an audience in a different place. You have to sort of figure out how much content do we need? What investment do we need? And Aleyda talked about this as well, what investment do you need in order to be able to serve those customers well? And I think that these can take time, but hopefully it's worth it, if that's a market that's good for you. Mordy Oberstein: Now speaking of time, do you know what time it is? Crystal Carter: What time is it? What time is it? Mordy Oberstein: Snappy News. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's here. I mean, snappy news, snappy news, snappy news, but oh my God, it's here. Google has opened its Search Generative Experience, SGE. Two select folks on the wait list, yours truly, not among them. I can't even get on the wait list? Something about it not being open to my account, I don't know. Personal grumblings aside, we got our first look at what Google's Search Generative Experience is going to look like. Follow me here for a second. Danny Goodwin at Search Engine Land covered Barry Schwartz and his covering of his initial experience with the SGE. Barry got access to the SGE or the Search Generative Experience, but had to go offline for a few days. So Danny covered Barry covering the SGE. We'll link to the article in the show notes, because there're already heap of examples and you should definitely look at them. Just looking at it myself, I just want to say, don't panic. It looks like there are plenty of organic link placements all throughout the experience. Mike King from iPullRank, who did a whole webinar with us on AI and SEO, he said quote, "it's basically an interactive feature snippet, but it doesn't feel as threatening to organic search traffic as the original demos made it feel." Good news. All right, who wants some more big news? Yeah, Google held its marketing live event and friend of the show who join us talking about SCOM PPC over at Cypress North, Greg Finn did an amazing job covering all of the updates that Google announced to its ad platform and beyond. Check that out in the show notes as well over at Search Engine Land. Some takeaways, they're personal. When I took a look at the keynote, one of the things I took away was a Google talks about how people search and how it's changing, how they're looking at longer queries and how they're more conversational, what they're looking for, and they're looking for more specific things than ever before. People are being far more specific when they search. Some might say not new. Old, not new. I agree it's not new, but I feel like now this is an official part of the conversation that we as SEOs, the content marketers, the content creators need to get on board with. Also ads will be in the Search Generative Experience, the SGE or as I'm just going to call it the AI box. When Google announced the SGE or the AI box at Google I/O 2023, it made it seem the ads would be above the box itself, not part of the actual Search Generative Experience. But at Marketing Live, they show that yes, it's going to be right there in that whole SGE ecosystem. Also, say goodbye to Google Merchant Center and say hello to Google Merchant Center NEXT. It's next level because it will take a lot of the techier parts of connecting to Google Merchant Center out of the equation by pulling information straight from your site into the Merchant Center feed. Next, well, nothing is next because that's this week's snappy news. And well, that was the news. How newsy was it? So Newsy. Always so newsy. Which brings us to our follow of the week as the episode ebbs away and this week our follow of the week as we're going international SEO is none other than Veruska Anconitano. Crystal Carter: Veruska is fantastic. She's a member of Women in Tech SEO. She's an amazing international SEO- Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: What's this? Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: A contributor to the hub, which I was just going to get to. Yeah, she's a- Mordy Oberstein: Sorry for jumping the gun. Crystal Carter: She's multilingual. And yeah, she wrote an article called Why Cultural Relevance is Key to International SEO Success, and it's absolutely fantastic. So yeah, she speaks many languages and she talks a lot about the different elements that come into play when you're thinking about engaging with international markets that are not just some of the technical SEO elements that can be easy to implement, relatively speaking. But some of the cultural elements in, we're thinking about cultural identity and how that impacts search and what people search for and how people search. It's a great article. She's a great follow. She's also an expert on Rome, so I knew someone who was going to Rome and I tagged her and she was like, oh, let me tell you all of the places that you should eat. Mordy Oberstein: And her Twitter account is really informative. She had a post on skyscraper content the other day that kind of made me laugh. There's a lot of really good content in her feed. It's not just one of these accounts where you're going to file but not really getting SEO value out of it. It's a definite value in the SEO knowledge itself. So it's @LaCuochina on Twitter. We'll link to Veruska's profile in the show notes. But definitely give her a follow. Which means our episode is now over. Crystal Carter: Finito. Mordy Oberstein: Finito. Ooh, very good. Crystal Carter: Finn. Mordy Oberstein: Finn. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, hasta la vista. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know how to say the end in any other language. Crystal Carter: S ayonara! Mordy Oberstein: Sure. Adios. That's really goodbye, not the end. Anyway, thanks for joining us on this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us, not to worry, we're back next week with the brand new episodes. We dive into how to build a content strategy SEO and beyond. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on 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, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . 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Evergreen content or trending topics? Which has the biggest impact on your organic traffic strategy? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are back to discuss evergreen & trending content for SEO and how to balance the two strategically. Offering his perspective, the founder of NewzDash, John Shehata, shares how he synchronizes both emerging and evergreen content for SEO. Plus, take a trip over to the top of the SERP to investigate the latest “emerging” SERP feature. Take your training wheels off because, on episode 76 of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast, you’ll learn how to balance evergreen and emerging topics for SEO harmony. Back The great balance between evergreen & trending content for SEO & beyond Evergreen content or trending topics? Which has the biggest impact on your organic traffic strategy? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are back to discuss evergreen & trending content for SEO and how to balance the two strategically. Offering his perspective, the founder of NewzDash, John Shehata, shares how he synchronizes both emerging and evergreen content for SEO. Plus, take a trip over to the top of the SERP to investigate the latest “emerging” SERP feature. Take your training wheels off because, on episode 76 of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast, you’ll learn how to balance evergreen and emerging topics for SEO harmony. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 76 | February 28, 2024 | 50 MIN 00:00 / 50:25 This week’s guests John Shehata John Shehata is the CEO and Founder of NewzDash, the enterprise SEO company specializing in enterprise audience growth, SEO and News-SEO SAAS tools. John is a highly experienced audience growth consultant with over 25 years of expertise in the digital marketing space and search engine optimization (SEO). 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. We're putting together 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 ever constant, although sometimes emerging, head of SEO communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello internet, SEO people. Welcome to the podcast. We have emerged, but we are always here in the podcast ecosystem, and you can find us where you find podcasts all the time. It's just an evergreen resource for you to learn and enjoy SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Evergreen, like those trees that just don't care about winter. Crystal Carter: They don't. They're like, "Winter schminter." Mordy Oberstein: Winter schminter. Crystal Carter: I don't care. I got needle leaves. The snow goes right through me. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Not only do they not care about the temperature, but we've got snow covered too. Just be gone, snow. Crystal Carter: Do what I like. Whenever I think of evergreens, I think of the tree that I keep in my garden. Which I have a little evergreen tree, and I bought him a big pot. He's a little lopsided. Bless him, but I like him anyway. We've had him for a while. Mordy Oberstein: Do you talk to him? Crystal Carter: No, no. We bring him inside for Christmas and cover him in junk. And I always think that all the other trees are making fun of him. They're like, "Look at you. You look like an idiot in December." And he's like, "Oh, you know, whatever." Mordy Oberstein: So do you usually have conversations in your mind about various trees talking to each other, or just sometimes? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I used to talk to my kid about how the trees would take a nap at winter time. They take a nap, they get themselves ready for bed, and then they take a nap at wintertime. Then they wake up in the spring. Mordy Oberstein: What do you call it when the tree becomes, I don't know, your chair. That's not a nap. It's like a permanent nap time. Crystal Carter: I mean, there's a book about that. I think that the Giving Tree, or something like that. Mordy Oberstein: The Giving Tree, Shell Silverstein. Crystal Carter: Who is fantastic. And yeah, it touches the old heart right there. Gets you right there. Mordy Oberstein: You know what else touches the heart? Crystal Carter: What's that? Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also download SEO checklist templates, toolkits, cheat sheets, and more. Head over to Wix, SEO. But look for our new resource center, it will help you emerge victorious and stay that way forever. Too mas, too much overselling? Crystal Carter: No, I mean, I think I definitely have warm and fuzzy feelings about our resource center. I think it's incredible. I think it makes me feel warm inside and like a lovely mug of cocoa. Mordy Oberstein: Well, speaking of emerging and everlasting, that's precisely our topic today, in case you haven't guessed. I feel like we drop Easter eggs every episode for a good five minutes, about what the episode is going to be about. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: We don't need the topic. You should already know by now what it is. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Just take it all in. We're ready. We're ready for you. Mordy Oberstein: But officially, we're taking a hard look at SEO for evergreen topic versus SEO for emerging topics. Which is harder, ranking for emerging or evergreen content? Why would you even want to focus on emerging content versus evergreen content? And how the content formats impact your approach to SEO. Plus an absolute SEO legend, especially for news content, the former global VP of Audience Development at Condé Nast, and the founder of the new SEO tool, NewzDash, John Shehata will stop by to share how he balances focusing on both emerging and evergreen content for SEO. We'll also head to the top of the SERP and look at what's happening for an emerging-ish content feature, or a little SERP feature, that seems to be spreading its wings. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So put on your fanciest spandex overalls and climb up to the type rope that is this circus, that is all about balancing SEO for evergreen and emerging content on this, the 76th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. I've always wanted one of those spandex overall suits that they used to put on people in the circus, where they used to shoot them out of a canon kind of thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. The strongman sort of suits. Yeah, no- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, the strongman suit. Exactly. Crystal Carter: Yeah. They recently bought back gladiators in the UK on the BBC, and there's a lot of that, those sort of- Mordy Oberstein: American Gladiators, where the whole tone is steroids. Crystal Carter: The Netflix documentary on that can confirm. Mordy Oberstein: I didn't watch that. I saw that. Crystal Carter: It will absolutely confirm that. Mordy Oberstein: It looks disturbing. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. Mordy Oberstein: What do you want from a dude whose name is Nitro? Crystal Carter: I know. I mean, I feel like you could do that for SEOs, but they'd be more like, I don't know- Mordy Oberstein: Markup. Crystal Carter: Right? Markup, here comes Markup. Mordy Oberstein: Here comes Markup. Crystal Carter: SEO gladiators. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, no, it's Redirect. Crystal Carter: He's going to disallow the competitor who's coming in. Mordy Oberstein: Well done. Well done. Crystal Carter: Thank you very much. Okay. All right. So speaking of IPs that have lasted a long time, we are going to be talking about SEO and for ever evergreen content, and how it differs from other content. I think one of the things that's important to think about is that when we talk about evergreen content, that's essentially the kind of content that you expect to rank for a long time, that you expect to be on your page for a long time. And it's important to think about what that might be for your business. So depending on what business you have, these will be maybe some of your core keywords, and they might be some of the core topics, but it's also worth balancing that with content that's in the now, that's happening regularly, that's being updated. So for instance, if you were to talk about game shows like American Gladiators, or a competitions and things like that, it might be the- Mordy Oberstein: Like the Price is Right. Crystal Carter: Oh, Price is Right. Oh, that's a great show. Mordy Oberstein: Really competitive. $1 Bob. Crystal Carter: $1. Come on down. So for instance, if you were talking about a particular topic, you would want to have a page that ranked for that, but you'd also want to have news coming through there. And this can give you a few different levers for connecting with new customers and for getting different value from the SERP. So for instance, if you were a Beyonce fan club website or Beyonce fan site, you would probably have a general page that was maybe about fun facts about Beyonce, or maybe her discography, or that sort of thing. So you might have something like that, that's a core piece of content that you don't expect to update that often. It ranks for a certain number of core keywords, and it's essentially the top of your pillar. So when you think about content clusters, it will essentially be the top of your pillar. Along with that, you might want to add in trending topics. So let's say Beyonce's in the news. So she was recently in, and I'm a big fan, so I know no way too much about this. But she was recently in the news because she had her film released, and Taylor Swift came to the release. So that's something that you might want to add in. So you might have an evergreen page on your site, that's generally about Taylor Swift and Beyonce's history together, because they have a bit of history. And so you might want to have that there. But then you can add in a webpage that talks about the new thing that happened where Taylor Swift came to the premier in London. Then you might want to have another article that talks about how Beyonce went to Taylor Swift's film release as well. All of these things can be interlinked. I think that's the important thing to think about, about evergreen content. Evergreen content is a really good opportunity to make sure that you have links that last to your content, and that you can link to, and that also that other people can link to. And this is also something that can be really, really useful if you're somebody who does something on an annual basis, or a seasonal basis as well. We talked about seasonality, but for instance, if you have a situation where you are doing an awareness day, and it happens every year, it's worth having an evergreen page that is general information about that awareness day, that you can link to when you're talking about the one for this year, or you're talking about the event, or you're talking about other things that are related to it. But think about evergreen content as being sort of the anchor for some of the other trending topics that you can add into your website, and that you can keep people coming back and being more enthused about the new content. Mordy Oberstein: So to that point, and one of the ways I think about emerging content, and I've been thinking a lot about it lately, just coincidentally, a lot lately. First off, it is a brand play. Like you're saying, if you want to show that you're current, that you're relevant, that you're in the know about this. For example, that they were recording this, I just found out yesterday that Billy Joel was releasing a new song for the first time 17 years. Crystal Carter: Right, okay. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah, just some new song, 17 years, new album would be, I don't know, like 30 years. But anyway, if you have a website about Billy Joel, which that sounds fabulous and super trendy, just like Taylor Swift and Beyonce, the same, a little bit less hair, but anyway. You wouldn't want to add that onto your website so people understand that you actually know what you're talking about, about the topic. But you can also use it as a brand play and even SEOs. First off, as an SEO play, when you're trying to get started. So as you're trying to get your website going and you're trying to get some momentum and some cadence, like we talked about on a previous podcast episode, you need to have a digital presence. And that means people will stay sharing your content in social media, and then maybe eventually taking the content they're seeing on social media being shared, and linking to that. Look at the web as a dark sky. It is pitch black out there, and Google's looking for lights. You want your lights to be big, so that Google goes to it. So having a well-established digital presence is very, very important for getting SEO momentum. Your evergreen topics are not as trendy. They're not as trendy, they're not as cool, and they're not going to get shared as much. They're really meant, in my mind, that's an SEO play. But if you're getting started and you want people to know who you are and look to you, the emerging content, that trendy-ish or emerging kind of topics, that's what's going to get shared on social, that's going to get those initial links, and that's going to let you pull in traffic from evergreen topics as Google starts to recognize that you are a worthwhile digital entity. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that the evergreen topic should be a very strategic, in an effort to establish your authority. So for instance, if you're talking about Billy Joel or whatever, you need to be able to say, "Oh, in his corpus of work," or something, and refer to yourself, right? Mordy Oberstein: It has to be that balance. You have to be able to balance back between the different types of pieces to establish that credibility, 100%. Crystal Carter: So you're showing this to people who are visiting your website and you're showing this to Google as well. So you're able to refer to yourself, here's all of the things that I know about the history of this particular musical artist and the things that they've done. Here's this new cool thing that you found. And so this gives you a couple of different levers. And I think that that's the important thing to think about when you're doing SEO and everybody thinks like, "Oh, I want to get on page one." It's like there are lots of page ones. There's page ones of images, there's page one of news, there's page one of lots of different filters within Google, so think about all of those. And the news items and the trending topics are going to have less competition in the first instance, right? First movers get a value. So there's definitely a first mover advantage in terms of trending topics. But again, if you're able to anchor that with your evergreen content, that will add more effort to that. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You have to balance back and forth. It's why we asked John what we asked John in a few moments, we'll get to that. But it's a great point about emerging topics being great places to get started, because there is no search volume. There is no end date, but I'll say you have to be a little bit careful. Let's say, okay, we're recording this three weeks out of the Super Bowl. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, three weeks. Okay. Let's say Lamar Jackson, the quarterback for the Ravens, breaks both of his legs in some sort of miracle and can't play that. I don't like the Ravens. I was going to say that. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I was like, "Miracle?" Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, sorry. I don't know. Let's make it, yeah, let's say he breaks both of his legs. I'm just going to go with it. It's a highly authoritative kind of topic, meaning the websites that generally rank for this kind of stuff are super authorities. It's a high interest topic, it's the Super Bowl. Who's Google going to turn to cover this story on the web? It's going to be things like ESPN, CBS news. So just because it's emerging, doesn't mean that it's not highly competitive. You need to be strategic about what you target for emerging topics. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. There's a fantastic article on the Wix SEO hub called Finding Trending Keywords for SEO, and they talk about this as well. You need to think about that, absolutely. But it's also really, really important to think about where you're getting your trending topics from. We have a section on the podcast that talks about people also ask, fun with people also ask. People also ask updates incredibly quickly. So if there was an accident and somebody said he had a thing, people will also ask, say, "What happened to this person?" And people also ask would update quickly, and Google will be looking for an answer to that question. If you have that answer on your website, then they will send traffic to you. And this is something that, and again, it also demonstrated expertise that you know that that happened just now, and you were that quick to make it happen. Mordy Oberstein: And that people are looking for it. Because this is what gets a little bit tricky with emerging content, you have to have your finger on the pulse. It's not like one of those kind of things in SEO, you're like, "Ah, I'll use a tool. I don't really understand the niche." There's no way around it. You have to understand that niche because you need to know if it's worthwhile. Sure, you can rank for it, but if it's completely obscure and not really the real story, or the story's going to change in a day anyway, and there's really very limited opportunity for this aspect of the story to rank, not worth it necessarily. So you have to have your finger on the pulse because there are no search volumes, there are no historical trends. So seeing something like the people also ask update, will tell you, signal, okay, people are actually looking for this. But you probably want to use social media, obviously. You really just want to have your finger on the pulse and not just rely on the SERP, because the SERP, outside of things like the knowledge panel, people also ask can be very slow. Knowledge panel, by the way, great for seeing things like sports trades, it updates automatically. Crystal Carter: Right, right, right. Exactly. And I think that's something to think about with some of the trending topics as well. For some of the new things, sometimes Google offers some instant answers on some of those things, like sports scores for instance, that they have a widget for that. They have a thing that works on that. But I think this also comes to things like trending topics will come and go, and trending topics will happen very quickly, so there might be a lot of news that's coming out. For instance, let's say if we were talking about the World Series or something, there's going to be a lot of news about the World Series. But it would be worthwhile having a page about the World Series and whether it was the World Series for that year, or the World Series in general, but having some core content, some core evergreen content that you can link to all of those things. It's also really important as part of your SEO outreach activity. It's very, very difficult to try to build back links to trending topics, as a sort of long tail activity. So if you're trying to build back links to a news article or something, and the news is changing constantly, that's going to be tricky because you might need to make a new article, you might need to make a new post. It might change the link that you got, might be this, all of this sort of stuff. But if you have a core, like a guide, a core topic, evergreen piece, then you can shape a link building campaign around that. You can build a link building campaign around that. You can build that link building campaign for years. So one of the one things you see really often, is people will do an annual report. So there'll be the state of SEO or something, and I've seen that done really well. Or the state of video marketing, and they will update the report every year, but the back links, all of the links go to the same report. So the link stays the same and you maintain your link equity, and I think that's one of the core elements about evergreen content. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and that points to something I really wanted to talk about, which is that the strategy, the SEO strategy behind both types of content is very, very, very different. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: In my mind, evergreen content is more of your typical content strategy. It's very paced, it's very strategic, it's very topically-driven. What are the topics? What are the subtopics? What do I need to cover? How do I holistically cover all this? What's the next topic logically, and so forth. Emerging content is very strategic, but it's narrative-driven. Okay, what's the narrative? Not right now, I think it's a very important story in this area, is what's the narrative tomorrow going to be. And getting ahead of that, and then being strategic about where you fit in. Because if you're... Great, you figured out the narrative. You know tomorrow, Beyonce announced whatever today, which means that tomorrow this is going to be a big topic of discussion in this way. But now you're competing with Entertainment Weekly and People, and whatever. What's your angle going to be? What can you bring, because it's an emerging topic, it's trendy. What's your angle going to be? If you can't break the news, maybe you can aggregate the news and put stats together that way. Whatever it is, it's very strategic, but it's very different kind of an SEO and content strategy than evergreen topics, and your mindset needs to be completely different. I'll say one last point on this, if you're doing this and you have both types of content, which you should in general, you might need two different people with two different ways of thinking about things, to handle the different topics. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely true. Because I think that... So one of the things that Abby talks about in her trending topics things, is looking at scaling your social listening. That takes time, that takes time, that takes nuance, takes being aware. And also following everybody, you have to be somebody who's following everybody and who's looking at all of these things. Because sometimes the trending topics, particularly for some of the bigger things, will be things you don't expect at all. So for instance, if there was the BAFTAs, the BAFTAs happened, and there was that Angela Bassett does the thing, went viral all over Twitter. And lots of the bigger publications will have been straight in and had something ready to go, like fill in the blanks of who won the BAFTAs that night, but they would not have expected that particular Angela Bassett does a thing, to go absolutely mad online. So that is something that you won't get from generally scrolling the internet. That's something that you wouldn't necessarily pick up from generally looking at search volume, historical search data, because it's not there. It's not there. It happened then. And so people who are on the ground, people who are in the know, people who are thought leaders will be very well placed for this kind of content, for this kind of topical elements. And it's important to have those kinds of folks within your team for lots of reasons, as well as for some of the evergreen things. Mordy Oberstein: The point is emerging topics and evergreen, you very often need both, but they're very, very, very, very different. From the mindset between SEO and editorial, both types of topics, to the strategy, to the keyword research, to understanding the topics and predicting it, all of it's very, very different. And you need both, but you need to balance it. So how do you balance it? So we asked, he's an absolute SEO legend, especially in the news space like we mentioned, he's the founder of NewzDash, John Shehata. We asked John, how do you combine your evergreen content strategy to help you rank with your emerging content pieces? Take it away, John. John Shehata: One of the biggest questions I faced, or challenges I faced over the last 25 years working in my professional career, is the balancing act between writing about new trending, emerging news content and evergreen content. And it has been always challenging for so many publishers. You see publishers who are fully focused on one or the other. Today, I'm going to tell you it's important to have and maintain a balance. And each content type has its own pros and cons anyway. So if you talk about news, this is fresh, relevant content. It only drive traffic for maybe one to three days, max. It ranks instantly, so you can see your rankings within minutes after publishing content. It depends on your authority and other factors for sure. And all kind of traditional SEO work gets into it, plus freshness, CTR, and few news SEO ranking factors. So it's really good. It drives a lot of traffic, and it drives traffic immediately. And it gives you authority on the topics that you cover a lot. When it comes to evergreen, evergreen is really, it's continuous relevant content for the reader. So it's relevant today, it's relevant tomorrow, it's relevant next year, and so on. The beauty about it is it gets a lot of traffic, and this traffic can last a month, sometimes over a year, choose to last for much longer than that. But with more freshness updates, now we see maybe nine to 16 months of traffic, but it takes more time to rank. All the traditional SEO ranking factors get into it, and so on. So you have these two different types of ranking content types. The beauty about news is you get instant traffic, or almost minutes after posting. It also gets traffic from Discover, so most of the news content do very well in Google Discover, but evergreen on the other hand, provides you with sustainable traffic, especially with low news cycles. So we have seen this many times, the news is very hot and after a while it gets very, very slow and there's not much traffic your site is getting. Evergreen content helps you with that kind of an issue. But evergreen content doesn't appear much in Google Discover, rarely. It's more focused on news. So between these two, the question is how much content should I produce? My answer is always like 20-80 or 30-70 kind of approach, and it doesn't matter which direction. So you may want to produce, if the majority of your content is news. So you want to produce maybe 20% of your content in evergreen, and make sure that you refresh that content periodically, whenever that content goes below a certain threshold. And on the other side, if the majority of your content is evergreen, it might getting into news harder. So again, 80-20 kind of rule, you may want to select a certain topic or vertical, and cover all the news around it. And that will give you more instant traffic, and it help you all the time because the evergreen content takes more time to rank. I hope this was helpful to you guys, and thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, John. Make sure you check out John over on X at J-S-H-E-H-A-T-A, J Shehata. Also, make sure you check out NewzDash. If you're in the SEO space for news, you should definitely check out NewzDash. It's a dashboard to manage all of your news, SEO, getting instant SEO recommendations of visibility, track new search visibility and market share, monitor trends, and spy on the competition with NewzDash, little plug for John and NewzDash. There's so many points to dive into. One point we didn't mention before, is just the emerging content and Discover, that's how you're opening up to so much traffic potential by covering emerging topics and emerging trends. So even if you don't have to necessarily, you may want to. Crystal Carter: Right, right, right. And I think that what he was saying was that don't necessarily expect your emerging trending topics to rank all the time, because Discover will come and then it will go. And that's okay. That's fine. That's sort of what we expect. But I think that him talking about the sort of 80-20 rule, I think that's a great rule of thumb. And I think that also, this brings to mind some of the challenges with having that sort of mechanic and organic content, like the content that's responding to different trends and things, is that sometimes you have to be aware of which ones those are because you might also have to call those later on. Because as he says, they'll rank for a while, but then they won't rank for very long. So it might be that next year maybe that trend isn't a thing anymore, maybe people aren't interested in vuvuzelas anymore. Do you remember when vuvuzelas were a thing, when they had the World Cup in South Africa and vuvuzelas were a trending toy around- Mordy Oberstein: That's soccer? Crystal Carter: Yes, yes. Mordy Oberstein: All right. Crystal Carter: But they're not trending here anymore. So if you had content on that back in the day, then you don't necessarily need that content on your site anymore. So that's something that you should think about when you're doing this, trending topics is keeping on top of those as well, because of the way that the ebb and flow and because of the way that the traffic ebb and flows, and- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's a whole different paradigm. The ebb and flow, it's relevant one day, and not relevant the next day. If it's something that you're going to depend on, it means you something you're going to very much have to keep up on constantly, to keep on top of things and keep developing new content on a consistent, constant basis. And being in that case, if you're talking about Google Discover and all that kind of things, you need to establish yourself as a relevant entity around that. Which goes back to what you were saying before about establishing that with some of the evergreen content. Crystal Carter: Exactly. Balance. It's all about balance. Mordy Oberstein: All balance. Like Mr. Miyagi said, "First learn balance." Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: All comes back to Mr. Miyagi in every way, shape and form. Crystal Carter: I mean, we can wax on or wax off about any of these things, but- Mordy Oberstein: I would, but I have to go paint the fence. Sorry, I'm busy. Tomorrow, I would also, but I have to sand the floor. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay, of course. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, anyway. So anyway, there's a little feature that we wanted to talk about. It's spreading its wings across the SERP. In fact, we'll get to a little bit of data around how it's spreading wings. And sometimes it can appear for some trending-ish or trending adjacent sort of content, sometimes it appears with some evergreen-ish kind of content. It's definitely an interesting thing to know as we go to the top of the SERP. So we're talking about the things to know SERP feature, get it? Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Which by the way, according to Rank Ranger's data, it looks like prior to the start of January, it was ranking, or not ranking, it was appearing on 8% of all desktop SERPs. And now it shows that mobile SERPs rather, and now it's appearing as the time of this recording, because it could change by the time we release the episode. Now it's appearing around 10%, so a little two point jump for the things to know feature is spreading. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. I think people want to know these things. Mordy Oberstein: They do want to know the things. So just so you know what the things to know thing is, if you're searching for something, I don't know, social media addiction, I was going to search for screen time addiction because my kids are glued to fricking screens all the time. You get on desktop, you get a little panel to the right, that's called Things to Know. And basically, a series of tabs with a header, and then you can open up the tab and it'll show you information. So for example, for social media addiction, it talks about things to know our definition of, or symptoms of, or problems of. And you click a tab, and you basically get a little snippet of content, like a featured snippet that will tell you, "Yes. Why is social media addiction a problem? Social media addiction is a problem because it can lead to issues such as fear of missing out, anxiety and stress, and so forth." And it comes from a website. So it's basically little blurbs of content, little mini-featured snippets, or little people also ask, but they're topically set up. They're almost entity based around the topic. And they're very interesting to me, because again, they break down things topically and they offer you new traffic possibilities, or visibility possibilities. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that in terms of evergreen content, and this sort of more dynamic trending topic, I think it also can give you a steer in terms of the kinds of things that Google understands to be related to that entity, because they're very often associated. When I've seen them, I've seen them very often associated with things that are entity entities- Mordy Oberstein: Very entity-based, yeah. Crystal Carter: Right. So when I see them around, like I've seen them around blogging. The blogging term for instance, and they'll say things to know about blogging, like, oh, how to start a blog, or how long does it take to build one? What does it cost? That sort of thing. These are clues to the kinds of content that users are going to be expecting from somebody who's writing about that topic. They are clues to the kinds of information that is core to that entity. And I think that that's really important to think about. So I think on your social media one, there's definition, symptoms, problems, impact, these are the sort of core topics that are related to this. And I think that it's interesting, it's another example of Google using all the tools in their arsenal to sort of disambiguate, and to sort of offer different user journeys around some of these topics. And I think that it's important because it gives even, sometimes it gives you a clue into something that you might not have even considered. I've had it where I've looked up something, and it was like things to know, and it was like, "Oh, it might also cause these problems." And I say, "Oh, I hadn't even considered that." I would not have even Googled that before, but I'm getting a clue here from this particular feature. So I think that's interesting. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So what's interesting, I find interesting about it, first off, just to show you that it's entity-based, meaning that it's looking at the topic as an entity. Like what is this topic? How do we break it down? Conceptually, what is this topic? The format was stolen, not stolen, unless Google is stealing it from itself. From knowledge panels. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: And in knowledge panels, maybe a couple of years ago, I'm not good at the timelines. I always forget times. Google started adding tabs to knowledge panels. So I searched for Constitution of the United States, because we're in the middle of an election season so that came up. And it has saying words, rules, written by, all these different tabs. That format from the knowledge panel is essentially the format from things to know. And what it's doing is, like you mentioned, is topically parsing out the topic, which is why it's great to understand what do I need to know about this? Or for example, I looked up on CTE, which is the disease you get for being hit too many times in the head while playing American football. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: It's football, it's playoff time, right? Crystal Carter: Okay, okay. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And it has number of players, like how many NFL players have CTE, notable players CTE, percentage of NFL players have had CTE, causes. It's really breaking down topically what's relevant, but I also find that sometimes it shows up for things that kind of straddle the line between topics that are evergreen topics and topics that can also be looked at from an emerging topic point of view. So let's take autism education. So you're always going to have advances in that area, in that field. There's always going to be new things coming out. There's always going to be new topics to talk about, but it's also an evergreen sort of topic, because there's historical information, historical knowledge, historical data, all that kind of good stuff. And there's things to know, shows up. It has a tab for programs, autism education programs, has impact of autism on education, how to improve special education schools. So it's one of those things that if you're in an area where you're kind of on the line between, it's an emerging area, but it's also an evergreen area. And you need to create both of those kind of topics, or both of the kind of content. It can help you, A, understand what you need to have for the evergreen, but it can also help you understand how to contextualize- Crystal Carter: Yes, Mordy Oberstein: The emerging topics. Crystal Carter: Yes, that was the word that was rattling around in my head. It's precisely, precisely context. Context. These are topics that people need context on, and that's why it says things to know. So one of the examples you've pulled out is about AI. That's an emerging topic. Mordy Oberstein: Emerging, but it's also not emerging. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But it is emerging. Crystal Carter: It's also not emerging, but it's- Mordy Oberstein: But it's not emerging. It's so confusing. Crystal Carter: It's like a butterfly. Mordy Oberstein: I wish I hadn't bought an AI robot to tell me the answer if it's emerging not. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that's the thing. This is the web, and so sometimes people are coming to a topic completely new. They've never heard of this particular topic, so they need some context. Sometimes people have been working in AI for the whole time, they've been working in this field for the whole time, they don't need all the context or whatever. But I think what's fairly consistent around these things to know, is you tend to see them, and around the entity things, is I tend to see them for big, big head terms. So had term keywords, like shorter words, like AI, or a few words there because they're trying to give you enough context to go deeper, because Google's looking at your search and they're going, "This isn't all you want." You need to know what it is, or you need to know why it's like that, or you need to know something. Here's some context to guide you to get better information. We can give you better information if you give us better inputs. And I think that it's another opportunity for them to do that, and it's super useful for those who are thinking about building clusters around some of these head terms, and who are interested in thinking about how they can build, balance those clusters with some of that emerging topic content. Mordy Oberstein: Now you know what helps me have context for my life as an SEO person? Barry. Crystal Carter: Do you know who covers every emerging topic in SEO? Mordy Oberstein: And also sometimes hits an evergreen topics, like how many awards do I need to rank? Crystal Carter: I mean, I think he's probably one of the most evergreen entities in SEO. Mordy Oberstein: But he's also constantly emerging in all new ways. It's that time of the show where we talk about Barry, and then smoothly transitioned to the SEO news. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. We got a lot to sort out this week as the Snappy News is brought to you by the letter C, for a controversy. Let's start with Gisele Navarro, who wrote an article for her brand, HouseFresh, called How Google is Killing Independent Sites Like Ours. In the article, Gisele shows huge publishers trying to rank for review content. So basically, not basically, literally, the Rolling Stone writing content like the Five Best Microwaves for 2024, because the Rolling Stone is now known for not covering Bob Dylan, but for covering the best fridge. She goes through how some of these sites are now out of their lane and dominating the product review space, and how their site's content and the focus on experience and testing all these products like they say they are, isn't exactly 100% trustworthy. And she kind of goes through, "Hey Google, you should be ranking those hidden gems that you've talked about in the past." Then on top of it, or as that's happening, Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Land, title Article Complaining About Being Outranked on Google Being Outranked by Reddit. And that caused a whole firestorm, because of all the Reddit controversy on the SERP. So here's the article now being outranked by Reddit for the query it was meant to target, drama. Then Google did respond back, which Barry Schwartz covered at SE Roundtable with Google, we want to reward the best content no matter site size. And Danny Sullivan, Google search liaison, had a really nice discussion with Gisele, going back and forth. I thought it was a very healthy kind of discussion. Danny sort of explaining how they factor things in and what they're considering, and all that kind of stuff. We'll link to it in the show notes. You can have a look at it yourself. And I thought it was actually one of the more mature SEO conversations out on Twitter, these sort of things in a while. Then a day later, Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Land wrote an article, quote, "What should a Google rank in search when all the content sucks?" And Danny's right. And he goes through looking at all the content around review of product reviews, basically not being the greatest. I've covered this a few times, more than a few times, that there really isn't a lot of great content out there. So this is basically the foundation of what has been a firestorm within the SEO industry, about big brands who are getting out of their lane, dominating their results. Google, what are you doing? And then people coming and saying, "Well, what's Google supposed to do, because all the content stinks. What's going on?" I have many thoughts, many, many, many, many thoughts. Where to start? One, what these brands are doing, the Rolling Stone, covering the best fridges of 2024, is both logical and nuts. It's nuts for obvious reasons. The Rolling Stone is a 4magazine that's supposed to cover again, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Billy Joel, whatever, not best microwaves in 2024. However, it does kind of make sense for them because publishers are having a very hard time, have been having a very hard time, and they're looking for new sources of revenue, so they're branching out. So that's what I mean, it's logical from a need point of view, but from a topical point of view, it's kind of crazy. Now expecting magic from Google, that Google's going to magically know all these things and Google's going to magically get all the results right, and not looking how Google has improved over time, and having a more balanced look at the idea of, okay, there are things to improve upon, which I'll get to in a second, but things have been progressively better, overall. Yes, there are hiccups, or moments in times where we have a lull in quality while Google figures things out, yes. But overall, things are progressing in the right direction. I think expecting magic from Google is fantastical. So we need to balance what's happening with, I think, a more mature outlook on what a search engine is able to do as technology takes a long time to develop. And Google, and its algorithm, need to rely on technology in order to get results right. Now, I would like to see Google, if I were to be able to point out conceptually what I think would be great for them to be able to focus on if they can, is I think Google looks at quality from a very topical point of view. Is the content quality content from purely, not purely, but from a very heavily focused... Yes, it's quality in terms of how this piece of content deals with the topic. And you say, "As opposed to what? How else would you look at quality?" You will look at quality from an identity point of view. Does it make sense for this website to be talking about this? Does it make sense for this website to cover this? Is it aligned with the website's identity? Why are they writing this? Why are they saying this? Is it that the Rolling Stone wants to build a brand and really become known for and reliant by others, for their content around reviews the way the Wirecutter does? So yes, the Wirecutter has a commercial incentive, but they're also building a brand. And that's a much healthier place to be in terms of the incentive to produce quality content, than just trying to get traffic. So I think Google, if it can, needs to look at why they're saying it, who's saying it, and look at identity a little bit more as part of the quality picture. Just to give you an analogy, let's say I am on, I'm on, I don't know, a politics news show. And I start offering not to talk about whatever the current events of the day are on this news program on CNN or NBC, whatever it is. But instead, I started offering you tips about how to shoot a basketball. And I, myself, am not a basketball expert. I'm a politics expert. That's why I'm on CNN. That would be weird. You would be like, "Okay, you might be making a good point about how to shoot a basketball, but then I'm not absorbing that. I'm not taking that in. I'm not doing anything with that because why are you talking about it, and why are you talking about it here?" It's the same thing. Why is Rolling Stone talking about fridges, and why are they talking about it here, and why are they talking about it now, and why are they talking about it at all? So being able, for the algorithm to be able to better decipher that, I think would be very, very helpful. Okay, onto Danny Goodwin's point, that the content out there is just terrible. That is correct, and Google has been trying to incentivize content, better content for a long time. For example, Google's been talking about hidden gems. They're trying to rank forums, which they've gone a little bit too far, with the whole Reddit thing. They've been trying to democratize the web for a long time, trying to incentivize business owners to write more, because business owners are the actual content topical experts, and not a content marketing agency. So they've been trying to push this for a long time. The problem is it's a very, very slow burn. It takes a long time to do this, if it's even possible for Google to do, and that's a whole other debate. The issue with that is, is that brands look at Google as the incentive, right? They look at it as, "Okay, what does Google reward? What does it not reward, because we are simply trying to get an ROI. We are simply trying to get traffic. We're simply trying to get conversions." So whatever Google is able to do in terms of quality, that is the maximum which we are willing to invest into quality. If Google's quality threshold goes up, we will now have to increase our threshold. That's a very unhealthy dynamic, because again, you're relying on technology to be able to emerge rather quickly, which technology takes a long time to emerge and takes a long time for Google to be able to do things. Look how long it took from Google to go from page rank to focusing on things around personal experience in content, that took years for that to happen. So relying on Google to change the incentive is not healthy. What should happen is, and what I hope happens is, is that brands start looking at their branding as the incentive. So not to pick on the Rolling Stone, but just using it because it's such an obvious example. If the Rolling Stone's branding team said, "Hey, wait a second, we're not known for Bob Dylan anymore. We're not known for covering Led Zeppelin anymore. Now we're known for microwaves. That's not good for our branding, that's not good for our brand recognition. That's not good for our brand perception. It might be good for our immediate conversion and immediate traffic goals, but it's not good for our overall branding. We need to change course." That's a healthy incentive. And that's an incentive, why? Because that's an incentive that's based on users, not on algorithms. So that needs to happen, and brands need to start taking that, I wouldn't even call it a risk, but brands need to start taking that focus off of the immediate ROI and start looking at the long-term conversions. Because I predict what is going to happen is going to be an absolute train wreck of epic... You ever see like a car race and a NASCAR or something, or Formula One, whatever you prefer. I don't prefer any of them. And all the cars get into an accident. That's what's going to happen in my opinion. We're going to see an epic car crash of unprecedented proportions on the web because what users want and what these brands are doing, are so juxtaposed, it's going to end in madness. And if a brand wants to get ahead of this, what I recommend doing is focus on branding, focus on what your users want and how you want to be seen, and not on the immediate traffic conversion, ROI kind of stuff. And it's part of the web maturing. I think in terms of maturity, the web is sort of a teenager. And as a teenager, I have teenagers at home. They're focused on immediate gratification. I want the video game now. We're focused on conversions, we're focused on acquisition, we're focused on traffic, we're focused on all the ROI, and they're not focused on long-term brand perception. So as to when matures, I hope that brands do focus on that, take away the focus on the immediate, which means a little bit of focus off of the algorithms, and more focus onto user perception, and I think that will be the right incentive to create the better content that Danny Goodwin points out in his article, doesn't exist. That was a mouthful. That was a lot. And boy, did we get abstract, and boy was that not very snappy. So apologies for the not so snappy, Snappy News. Mordy Oberstein: I always wonder when we do this, I always wonder, we have new listeners, or listeners who are not from the SEO world, coming onto the show, listening to the show, like "Who's this Barry guy?" Crystal Carter: He's an evergreen element in the show. He's like a spruce. Barry Schwartz, that's what we're talking, things you need to know about our show, is we'll talk about Barry Schwartz at some point. Mordy Oberstein: No, for real. If want to, I always say if you want to learn, and we talked about this on previous episode of the podcast, read SEOroundtable.com every day so you can understand where SEO is heading. Even though it might seem like nitty gritty to you, it'll give you a sense of where things are going and where things have been all at the same time. It's evergreen and emerging. It's SEOroundtable.com Crystal Carter: Indeed, and you can understand the pace of things, and Barry shouts out lots of important people to follow. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, also perfect. Crystal Carter: Lots of important entities and things that are going on. So yeah, absolutely. You can't go wrong there. Mordy Oberstein: Can't go wrong with Barry. And you can't go wrong with Claudio Cabrera, who is our follow of the week this week. Who is also, by the way, the VP of Newsroom Strategy and Audience at the Athletic. I'm combining so many worlds here with this follow of the week. I'm combining editorial, we just spoke about emerging content. SEO, we always speak about, and sports. Crystal Carter: It's perfect synergy. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Check out Claudio on X over at CECabrera underscore, C-E-C-A-B-R-E-A-R-A, underscore, he's brilliant, super nice. Crystal Carter: Super nice. Mordy Oberstein: One of the most lovely fellows, and his feed is filled with sports stuff too. Again, right now, a bunch of Lions stuff, go Lions. The mighty underdog, the lovable underdog. Crystal Carter: He's fantastic, and he does a lot of events and outreach as well, so do keep an eye out for opportunities where he's sharing knowledge there. And also, one of the reasons why we wanted to follow him this week is because I think the Athletic do a fantastic job of balancing emerging and evergreen topics. So it's really important. Even if you are a small website and you don't have millions of people coming to your website every week, looking at the ways that some larger websites, like the Athletic, are handling these kinds of challenges, can give you a lot of insight into things you can do. So absolutely, follow Claudio, and check out the work that they're doing over at The Athletic. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Good. Shout out, good strategy, good stuff. And for Claudio's sake, go Lions. By the time this episode airs, we'll know the result, but I'm hoping for the Lions. I really am. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, just to give people context, they haven't won a playoff game until this year, for like, I don't know, since like 1992. They're like blue collar, hardworking kind of team. They got a great coach. You talk about biting people's knee caps off. Crystal Carter: Oh, my God. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, he's great though. He's like, "Yeah, what's your philosophy on coaching? I'm going to bite your knee caps off." Love it. Crystal Carter: Sports ball. Mordy Oberstein: Sports ball. One of these underdog kind of stories, they've been losers forever, but now they're winning, and they're fans who've been suffering for 30, 40 years, 50 years, 60 years. Crystal Carter: They're trying to emerge. Mordy Oberstein: They're emerging victorious. Crystal Carter: They're trying to emerge from an evergreen situation. Mordy Oberstein: Their evergreen losing situation. Crystal Carter: They're trying to change their evergreen content and emerge victorious. And we wish them well, and whoever else is doing sports. Yay, sports. Mordy Oberstein: Yes, but not the Ravens. We don't wish them well. Crystal Carter: I have no comment. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, as a Steelers fan, I feel obligated... By the way, I want to tell you my wife's from Baltimore, so I'm a Steelers fan. They're from Pittsburgh. My wife's from Baltimore. Her family are all Ravens fans because they're Baltimore, and she's trying to convince my kids to go for the Ravens in the playoffs because Steelers are out and the Ravens are still in, and I'm not having it. There's like a mutiny in my house, and I'm not having it. Crystal Carter: Are you like, "Never more?" Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm never more, because it'd be an emerging some punishment, if this happens. Crystal Carter: We're basketball fans. Mordy Oberstein: You're all grounded for life. You're evergreen league grounded. I've taken it too far. We've taken it too far. Crystal Carter: I think we're done now. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we're done now here. We'll stop here. Thanks 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 starting SEO from scratch. You make the dough, you mix the water. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast, or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content, webinars, and resources on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter John Shehata Claudio E. Cabrera Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Newzdash GDdash News: How Google is killing independent sites like ours Article complaining about being outranked on Google being outranked by Reddit Google: We Want To Reward The Best Content No Matter Site Size What should Google rank in Search when all the content sucks? Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter John Shehata Claudio E. Cabrera Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Newzdash GDdash News: How Google is killing independent sites like ours Article complaining about being outranked on Google being outranked by Reddit Google: We Want To Reward The Best Content No Matter Site Size What should Google rank in Search when all the content sucks? 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. We're putting together 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 ever constant, although sometimes emerging, head of SEO communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello internet, SEO people. Welcome to the podcast. We have emerged, but we are always here in the podcast ecosystem, and you can find us where you find podcasts all the time. It's just an evergreen resource for you to learn and enjoy SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Evergreen, like those trees that just don't care about winter. Crystal Carter: They don't. They're like, "Winter schminter." Mordy Oberstein: Winter schminter. Crystal Carter: I don't care. I got needle leaves. The snow goes right through me. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Not only do they not care about the temperature, but we've got snow covered too. Just be gone, snow. Crystal Carter: Do what I like. Whenever I think of evergreens, I think of the tree that I keep in my garden. Which I have a little evergreen tree, and I bought him a big pot. He's a little lopsided. Bless him, but I like him anyway. We've had him for a while. Mordy Oberstein: Do you talk to him? Crystal Carter: No, no. We bring him inside for Christmas and cover him in junk. And I always think that all the other trees are making fun of him. They're like, "Look at you. You look like an idiot in December." And he's like, "Oh, you know, whatever." Mordy Oberstein: So do you usually have conversations in your mind about various trees talking to each other, or just sometimes? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I used to talk to my kid about how the trees would take a nap at winter time. They take a nap, they get themselves ready for bed, and then they take a nap at wintertime. Then they wake up in the spring. Mordy Oberstein: What do you call it when the tree becomes, I don't know, your chair. That's not a nap. It's like a permanent nap time. Crystal Carter: I mean, there's a book about that. I think that the Giving Tree, or something like that. Mordy Oberstein: The Giving Tree, Shell Silverstein. Crystal Carter: Who is fantastic. And yeah, it touches the old heart right there. Gets you right there. Mordy Oberstein: You know what else touches the heart? Crystal Carter: What's that? Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also download SEO checklist templates, toolkits, cheat sheets, and more. Head over to Wix, SEO. But look for our new resource center, it will help you emerge victorious and stay that way forever. Too mas, too much overselling? Crystal Carter: No, I mean, I think I definitely have warm and fuzzy feelings about our resource center. I think it's incredible. I think it makes me feel warm inside and like a lovely mug of cocoa. Mordy Oberstein: Well, speaking of emerging and everlasting, that's precisely our topic today, in case you haven't guessed. I feel like we drop Easter eggs every episode for a good five minutes, about what the episode is going to be about. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: We don't need the topic. You should already know by now what it is. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Just take it all in. We're ready. We're ready for you. Mordy Oberstein: But officially, we're taking a hard look at SEO for evergreen topic versus SEO for emerging topics. Which is harder, ranking for emerging or evergreen content? Why would you even want to focus on emerging content versus evergreen content? And how the content formats impact your approach to SEO. Plus an absolute SEO legend, especially for news content, the former global VP of Audience Development at Condé Nast, and the founder of the new SEO tool, NewzDash, John Shehata will stop by to share how he balances focusing on both emerging and evergreen content for SEO. We'll also head to the top of the SERP and look at what's happening for an emerging-ish content feature, or a little SERP feature, that seems to be spreading its wings. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So put on your fanciest spandex overalls and climb up to the type rope that is this circus, that is all about balancing SEO for evergreen and emerging content on this, the 76th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. I've always wanted one of those spandex overall suits that they used to put on people in the circus, where they used to shoot them out of a canon kind of thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. The strongman sort of suits. Yeah, no- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, the strongman suit. Exactly. Crystal Carter: Yeah. They recently bought back gladiators in the UK on the BBC, and there's a lot of that, those sort of- Mordy Oberstein: American Gladiators, where the whole tone is steroids. Crystal Carter: The Netflix documentary on that can confirm. Mordy Oberstein: I didn't watch that. I saw that. Crystal Carter: It will absolutely confirm that. Mordy Oberstein: It looks disturbing. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. Mordy Oberstein: What do you want from a dude whose name is Nitro? Crystal Carter: I know. I mean, I feel like you could do that for SEOs, but they'd be more like, I don't know- Mordy Oberstein: Markup. Crystal Carter: Right? Markup, here comes Markup. Mordy Oberstein: Here comes Markup. Crystal Carter: SEO gladiators. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, no, it's Redirect. Crystal Carter: He's going to disallow the competitor who's coming in. Mordy Oberstein: Well done. Well done. Crystal Carter: Thank you very much. Okay. All right. So speaking of IPs that have lasted a long time, we are going to be talking about SEO and for ever evergreen content, and how it differs from other content. I think one of the things that's important to think about is that when we talk about evergreen content, that's essentially the kind of content that you expect to rank for a long time, that you expect to be on your page for a long time. And it's important to think about what that might be for your business. So depending on what business you have, these will be maybe some of your core keywords, and they might be some of the core topics, but it's also worth balancing that with content that's in the now, that's happening regularly, that's being updated. So for instance, if you were to talk about game shows like American Gladiators, or a competitions and things like that, it might be the- Mordy Oberstein: Like the Price is Right. Crystal Carter: Oh, Price is Right. Oh, that's a great show. Mordy Oberstein: Really competitive. $1 Bob. Crystal Carter: $1. Come on down. So for instance, if you were talking about a particular topic, you would want to have a page that ranked for that, but you'd also want to have news coming through there. And this can give you a few different levers for connecting with new customers and for getting different value from the SERP. So for instance, if you were a Beyonce fan club website or Beyonce fan site, you would probably have a general page that was maybe about fun facts about Beyonce, or maybe her discography, or that sort of thing. So you might have something like that, that's a core piece of content that you don't expect to update that often. It ranks for a certain number of core keywords, and it's essentially the top of your pillar. So when you think about content clusters, it will essentially be the top of your pillar. Along with that, you might want to add in trending topics. So let's say Beyonce's in the news. So she was recently in, and I'm a big fan, so I know no way too much about this. But she was recently in the news because she had her film released, and Taylor Swift came to the release. So that's something that you might want to add in. So you might have an evergreen page on your site, that's generally about Taylor Swift and Beyonce's history together, because they have a bit of history. And so you might want to have that there. But then you can add in a webpage that talks about the new thing that happened where Taylor Swift came to the premier in London. Then you might want to have another article that talks about how Beyonce went to Taylor Swift's film release as well. All of these things can be interlinked. I think that's the important thing to think about, about evergreen content. Evergreen content is a really good opportunity to make sure that you have links that last to your content, and that you can link to, and that also that other people can link to. And this is also something that can be really, really useful if you're somebody who does something on an annual basis, or a seasonal basis as well. We talked about seasonality, but for instance, if you have a situation where you are doing an awareness day, and it happens every year, it's worth having an evergreen page that is general information about that awareness day, that you can link to when you're talking about the one for this year, or you're talking about the event, or you're talking about other things that are related to it. But think about evergreen content as being sort of the anchor for some of the other trending topics that you can add into your website, and that you can keep people coming back and being more enthused about the new content. Mordy Oberstein: So to that point, and one of the ways I think about emerging content, and I've been thinking a lot about it lately, just coincidentally, a lot lately. First off, it is a brand play. Like you're saying, if you want to show that you're current, that you're relevant, that you're in the know about this. For example, that they were recording this, I just found out yesterday that Billy Joel was releasing a new song for the first time 17 years. Crystal Carter: Right, okay. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah, just some new song, 17 years, new album would be, I don't know, like 30 years. But anyway, if you have a website about Billy Joel, which that sounds fabulous and super trendy, just like Taylor Swift and Beyonce, the same, a little bit less hair, but anyway. You wouldn't want to add that onto your website so people understand that you actually know what you're talking about, about the topic. But you can also use it as a brand play and even SEOs. First off, as an SEO play, when you're trying to get started. So as you're trying to get your website going and you're trying to get some momentum and some cadence, like we talked about on a previous podcast episode, you need to have a digital presence. And that means people will stay sharing your content in social media, and then maybe eventually taking the content they're seeing on social media being shared, and linking to that. Look at the web as a dark sky. It is pitch black out there, and Google's looking for lights. You want your lights to be big, so that Google goes to it. So having a well-established digital presence is very, very important for getting SEO momentum. Your evergreen topics are not as trendy. They're not as trendy, they're not as cool, and they're not going to get shared as much. They're really meant, in my mind, that's an SEO play. But if you're getting started and you want people to know who you are and look to you, the emerging content, that trendy-ish or emerging kind of topics, that's what's going to get shared on social, that's going to get those initial links, and that's going to let you pull in traffic from evergreen topics as Google starts to recognize that you are a worthwhile digital entity. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that the evergreen topic should be a very strategic, in an effort to establish your authority. So for instance, if you're talking about Billy Joel or whatever, you need to be able to say, "Oh, in his corpus of work," or something, and refer to yourself, right? Mordy Oberstein: It has to be that balance. You have to be able to balance back between the different types of pieces to establish that credibility, 100%. Crystal Carter: So you're showing this to people who are visiting your website and you're showing this to Google as well. So you're able to refer to yourself, here's all of the things that I know about the history of this particular musical artist and the things that they've done. Here's this new cool thing that you found. And so this gives you a couple of different levers. And I think that that's the important thing to think about when you're doing SEO and everybody thinks like, "Oh, I want to get on page one." It's like there are lots of page ones. There's page ones of images, there's page one of news, there's page one of lots of different filters within Google, so think about all of those. And the news items and the trending topics are going to have less competition in the first instance, right? First movers get a value. So there's definitely a first mover advantage in terms of trending topics. But again, if you're able to anchor that with your evergreen content, that will add more effort to that. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You have to balance back and forth. It's why we asked John what we asked John in a few moments, we'll get to that. But it's a great point about emerging topics being great places to get started, because there is no search volume. There is no end date, but I'll say you have to be a little bit careful. Let's say, okay, we're recording this three weeks out of the Super Bowl. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, three weeks. Okay. Let's say Lamar Jackson, the quarterback for the Ravens, breaks both of his legs in some sort of miracle and can't play that. I don't like the Ravens. I was going to say that. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I was like, "Miracle?" Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, sorry. I don't know. Let's make it, yeah, let's say he breaks both of his legs. I'm just going to go with it. It's a highly authoritative kind of topic, meaning the websites that generally rank for this kind of stuff are super authorities. It's a high interest topic, it's the Super Bowl. Who's Google going to turn to cover this story on the web? It's going to be things like ESPN, CBS news. So just because it's emerging, doesn't mean that it's not highly competitive. You need to be strategic about what you target for emerging topics. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. There's a fantastic article on the Wix SEO hub called Finding Trending Keywords for SEO, and they talk about this as well. You need to think about that, absolutely. But it's also really, really important to think about where you're getting your trending topics from. We have a section on the podcast that talks about people also ask, fun with people also ask. People also ask updates incredibly quickly. So if there was an accident and somebody said he had a thing, people will also ask, say, "What happened to this person?" And people also ask would update quickly, and Google will be looking for an answer to that question. If you have that answer on your website, then they will send traffic to you. And this is something that, and again, it also demonstrated expertise that you know that that happened just now, and you were that quick to make it happen. Mordy Oberstein: And that people are looking for it. Because this is what gets a little bit tricky with emerging content, you have to have your finger on the pulse. It's not like one of those kind of things in SEO, you're like, "Ah, I'll use a tool. I don't really understand the niche." There's no way around it. You have to understand that niche because you need to know if it's worthwhile. Sure, you can rank for it, but if it's completely obscure and not really the real story, or the story's going to change in a day anyway, and there's really very limited opportunity for this aspect of the story to rank, not worth it necessarily. So you have to have your finger on the pulse because there are no search volumes, there are no historical trends. So seeing something like the people also ask update, will tell you, signal, okay, people are actually looking for this. But you probably want to use social media, obviously. You really just want to have your finger on the pulse and not just rely on the SERP, because the SERP, outside of things like the knowledge panel, people also ask can be very slow. Knowledge panel, by the way, great for seeing things like sports trades, it updates automatically. Crystal Carter: Right, right, right. Exactly. And I think that's something to think about with some of the trending topics as well. For some of the new things, sometimes Google offers some instant answers on some of those things, like sports scores for instance, that they have a widget for that. They have a thing that works on that. But I think this also comes to things like trending topics will come and go, and trending topics will happen very quickly, so there might be a lot of news that's coming out. For instance, let's say if we were talking about the World Series or something, there's going to be a lot of news about the World Series. But it would be worthwhile having a page about the World Series and whether it was the World Series for that year, or the World Series in general, but having some core content, some core evergreen content that you can link to all of those things. It's also really important as part of your SEO outreach activity. It's very, very difficult to try to build back links to trending topics, as a sort of long tail activity. So if you're trying to build back links to a news article or something, and the news is changing constantly, that's going to be tricky because you might need to make a new article, you might need to make a new post. It might change the link that you got, might be this, all of this sort of stuff. But if you have a core, like a guide, a core topic, evergreen piece, then you can shape a link building campaign around that. You can build a link building campaign around that. You can build that link building campaign for years. So one of the one things you see really often, is people will do an annual report. So there'll be the state of SEO or something, and I've seen that done really well. Or the state of video marketing, and they will update the report every year, but the back links, all of the links go to the same report. So the link stays the same and you maintain your link equity, and I think that's one of the core elements about evergreen content. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and that points to something I really wanted to talk about, which is that the strategy, the SEO strategy behind both types of content is very, very, very different. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: In my mind, evergreen content is more of your typical content strategy. It's very paced, it's very strategic, it's very topically-driven. What are the topics? What are the subtopics? What do I need to cover? How do I holistically cover all this? What's the next topic logically, and so forth. Emerging content is very strategic, but it's narrative-driven. Okay, what's the narrative? Not right now, I think it's a very important story in this area, is what's the narrative tomorrow going to be. And getting ahead of that, and then being strategic about where you fit in. Because if you're... Great, you figured out the narrative. You know tomorrow, Beyonce announced whatever today, which means that tomorrow this is going to be a big topic of discussion in this way. But now you're competing with Entertainment Weekly and People, and whatever. What's your angle going to be? What can you bring, because it's an emerging topic, it's trendy. What's your angle going to be? If you can't break the news, maybe you can aggregate the news and put stats together that way. Whatever it is, it's very strategic, but it's very different kind of an SEO and content strategy than evergreen topics, and your mindset needs to be completely different. I'll say one last point on this, if you're doing this and you have both types of content, which you should in general, you might need two different people with two different ways of thinking about things, to handle the different topics. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely true. Because I think that... So one of the things that Abby talks about in her trending topics things, is looking at scaling your social listening. That takes time, that takes time, that takes nuance, takes being aware. And also following everybody, you have to be somebody who's following everybody and who's looking at all of these things. Because sometimes the trending topics, particularly for some of the bigger things, will be things you don't expect at all. So for instance, if there was the BAFTAs, the BAFTAs happened, and there was that Angela Bassett does the thing, went viral all over Twitter. And lots of the bigger publications will have been straight in and had something ready to go, like fill in the blanks of who won the BAFTAs that night, but they would not have expected that particular Angela Bassett does a thing, to go absolutely mad online. So that is something that you won't get from generally scrolling the internet. That's something that you wouldn't necessarily pick up from generally looking at search volume, historical search data, because it's not there. It's not there. It happened then. And so people who are on the ground, people who are in the know, people who are thought leaders will be very well placed for this kind of content, for this kind of topical elements. And it's important to have those kinds of folks within your team for lots of reasons, as well as for some of the evergreen things. Mordy Oberstein: The point is emerging topics and evergreen, you very often need both, but they're very, very, very, very different. From the mindset between SEO and editorial, both types of topics, to the strategy, to the keyword research, to understanding the topics and predicting it, all of it's very, very different. And you need both, but you need to balance it. So how do you balance it? So we asked, he's an absolute SEO legend, especially in the news space like we mentioned, he's the founder of NewzDash, John Shehata. We asked John, how do you combine your evergreen content strategy to help you rank with your emerging content pieces? Take it away, John. John Shehata: One of the biggest questions I faced, or challenges I faced over the last 25 years working in my professional career, is the balancing act between writing about new trending, emerging news content and evergreen content. And it has been always challenging for so many publishers. You see publishers who are fully focused on one or the other. Today, I'm going to tell you it's important to have and maintain a balance. And each content type has its own pros and cons anyway. So if you talk about news, this is fresh, relevant content. It only drive traffic for maybe one to three days, max. It ranks instantly, so you can see your rankings within minutes after publishing content. It depends on your authority and other factors for sure. And all kind of traditional SEO work gets into it, plus freshness, CTR, and few news SEO ranking factors. So it's really good. It drives a lot of traffic, and it drives traffic immediately. And it gives you authority on the topics that you cover a lot. When it comes to evergreen, evergreen is really, it's continuous relevant content for the reader. So it's relevant today, it's relevant tomorrow, it's relevant next year, and so on. The beauty about it is it gets a lot of traffic, and this traffic can last a month, sometimes over a year, choose to last for much longer than that. But with more freshness updates, now we see maybe nine to 16 months of traffic, but it takes more time to rank. All the traditional SEO ranking factors get into it, and so on. So you have these two different types of ranking content types. The beauty about news is you get instant traffic, or almost minutes after posting. It also gets traffic from Discover, so most of the news content do very well in Google Discover, but evergreen on the other hand, provides you with sustainable traffic, especially with low news cycles. So we have seen this many times, the news is very hot and after a while it gets very, very slow and there's not much traffic your site is getting. Evergreen content helps you with that kind of an issue. But evergreen content doesn't appear much in Google Discover, rarely. It's more focused on news. So between these two, the question is how much content should I produce? My answer is always like 20-80 or 30-70 kind of approach, and it doesn't matter which direction. So you may want to produce, if the majority of your content is news. So you want to produce maybe 20% of your content in evergreen, and make sure that you refresh that content periodically, whenever that content goes below a certain threshold. And on the other side, if the majority of your content is evergreen, it might getting into news harder. So again, 80-20 kind of rule, you may want to select a certain topic or vertical, and cover all the news around it. And that will give you more instant traffic, and it help you all the time because the evergreen content takes more time to rank. I hope this was helpful to you guys, and thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, John. Make sure you check out John over on X at J-S-H-E-H-A-T-A, J Shehata. Also, make sure you check out NewzDash. If you're in the SEO space for news, you should definitely check out NewzDash. It's a dashboard to manage all of your news, SEO, getting instant SEO recommendations of visibility, track new search visibility and market share, monitor trends, and spy on the competition with NewzDash, little plug for John and NewzDash. There's so many points to dive into. One point we didn't mention before, is just the emerging content and Discover, that's how you're opening up to so much traffic potential by covering emerging topics and emerging trends. So even if you don't have to necessarily, you may want to. Crystal Carter: Right, right, right. And I think that what he was saying was that don't necessarily expect your emerging trending topics to rank all the time, because Discover will come and then it will go. And that's okay. That's fine. That's sort of what we expect. But I think that him talking about the sort of 80-20 rule, I think that's a great rule of thumb. And I think that also, this brings to mind some of the challenges with having that sort of mechanic and organic content, like the content that's responding to different trends and things, is that sometimes you have to be aware of which ones those are because you might also have to call those later on. Because as he says, they'll rank for a while, but then they won't rank for very long. So it might be that next year maybe that trend isn't a thing anymore, maybe people aren't interested in vuvuzelas anymore. Do you remember when vuvuzelas were a thing, when they had the World Cup in South Africa and vuvuzelas were a trending toy around- Mordy Oberstein: That's soccer? Crystal Carter: Yes, yes. Mordy Oberstein: All right. Crystal Carter: But they're not trending here anymore. So if you had content on that back in the day, then you don't necessarily need that content on your site anymore. So that's something that you should think about when you're doing this, trending topics is keeping on top of those as well, because of the way that the ebb and flow and because of the way that the traffic ebb and flows, and- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's a whole different paradigm. The ebb and flow, it's relevant one day, and not relevant the next day. If it's something that you're going to depend on, it means you something you're going to very much have to keep up on constantly, to keep on top of things and keep developing new content on a consistent, constant basis. And being in that case, if you're talking about Google Discover and all that kind of things, you need to establish yourself as a relevant entity around that. Which goes back to what you were saying before about establishing that with some of the evergreen content. Crystal Carter: Exactly. Balance. It's all about balance. Mordy Oberstein: All balance. Like Mr. Miyagi said, "First learn balance." Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: All comes back to Mr. Miyagi in every way, shape and form. Crystal Carter: I mean, we can wax on or wax off about any of these things, but- Mordy Oberstein: I would, but I have to go paint the fence. Sorry, I'm busy. Tomorrow, I would also, but I have to sand the floor. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay, of course. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, anyway. So anyway, there's a little feature that we wanted to talk about. It's spreading its wings across the SERP. In fact, we'll get to a little bit of data around how it's spreading wings. And sometimes it can appear for some trending-ish or trending adjacent sort of content, sometimes it appears with some evergreen-ish kind of content. It's definitely an interesting thing to know as we go to the top of the SERP. So we're talking about the things to know SERP feature, get it? Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Which by the way, according to Rank Ranger's data, it looks like prior to the start of January, it was ranking, or not ranking, it was appearing on 8% of all desktop SERPs. And now it shows that mobile SERPs rather, and now it's appearing as the time of this recording, because it could change by the time we release the episode. Now it's appearing around 10%, so a little two point jump for the things to know feature is spreading. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. I think people want to know these things. Mordy Oberstein: They do want to know the things. So just so you know what the things to know thing is, if you're searching for something, I don't know, social media addiction, I was going to search for screen time addiction because my kids are glued to fricking screens all the time. You get on desktop, you get a little panel to the right, that's called Things to Know. And basically, a series of tabs with a header, and then you can open up the tab and it'll show you information. So for example, for social media addiction, it talks about things to know our definition of, or symptoms of, or problems of. And you click a tab, and you basically get a little snippet of content, like a featured snippet that will tell you, "Yes. Why is social media addiction a problem? Social media addiction is a problem because it can lead to issues such as fear of missing out, anxiety and stress, and so forth." And it comes from a website. So it's basically little blurbs of content, little mini-featured snippets, or little people also ask, but they're topically set up. They're almost entity based around the topic. And they're very interesting to me, because again, they break down things topically and they offer you new traffic possibilities, or visibility possibilities. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that in terms of evergreen content, and this sort of more dynamic trending topic, I think it also can give you a steer in terms of the kinds of things that Google understands to be related to that entity, because they're very often associated. When I've seen them, I've seen them very often associated with things that are entity entities- Mordy Oberstein: Very entity-based, yeah. Crystal Carter: Right. So when I see them around, like I've seen them around blogging. The blogging term for instance, and they'll say things to know about blogging, like, oh, how to start a blog, or how long does it take to build one? What does it cost? That sort of thing. These are clues to the kinds of content that users are going to be expecting from somebody who's writing about that topic. They are clues to the kinds of information that is core to that entity. And I think that that's really important to think about. So I think on your social media one, there's definition, symptoms, problems, impact, these are the sort of core topics that are related to this. And I think that it's interesting, it's another example of Google using all the tools in their arsenal to sort of disambiguate, and to sort of offer different user journeys around some of these topics. And I think that it's important because it gives even, sometimes it gives you a clue into something that you might not have even considered. I've had it where I've looked up something, and it was like things to know, and it was like, "Oh, it might also cause these problems." And I say, "Oh, I hadn't even considered that." I would not have even Googled that before, but I'm getting a clue here from this particular feature. So I think that's interesting. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So what's interesting, I find interesting about it, first off, just to show you that it's entity-based, meaning that it's looking at the topic as an entity. Like what is this topic? How do we break it down? Conceptually, what is this topic? The format was stolen, not stolen, unless Google is stealing it from itself. From knowledge panels. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: And in knowledge panels, maybe a couple of years ago, I'm not good at the timelines. I always forget times. Google started adding tabs to knowledge panels. So I searched for Constitution of the United States, because we're in the middle of an election season so that came up. And it has saying words, rules, written by, all these different tabs. That format from the knowledge panel is essentially the format from things to know. And what it's doing is, like you mentioned, is topically parsing out the topic, which is why it's great to understand what do I need to know about this? Or for example, I looked up on CTE, which is the disease you get for being hit too many times in the head while playing American football. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: It's football, it's playoff time, right? Crystal Carter: Okay, okay. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And it has number of players, like how many NFL players have CTE, notable players CTE, percentage of NFL players have had CTE, causes. It's really breaking down topically what's relevant, but I also find that sometimes it shows up for things that kind of straddle the line between topics that are evergreen topics and topics that can also be looked at from an emerging topic point of view. So let's take autism education. So you're always going to have advances in that area, in that field. There's always going to be new things coming out. There's always going to be new topics to talk about, but it's also an evergreen sort of topic, because there's historical information, historical knowledge, historical data, all that kind of good stuff. And there's things to know, shows up. It has a tab for programs, autism education programs, has impact of autism on education, how to improve special education schools. So it's one of those things that if you're in an area where you're kind of on the line between, it's an emerging area, but it's also an evergreen area. And you need to create both of those kind of topics, or both of the kind of content. It can help you, A, understand what you need to have for the evergreen, but it can also help you understand how to contextualize- Crystal Carter: Yes, Mordy Oberstein: The emerging topics. Crystal Carter: Yes, that was the word that was rattling around in my head. It's precisely, precisely context. Context. These are topics that people need context on, and that's why it says things to know. So one of the examples you've pulled out is about AI. That's an emerging topic. Mordy Oberstein: Emerging, but it's also not emerging. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But it is emerging. Crystal Carter: It's also not emerging, but it's- Mordy Oberstein: But it's not emerging. It's so confusing. Crystal Carter: It's like a butterfly. Mordy Oberstein: I wish I hadn't bought an AI robot to tell me the answer if it's emerging not. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that's the thing. This is the web, and so sometimes people are coming to a topic completely new. They've never heard of this particular topic, so they need some context. Sometimes people have been working in AI for the whole time, they've been working in this field for the whole time, they don't need all the context or whatever. But I think what's fairly consistent around these things to know, is you tend to see them, and around the entity things, is I tend to see them for big, big head terms. So had term keywords, like shorter words, like AI, or a few words there because they're trying to give you enough context to go deeper, because Google's looking at your search and they're going, "This isn't all you want." You need to know what it is, or you need to know why it's like that, or you need to know something. Here's some context to guide you to get better information. We can give you better information if you give us better inputs. And I think that it's another opportunity for them to do that, and it's super useful for those who are thinking about building clusters around some of these head terms, and who are interested in thinking about how they can build, balance those clusters with some of that emerging topic content. Mordy Oberstein: Now you know what helps me have context for my life as an SEO person? Barry. Crystal Carter: Do you know who covers every emerging topic in SEO? Mordy Oberstein: And also sometimes hits an evergreen topics, like how many awards do I need to rank? Crystal Carter: I mean, I think he's probably one of the most evergreen entities in SEO. Mordy Oberstein: But he's also constantly emerging in all new ways. It's that time of the show where we talk about Barry, and then smoothly transitioned to the SEO news. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. We got a lot to sort out this week as the Snappy News is brought to you by the letter C, for a controversy. Let's start with Gisele Navarro, who wrote an article for her brand, HouseFresh, called How Google is Killing Independent Sites Like Ours. In the article, Gisele shows huge publishers trying to rank for review content. So basically, not basically, literally, the Rolling Stone writing content like the Five Best Microwaves for 2024, because the Rolling Stone is now known for not covering Bob Dylan, but for covering the best fridge. She goes through how some of these sites are now out of their lane and dominating the product review space, and how their site's content and the focus on experience and testing all these products like they say they are, isn't exactly 100% trustworthy. And she kind of goes through, "Hey Google, you should be ranking those hidden gems that you've talked about in the past." Then on top of it, or as that's happening, Barry Schwartz reported on Search Engine Land, title Article Complaining About Being Outranked on Google Being Outranked by Reddit. And that caused a whole firestorm, because of all the Reddit controversy on the SERP. So here's the article now being outranked by Reddit for the query it was meant to target, drama. Then Google did respond back, which Barry Schwartz covered at SE Roundtable with Google, we want to reward the best content no matter site size. And Danny Sullivan, Google search liaison, had a really nice discussion with Gisele, going back and forth. I thought it was a very healthy kind of discussion. Danny sort of explaining how they factor things in and what they're considering, and all that kind of stuff. We'll link to it in the show notes. You can have a look at it yourself. And I thought it was actually one of the more mature SEO conversations out on Twitter, these sort of things in a while. Then a day later, Danny Goodwin over at Search Engine Land wrote an article, quote, "What should a Google rank in search when all the content sucks?" And Danny's right. And he goes through looking at all the content around review of product reviews, basically not being the greatest. I've covered this a few times, more than a few times, that there really isn't a lot of great content out there. So this is basically the foundation of what has been a firestorm within the SEO industry, about big brands who are getting out of their lane, dominating their results. Google, what are you doing? And then people coming and saying, "Well, what's Google supposed to do, because all the content stinks. What's going on?" I have many thoughts, many, many, many, many thoughts. Where to start? One, what these brands are doing, the Rolling Stone, covering the best fridges of 2024, is both logical and nuts. It's nuts for obvious reasons. The Rolling Stone is a 4magazine that's supposed to cover again, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Billy Joel, whatever, not best microwaves in 2024. However, it does kind of make sense for them because publishers are having a very hard time, have been having a very hard time, and they're looking for new sources of revenue, so they're branching out. So that's what I mean, it's logical from a need point of view, but from a topical point of view, it's kind of crazy. Now expecting magic from Google, that Google's going to magically know all these things and Google's going to magically get all the results right, and not looking how Google has improved over time, and having a more balanced look at the idea of, okay, there are things to improve upon, which I'll get to in a second, but things have been progressively better, overall. Yes, there are hiccups, or moments in times where we have a lull in quality while Google figures things out, yes. But overall, things are progressing in the right direction. I think expecting magic from Google is fantastical. So we need to balance what's happening with, I think, a more mature outlook on what a search engine is able to do as technology takes a long time to develop. And Google, and its algorithm, need to rely on technology in order to get results right. Now, I would like to see Google, if I were to be able to point out conceptually what I think would be great for them to be able to focus on if they can, is I think Google looks at quality from a very topical point of view. Is the content quality content from purely, not purely, but from a very heavily focused... Yes, it's quality in terms of how this piece of content deals with the topic. And you say, "As opposed to what? How else would you look at quality?" You will look at quality from an identity point of view. Does it make sense for this website to be talking about this? Does it make sense for this website to cover this? Is it aligned with the website's identity? Why are they writing this? Why are they saying this? Is it that the Rolling Stone wants to build a brand and really become known for and reliant by others, for their content around reviews the way the Wirecutter does? So yes, the Wirecutter has a commercial incentive, but they're also building a brand. And that's a much healthier place to be in terms of the incentive to produce quality content, than just trying to get traffic. So I think Google, if it can, needs to look at why they're saying it, who's saying it, and look at identity a little bit more as part of the quality picture. Just to give you an analogy, let's say I am on, I'm on, I don't know, a politics news show. And I start offering not to talk about whatever the current events of the day are on this news program on CNN or NBC, whatever it is. But instead, I started offering you tips about how to shoot a basketball. And I, myself, am not a basketball expert. I'm a politics expert. That's why I'm on CNN. That would be weird. You would be like, "Okay, you might be making a good point about how to shoot a basketball, but then I'm not absorbing that. I'm not taking that in. I'm not doing anything with that because why are you talking about it, and why are you talking about it here?" It's the same thing. Why is Rolling Stone talking about fridges, and why are they talking about it here, and why are they talking about it now, and why are they talking about it at all? So being able, for the algorithm to be able to better decipher that, I think would be very, very helpful. Okay, onto Danny Goodwin's point, that the content out there is just terrible. That is correct, and Google has been trying to incentivize content, better content for a long time. For example, Google's been talking about hidden gems. They're trying to rank forums, which they've gone a little bit too far, with the whole Reddit thing. They've been trying to democratize the web for a long time, trying to incentivize business owners to write more, because business owners are the actual content topical experts, and not a content marketing agency. So they've been trying to push this for a long time. The problem is it's a very, very slow burn. It takes a long time to do this, if it's even possible for Google to do, and that's a whole other debate. The issue with that is, is that brands look at Google as the incentive, right? They look at it as, "Okay, what does Google reward? What does it not reward, because we are simply trying to get an ROI. We are simply trying to get traffic. We're simply trying to get conversions." So whatever Google is able to do in terms of quality, that is the maximum which we are willing to invest into quality. If Google's quality threshold goes up, we will now have to increase our threshold. That's a very unhealthy dynamic, because again, you're relying on technology to be able to emerge rather quickly, which technology takes a long time to emerge and takes a long time for Google to be able to do things. Look how long it took from Google to go from page rank to focusing on things around personal experience in content, that took years for that to happen. So relying on Google to change the incentive is not healthy. What should happen is, and what I hope happens is, is that brands start looking at their branding as the incentive. So not to pick on the Rolling Stone, but just using it because it's such an obvious example. If the Rolling Stone's branding team said, "Hey, wait a second, we're not known for Bob Dylan anymore. We're not known for covering Led Zeppelin anymore. Now we're known for microwaves. That's not good for our branding, that's not good for our brand recognition. That's not good for our brand perception. It might be good for our immediate conversion and immediate traffic goals, but it's not good for our overall branding. We need to change course." That's a healthy incentive. And that's an incentive, why? Because that's an incentive that's based on users, not on algorithms. So that needs to happen, and brands need to start taking that, I wouldn't even call it a risk, but brands need to start taking that focus off of the immediate ROI and start looking at the long-term conversions. Because I predict what is going to happen is going to be an absolute train wreck of epic... You ever see like a car race and a NASCAR or something, or Formula One, whatever you prefer. I don't prefer any of them. And all the cars get into an accident. That's what's going to happen in my opinion. We're going to see an epic car crash of unprecedented proportions on the web because what users want and what these brands are doing, are so juxtaposed, it's going to end in madness. And if a brand wants to get ahead of this, what I recommend doing is focus on branding, focus on what your users want and how you want to be seen, and not on the immediate traffic conversion, ROI kind of stuff. And it's part of the web maturing. I think in terms of maturity, the web is sort of a teenager. And as a teenager, I have teenagers at home. They're focused on immediate gratification. I want the video game now. We're focused on conversions, we're focused on acquisition, we're focused on traffic, we're focused on all the ROI, and they're not focused on long-term brand perception. So as to when matures, I hope that brands do focus on that, take away the focus on the immediate, which means a little bit of focus off of the algorithms, and more focus onto user perception, and I think that will be the right incentive to create the better content that Danny Goodwin points out in his article, doesn't exist. That was a mouthful. That was a lot. And boy, did we get abstract, and boy was that not very snappy. So apologies for the not so snappy, Snappy News. Mordy Oberstein: I always wonder when we do this, I always wonder, we have new listeners, or listeners who are not from the SEO world, coming onto the show, listening to the show, like "Who's this Barry guy?" Crystal Carter: He's an evergreen element in the show. He's like a spruce. Barry Schwartz, that's what we're talking, things you need to know about our show, is we'll talk about Barry Schwartz at some point. Mordy Oberstein: No, for real. If want to, I always say if you want to learn, and we talked about this on previous episode of the podcast, read SEOroundtable.com every day so you can understand where SEO is heading. Even though it might seem like nitty gritty to you, it'll give you a sense of where things are going and where things have been all at the same time. It's evergreen and emerging. It's SEOroundtable.com Crystal Carter: Indeed, and you can understand the pace of things, and Barry shouts out lots of important people to follow. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, also perfect. Crystal Carter: Lots of important entities and things that are going on. So yeah, absolutely. You can't go wrong there. Mordy Oberstein: Can't go wrong with Barry. And you can't go wrong with Claudio Cabrera, who is our follow of the week this week. Who is also, by the way, the VP of Newsroom Strategy and Audience at the Athletic. I'm combining so many worlds here with this follow of the week. I'm combining editorial, we just spoke about emerging content. SEO, we always speak about, and sports. Crystal Carter: It's perfect synergy. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Check out Claudio on X over at CECabrera underscore, C-E-C-A-B-R-E-A-R-A, underscore, he's brilliant, super nice. Crystal Carter: Super nice. Mordy Oberstein: One of the most lovely fellows, and his feed is filled with sports stuff too. Again, right now, a bunch of Lions stuff, go Lions. The mighty underdog, the lovable underdog. Crystal Carter: He's fantastic, and he does a lot of events and outreach as well, so do keep an eye out for opportunities where he's sharing knowledge there. And also, one of the reasons why we wanted to follow him this week is because I think the Athletic do a fantastic job of balancing emerging and evergreen topics. So it's really important. Even if you are a small website and you don't have millions of people coming to your website every week, looking at the ways that some larger websites, like the Athletic, are handling these kinds of challenges, can give you a lot of insight into things you can do. So absolutely, follow Claudio, and check out the work that they're doing over at The Athletic. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Good. Shout out, good strategy, good stuff. And for Claudio's sake, go Lions. By the time this episode airs, we'll know the result, but I'm hoping for the Lions. I really am. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, just to give people context, they haven't won a playoff game until this year, for like, I don't know, since like 1992. They're like blue collar, hardworking kind of team. They got a great coach. You talk about biting people's knee caps off. Crystal Carter: Oh, my God. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, he's great though. He's like, "Yeah, what's your philosophy on coaching? I'm going to bite your knee caps off." Love it. Crystal Carter: Sports ball. Mordy Oberstein: Sports ball. One of these underdog kind of stories, they've been losers forever, but now they're winning, and they're fans who've been suffering for 30, 40 years, 50 years, 60 years. Crystal Carter: They're trying to emerge. Mordy Oberstein: They're emerging victorious. Crystal Carter: They're trying to emerge from an evergreen situation. Mordy Oberstein: Their evergreen losing situation. Crystal Carter: They're trying to change their evergreen content and emerge victorious. And we wish them well, and whoever else is doing sports. Yay, sports. Mordy Oberstein: Yes, but not the Ravens. We don't wish them well. Crystal Carter: I have no comment. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, as a Steelers fan, I feel obligated... By the way, I want to tell you my wife's from Baltimore, so I'm a Steelers fan. They're from Pittsburgh. My wife's from Baltimore. Her family are all Ravens fans because they're Baltimore, and she's trying to convince my kids to go for the Ravens in the playoffs because Steelers are out and the Ravens are still in, and I'm not having it. There's like a mutiny in my house, and I'm not having it. Crystal Carter: Are you like, "Never more?" Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm never more, because it'd be an emerging some punishment, if this happens. Crystal Carter: We're basketball fans. Mordy Oberstein: You're all grounded for life. You're evergreen league grounded. I've taken it too far. We've taken it too far. Crystal Carter: I think we're done now. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we're done now here. We'll stop here. Thanks 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 starting SEO from scratch. You make the dough, you mix the water. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast, or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content, webinars, and resources on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Is social media good for SEO? What are the myths and truths when it comes to ranking signals and social media? Join Wix’s own Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein and learn how social media does and doesn’t impact Google rankings and what you should be doing as a result Christoph Trappe, Director of Content Strategy at Growgetter IO, shares his expertise in content distribution on social media with his top three ways to reach and engage audiences effectively. Lirut Nave, Head of Social Media at Wix.com, joins the show to help you understand how to balance the various goals you have for your activity across social media. What are the ties between Social and SEO? How can you widen your reach on social while keeping your branding in mind? It’s all here with episode #49 of the SERP’s UP SEO podcast. Back Does social media matter for SEO? Is social media good for SEO? What are the myths and truths when it comes to ranking signals and social media? Join Wix’s own Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein and learn how social media does and doesn’t impact Google rankings and what you should be doing as a result Christoph Trappe, Director of Content Strategy at Growgetter IO, shares his expertise in content distribution on social media with his top three ways to reach and engage audiences effectively. Lirut Nave, Head of Social Media at Wix.com, joins the show to help you understand how to balance the various goals you have for your activity across social media. What are the ties between Social and SEO? How can you widen your reach on social while keeping your branding in mind? It’s all here with episode #49 of the SERP’s UP SEO podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 49 | August 2, 2023 | 51 MIN 00:00 / 51:24 This week’s guests Lirut Nave Moving from the advertising world into high-tech, Lirut nave, Head of social media at Wix is leading the company’s brand efforts on social, to increase awareness and visibility across all main channels through an organic-centered strategy. Christoph Trappe Christoph Trappe is a globally known content marketer who helps companies move their marketing content from happening to performing. He authored a series of marketing strategy books including “Is marketing a good career?” and is currently content director at growth marketing agency Growgetter. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. [Hawaiian 00:00:10] 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 and the head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the amazing, the fantastic, the absolutely incredible, the always on target, always insightful, always everything you could ever want out of an SEO podcast partner, the head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Ah shucks. You're a great podcast buddy too. Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: You're my podcast buddy, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Buddies. I once worked on a thing and I had an accountability buddy and I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." Like a personal trainer for whatever the project you're working on. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, really? The only time I had a buddy was in swim class in camp, day camp, back in the day. They have a buddy. Crystal Carter: To make sure you don't drown? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. But my buddy could not swim, so I'm like, "If I drown, I feel like this is not going to end well for me, because that buddy's not going to be my buddy." Crystal Carter: Did he have a whistle or something? Was he able to be like, "He's drowning! Help someone! Someone help him!" That would've been useful. Buddies always reminded me of cubby holes. That's another thing from that time of life. Mordy Oberstein: Buddy is very kindergarten-esque. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Mordy Oberstein: Sure. Crystal Carter: But it's not kindergarten-esque? Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up podcast, which is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter Searchlight, which comes out every month over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also create all sorts of custom media, from images to banners to videos, and then schedule them for social media posting, all without ever having to leave Wix. It's socialicious. They love social. Crystal Carter: All channels everywhere, all the time. Mordy Oberstein: All the new emerging social media platforms, whatever that is. That's a whole hot mess for another time. Crystal Carter: Oh gosh. Yeah, entirely. Entirely. Everyone's like, "Twitter! I have a new Twitter thing!" And everybody rushes over to it and then they're like, "Oh our servers crashed." Mordy Oberstein: As we're recording, there's another one of these new Twitter things and everyone's like, "Oh, we got to go." I'm not going anywhere. I tried that. It didn't work out well. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: If everybody ends up over there, I'll go there too. Crystal Carter: Sure. Sure. Sure. I think for the moment- Mordy Oberstein: But until then- Crystal Carter: ... most people are just doing their best on LinkedIn. It's like, "What's going on?" Mordy Oberstein: That's a great title. Who are you? I'm doing my best on LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: Right? Sometimes you got to do that. You got to go where the people are. I want to be where the people are. That one. That thing. Mordy Oberstein: Which is LinkedIn. Which by the way, in case you haven't realized, we're talking about social media today and SEO. Does social media impact SEO? What's true and what's not true. When it comes to social media and organic search, we'll dive into the unexpected impact social has on your SEO. And it's not just links, because that's the expected part. How social media helps the research stage of any SEO campaign, and social media and its relationship to the old EEAT. Plus, the great Christoph Trappe of Growgetter and far beyond joins us to give us his top tips for distributing social media content effectively across all social media channels. And we'll travel across the Wix-verse to speak to Wix's own head of social media, Lirut Nave, so that you can learn how to create a well-balanced social media presence for you and your brand. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO news and who should to be following on social for more SEO awesomeness. So, polish up your social media profile picks and put on your finest social media attire as episode number 49 of the SERP's Up podcast brings your social media presence to the great SEO dance in the sky. Crystal Carter: That was quite the intro. And with that, with that, let's get into this. Yeah, we're talking about social for SEO and how social effects SEO. Essentially the way I like to think about this is that when we're doing digital marketing, when we're doing SEO, we need to think about it from an omni-channel approach. That's because we are not just optimizing for search engines, we're optimizing for user discovery. Users use social media, so social's important for SEO because users are there. In fact, recent research from We Are Social and Meltwater shows that globally 30% of time online is spent on social media platforms, and in some countries this can be even higher than 30%. So, this is something that we absolutely need to be thinking about if we want to make sure that our content is being visible and that we are serving our clients and our projects and our teams really, really well. But it's not all just cat pics and sharing videos and doing dances on TikTok and all of that. Mordy Oberstein: Here's what I ate for dinner. Crystal Carter: I'm the queen of that. I’m sorry….if I have a lovely meal. People need to know about it. I take pictures of my burritos all the time. But I think that people are also using it for search. For instance, when we're talking about the burrito, I'm very often found on Instagram looking up the actual pictures that they have for the restaurant that I'm thinking of going to. I want to see whether people had a good time at the restaurant, whether people are wearing formal wear at this place, or whether it's a casual dining situation. Because a lot of times on a website you might just get pictures... on the website, you might just get the beauty shots of the plates of food and you might not be able to get an idea of what the whole place is like. This is something that's useful there. In fact, on Facebook there's something like 1.5 billion searches a day that are happening on Facebook. On Pinterest there's around 2 billion searches that are happening every day. And we all know that TikTok has become a really important tool, not just for search discovery for users, but as Abby Gleason pointed out in her recent article, people are also using TikTok for keyword research. Abby's somebody who's a big fan of trending topics in SEO and getting things that have zero clicks... I was on a podcast with her recently and she was talking about how, whenever someone says, "Oh, this has zero clicks. This keyword has zero clicks," she says, "Yeah. ChatGPT had zero clicks as well in October, November last time. Imagine how many clicks it actually was getting at the time." So, this is something that can be really useful. The thing about social is social can be very quick to respond to some of those trends, so it's a really good place to think about that. But additionally, Google actively ranks content from social media. If you look at keyword rankings for things like Facebook, like Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, there are 900 million keywords that are ranking that are from those domains that are ranking online. People will search for something, and if there isn't a page on a website, they may very well get sent to a Facebook page that talks about this. I've had this happen a number of times, where someone was having an event at a place, or someone is having some sort of promotional sale or offer, and the only thing I could find was a Facebook post about it and Google was showing that. Additionally, it's also driving lots of sessions. Stats that I pulled up from Semrush have said that there's something like 7.5 billion sessions that are going to social media content across the web. Not only that, but also they will show links from social media posts on Google. If you post on Twitter a lot, then you might have a Twitter carousel. I mean, I say this, but Twitter is changing daily with what they do and don't show on the site. Mordy Oberstein: Hourly. Hourly. Crystal Carter: Hourly. Historically speaking, it was the case that if you posted on Twitter a lot, you might get a Twitter carousel on Google and the links that you share from your Twitter posts are live. So people can click on them from Google. Additionally, if you look up a featured snippet in terms of EAT or EEAT, it's very often that you'll get information from LinkedIn about individuals. If you say something like, "What is Crystal Carter known for? Is Crystal Carter good at SEO?" You might actually get a featured snippet that is from a LinkedIn reply. I've seen this from multiple people as well, where actually the information for the featured snippet comes from LinkedIn. So, Google is linking those two. And John Mueller has said, when asked, I think it was at a Google meetup, Google Hangout session, that LinkedIn can be a source for Google to route some of their EEAT understandings of your biographical entity. This is something that's really, really useful. My point is that, when we're thinking about search, I'm not saying that you should necessarily as an SEO be trying to take over the social media accounts, but it's worth coordinating with your social media accounts to understand what they're posting and to be strategic about the kinds of language that you're using in your posts and the kinds of content, and how it supports each other as you're optimizing for user discovery via search, via social, via multiple channels. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. One of the reasons why I think social has maybe not become such a prominent part of the SEO dialogue is because it is true. The number of followers that you have, your reach, all those kind of things, those are not ranking factors. They don't come into the ranking equation at all. There might be a correlation to a big brand doing well with search and also having a great social media account, but that's just correlation not equaling causation. But that doesn't mean that social media as a concept is not a major part of SEO. For example, the Twitter box that you mentioned is a big part of reputation management. If you have, for example, a website talking smack about you and the ranking number like seven or eight on the SERP. If you start tweeting a lot and you get the Twitter box to show up there, it'll knock those results off of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. This is important. And also, if you're thinking about your brand for instance. I love the situation where you have your website, and I've had it before where I have clients and they were big on social. They were not so big on organic, but they were working towards that. That's why they got me involved. But they were big on social. And you take the social media... You can take your social handles and you can add them into your same as schema markup. So, on your scheme of markup about your organization, you can say, "We are also on YouTube, we are also here, we are also there." Google can see those and it will help them to understand that, okay, yeah, maybe this website has 500 visits a month or something, maybe it's a new domain, but this entity has been on YouTube for seven years and they've got 7 million followers. So actually, this is useful. This is important. It also is really useful if you have a name that is varying on different platforms, or if you have a name that's really common. It can help to make sure that people know that you are that person and that you are connected to that person. It also means that when people Google you, you get what I love, which is when the SERP is like, "It's all me." It's so amazing to me. It's like you get the website, the YouTube, the Pinterest, the Facebook, the Instagram, all of those things. So that if you have other people who are trying to find you, they can definitely find you and you don't have other pieces of content popping up in a SERP that should be yours. You should own that SERP entirely. Mordy Oberstein: You should control your name, your brand name, your personal name. You should control that SERP and social media is the way to do that. It goes back to what you were saying before. The knowledge panel does pick up social media profiles. For example, "Oh no, I'll never get a knowledge panel. I don't have a Wikipedia page." Not true. Google will look at LinkedIn, for example, as one of the primary sources of it understanding who you are and pulling that in as your description in the knowledge panel. By the way, it's a little bit different now because the format of a knowledge panel could sometimes be different. Now they have the cards. But when it was the traditional picture, name, maybe website, social profiles, description, whatever it was... For example, Tom Brady, the famous NFL player, retired NFL player, the URL that Google would show in his knowledge panel back in the day was not a website, it was his Instagram. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Because it's probably a place where he was really active. And there's some places where something happens and the celebrity, or whoever it is, makes a statement on Instagram. Mordy Oberstein: Google definitely knows what your social profiles are and when it's a primary part of the site, or the brand, or the person's identity. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. And this is, I think, one of the reasons why it's really important to you. Again, I don't think that you should be taking over your social media platforms from your social media managers. They know what they're doing. They are following all of the algorithms. They know all of the things for all of that stuff, and it's a very different skillset. There's a little bit of overlap with general things, but it's a very different skillset, and we will be talking about more of that later. But what is important is making sure that you have good link hygiene and good consistency across your social media platform. It's worth, and I've done this a few times, it's worth doing an audit of your social media platforms just to make sure that your about page, on Facebook for instance, is actually linking to your actual URL. What I see really, really, really, really often is that the domain is on HTTPS and the link on the Facebook is on HTTP, or the domain is on www and the link on the Facebook is not on www. Or the name on the Facebook page is slightly different from the name that's actually in your schema markup or something. Or the address isn't exactly the same, which is something that's really important for local SEO. So, if you're thinking about places where you have your domain name, your business name, your address, maybe even links to who your founders are, make sure that all of those things are consistent with what is on your webpage and what is in your schema markup. And if you're doing local SEO, for instance, and you're doing citations across local SEO, make sure that they're consistent across all of those. Because very often on local SEO citations, they will also be referencing your Facebook page, for instance. Because people know that that's part of the local experience and that Facebook geographically clusters people and that sort of thing as well. So, make sure that you got very consistent information across all of your social media platforms. Because think about how much traffic you're getting from all of those links. You're going to be getting a lot, so make sure that those things are consistent. And it will also help you to concentrate the information, the traffic, and also concentrate the data so that you're not splitting it into direct traffic, for instance, because it's gone to a 301 that had to go to a thing and all that sort of stuff. So, make sure that you've got good consistency across your social media profiles. That will help you, that'll help users, that'll help Google, that'll help all of the things. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And there's the classic example, by the way. If you have the links set up the right way and you're sharing links across, not just in the bio itself, but across social media and posts and tweets and whatever; it's a great way to get links. I've had that a gazillion times with my social media bio, people clicking on the link in there, whatever website I have at the time, I change it every once in a while; and getting traffic that way and getting links that way. But I also want to harp back on something you mentioned earlier about Abby Gleason and using social media as a keyword research tool, especially on emerging topics or when vernacular is changing. I'm a late '80s, early '90s kid, so the way I would phrase things or the catchwords I would say are not what the people today are using. If you're out of touch, you're going to be using vernacular that's just not what people are searching for. And while that may have traditional search volumes, it may not continue to have quality search volumes, because the vernacular is changing, the topics are changing. And social media is a great way to have... if not specifically doing a research through social media, but having your finger on the pulse of, okay, where are things at is equally important. Crystal Carter: Yeah, entirely. And I think that it can sometimes mean that you are able to connect with new audiences. It can also mean that you're not missing things that could be great opportunities for you. For instance, the corn kid was a big trend for a while, a few months back and stuff. If you were a corn business, that's your time to shine. I've been to a corn husking festival in Ohio years and years ago. That's a perfect time to get some content out there. I think that what's going on in social is really, really useful for lots of things. It tells you what your audience is interested in, so you can see which things are really appealing to your audience and can give you ideas about different content that you can make. It can also give you potential opportunities for where you might want to get back links, or where you might want to build partnerships. If you're finding that a lot of the people that are following you are, for instance, say, interested in certain topics or are tagging lots of events in social media, then you can say, "Hey, we should be at this event, because our audience is really interested in this event, or they're really interested in this cause," for instance. It might be that you look on your social media and you see that people are really, really interested in environmental issues, or other social issues. That's been something that's been a big trend across social media, is people being more invested in social issues. And that's something that you can get data for to back up whether or not it's something that you as a business should be investing in in terms of content or positioning when you're thinking about your online presence. Mordy Oberstein: I'll tell you, if there's a keyword research tool that's telling you there's not a lot of search volume around a particular topic and you go to social and it's all over the place, I would trust the social more then with the SEO tool. I'll give you a great example. You know the whole TikTok, Fruit Roll-Up, ice cream thing? You know what I'm talking about, right? No? Crystal Carter: No. No, I don't. Mordy Oberstein: I know. We're so old. You take a Fruit Roll-Up and you put ice cream in it and you wrap the ice cream in the Fruit Roll-Up and I guess it gets crunchy and you eat it together. Supposedly it's delicious. I don't know. Let's say I have a blog about food trends for boomers. Food trends for boomers. Crystal Carter: I'm not a boomer, by the way. Mordy Oberstein: I'm a boomer. It's fine. Crystal Carter: Do not. I'm not a boomer. Mordy Oberstein: I'm going to lean right into it. I'm a boomer. I literally went to Google. I'm like, "What is this Fruit Roll-Up, TikTok thing I keep hearing about?" Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's an opportunity for you. You might say, "Okay, I'm on social, I see the TikTok, Fruit Roll-Up, ice cream thing. That's not my audience." Yeah, it is. You just have to spin it the right way. Crystal Carter: Right! I think one of the other things that search marketers are able to do that we are able to add to the social melee as it were, is that sometimes on social it can be a bit chaotic. Sometimes something's trending and you have no idea why. And you try to get in there and there's some people who've just gotten into the hashtag and they've just started posting other stuff that's related to the hashtag. I've seen people. I've seen posts on Twitter, on other things, where I can see that this is trending and I have no idea why. Why is this trending? I don't understand. One of the things that people can do from a search marketer point of view is, if you can see that it's trending and it's really hard to figure out what's actually going on, you can write some content that explains what it is if it's relevant to your audience. Obviously, if we are talking about the Fruit Roll-Up example, if my business is like, I don't know, headphones or something, then maybe I shouldn't be talking about the Fruit Roll-Up thing. But for instance, if I was a food business, if I was an ice cream parlor for instance, I might want to talk about that particular trend and then say, "Hey, maybe we're going to try out this new thing tomorrow. Come and check it out." Mordy Oberstein: There's so many ways these things are relevant to you that you don't even realize. For example, to go back to the Fruit Roll-Up one real quick, importers. It became a whole big thing of importing Fruit Roll-Up into your country. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Just to meet the craze. What happens on social media is, I hate to put it this way, is life in a weird way. Not really, but kind of. There's so many outcomes and impacts that you may not really be aware of initially that can really help you drive a content strategy. Crystal Carter: And I think sometimes people think, they're like, "Oh, the links..." One of the things we both... People who ignore social media when they're doing SEO will be like, "Oh, well the links don't count. The links are no follow links, so they don't count." Mordy Oberstein: Right. Right. Another one. Crystal Carter: I'm just like, "Y'all, first of all, Google have said that they take no follow links as hints," is what they've said. Second of all, if people are clicking on them, if people are clicking on the links- Mordy Oberstein: That's what you want. Crystal Carter: If users are clicking on the links, I don't care if it's follow, no follow. I care that users are clicking on them. Because no follow, follow, that's not what pays the bills. Getting users to engage with your content, to maybe convert on your website, that's what pays the bills. That's what's going to actually get you actual value. So, making sure that you're getting your content seen in the right places, making sure that people know that your brand is relevant to things that they find relevant via social media, via other channels, via wherever they are, is really, really valuable. And I think that, yeah, social media is something that is absolutely a part of everyone's day to day. As I was saying, people spend 30% of their time on social media, so we should absolutely be thinking strategically about how we engage with that for our search activity. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, speaking of links and follow, no follow, which by the way is one of my pet peeves about how we think about links, because links are fundamentally about traffic. But leaving that aside, specifically about the no follow or follow, Google has said, by the way, that if you share content on social media, it will help your content get indexed quicker. Crystal Carter: Yes! I've done this all the time. I've said this before. I say this all the time. When people are saying, "Oh, this page isn't getting indexed," well, one of the things we... We recently did a webinar with Patrick Stox, and Patrick Stox was saying that they did some stats on content that has links or doesn't have links. And he was saying most content has no links. Not no follow, not do follow, just no links at all. So I'm sorry, but if Google is seeing that 3 million people have shared a page, and let's say that it's all no follow links, do you think Google's going to ignore that? No way. Mordy Oberstein: They officially came out that they do that. But also, the way I think about social media real quick, because we have to get to Christoph, is I look at social media and SEO like the brand marketing of SEO. You can't really pinpoint one action and what exactly it'll mean for your SEO. Just like in brand marketing. One positioning, one messaging and what that impact is. But aggregated all together, all that momentum, all of that energy, all of that cadence, all of that oomph, does have a real impact on SEO. I'm glad Google, I think it was last May, actually talked about that from an indexing point of view, because that's an actual thing you can point to. But I think there's so many aspects where having a strong social media presence seeps its way into SEO. That even if you can't pinpoint exactly where it is or exactly how it's going to do it, that you shouldn't ignore it. Crystal Carter: No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Mordy Oberstein: And with that, since you're talking about social media and now you're so invested in social media and now you're all gung ho about social media, how do you distribute your content across social media effectively? Crystal Carter: I don't know. How do we do it? How do we do it? We need some help. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know. We need help. Christoph, help us. Here's Christoph Trappe all about his top tips on distributing content across social media effectively. Christoph Trappe: SERPers, Christoph Trappe here, director of content strategy at your growth marketing partner, growgetter.io. Let's talk about the three top ways to distribute content on social media. Top three ways in my opinion of course. But let's get started here. The first one is use tidbits from existing content. You see a lot of people, all they do is they share their blog posts. And I do that too. Here's my latest blog post. But it's not like people are sitting there going, "Oh my goodness. Did Christoph publish a new blog post? That's the only reason we follow him on social media." The same is true for many brands. Instead of just pushing out links, share tidbits from an article, share sections from an article, try a LinkedIn newsletter with the content, turn it into a podcast. I mean, the options are endless nowadays. Turn it into a YouTube short, turn it into a TikTok. You may have heard now people search, younger generations, younger people I guess, search on TikTok instead of searching on Google. So, turn little bitty pieces into additional content assets that you can then share on social media. Still share links here and there, still ask people to do certain things, but have a good mix. That's my number one tip. Number two is kind of what you guys are doing right now with me. Quote other people. Interact with them. Because guess what I'm going to be doing? I'm going to share the podcast episode. And depending what you say, what your tips are, I might talk about that on my social media channels. Most everybody that gets quoted does that. So when you quote people in your social media content, in your articles, on your blog, whatever it might be, those people share that content as well. From a distribution perspective that's really helpful. It's also helpful, of course, because they actually give you a unique perspective, so it's not just you talking nonstop. I really like that. Quote people, tag them, engage them, interact with them, and they will actually help you have your content go further. The final tip in the top three from my perspective is to always try different content types. this is very different from just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what works. What I'm talking about is to actually hop on current trends and just ride them for a while. You can change and you can stick with it. I'll give you an example. I hopped on the live streaming and I started live streaming The Business Storytelling Show way back when, and also with the new Growgetter podcast. That's being live streamed. And I'm still on that trend, because in my opinion it does work. Then I turned my shows into a podcast. Another trend that didn't work as well was web stories when they first came out. I thought they could help with SEO. And they do help a little bit, but not as much as just written content, quite frankly. But I did maybe 60 to 80 web stories early on to really kick the tires on that strategy, and then I used that content in other places too, like TikToks and whatnot. So, try different things, see what works, and go from there. Those are my top three tips. Use tidbits, quote people, hop on trending content assets that work. Mordy Oberstein: I loved all of that, Christoph. I loved all of that. Amen to all of that. Especially the point about sharing... No one's waiting for you to share your next blog post. I love that. When I share this podcast, I try to offer a little bit of information in there so that you're at least getting some... you at least learn just a little bit, or you got clued into something just a little bit just by reading the tweet so that I feel like I earned your click. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Mordy Oberstein: Not like, "Hey, here's my blog post. Here's our podcast episode. Go ahead and read it, click on it, tweet it." Crystal Carter: I think the other thing that I really took from that was the testing things. You mentioned this a little bit as well, was that you test something, you'd give it a try. If it doesn't work, that's fine. Leave it, let it go. I saw someone who was a social media manager who was saying that one of the things that you learn as a social media manager is that a lot of posts don't work. You just have to test them and try again. And I think that SEOs will do this as well. But I think that sometimes it's really useful to build on the knowledge that you're getting from the different things. We were talking about TikTok and we were talking about other channels as well. But if you're seeing that you get some good traction on the social media posts, then great. Then maybe repurpose that into a blog. If you're seeing that you're getting some good traction on a blog, absolutely repurpose that into some social. And yeah, you're right, not the whole thing maybe. Maybe break it up into a thread and make sure that it's native to the platform. Make sure that it makes sense for that platform. Don't just like copy-paste the same thing from one thing to another, because they're different audiences, which is worth thinking about. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'll tell you, I'm experimenting on LinkedIn now with different content forms, seeing what works, what doesn't work, and it's learning curve. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: For sure it's a learning curve. And that's fine. That's all part of it. Lean into that. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I've worked with Christoph as a podcast guest and he is incredibly organized with how he does that content distribution piece. And yeah, really pleased to get his insights, because he absolutely is dropping some fantastic gems there. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. And Christoph, thank you in advance for sharing this, like you mentioned. We always appreciate a good share, as any marketer would, but make sure you follow Christoph on Twitter @CTrappe. It's @C-T-R-A-P-P-E. We'll link to his Twitter profile in the show notes. Make sure you check out christophtrapp.com. Tons of content there around social media, around marketing, around content. And he's got his own podcast called The Business Storytelling Podcast, so check that out as well. We'll link to all of that in the show notes, so you can go ahead and click on it and check out all of what Christoph is up to. Okay. Now it's time to combine three of my favorite things: mint chocolate chip ice cream, baseball, and single malt scotch. No? Not time for that. Crystal Carter: I wasn't ready for that. Mordy Oberstein: No. No? Crystal Carter: Now I'm envisaging having single malt scotch with mint choc chip ice cream. Mordy Oberstein: Watching baseball. Crystal Carter: Yeah. No, the choc chip and the whiskey, that doesn't work. Mordy Oberstein: Works for me. It all goes. Crystal Carter: Does it? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Oh, totally. You start with a shot, you watch an inning, you bring out the ice cream, you have another shot- Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Mordy Oberstein: ... you have some more. You don't take a bite and then take a shot. That wouldn't work. Crystal Carter: Okay, okay, okay. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, you could do it. You could do it. Crystal Carter: Okay. This is how we're planning your next birthday party. Mordy Oberstein: Right. I love celebrating birthdays. Just kidding, by the way. My three favorite things in this context would be social media, SEO, and brand marketing. Because SEO and social sort of touch on all of that stuff. To help you balance all of these things, i.e. SEO, social media, and brand marketing, because managing all of that on a social media account and considering all of that on a social media account and dealing with all of that on a social media account; it's a lot of things to consider. Crystal Carter: So many. Mordy Oberstein: So many things to consider, and who better to get a grasp on all of it than she who has a grasp on all of it? Our own head of social media, Lirut Nave, is here as we're traveling across the Wix-verse. Speaker 4: Three, two, one, ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: Welcome, Lirut. How are you? Lirut Nave: I'm great. How are you? Mordy Oberstein: Good. So glad that you can join us today on this fine, lovely... What is it? Morning? Afternoon? Who knows? Afternoon-ish. Crystal Carter: Time means nothing. Time is everything. Mordy Oberstein: The only time we care about today is when we schedule our social media posts. Oh. Lirut Nave: We love social media posts. Mordy Oberstein: First off, Lirut, just tell people what you do here at Wix. Because I know in the intro we gave your title, but I don't think it does justice to what you do at Wix. Lirut Nave: Sure. My team manages all of the social media for the brand, for wix.com's channels, everything. All the content that you see going live on social media from Wix that is not just paid ads, but actually brand content. This is what we're in charge of: strategy, creative, also some promotions. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Crystal Carter: Can I just say, Lirut is being incredibly humble right now. The channels that she manages, this is not a little Facebook page. There are millions of people that she's talking to daily. Mordy Oberstein: Millions and millions. Millions and millions. Crystal Carter: It's immense. If you go to the Wix Facebook page, we're talking something like 4.6 million followers. Lirut Nave: Yeah. Crystal Carter: If you go to the Twitter page, it's like... I'm sorry, hang on. Give me- Mordy Oberstein: Probably half a million, I believe. Crystal Carter: Exactly. This is what I'm talking about. The reach that you have from these channels is immense. And I think that there's some great things that people can learn from you from managing channels like Facebook, like Instagram, like Twitter, like TikTok. I know that the Pinterest account has something like 10 million views a month, or something to that effect. It's big. Lirut Nave: It's crazy. But it kind of runs by itself. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Sure, sure. Sure. Lirut Nave: Its own entity. Crystal Carter: I think also... We have our main Wix channels, but just while we're here, to anyone who's listening, there are additional channels, particularly on Twitter and other ones as well. For instance, Wix Help as well. These are also channels that are run via... So if you have a help question, on Twitter @WixHelp. They will help you. Lirut Nave: Help is like a support channel basically. Anybody who comes to Twitter and has a question about the product, Wix Help is your- Mordy Oberstein: I've literally done it. I've literally gone on Twitter, "Hey Wix, I don't know how to do this. How do you do that?" Lirut Nave: Yeah, the support team is doing an amazing job. Mordy Oberstein: They're awesome. Crystal Carter: And I think that comes to a really good question. When you're running a channel this big for a brand, Wix has like 200 million plus users around the world, how do you manage that channel? Because obviously it's very difficult to speak to 4.5 million, 5 million people or whatever, every day with the same message. How do you decide what to put out when or on which channel, on which platform? Lirut Nave: First, it's optimistic. We're not actually speaking to 4 or 5 million. Let's put it into context. The organic reach that content for brand has is fairly low, so we need to actually make a great effort to reach the big numbers. But it's more about the audience that we at Wix are talking to rather than the audience that we have following us on social. Because sometimes people... maybe they become less relevant as user, maybe we have potential users that are interested in our content, they're not followers. And today really on social, not only followers get your content, especially because we do promote it to the relevant people. So yeah, I think this is how we're looking at it. But it's a lot of technical managing. We have to post, the channel needs to keep going. Every channel has its own best practices. You want to be able to produce enough content that's versatile enough, but not too much so the algorithm doesn't get tired of you and you get decent engagement also. A lot of it for us is really about making database decisions as we go. When something goes live, after a week or so we let it run. What are the numbers? If it's not working and we keep doing the same thing, we're not going to be favored by the algorithm to show our content more. So it really is, if you've tried a piece of content or kind of content once or twice and it's not working for you, you really need to let it go. It's nothing personal, it's just people probably don't favor that information, or the way you framed it or the way you presented it to them is the wrong way to approach them and the relevant audiences for us. So, we do a lot of conclusion making on the go. Mordy Oberstein: With all that content that you're doing, and one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you, is because there's so many different topics that come up at Wix. For example, we have the SEO learning hub, which this podcast is a part of, and we're producing a ton of content. But if you were to show and put out all of the content that we're doing all the time, Wix would end up coming off Semrush. It'd be like an SEO company. And we're not like. SEO is a huge part of what we do obviously, but it's one part of what we do and there's a million others. There's eComm, there's design, there's DEJ. How do you balance all of it so that you showcase what we are doing, but at the same time manage the brand overall the right way. Lirut Nave: We're talking to a lot of teams to get information about the different products, the different priorities that we want to talk about at Wix. We also say no to a lot of teams and content that comes our way. We can talk only about SEO, but when you do it in the right amount and you put SEO maybe once a month or twice a month and you have design posts and you have user showcase and features... We're such a big company with so many products that you can talk about, so the work is easier that way for us. Because we do have stuff to talk about and it's not like we need to force one content. Also, once you set up an identity for what the brand is on social, it's very hard to step out of that, so you want to make sure not to do it from the beginning. You want to be balanced. You need to look at the plan as a whole. On a macro level, what are you posting a month? Are you overdoing something? And also remember the audience for each platform and how you're speaking to them, because our following and the people we target and are able to target on each platform, it's a little bit different. Right, we're going to be able to target based on actual interests and job. And so, if we have a post about SEO, we can reach these people. We can't do the same necessarily on TikTok, for example. And we want to take into account that maybe our following there is slightly younger, so how do we tailor the message? If it's an SEO message, how do we tailor that message on Instagram? What formats work best on Instagram? Maybe images work better than video. They don't, but... And then on TikTok, how do we want to talk about it? And really get people where they are. Because if you present the information the wrong way, you're really going to lose them. And it also looks like you don't know what you're doing, because you're speaking to them in the same way. So sometimes, even if we have one piece of advice on SEO but we build it differently for each channel, it looks more interesting to the audience, it works better, and we're able to talk about this topic in the long run and have more pieces without it sounding and feeling like we're really repeating ourselves and only talking about this. Crystal Carter: And I think there's a lot of considerations that I hear there. There's a lot of talking about testing, talking about audience segmentation, talking about targeting. I'm interested in the testing element. You said sometimes something doesn't work and you have to let it go. When you create a post or a few posts, what is the criteria that you set for knowing if something worked or not? Because I think that sometimes people think that it's just shares, or just likes, or just views or something. And that may or may not be the case for every type of social content. So how do you know, yes, this was good? Lirut Nave: We have a benchmark for each channel obviously, and we also have a benchmark for SEO specific content. Because I wouldn't necessarily compare SEO content into some kind of a website showcase or design, because people react differently to it and maybe comment differently. But also, we have our KPIs. For us on social at Wix, we're focusing on brand perception, on awareness. It's not acquisition campaigns. We're looking mainly at reach, at engagement. Video views now is a very big thing. For example, we used to look very closely on engagement, but engagement rates dropped on social for brands. Really dropped. Right now actually reach and video views and average watch time is something that we're putting much more focus on and much more importance on when reviewing our content, and slowly you build your benchmark. You can do it right off the bat. I can't tell you, "Okay, we have maybe 50K reach, organically is great." Maybe this is for my brand. Maybe for yours it's something completely different. You need to post a few pieces of content in order to understand what the right benchmark is for you and what you would consider success. But I can tell you these are the metrics we're mostly focusing on at the moment. Mordy Oberstein: How do, with that, measure brand? I'll tell you something I'll do on my personal social account. There are times I know there are people who just look. They don't interact, they don't engage. They're there. And I want to make sure that they see my content in a certain way. I might put a tweet out there, let's say, that I don't expect to get clicks, I don't expect to get retweets, but I know people are going to see and that's going to position myself a certain way. Do you do that? How do you do that? How do you measure that? Because again, no one's actually interacting, so now what? Lirut Nave: But reach is a big thing and reach is just how many people viewed your content without any kind of interaction. If you used to be considered less valuable, actually for brand it's a very big thing, because it's exposure to the name, to the content that you're doing, to the value that you're giving users, potential users. We take it as a very big sign of success of the content, but it needs to be also who did we reach? If we are promoting this to someone that's irrelevant, the reach is not going to do much for us. So yes, you maybe cannot measure brand in direct acquisition way that you would conversions. Next day someone sees our post, we have a new user. Maybe that's not the way. But we are able to say that if we hit the right target audience and we're being very specific in our targeting and we have a good reach, then this content is working good for us and we're getting brand visibility on social. Crystal Carter: Speaking of brand visibility and content working really well, one of my favorite social moments in the history of Wix social media was Taylor Swift. Her tickets went on sale at Ticketmaster and the Ticketmaster website crashed. One of my favorite moments... I don't know, Lirut, do you want to talk about it? I don't know if I should spoil it. Lirut Nave: I can talk about it a little bit, although it wasn't my team. But this was just like... This for us is more of a real time marketing opportunity. We had these campaigns already made about site stability and crashing and the video was there. And when they saw the content about the Ticketmaster crash, basically it was just a perfect opportunity to run this campaign all over again without actually... They didn't even directly talk about it. They didn't change anything. It was really all about the timing; reaching the right people at the time that something like that is trending and is being talked about really worldwide. I think it was a really super smart move. Crystal Carter: Yeah. There were millions of people, so it's got millions of views. There were lots of people going, "Oh my gosh, Ticketmaster should have been on Wix, because then they wouldn't have crashed," and all of that sort of stuff. I think that you were saying that this was an acquisition campaign that they ran at the same time. Lirut Nave: It was a campaign that we had and then once this happened and we flagged it to the right team, they're like, "Okay. You know what? We have this perfect opportunity. We don't even need to create something from scratch. We had this list. Just run the campaign again." And it's funny, because you didn't say anything about Ticketmaster, anything about Taylor Swift, but people got the reference.. Mordy Oberstein: That's the best, when that happens. When they get it on their own. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think also it's a really good example of how social can work across teams and to highlight values of the business. Like you said, that was something that was already core to the business. We'd already created the campaigns, all of the assets, et cetera. And with acquisition you have an opportunity to use your social posts to increase your reach to the audiences, you were saying to new audiences, potentially targeting certain audiences. I don't know if they did, but they could have potentially been targeting people who've also followed Ticketmaster. Lirut Nave: Exactly. I'm giving them the credit. I'm sure they did. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: I think ending off on a win is a great place to end off. Lirut, where can people find you? Lirut Nave: Where can they find me? Crystal Carter: What's your social handles? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's a social handle? Lirut Nave: Listen, since I'm in social, my social is a bit- Mordy Oberstein: Shoemaker's kids go shoeless. Crystal Carter: Right? Never trust a bald barber. Lirut Nave: When it becomes work and it's your work passion, it's really hard to keep that passion also in your spare time. You come home and you're like, "Should I post? No, I'm tired." Mordy Oberstein: In that case, you can't find her. She's a mystery. Lirut Nave: Listen, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Lirut Nave: I wouldn't trust my other social to be as exciting. Yeah. It's all mom life and- Crystal Carter: Aww. Mordy Oberstein: That's exciting. Crystal Carter: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Lirut Nave: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: Our pleasure, and we'll see you around. Lirut Nave: Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. Speaker 4: Three, two, one, ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Lirut, and definitely look for Lirut on LinkedIn and connect with her there. You know what pops on my social feed quite often? Crystal Carter: What's that? Mordy Oberstein: Is Barry Schwartz and his sharing of the SEO news. Crystal Carter: Oh, I bet he does. Mordy Oberstein: It's quite, quite often there all the time. And Barry's very efficient and relentless with the In Case You Missed It post. Which, by the way, I appreciate, because I'm in a different time zone, so I see a lot of the In Case You Missed Its. I actually do appreciate those, Barry, if you're listening to this. Crystal Carter: Thanks, Barry. Mordy Oberstein: With that, let's dive into this week's snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Two quick little ones for you this week. The first one comes from Search Engine Land's Danny Goodwin. He writes, "OpenAI's AI text classifier no longer available due to low rate of accuracy." Danny writes, "The AI text detector launched in January is meant to evaluate whether text was generated using AI. It failed." He quotes OpenAI as saying, "As of July 2023, the AI classifier's no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy. We are working to incorporate feedback," and so forth and so forth and so forth. The reason why I'm including this here is that AI is amazing, does amazing things. I personally use and love the AI image generator inside of Wix. AI can help you do a lot of things, it can help you do things faster, but AI at the same time is an emerging technology. And in this case, in OpenAI's case in this particular product, it didn't work. So there might be things that AI looks like it can do, but in the end it won't be able to do, or maybe won't be able to do yet. So, point of caution. If you're using AI, which you should be, just make sure you're using it responsibly. Because again, it is a new and emerging technology. What looks like might work might end up not working, as it was in this case. Article number two from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. Google Business Profile's automated FAQs feature. Google's Business Profile is rolling out a feature that will help you automatically create an FAQ based on your Google Business Profile details that you've entered and your website. Barry writes, "Those automated FAQs can be configured by type of automated FAQs. You can specifically tell Google which information it can create FAQs from, such as hours, appointments, contact information, and so forth." My point with this one is, there is already an FAQ section inside of the Google Business Profile. It's called Q&A. And in the Q&A your customers can ask questions and you can reply. You however can also ask questions and reply to your own questions. You can essentially create an FAQ on your own. This may take time to roll out, the automated FAQ option. You may not want an automated FAQ option. But know that Google does see value in there being an FAQ inside of the Google Business Profile, which is why they're releasing an automated version of it. But know that you already have a version of this with the Q&A feature. So, Google's basically telling you, "People are not utilizing the Q&A feature maybe the way that they should be, so we're going to help you here with the automated FAQ." In the meantime, might as well utilize the Q&A section that already exists. And that's this week's snappy news. Always snappy, always newsy. Crystal Carter: Always snappy and newsy. And lately always full of AI. Mordy Oberstein: Always full of AI, but some weeks not. Crystal Carter: Some weeks not. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like the flow of AI is slowly, slowly slowing down. Crystal Carter: We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Mordy Oberstein: We'll see. By the way, before we duly depart, we have to get into who you should be following for more SEO, and in this case content marketing and social media marketing, awesomeness. Crystal, who's this week's follow of the week? Crystal Carter: This week's follow of the week is Jean Wandimi. She's a content marketer and a wine aficionado, so she's got a wine blog. Mordy Oberstein: Got my vote. Crystal Carter: Yeah, indeed. She also has lots of great content on YouTube about creating great content. She has a lot of really accessible information that's really useful for freelancers, those doing DIY. She's got an Instagram account. She's constantly sharing useful tips of how you can improve your content writing and content creation and be more strategic and more programmatic, I guess you would say. But not programmatic with a capital P, but more programmatic like have a system. Have a system for how you make your content. So yeah, she's a great follow. Do check her out. And yeah, she's great. Mordy Oberstein: Give her a follow over @Jeanwandimi on Twitter, @J-E-A-N-W-A-N-D-I-M-I. Of course we'll link to her profile in the show notes, so you don't have to spell on the fly. Because that doesn't make much sense. But I do it anyway. Crystal Carter: O-N T-H-E F-L-Y. Mordy Oberstein: Is it T-I-M-E T-O G-O? Crystal Carter: Y-E-S. Mordy Oberstein: Oh. Great. I used to love doing this with my wife and my kids, because they don't know how to spell. But now they know how to spell, so I can't do that anymore. Crystal Carter: Oh no. Mordy Oberstein: They know everything. They're like AI, my kids. They know everything. All the things I don't want them to know, they know. Well, with that happy note, 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... Not telling. I'm not telling you what we're diving into. It's a very special episode next week. That's all I'll say. Surprises. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast, or on our SEO learning hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more but 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, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Christoph Trappe Lirut Nave Jean Wandimi Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter How to use TikTok for SEO keyword research SEO competitor backlink analysis Christoph Trappe Website Business Storytelling Podcast Growgetter News: OpenAI’s AI Text Classifier no longer available due to ‘low rate of accuracy’ Google Business Profiles Automated FAQs Feature Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Christoph Trappe Lirut Nave Jean Wandimi Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter How to use TikTok for SEO keyword research SEO competitor backlink analysis Christoph Trappe Website Business Storytelling Podcast Growgetter News: OpenAI’s AI Text Classifier no longer available due to ‘low rate of accuracy’ Google Business Profiles Automated FAQs Feature Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. [Hawaiian 00:00:10] 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 and the head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the amazing, the fantastic, the absolutely incredible, the always on target, always insightful, always everything you could ever want out of an SEO podcast partner, the head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Ah shucks. You're a great podcast buddy too. Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: You're my podcast buddy, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Buddies. I once worked on a thing and I had an accountability buddy and I was like, "Oh, that's interesting." Like a personal trainer for whatever the project you're working on. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, really? The only time I had a buddy was in swim class in camp, day camp, back in the day. They have a buddy. Crystal Carter: To make sure you don't drown? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. But my buddy could not swim, so I'm like, "If I drown, I feel like this is not going to end well for me, because that buddy's not going to be my buddy." Crystal Carter: Did he have a whistle or something? Was he able to be like, "He's drowning! Help someone! Someone help him!" That would've been useful. Buddies always reminded me of cubby holes. That's another thing from that time of life. Mordy Oberstein: Buddy is very kindergarten-esque. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Mordy Oberstein: Sure. Crystal Carter: But it's not kindergarten-esque? Mordy Oberstein: The SERP's Up podcast, which is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter Searchlight, which comes out every month over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also create all sorts of custom media, from images to banners to videos, and then schedule them for social media posting, all without ever having to leave Wix. It's socialicious. They love social. Crystal Carter: All channels everywhere, all the time. Mordy Oberstein: All the new emerging social media platforms, whatever that is. That's a whole hot mess for another time. Crystal Carter: Oh gosh. Yeah, entirely. Entirely. Everyone's like, "Twitter! I have a new Twitter thing!" And everybody rushes over to it and then they're like, "Oh our servers crashed." Mordy Oberstein: As we're recording, there's another one of these new Twitter things and everyone's like, "Oh, we got to go." I'm not going anywhere. I tried that. It didn't work out well. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: If everybody ends up over there, I'll go there too. Crystal Carter: Sure. Sure. Sure. I think for the moment- Mordy Oberstein: But until then- Crystal Carter: ... most people are just doing their best on LinkedIn. It's like, "What's going on?" Mordy Oberstein: That's a great title. Who are you? I'm doing my best on LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: Right? Sometimes you got to do that. You got to go where the people are. I want to be where the people are. That one. That thing. Mordy Oberstein: Which is LinkedIn. Which by the way, in case you haven't realized, we're talking about social media today and SEO. Does social media impact SEO? What's true and what's not true. When it comes to social media and organic search, we'll dive into the unexpected impact social has on your SEO. And it's not just links, because that's the expected part. How social media helps the research stage of any SEO campaign, and social media and its relationship to the old EEAT. Plus, the great Christoph Trappe of Growgetter and far beyond joins us to give us his top tips for distributing social media content effectively across all social media channels. And we'll travel across the Wix-verse to speak to Wix's own head of social media, Lirut Nave, so that you can learn how to create a well-balanced social media presence for you and your brand. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO news and who should to be following on social for more SEO awesomeness. So, polish up your social media profile picks and put on your finest social media attire as episode number 49 of the SERP's Up podcast brings your social media presence to the great SEO dance in the sky. Crystal Carter: That was quite the intro. And with that, with that, let's get into this. Yeah, we're talking about social for SEO and how social effects SEO. Essentially the way I like to think about this is that when we're doing digital marketing, when we're doing SEO, we need to think about it from an omni-channel approach. That's because we are not just optimizing for search engines, we're optimizing for user discovery. Users use social media, so social's important for SEO because users are there. In fact, recent research from We Are Social and Meltwater shows that globally 30% of time online is spent on social media platforms, and in some countries this can be even higher than 30%. So, this is something that we absolutely need to be thinking about if we want to make sure that our content is being visible and that we are serving our clients and our projects and our teams really, really well. But it's not all just cat pics and sharing videos and doing dances on TikTok and all of that. Mordy Oberstein: Here's what I ate for dinner. Crystal Carter: I'm the queen of that. I’m sorry….if I have a lovely meal. People need to know about it. I take pictures of my burritos all the time. But I think that people are also using it for search. For instance, when we're talking about the burrito, I'm very often found on Instagram looking up the actual pictures that they have for the restaurant that I'm thinking of going to. I want to see whether people had a good time at the restaurant, whether people are wearing formal wear at this place, or whether it's a casual dining situation. Because a lot of times on a website you might just get pictures... on the website, you might just get the beauty shots of the plates of food and you might not be able to get an idea of what the whole place is like. This is something that's useful there. In fact, on Facebook there's something like 1.5 billion searches a day that are happening on Facebook. On Pinterest there's around 2 billion searches that are happening every day. And we all know that TikTok has become a really important tool, not just for search discovery for users, but as Abby Gleason pointed out in her recent article, people are also using TikTok for keyword research. Abby's somebody who's a big fan of trending topics in SEO and getting things that have zero clicks... I was on a podcast with her recently and she was talking about how, whenever someone says, "Oh, this has zero clicks. This keyword has zero clicks," she says, "Yeah. ChatGPT had zero clicks as well in October, November last time. Imagine how many clicks it actually was getting at the time." So, this is something that can be really useful. The thing about social is social can be very quick to respond to some of those trends, so it's a really good place to think about that. But additionally, Google actively ranks content from social media. If you look at keyword rankings for things like Facebook, like Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, there are 900 million keywords that are ranking that are from those domains that are ranking online. People will search for something, and if there isn't a page on a website, they may very well get sent to a Facebook page that talks about this. I've had this happen a number of times, where someone was having an event at a place, or someone is having some sort of promotional sale or offer, and the only thing I could find was a Facebook post about it and Google was showing that. Additionally, it's also driving lots of sessions. Stats that I pulled up from Semrush have said that there's something like 7.5 billion sessions that are going to social media content across the web. Not only that, but also they will show links from social media posts on Google. If you post on Twitter a lot, then you might have a Twitter carousel. I mean, I say this, but Twitter is changing daily with what they do and don't show on the site. Mordy Oberstein: Hourly. Hourly. Crystal Carter: Hourly. Historically speaking, it was the case that if you posted on Twitter a lot, you might get a Twitter carousel on Google and the links that you share from your Twitter posts are live. So people can click on them from Google. Additionally, if you look up a featured snippet in terms of EAT or EEAT, it's very often that you'll get information from LinkedIn about individuals. If you say something like, "What is Crystal Carter known for? Is Crystal Carter good at SEO?" You might actually get a featured snippet that is from a LinkedIn reply. I've seen this from multiple people as well, where actually the information for the featured snippet comes from LinkedIn. So, Google is linking those two. And John Mueller has said, when asked, I think it was at a Google meetup, Google Hangout session, that LinkedIn can be a source for Google to route some of their EEAT understandings of your biographical entity. This is something that's really, really useful. My point is that, when we're thinking about search, I'm not saying that you should necessarily as an SEO be trying to take over the social media accounts, but it's worth coordinating with your social media accounts to understand what they're posting and to be strategic about the kinds of language that you're using in your posts and the kinds of content, and how it supports each other as you're optimizing for user discovery via search, via social, via multiple channels. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. One of the reasons why I think social has maybe not become such a prominent part of the SEO dialogue is because it is true. The number of followers that you have, your reach, all those kind of things, those are not ranking factors. They don't come into the ranking equation at all. There might be a correlation to a big brand doing well with search and also having a great social media account, but that's just correlation not equaling causation. But that doesn't mean that social media as a concept is not a major part of SEO. For example, the Twitter box that you mentioned is a big part of reputation management. If you have, for example, a website talking smack about you and the ranking number like seven or eight on the SERP. If you start tweeting a lot and you get the Twitter box to show up there, it'll knock those results off of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. This is important. And also, if you're thinking about your brand for instance. I love the situation where you have your website, and I've had it before where I have clients and they were big on social. They were not so big on organic, but they were working towards that. That's why they got me involved. But they were big on social. And you take the social media... You can take your social handles and you can add them into your same as schema markup. So, on your scheme of markup about your organization, you can say, "We are also on YouTube, we are also here, we are also there." Google can see those and it will help them to understand that, okay, yeah, maybe this website has 500 visits a month or something, maybe it's a new domain, but this entity has been on YouTube for seven years and they've got 7 million followers. So actually, this is useful. This is important. It also is really useful if you have a name that is varying on different platforms, or if you have a name that's really common. It can help to make sure that people know that you are that person and that you are connected to that person. It also means that when people Google you, you get what I love, which is when the SERP is like, "It's all me." It's so amazing to me. It's like you get the website, the YouTube, the Pinterest, the Facebook, the Instagram, all of those things. So that if you have other people who are trying to find you, they can definitely find you and you don't have other pieces of content popping up in a SERP that should be yours. You should own that SERP entirely. Mordy Oberstein: You should control your name, your brand name, your personal name. You should control that SERP and social media is the way to do that. It goes back to what you were saying before. The knowledge panel does pick up social media profiles. For example, "Oh no, I'll never get a knowledge panel. I don't have a Wikipedia page." Not true. Google will look at LinkedIn, for example, as one of the primary sources of it understanding who you are and pulling that in as your description in the knowledge panel. By the way, it's a little bit different now because the format of a knowledge panel could sometimes be different. Now they have the cards. But when it was the traditional picture, name, maybe website, social profiles, description, whatever it was... For example, Tom Brady, the famous NFL player, retired NFL player, the URL that Google would show in his knowledge panel back in the day was not a website, it was his Instagram. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Because it's probably a place where he was really active. And there's some places where something happens and the celebrity, or whoever it is, makes a statement on Instagram. Mordy Oberstein: Google definitely knows what your social profiles are and when it's a primary part of the site, or the brand, or the person's identity. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. And this is, I think, one of the reasons why it's really important to you. Again, I don't think that you should be taking over your social media platforms from your social media managers. They know what they're doing. They are following all of the algorithms. They know all of the things for all of that stuff, and it's a very different skillset. There's a little bit of overlap with general things, but it's a very different skillset, and we will be talking about more of that later. But what is important is making sure that you have good link hygiene and good consistency across your social media platform. It's worth, and I've done this a few times, it's worth doing an audit of your social media platforms just to make sure that your about page, on Facebook for instance, is actually linking to your actual URL. What I see really, really, really, really often is that the domain is on HTTPS and the link on the Facebook is on HTTP, or the domain is on www and the link on the Facebook is not on www. Or the name on the Facebook page is slightly different from the name that's actually in your schema markup or something. Or the address isn't exactly the same, which is something that's really important for local SEO. So, if you're thinking about places where you have your domain name, your business name, your address, maybe even links to who your founders are, make sure that all of those things are consistent with what is on your webpage and what is in your schema markup. And if you're doing local SEO, for instance, and you're doing citations across local SEO, make sure that they're consistent across all of those. Because very often on local SEO citations, they will also be referencing your Facebook page, for instance. Because people know that that's part of the local experience and that Facebook geographically clusters people and that sort of thing as well. So, make sure that you got very consistent information across all of your social media platforms. Because think about how much traffic you're getting from all of those links. You're going to be getting a lot, so make sure that those things are consistent. And it will also help you to concentrate the information, the traffic, and also concentrate the data so that you're not splitting it into direct traffic, for instance, because it's gone to a 301 that had to go to a thing and all that sort of stuff. So, make sure that you've got good consistency across your social media profiles. That will help you, that'll help users, that'll help Google, that'll help all of the things. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And there's the classic example, by the way. If you have the links set up the right way and you're sharing links across, not just in the bio itself, but across social media and posts and tweets and whatever; it's a great way to get links. I've had that a gazillion times with my social media bio, people clicking on the link in there, whatever website I have at the time, I change it every once in a while; and getting traffic that way and getting links that way. But I also want to harp back on something you mentioned earlier about Abby Gleason and using social media as a keyword research tool, especially on emerging topics or when vernacular is changing. I'm a late '80s, early '90s kid, so the way I would phrase things or the catchwords I would say are not what the people today are using. If you're out of touch, you're going to be using vernacular that's just not what people are searching for. And while that may have traditional search volumes, it may not continue to have quality search volumes, because the vernacular is changing, the topics are changing. And social media is a great way to have... if not specifically doing a research through social media, but having your finger on the pulse of, okay, where are things at is equally important. Crystal Carter: Yeah, entirely. And I think that it can sometimes mean that you are able to connect with new audiences. It can also mean that you're not missing things that could be great opportunities for you. For instance, the corn kid was a big trend for a while, a few months back and stuff. If you were a corn business, that's your time to shine. I've been to a corn husking festival in Ohio years and years ago. That's a perfect time to get some content out there. I think that what's going on in social is really, really useful for lots of things. It tells you what your audience is interested in, so you can see which things are really appealing to your audience and can give you ideas about different content that you can make. It can also give you potential opportunities for where you might want to get back links, or where you might want to build partnerships. If you're finding that a lot of the people that are following you are, for instance, say, interested in certain topics or are tagging lots of events in social media, then you can say, "Hey, we should be at this event, because our audience is really interested in this event, or they're really interested in this cause," for instance. It might be that you look on your social media and you see that people are really, really interested in environmental issues, or other social issues. That's been something that's been a big trend across social media, is people being more invested in social issues. And that's something that you can get data for to back up whether or not it's something that you as a business should be investing in in terms of content or positioning when you're thinking about your online presence. Mordy Oberstein: I'll tell you, if there's a keyword research tool that's telling you there's not a lot of search volume around a particular topic and you go to social and it's all over the place, I would trust the social more then with the SEO tool. I'll give you a great example. You know the whole TikTok, Fruit Roll-Up, ice cream thing? You know what I'm talking about, right? No? Crystal Carter: No. No, I don't. Mordy Oberstein: I know. We're so old. You take a Fruit Roll-Up and you put ice cream in it and you wrap the ice cream in the Fruit Roll-Up and I guess it gets crunchy and you eat it together. Supposedly it's delicious. I don't know. Let's say I have a blog about food trends for boomers. Food trends for boomers. Crystal Carter: I'm not a boomer, by the way. Mordy Oberstein: I'm a boomer. It's fine. Crystal Carter: Do not. I'm not a boomer. Mordy Oberstein: I'm going to lean right into it. I'm a boomer. I literally went to Google. I'm like, "What is this Fruit Roll-Up, TikTok thing I keep hearing about?" Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's an opportunity for you. You might say, "Okay, I'm on social, I see the TikTok, Fruit Roll-Up, ice cream thing. That's not my audience." Yeah, it is. You just have to spin it the right way. Crystal Carter: Right! I think one of the other things that search marketers are able to do that we are able to add to the social melee as it were, is that sometimes on social it can be a bit chaotic. Sometimes something's trending and you have no idea why. And you try to get in there and there's some people who've just gotten into the hashtag and they've just started posting other stuff that's related to the hashtag. I've seen people. I've seen posts on Twitter, on other things, where I can see that this is trending and I have no idea why. Why is this trending? I don't understand. One of the things that people can do from a search marketer point of view is, if you can see that it's trending and it's really hard to figure out what's actually going on, you can write some content that explains what it is if it's relevant to your audience. Obviously, if we are talking about the Fruit Roll-Up example, if my business is like, I don't know, headphones or something, then maybe I shouldn't be talking about the Fruit Roll-Up thing. But for instance, if I was a food business, if I was an ice cream parlor for instance, I might want to talk about that particular trend and then say, "Hey, maybe we're going to try out this new thing tomorrow. Come and check it out." Mordy Oberstein: There's so many ways these things are relevant to you that you don't even realize. For example, to go back to the Fruit Roll-Up one real quick, importers. It became a whole big thing of importing Fruit Roll-Up into your country. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Just to meet the craze. What happens on social media is, I hate to put it this way, is life in a weird way. Not really, but kind of. There's so many outcomes and impacts that you may not really be aware of initially that can really help you drive a content strategy. Crystal Carter: And I think sometimes people think, they're like, "Oh, the links..." One of the things we both... People who ignore social media when they're doing SEO will be like, "Oh, well the links don't count. The links are no follow links, so they don't count." Mordy Oberstein: Right. Right. Another one. Crystal Carter: I'm just like, "Y'all, first of all, Google have said that they take no follow links as hints," is what they've said. Second of all, if people are clicking on them, if people are clicking on the links- Mordy Oberstein: That's what you want. Crystal Carter: If users are clicking on the links, I don't care if it's follow, no follow. I care that users are clicking on them. Because no follow, follow, that's not what pays the bills. Getting users to engage with your content, to maybe convert on your website, that's what pays the bills. That's what's going to actually get you actual value. So, making sure that you're getting your content seen in the right places, making sure that people know that your brand is relevant to things that they find relevant via social media, via other channels, via wherever they are, is really, really valuable. And I think that, yeah, social media is something that is absolutely a part of everyone's day to day. As I was saying, people spend 30% of their time on social media, so we should absolutely be thinking strategically about how we engage with that for our search activity. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, speaking of links and follow, no follow, which by the way is one of my pet peeves about how we think about links, because links are fundamentally about traffic. But leaving that aside, specifically about the no follow or follow, Google has said, by the way, that if you share content on social media, it will help your content get indexed quicker. Crystal Carter: Yes! I've done this all the time. I've said this before. I say this all the time. When people are saying, "Oh, this page isn't getting indexed," well, one of the things we... We recently did a webinar with Patrick Stox, and Patrick Stox was saying that they did some stats on content that has links or doesn't have links. And he was saying most content has no links. Not no follow, not do follow, just no links at all. So I'm sorry, but if Google is seeing that 3 million people have shared a page, and let's say that it's all no follow links, do you think Google's going to ignore that? No way. Mordy Oberstein: They officially came out that they do that. But also, the way I think about social media real quick, because we have to get to Christoph, is I look at social media and SEO like the brand marketing of SEO. You can't really pinpoint one action and what exactly it'll mean for your SEO. Just like in brand marketing. One positioning, one messaging and what that impact is. But aggregated all together, all that momentum, all of that energy, all of that cadence, all of that oomph, does have a real impact on SEO. I'm glad Google, I think it was last May, actually talked about that from an indexing point of view, because that's an actual thing you can point to. But I think there's so many aspects where having a strong social media presence seeps its way into SEO. That even if you can't pinpoint exactly where it is or exactly how it's going to do it, that you shouldn't ignore it. Crystal Carter: No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Mordy Oberstein: And with that, since you're talking about social media and now you're so invested in social media and now you're all gung ho about social media, how do you distribute your content across social media effectively? Crystal Carter: I don't know. How do we do it? How do we do it? We need some help. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know. We need help. Christoph, help us. Here's Christoph Trappe all about his top tips on distributing content across social media effectively. Christoph Trappe: SERPers, Christoph Trappe here, director of content strategy at your growth marketing partner, growgetter.io. Let's talk about the three top ways to distribute content on social media. Top three ways in my opinion of course. But let's get started here. The first one is use tidbits from existing content. You see a lot of people, all they do is they share their blog posts. And I do that too. Here's my latest blog post. But it's not like people are sitting there going, "Oh my goodness. Did Christoph publish a new blog post? That's the only reason we follow him on social media." The same is true for many brands. Instead of just pushing out links, share tidbits from an article, share sections from an article, try a LinkedIn newsletter with the content, turn it into a podcast. I mean, the options are endless nowadays. Turn it into a YouTube short, turn it into a TikTok. You may have heard now people search, younger generations, younger people I guess, search on TikTok instead of searching on Google. So, turn little bitty pieces into additional content assets that you can then share on social media. Still share links here and there, still ask people to do certain things, but have a good mix. That's my number one tip. Number two is kind of what you guys are doing right now with me. Quote other people. Interact with them. Because guess what I'm going to be doing? I'm going to share the podcast episode. And depending what you say, what your tips are, I might talk about that on my social media channels. Most everybody that gets quoted does that. So when you quote people in your social media content, in your articles, on your blog, whatever it might be, those people share that content as well. From a distribution perspective that's really helpful. It's also helpful, of course, because they actually give you a unique perspective, so it's not just you talking nonstop. I really like that. Quote people, tag them, engage them, interact with them, and they will actually help you have your content go further. The final tip in the top three from my perspective is to always try different content types. this is very different from just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what works. What I'm talking about is to actually hop on current trends and just ride them for a while. You can change and you can stick with it. I'll give you an example. I hopped on the live streaming and I started live streaming The Business Storytelling Show way back when, and also with the new Growgetter podcast. That's being live streamed. And I'm still on that trend, because in my opinion it does work. Then I turned my shows into a podcast. Another trend that didn't work as well was web stories when they first came out. I thought they could help with SEO. And they do help a little bit, but not as much as just written content, quite frankly. But I did maybe 60 to 80 web stories early on to really kick the tires on that strategy, and then I used that content in other places too, like TikToks and whatnot. So, try different things, see what works, and go from there. Those are my top three tips. Use tidbits, quote people, hop on trending content assets that work. Mordy Oberstein: I loved all of that, Christoph. I loved all of that. Amen to all of that. Especially the point about sharing... No one's waiting for you to share your next blog post. I love that. When I share this podcast, I try to offer a little bit of information in there so that you're at least getting some... you at least learn just a little bit, or you got clued into something just a little bit just by reading the tweet so that I feel like I earned your click. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Mordy Oberstein: Not like, "Hey, here's my blog post. Here's our podcast episode. Go ahead and read it, click on it, tweet it." Crystal Carter: I think the other thing that I really took from that was the testing things. You mentioned this a little bit as well, was that you test something, you'd give it a try. If it doesn't work, that's fine. Leave it, let it go. I saw someone who was a social media manager who was saying that one of the things that you learn as a social media manager is that a lot of posts don't work. You just have to test them and try again. And I think that SEOs will do this as well. But I think that sometimes it's really useful to build on the knowledge that you're getting from the different things. We were talking about TikTok and we were talking about other channels as well. But if you're seeing that you get some good traction on the social media posts, then great. Then maybe repurpose that into a blog. If you're seeing that you're getting some good traction on a blog, absolutely repurpose that into some social. And yeah, you're right, not the whole thing maybe. Maybe break it up into a thread and make sure that it's native to the platform. Make sure that it makes sense for that platform. Don't just like copy-paste the same thing from one thing to another, because they're different audiences, which is worth thinking about. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'll tell you, I'm experimenting on LinkedIn now with different content forms, seeing what works, what doesn't work, and it's learning curve. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: For sure it's a learning curve. And that's fine. That's all part of it. Lean into that. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I've worked with Christoph as a podcast guest and he is incredibly organized with how he does that content distribution piece. And yeah, really pleased to get his insights, because he absolutely is dropping some fantastic gems there. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. And Christoph, thank you in advance for sharing this, like you mentioned. We always appreciate a good share, as any marketer would, but make sure you follow Christoph on Twitter @CTrappe. It's @C-T-R-A-P-P-E. We'll link to his Twitter profile in the show notes. Make sure you check out christophtrapp.com. Tons of content there around social media, around marketing, around content. And he's got his own podcast called The Business Storytelling Podcast, so check that out as well. We'll link to all of that in the show notes, so you can go ahead and click on it and check out all of what Christoph is up to. Okay. Now it's time to combine three of my favorite things: mint chocolate chip ice cream, baseball, and single malt scotch. No? Not time for that. Crystal Carter: I wasn't ready for that. Mordy Oberstein: No. No? Crystal Carter: Now I'm envisaging having single malt scotch with mint choc chip ice cream. Mordy Oberstein: Watching baseball. Crystal Carter: Yeah. No, the choc chip and the whiskey, that doesn't work. Mordy Oberstein: Works for me. It all goes. Crystal Carter: Does it? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Oh, totally. You start with a shot, you watch an inning, you bring out the ice cream, you have another shot- Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Mordy Oberstein: ... you have some more. You don't take a bite and then take a shot. That wouldn't work. Crystal Carter: Okay, okay, okay. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, you could do it. You could do it. Crystal Carter: Okay. This is how we're planning your next birthday party. Mordy Oberstein: Right. I love celebrating birthdays. Just kidding, by the way. My three favorite things in this context would be social media, SEO, and brand marketing. Because SEO and social sort of touch on all of that stuff. To help you balance all of these things, i.e. SEO, social media, and brand marketing, because managing all of that on a social media account and considering all of that on a social media account and dealing with all of that on a social media account; it's a lot of things to consider. Crystal Carter: So many. Mordy Oberstein: So many things to consider, and who better to get a grasp on all of it than she who has a grasp on all of it? Our own head of social media, Lirut Nave, is here as we're traveling across the Wix-verse. Speaker 4: Three, two, one, ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: Welcome, Lirut. How are you? Lirut Nave: I'm great. How are you? Mordy Oberstein: Good. So glad that you can join us today on this fine, lovely... What is it? Morning? Afternoon? Who knows? Afternoon-ish. Crystal Carter: Time means nothing. Time is everything. Mordy Oberstein: The only time we care about today is when we schedule our social media posts. Oh. Lirut Nave: We love social media posts. Mordy Oberstein: First off, Lirut, just tell people what you do here at Wix. Because I know in the intro we gave your title, but I don't think it does justice to what you do at Wix. Lirut Nave: Sure. My team manages all of the social media for the brand, for wix.com's channels, everything. All the content that you see going live on social media from Wix that is not just paid ads, but actually brand content. This is what we're in charge of: strategy, creative, also some promotions. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Crystal Carter: Can I just say, Lirut is being incredibly humble right now. The channels that she manages, this is not a little Facebook page. There are millions of people that she's talking to daily. Mordy Oberstein: Millions and millions. Millions and millions. Crystal Carter: It's immense. If you go to the Wix Facebook page, we're talking something like 4.6 million followers. Lirut Nave: Yeah. Crystal Carter: If you go to the Twitter page, it's like... I'm sorry, hang on. Give me- Mordy Oberstein: Probably half a million, I believe. Crystal Carter: Exactly. This is what I'm talking about. The reach that you have from these channels is immense. And I think that there's some great things that people can learn from you from managing channels like Facebook, like Instagram, like Twitter, like TikTok. I know that the Pinterest account has something like 10 million views a month, or something to that effect. It's big. Lirut Nave: It's crazy. But it kind of runs by itself. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Sure, sure. Sure. Lirut Nave: Its own entity. Crystal Carter: I think also... We have our main Wix channels, but just while we're here, to anyone who's listening, there are additional channels, particularly on Twitter and other ones as well. For instance, Wix Help as well. These are also channels that are run via... So if you have a help question, on Twitter @WixHelp. They will help you. Lirut Nave: Help is like a support channel basically. Anybody who comes to Twitter and has a question about the product, Wix Help is your- Mordy Oberstein: I've literally done it. I've literally gone on Twitter, "Hey Wix, I don't know how to do this. How do you do that?" Lirut Nave: Yeah, the support team is doing an amazing job. Mordy Oberstein: They're awesome. Crystal Carter: And I think that comes to a really good question. When you're running a channel this big for a brand, Wix has like 200 million plus users around the world, how do you manage that channel? Because obviously it's very difficult to speak to 4.5 million, 5 million people or whatever, every day with the same message. How do you decide what to put out when or on which channel, on which platform? Lirut Nave: First, it's optimistic. We're not actually speaking to 4 or 5 million. Let's put it into context. The organic reach that content for brand has is fairly low, so we need to actually make a great effort to reach the big numbers. But it's more about the audience that we at Wix are talking to rather than the audience that we have following us on social. Because sometimes people... maybe they become less relevant as user, maybe we have potential users that are interested in our content, they're not followers. And today really on social, not only followers get your content, especially because we do promote it to the relevant people. So yeah, I think this is how we're looking at it. But it's a lot of technical managing. We have to post, the channel needs to keep going. Every channel has its own best practices. You want to be able to produce enough content that's versatile enough, but not too much so the algorithm doesn't get tired of you and you get decent engagement also. A lot of it for us is really about making database decisions as we go. When something goes live, after a week or so we let it run. What are the numbers? If it's not working and we keep doing the same thing, we're not going to be favored by the algorithm to show our content more. So it really is, if you've tried a piece of content or kind of content once or twice and it's not working for you, you really need to let it go. It's nothing personal, it's just people probably don't favor that information, or the way you framed it or the way you presented it to them is the wrong way to approach them and the relevant audiences for us. So, we do a lot of conclusion making on the go. Mordy Oberstein: With all that content that you're doing, and one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you, is because there's so many different topics that come up at Wix. For example, we have the SEO learning hub, which this podcast is a part of, and we're producing a ton of content. But if you were to show and put out all of the content that we're doing all the time, Wix would end up coming off Semrush. It'd be like an SEO company. And we're not like. SEO is a huge part of what we do obviously, but it's one part of what we do and there's a million others. There's eComm, there's design, there's DEJ. How do you balance all of it so that you showcase what we are doing, but at the same time manage the brand overall the right way. Lirut Nave: We're talking to a lot of teams to get information about the different products, the different priorities that we want to talk about at Wix. We also say no to a lot of teams and content that comes our way. We can talk only about SEO, but when you do it in the right amount and you put SEO maybe once a month or twice a month and you have design posts and you have user showcase and features... We're such a big company with so many products that you can talk about, so the work is easier that way for us. Because we do have stuff to talk about and it's not like we need to force one content. Also, once you set up an identity for what the brand is on social, it's very hard to step out of that, so you want to make sure not to do it from the beginning. You want to be balanced. You need to look at the plan as a whole. On a macro level, what are you posting a month? Are you overdoing something? And also remember the audience for each platform and how you're speaking to them, because our following and the people we target and are able to target on each platform, it's a little bit different. Right, we're going to be able to target based on actual interests and job. And so, if we have a post about SEO, we can reach these people. We can't do the same necessarily on TikTok, for example. And we want to take into account that maybe our following there is slightly younger, so how do we tailor the message? If it's an SEO message, how do we tailor that message on Instagram? What formats work best on Instagram? Maybe images work better than video. They don't, but... And then on TikTok, how do we want to talk about it? And really get people where they are. Because if you present the information the wrong way, you're really going to lose them. And it also looks like you don't know what you're doing, because you're speaking to them in the same way. So sometimes, even if we have one piece of advice on SEO but we build it differently for each channel, it looks more interesting to the audience, it works better, and we're able to talk about this topic in the long run and have more pieces without it sounding and feeling like we're really repeating ourselves and only talking about this. Crystal Carter: And I think there's a lot of considerations that I hear there. There's a lot of talking about testing, talking about audience segmentation, talking about targeting. I'm interested in the testing element. You said sometimes something doesn't work and you have to let it go. When you create a post or a few posts, what is the criteria that you set for knowing if something worked or not? Because I think that sometimes people think that it's just shares, or just likes, or just views or something. And that may or may not be the case for every type of social content. So how do you know, yes, this was good? Lirut Nave: We have a benchmark for each channel obviously, and we also have a benchmark for SEO specific content. Because I wouldn't necessarily compare SEO content into some kind of a website showcase or design, because people react differently to it and maybe comment differently. But also, we have our KPIs. For us on social at Wix, we're focusing on brand perception, on awareness. It's not acquisition campaigns. We're looking mainly at reach, at engagement. Video views now is a very big thing. For example, we used to look very closely on engagement, but engagement rates dropped on social for brands. Really dropped. Right now actually reach and video views and average watch time is something that we're putting much more focus on and much more importance on when reviewing our content, and slowly you build your benchmark. You can do it right off the bat. I can't tell you, "Okay, we have maybe 50K reach, organically is great." Maybe this is for my brand. Maybe for yours it's something completely different. You need to post a few pieces of content in order to understand what the right benchmark is for you and what you would consider success. But I can tell you these are the metrics we're mostly focusing on at the moment. Mordy Oberstein: How do, with that, measure brand? I'll tell you something I'll do on my personal social account. There are times I know there are people who just look. They don't interact, they don't engage. They're there. And I want to make sure that they see my content in a certain way. I might put a tweet out there, let's say, that I don't expect to get clicks, I don't expect to get retweets, but I know people are going to see and that's going to position myself a certain way. Do you do that? How do you do that? How do you measure that? Because again, no one's actually interacting, so now what? Lirut Nave: But reach is a big thing and reach is just how many people viewed your content without any kind of interaction. If you used to be considered less valuable, actually for brand it's a very big thing, because it's exposure to the name, to the content that you're doing, to the value that you're giving users, potential users. We take it as a very big sign of success of the content, but it needs to be also who did we reach? If we are promoting this to someone that's irrelevant, the reach is not going to do much for us. So yes, you maybe cannot measure brand in direct acquisition way that you would conversions. Next day someone sees our post, we have a new user. Maybe that's not the way. But we are able to say that if we hit the right target audience and we're being very specific in our targeting and we have a good reach, then this content is working good for us and we're getting brand visibility on social. Crystal Carter: Speaking of brand visibility and content working really well, one of my favorite social moments in the history of Wix social media was Taylor Swift. Her tickets went on sale at Ticketmaster and the Ticketmaster website crashed. One of my favorite moments... I don't know, Lirut, do you want to talk about it? I don't know if I should spoil it. Lirut Nave: I can talk about it a little bit, although it wasn't my team. But this was just like... This for us is more of a real time marketing opportunity. We had these campaigns already made about site stability and crashing and the video was there. And when they saw the content about the Ticketmaster crash, basically it was just a perfect opportunity to run this campaign all over again without actually... They didn't even directly talk about it. They didn't change anything. It was really all about the timing; reaching the right people at the time that something like that is trending and is being talked about really worldwide. I think it was a really super smart move. Crystal Carter: Yeah. There were millions of people, so it's got millions of views. There were lots of people going, "Oh my gosh, Ticketmaster should have been on Wix, because then they wouldn't have crashed," and all of that sort of stuff. I think that you were saying that this was an acquisition campaign that they ran at the same time. Lirut Nave: It was a campaign that we had and then once this happened and we flagged it to the right team, they're like, "Okay. You know what? We have this perfect opportunity. We don't even need to create something from scratch. We had this list. Just run the campaign again." And it's funny, because you didn't say anything about Ticketmaster, anything about Taylor Swift, but people got the reference.. Mordy Oberstein: That's the best, when that happens. When they get it on their own. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think also it's a really good example of how social can work across teams and to highlight values of the business. Like you said, that was something that was already core to the business. We'd already created the campaigns, all of the assets, et cetera. And with acquisition you have an opportunity to use your social posts to increase your reach to the audiences, you were saying to new audiences, potentially targeting certain audiences. I don't know if they did, but they could have potentially been targeting people who've also followed Ticketmaster. Lirut Nave: Exactly. I'm giving them the credit. I'm sure they did. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: I think ending off on a win is a great place to end off. Lirut, where can people find you? Lirut Nave: Where can they find me? Crystal Carter: What's your social handles? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's a social handle? Lirut Nave: Listen, since I'm in social, my social is a bit- Mordy Oberstein: Shoemaker's kids go shoeless. Crystal Carter: Right? Never trust a bald barber. Lirut Nave: When it becomes work and it's your work passion, it's really hard to keep that passion also in your spare time. You come home and you're like, "Should I post? No, I'm tired." Mordy Oberstein: In that case, you can't find her. She's a mystery. Lirut Nave: Listen, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Lirut Nave: I wouldn't trust my other social to be as exciting. Yeah. It's all mom life and- Crystal Carter: Aww. Mordy Oberstein: That's exciting. Crystal Carter: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Lirut Nave: Thank you. Thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: Our pleasure, and we'll see you around. Lirut Nave: Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. Speaker 4: Three, two, one, ignition. Lift off. Lift off. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Lirut, and definitely look for Lirut on LinkedIn and connect with her there. You know what pops on my social feed quite often? Crystal Carter: What's that? Mordy Oberstein: Is Barry Schwartz and his sharing of the SEO news. Crystal Carter: Oh, I bet he does. Mordy Oberstein: It's quite, quite often there all the time. And Barry's very efficient and relentless with the In Case You Missed It post. Which, by the way, I appreciate, because I'm in a different time zone, so I see a lot of the In Case You Missed Its. I actually do appreciate those, Barry, if you're listening to this. Crystal Carter: Thanks, Barry. Mordy Oberstein: With that, let's dive into this week's snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Two quick little ones for you this week. The first one comes from Search Engine Land's Danny Goodwin. He writes, "OpenAI's AI text classifier no longer available due to low rate of accuracy." Danny writes, "The AI text detector launched in January is meant to evaluate whether text was generated using AI. It failed." He quotes OpenAI as saying, "As of July 2023, the AI classifier's no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy. We are working to incorporate feedback," and so forth and so forth and so forth. The reason why I'm including this here is that AI is amazing, does amazing things. I personally use and love the AI image generator inside of Wix. AI can help you do a lot of things, it can help you do things faster, but AI at the same time is an emerging technology. And in this case, in OpenAI's case in this particular product, it didn't work. So there might be things that AI looks like it can do, but in the end it won't be able to do, or maybe won't be able to do yet. So, point of caution. If you're using AI, which you should be, just make sure you're using it responsibly. Because again, it is a new and emerging technology. What looks like might work might end up not working, as it was in this case. Article number two from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. Google Business Profile's automated FAQs feature. Google's Business Profile is rolling out a feature that will help you automatically create an FAQ based on your Google Business Profile details that you've entered and your website. Barry writes, "Those automated FAQs can be configured by type of automated FAQs. You can specifically tell Google which information it can create FAQs from, such as hours, appointments, contact information, and so forth." My point with this one is, there is already an FAQ section inside of the Google Business Profile. It's called Q&A. And in the Q&A your customers can ask questions and you can reply. You however can also ask questions and reply to your own questions. You can essentially create an FAQ on your own. This may take time to roll out, the automated FAQ option. You may not want an automated FAQ option. But know that Google does see value in there being an FAQ inside of the Google Business Profile, which is why they're releasing an automated version of it. But know that you already have a version of this with the Q&A feature. So, Google's basically telling you, "People are not utilizing the Q&A feature maybe the way that they should be, so we're going to help you here with the automated FAQ." In the meantime, might as well utilize the Q&A section that already exists. And that's this week's snappy news. Always snappy, always newsy. Crystal Carter: Always snappy and newsy. And lately always full of AI. Mordy Oberstein: Always full of AI, but some weeks not. Crystal Carter: Some weeks not. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like the flow of AI is slowly, slowly slowing down. Crystal Carter: We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. Mordy Oberstein: We'll see. By the way, before we duly depart, we have to get into who you should be following for more SEO, and in this case content marketing and social media marketing, awesomeness. Crystal, who's this week's follow of the week? Crystal Carter: This week's follow of the week is Jean Wandimi. She's a content marketer and a wine aficionado, so she's got a wine blog. Mordy Oberstein: Got my vote. Crystal Carter: Yeah, indeed. She also has lots of great content on YouTube about creating great content. She has a lot of really accessible information that's really useful for freelancers, those doing DIY. She's got an Instagram account. She's constantly sharing useful tips of how you can improve your content writing and content creation and be more strategic and more programmatic, I guess you would say. But not programmatic with a capital P, but more programmatic like have a system. Have a system for how you make your content. So yeah, she's a great follow. Do check her out. And yeah, she's great. Mordy Oberstein: Give her a follow over @Jeanwandimi on Twitter, @J-E-A-N-W-A-N-D-I-M-I. Of course we'll link to her profile in the show notes, so you don't have to spell on the fly. Because that doesn't make much sense. But I do it anyway. Crystal Carter: O-N T-H-E F-L-Y. Mordy Oberstein: Is it T-I-M-E T-O G-O? Crystal Carter: Y-E-S. Mordy Oberstein: Oh. Great. I used to love doing this with my wife and my kids, because they don't know how to spell. But now they know how to spell, so I can't do that anymore. Crystal Carter: Oh no. Mordy Oberstein: They know everything. They're like AI, my kids. They know everything. All the things I don't want them to know, they know. Well, with that happy note, 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... Not telling. I'm not telling you what we're diving into. It's a very special episode next week. That's all I'll say. Surprises. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast, or on our SEO learning hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more but 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, 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 good content? Mordy and Crystal team up to tackle what it means to create good content for both users and bots. Learn what qualities good content tends to have and how Google responds to it as we dive into real examples of content that ranks and doesn’t rank well. Go deeper into what good content consists of in our Deep Thoughts segment. Is content strictly the words on the page or is it something else? Get a conceptual framework for what content is so that you have the foundation to create the best content possible. We’re joined by Shelby Blackley & Jessie Willms of WTF SEO to get their take on how to get users to not only click on content but ultimately trust the brand and come back for more! Back Uncommonly good content What is good content? Mordy and Crystal team up to tackle what it means to create good content for both users and bots. Learn what qualities good content tends to have and how Google responds to it as we dive into real examples of content that ranks and doesn’t rank well. Go deeper into what good content consists of in our Deep Thoughts segment. Is content strictly the words on the page or is it something else? Get a conceptual framework for what content is so that you have the foundation to create the best content possible. We’re joined by Shelby Blackley & Jessie Willms of WTF SEO to get their take on how to get users to not only click on content but ultimately trust the brand and come back for more! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 02 | August 30, 2022 | 45 MIN 00:00 / 44:55 This week’s guests Shelby Blackley An award-winning journalist, digital marketer and communicator with more than 10 years experience. Specializes in SEO, audience behaviour, data trends and interpersonal connections. Focuses on finding the right audience and platform for your stories, content or ideas. Shelby co-write's a weekly newsletter called, “WTF is SEO?” which explores search engine optimization through the lens of journalism. Jessie Willms Jessie Willms is a Toronto-based audience editor at Canada’s national newspaper. She has developed her data and SEO skills at some of Canada’s top newsrooms. She now runs data and audience workshops for journalists, while teaching data and interactive journalism at Centennial College. In 2021, she – along with Shleby – co-founded WTFisSEO, a newsletter about search for publishers. 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 branding here at Wix. And I'm joined by our head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, SERP's people. I'm very happy to be here. Mordy Oberstein: I thought you were going to say like, hey, all you groovy cats and kittens because- Crystal Carter: I love cool cats and kittens and dogs and- Mordy Oberstein: And gerbils. Crystal Carter: Gerbils. And also- Mordy Oberstein: Hamsters. Crystal Carter: ... hamsters, guinea pigs. I've got a friend who's- Mordy Oberstein: Birds. Crystal Carter: ... He has a lizard. This is- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, forget about lizards, birds. Crystal Carter: Birds. Birds are good. Yeah, that's good. Mordy Oberstein: People who have pets, you are welcome on this podcast. And those of you who don't. Crystal Carter: Yes. Those of you who don't. Those of you who virtual pets or potted plants, potted plants are cool. Mordy Oberstein: Or even just like pets, altogether. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: I have animal friends. I just anthropomorphized the animals in my midst. There are seagulls nesting across the street from my house and I've named them Gerald and Susan. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's wonderful. Crystal Carter: Yeah, the- Mordy Oberstein: That's really lovely. Are you sure it's the same two seagulls every single day? Crystal Carter: Dude, they got a little baby. Mordy Oberstein: Oh. Crystal Carter: And the baby is like ... Yeah, I can see them. Mordy Oberstein: But you didn't name the baby? Crystal Carter: Well, I mean, we were still deciding on it. But he's really cute. He's really friendly. Mordy Oberstein: You have list of names? Crystal Carter: Yeah, we got a list of names. We're going to have a gender reveal party and everything. Mordy Oberstein: Perfect. On that note, the SERP’s Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can run a quick and link site audit with our Deepcrawl integration have again during the Wix app market to make your site healthy today with the Deepcrawl app. So much going on in this episode. I feel like we're just going to say that at every episode, but it's true. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of content. We have a lot of content today. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot of content. [00:01:59] What are we talking about in this episode? I like what you did there. Because this week, we're talking about creating uncommonly good content for users and for bots. We're going to be covering being uncommon by creating some uncommonly awesome content for both users and bots. Crystal Carter: Users and bots. Bots would like content that is interesting as well, and not just the same as everyone else's content. Mordy Oberstein: You sound like a coneheads consume mass consumptions. Those of you watch Saturday Night Live way back in the day. Anyway, we're going to go into what it means to create good content, how to create good content with guest drops from, Shelby Blackley over at Mashable and Jessie Willms. So looking forward to that. We're also going to get lost in the ether of, what is content? That's my William Shatner impersonation, by the way, as we have a deep thought moment for you. Crystal Carter: Deep thoughts. Deep, deep thoughts of the content. Mordy Oberstein: Mm, deep thoughts. We're also going to be taking a hard look at the SERP itself to see what ranks, what doesn't, why it does, why it doesn't as we take a look at the keyword, should I use pastels, pastels, I never get this word right, in my business logo design. Crystal Carter: It's something that we've all considered. Are we going for lavender or powder blue eggshell? Mordy Oberstein: I love pastels. Crystal Carter: What do [inaudible 00:03:14]? Mordy Oberstein: Eggshell. I painted my apartment eggshell one time. Anyways, we're getting ready for some real life lessons on what content is ranking and what Google likes and what it doesn't like, so you can apply that to your own content. Plus, some snappy SEO news and who to follow in the SEO industry for some SEO awesomeness. So much going on. Well, let's snap into it. Content. [00:03:36] Focus Topic of the Week | Content Content is the commodity of your website. People are going to your website to consume something. That thing is pizza. No, content. Crystal Carter: Content. Mordy Oberstein: Content, not a pizza. It could be content around pizza. It could be content around a product so they can buy it. It could be a podcast episode like this one. It could be a blog post. Whatever it is, it's some form of? Content. Crystal Carter: Content. Mordy Oberstein: A site without content is basically like a body without bones. It's a giant lump of mush. Crystal Carter: Are you getting into the deep thoughts already? Who are we- Mordy Oberstein: That's right, yeah. Crystal Carter: ... without content Mordy Oberstein: Deep metaphors by Mordy Oberstein. Back in the day, if you've been doing SEO for a while, you'll remember this. But if you haven't been, this is a good lesson for you to learn. Back in the day, when you wrote content for the web, you wanted to rank and pulling traffic from search, so you created content that wasn't, I don't know, call it not exactly natural. Crystal Carter: Mm, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Mm. Crystal Carter: Yeah, we've seen not-good content. Mordy Oberstein: Gee, not good content. You were doing things like making sure your keywords and your title and the first end of the first paragraph, of the first heading, of every single page, and every heading in the last paragraph, keywords here, keywords there, keywords everywhere. The only thing that wasn't actually there, other than the keyword, was actually good content. Crystal Carter: Oh. Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh, snap. We're getting salty. By the way, if anybody tells you, if you're listening to this, you need to have your keyword over here and your keyword over there and your keyword in the first end. Do not listen to them. For the love of God, do not listen to them. That's bad SEO advice. Crystal Carter: It can lead to some trouble. Mordy Oberstein: Really bad trouble, really not good for anything. Why? Well, Google's got via machine learning and NLP and a bunch of other things that make me sound well smart when I say that. Google has gotten really good in understanding what content is, what users want. You should now write content that isn't bleh. Which is why today ... By the way, it's the official diagnosis of bad content, it's bleh. Crystal Carter: Exactly. And I think on the machine learning point, it's really important to think about the machine learning is powered by NLP, which is natural- Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Crystal Carter: ... language processing. It's natural language. One of the problems with writing keywords or writing four keywords in the way that people did back in the day is that it wasn't very natural. And that's not how people write and it's not how people talk to their computers anymore. And it's certainly not the way that we should be making content anymore. Mordy Oberstein: No. It's really just bad, which, again, why, today, we're talking about creating uncommonly good content and what that actually means, which is, I guess, where we should begin. What does it actually mean to create good content from an SEO point of view? It sounds like a simple question for the probably simple answer, but it is not. It is not simple. Crystal Carter: It's not. It is not simple and it's very ... Whenever Google has an algorithm update, they always say, oh, just make good content, just make good content. And everyone is like, but what is good? Mordy Oberstein: What does that mean? Crystal Carter: What does it mean? What does good content mean? Mordy Oberstein: What's in the box? What's in the box? Crystal Carter: Just tell us what do you want us to do, Google. Everyone gets very confused. And I think that there's a very interesting thing. And I always think about this as a tech SEO. And I've got a quote here from John Mueller. He is quoted in search engine journal, and he says, "When it comes to the quality of the content, we don't mean just the text of your articles." And we're talking about good content. It's really about the quality of the website overall that includes everything from layout to design, like how you have things presented on your page, how you integrate images, how you work with speed, all of those factors contribute to what is good. Because the thing is, what is good also has to do with the context. If you have a delicious five-star gourmet meal that's presented on a dirty plate, the meal might be good content, but the context of the meal doesn't mean it's not good. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. Arghhhh. Arghhhh. Crystal Carter: You need to think about all of those things. And so, I think that when you think about good content, it's important to think about the overall content experience, not just the words. Mordy Oberstein: That's so true, so true. And we'll, hopefully, get to it later. I have a whole sniff test around that. To me, good content is all about ... If you wanted to ask me like, how do I define ... There's multiple ways you could define what is good content. I define good content as nuance content, meaning it's content that you created that you're trying to predict the problems that users are going to have with the content itself. And therefore, you're creating with nuance. If you're creating content, and while you're doing, you're thinking about, well, this user, when they read this, they're not going to really understand this. Let me add this line and let me add a link in, let me do this with this or this. Or this user, they might understand this point that the other user won't, but they're not going to understand this point. Or they're going to need another piece of content after they read this piece of content to really get what they want. And when you start predicting the problems that your users are going to have with your content, and that's not a bad thing to going to have problems, they will never really have problems. You end up running with nuance. It's like when I was teaching, was like that you try to predict this type of students going to have a problem with what I'm saying, but this type of student won't, but this type of student will have a different problem. And you try to build your lesson around that. You're trying to build content around the different problems that users are going to have. And that usually means you end up creating content with the right page structure, with the right level of detail, with the right nuance, with the right kind of links. You're creating, in the end, as a default, substantial content by doing that. Crystal Carter: And I think that what you're talking about, the crux of what you're talking about, is thinking the user. As a user, how would you feel if you came to this content? Would you have more questions? Would you need more support? Would you need to be provided with more information? Would you want it in a different format? You need to think about the users. I had an experience, I don't eat meat. I went to a place and they were like, "We've got new vegetarian options." And I said to the waitress, "I would like the vegetarian options." And then she's like, "We don't have it." And that was it, that's all she said. She didn't give me more options. I needed more options. She didn't care about what I was doing. And I think that when you're thinking about users, don't leave them with that end. Don't leave them with content that doesn't go anywhere. Think about the content that matters for them. And I think that's super important. And for a tech SEO point of view, again, I mentioned format, but from a tech SEO point of view, there's a lot of things that can be done from the same content, the same written content, but provided in a different way. If they were to say about, oh, I want to listen to like, I don't know, Beyoncé's whole back catalog and someone would say, great. And they gave me a stack of vinyl records and I was on a train, that wouldn't be any help. That would be useless with me. The content is the same, but- Mordy Oberstein: You don't walk around the phonograph? Because that's-, Crystal Carter: Right. I'm not going to do that. The content is the same, but being able to play it on Spotify is much better content for me than being able to play it on a record. From a tech SEO point of view, you can sometimes make content better just by changing the format, making it better for mobile, making it more accessible for other users using audio and video and all this sorts of different things. And that can make content really good. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm trying to link with this show. And so I have a whole post about it, and so I wrote for so much a while back of why usability is going to be the differentiating factor going forward. But tech SEO comes in because they make sure content either less or more usable, and that's a huge part of UX UI. It's really all one thing. And then I'll go back to my sniff test that we get to later. But I want to briefly talk about like what prevent ... It sounds really simple what we're saying, right? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: It's not like, wow, that's earth shattering. There are really good points, I hope, I think. But for some reason, most of the content on the web gets this wrong. And I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say most of it gets it wrong because there's page 1, but then there's page 2 through 20. And that's not always means that it's bad. It might be irrelevant for the key, whatever. But I think there's two things in my mind that make people hesitant about going this direction with their content. And that is, one, they're anxious about sales. And it's just landing pages all of the time. Where people on a landing page, you really want to try to drive ... That's where you're making the money. You really want to drive the sales, so CTA here, CTA there, and quick marketing kind of content. And you don't offer more informational content that gives context to the user. Or you don't scale back those CTAs because you're just anxious about making the sale. I'm not blaming anybody. I get that you're anxious, but that anxiety can lead you to go too far with pushing a sale, let's say, and not creating really good content. And the second thing is relying on wrong metrics. Let's take search volume, a tool, like Samra says, that every single month, a million people are looking for this keyword. So I'm going to write about this keyword, I'm going to do whatever I can and try to get search. And then said, no, I wrote about this keyword. But the end, you're not thinking about, A, is this content I should be writing? Is this good for my user? And even if it should be written on your blog or on your website, whatever it is, you're not thinking about what makes us good content. You're just thinking about how to get a million users to come and look at your content every month. And those metrics- Crystal Carter: Right. And I- Mordy Oberstein: ... just throw things off sometimes. Crystal Carter: And I think that one of the things that's good about those metrics is that they're really accessible. You've got your average search volume metric and you can see that and you can show that to someone and that sort of thing, but there are other metrics that you can use and there are other ways that you can get content ideas. And I think, also, Google often says that like, there's the ... I think the number they normally bat around is around 15% of queries have never been made. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, 15%. Crystal Carter: And you have other tools available than just the same tools that everyone has. If you have a customer service team, they will know the kinds of questions that people are regularly asking them about what you do. If you have a sales team, they will regularly ask you about those things. If you genuinely are using your product, there's probably questions that you have. Or if you, let's say, show it to your mom and she's like, "But how do I actually bake the cake?" And you're like, "Oh, follow the recipe." She's like, "Yeah, but this doesn't say that." If she says that, that's a gap, that's a content gap, that's an opportunity, and that's something that people are going to be looking for. There are other things. And reviews are a really good source of this. I've had it before where I've written content on golf. I know nothing about golf, but I have a friend who's related to golf and I followed him. And I also went through the reviews and looked at the kinds of stuff that everybody was talking about in the reviews. And we made the content based on that, not just on keyword volumes, but on the kinds of things that you're seeing come up from users and that you can actually answer. Mordy Oberstein: And I've actually done this, where I've gone to keyword research tools, plucked out the questions that they offer, then gone to real people I knew who are dealing with it, whatever it was I was researching. And the questions that I got back were completely different. That's a really good point. The last thing I want to hit on before we head over to our guest tips for this week is, practically speaking, how do you actually go about creating the really good content? This comes by my sniff test. Well, first, I want to say is, and I'll probably say this a lot on this podcast, start with empathy. Start with really understanding your audience. What are their pain points? What's their life situation? And what do they actually need? Because otherwise, you can't actually write that content I was talking about earlier where you're predicting what they're going to need if you don't understand who they are and what they need. [00:14:21] The Brand Sniff Test The second thing is that I call it the brand sniff test. Whenever you go to a page or you go really anything, you go to a store, you walk in, you look around and you're like, the prices might be great, they might have exactly what you need, but you look at it, and something just doesn't give you a great impression. And we, as human beings, we do this in three seconds flat. You go to a webpage, you're looking at it like the overall experience, there's something off with it. All of the latent signals that you're getting from the page, whether it be the tone, whether it be like they're still using tables from 1995. All of those things that give off and what brand marketers will use all the time as signals, like how effective are we, I call it the brand sniff test. Does your page pass the brand sniff test? Is the tone right? Is the format right? Or is the graphics right? Everything, all of those latent signals. When someone reads the content, does it come off that's well written, that is substantial, that is detailed, that has nuance to it, that's not just fluff? Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I- Mordy Oberstein: Those latent signals. And Google's trying to mimic that. It's the same thing that Google's trying to mimic. Obviously, they're not you, they can't show up and do that in three seconds. They're trying to mimic that through quantitative analysis, but that's what they're trying to accomplish. Give your content- Crystal Carter: And I think that- Mordy Oberstein: ... the brand sniff. Sorry, you're going. Crystal Carter: No, no. And I think it's true. If you're arriving on a new website and whether you're getting information or whether you're looking to buy something or whether you're looking to answer a question, whatever your intent might be, you want to know that the person that you're getting this information from is a decent source and that whatever the query have is actually in their wheelhouse, that they actually know what they're talking about. I could ask anybody about, I don't know why I've got a cold or something like that, but my doctor probably knows better than the person that I met down the pub. And because it's in my doctor's wheelhouse, it's important to remember that. And I think also, you talked about empathy. It's important to think about being genuinely of use to your users. I think I see a lot of content that is around like, we do this, we are great, we've got this, we do that. When you see content that's really good, it explains why. I saw a gym that was like, we have lots of machines, so you don't have to wait. We keep everything clean so that you can see healthy. We are open all the hours so that you can exercise whenever you want. Phones, in particular, are very personal. It's very important to think about like you were talking to one person when you're writing that content. And so, think about that person when you're writing the content. And I think if you do that, you'll make much better content. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And by the way, I so agree with you. And I think, speculate, that Google understands the difference between language profile. It understands when you write a certain way and when you're not writing a certain way. And it says, this way is good and that way is bad for whatever topic that you're dealing with. [00:17:05] Focus Topic Guest: Shelby Blackley and Jesse Williams But speaking of experts, as you brought up, we have two experts who are going to be talking to you about how do you not only get people to click on the content. You rank, they click, how do you get them to ultimately buy into that content, trust it, and come back for more maybe or actually, buy that product in the end? Here's Shelby Blackley over at Mashable and Jessie Willms from WTF SEO, or they're both from WTF SEO. We'll link to those links in the show notes on how to get people to trust your content after they click on it from the SERP. Jessie Willms: The question that we're answering today is, how do you create content that doesn't just get clicks, but really resonates and engages the user once they land on the page? Shelby Blackley: Well, I think that the big thing about having a quality piece of journalism or having a quality piece of content is really focusing on three pillars, search intent, keyword research, and the actual reader experience and how they are immersed in the piece. When you think about search intent, it's very much like why people are searching these things. They're looking at what is the actual main purpose of the page. To create a quality piece, you need to look at what's actually out there and what people are actually creating. If someone's looking up a specific keyword and they want an FAQ, how can you take that FAQ and take it an extra level? Is there a way to engage it? Can you add in schema? Is there an H2 subheading that you can add in? All of these will allow the readers to get what they need out of it. Jessie Willms: Right. By aligning the search intent with the content that we end up creating, we can make sure that we really fulfill that request that people are making when they turn to a search engine, I should say. Shelby Blackley: Exactly. And then you think about the keyword research behind it too. And we do so much around keyword research, right, Jessie? Jessie Willms: Yeah. Keyword research is the first thing that any new SEO will do when they are thinking about creating a new piece of content. We really want to, first, understand what it is people are looking for to understand the questions that we need to answer and the topics that we need to cover in whatever piece of content that we create. The other thing between keyword research as your first step is it helps inform not just what you cover, but how you cover it. Like Shelby said, if you are doing key research and you see that other publishers are creating FAQs to answer these reader questions, then you know that this is in line with how readers want to consume this content. A series of questions and answers is a really effective tool for creating that engagement with readers, because it allows them to answer specifically the question that they're after, but also scan and skim over other questions that they might find useful. Shelby Blackley: Right. And it's a perfect opportunity for internal linking out to other stories. Jessie Willms: Exactly. Shelby Blackley: For example, if you've got that FAQ, you can link out to a really great piece of enterprise journalism that will definitely hook people and keep them there for longer, right? Jessie Willms: Yeah. Internal links are really great two-way relationship between your content. If you have, in the context of journalism, for example, a really big investigation, pairing that with an FAQ that answers the most common questions that came up during this investigation is a really excellent way to make sure that you have multiple entry points for your readers into your most valuable content. Shelby Blackley: Which takes us into our third part about the reader experience, because it's all about, how can you give the reader as much information as possible in the easiest way, but also the most engaging. If you're creating a piece of content and you've got a video that you can throw in, absolutely, it should be in there. Not only can that video rank on its own, but you're already adding to that reader experience. And then you can add in an audio clip. What if there's another piece of journalism that's connected to it? Jessie Willms: Mm-hmm. Exactly. We need to remember that readers get information in a variety of ways. So wanting to make sure that we create those access points, as Shelby said, pairing a piece of text journalism with a video component or a piece of audio or even, for example, a static graphic that explains a concept. These are all really useful ways to make sure that whatever reader finds your content, that that particular type of reader can get something out of the information that you're servicing. Shelby Blackley: Absolutely. And we recently had an issue on 10X content. And I think this whole question can be answered, really thinking about content in that sphere of 10X. If you're not familiar, 10X content was coined by Rand Fishkin or the co-founder of moz, now it's SparkToro. And it's really about taking a piece of journalism or a piece of content and making it 10 times better than what's out there. What's on SERP's right now? Are you seeing regular FAQs that are just lists? How do you take it 10 times better to really serve that audience and make those readers want to come back to your site? Jessie Willms: And for any journalist listening, this is a very key pillar of journalism. You don't want to just match what your competitors are doing. You want to beat them by producing something that is better than what they've created. Shelby Blackley: Absolutely. And always thinking about how can you best serve the reader and give them the most information they can. Jessie Willms: Yeah. Centering the reader in your experience is a great way to make content that resonates. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much to Shelby and Jessie for that really interesting. Crystal, wonder what you're thinking. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that it's really on the mark with a lot of what we've been discussing. User-centric content is really important. And they also talked about format, which I'm a big proponent of and making sure that you have content that is good on a lot of different levels. And I think that they also mentioned how can you make your content better. I think we think about making new content a lot, but a lot of the work that I've done in the past has been around enhancing content that already exists. And there's a lot of times where you can go back over well performing content or existing content or content that's on the board, but maybe not at the top and actually tailor it with new elements to make it rank better and perform better for users. But keeping users at the center is absolutely key. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, again, to Jessie and to Shelby, really appreciate you sending that into us. Be sure to check out WTF SEO. It's a newsletter for journalists who do SEO. But again, journalism and content go hand in hand. If you're looking to create content, there's some really great tips in there. They also have a Slack group, a Slack channel. Check that out as well. We'll link to it all in the show notes. Again, thank you so, so much from us, here at the SERP’s Up podcast. Okay. I had this great idea. I think it was a great idea. Why don't we take a look at- Crystal Carter: We'll see. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think you are being so skeptical, Crystal. [00:23:20] From the Top of the SERP I had this idea. Why don't we take a look at content that ranks really well and that doesn't rank as well or so, so, or not well at all, maybe, and see if we can maybe diagnose some reasons why content is ranking well and why it's not ranking well. So that you, our lovely audience, could have some tips around creating content that ranks well and doesn't rank well. And we're calling it from the top of the SERP. My association, by the way, the top of the SERP, when I was a kid, I grew in New York and Z100 was a radio station. Their thing was from the top of the Empire State Building. My mind, I hear from the top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Do you know what, I live in England and there's something called Top of the Pops, which is a bit like American bandstand. And so that's what I think of. You said, top of the SERP, and I'm like, top of the pops. Yeah, top of the pops. Mordy Oberstein: What do you think of, our dear audience? Let us know on Twitter. Anyway, for real. We're looking down, but we're not judging any site or any page here in particular. That's why I need to say that. But this week, we're going to look at content around the keyword. Should I use pastels in my business logo design? And Crystal has a very different way of saying pastels, it's pastels? Crystal Carter: Pastels. Mordy Oberstein: Pastels, all right. Crystal Carter: Pastels. Mordy Oberstein: Pastels. I say it pastels. Crystal Carter: Pastels. Mordy Oberstein: Potato, potato yet again. When we ran this keyword, and by the way, if you go ahead in Google, as you might not see the exact same thing as we saw because rank is always changing. Crystal Carter: Exactly, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But there was a page from ZillionDesigns that ranks really, really well. And what I liked about this page is that ... And so I'm getting zilliondesigns.com. What it does really well is it gets really deep into pastels, which is so exciting, right? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: And how you could use them for design. For example, it gets into things around like the intensity of pastels and what that means for using it in a logo and how the different colors relate and how that evokes different emotions. It really what I thought it did a really good job. And I think what Google sees in this piece of content is that it takes understanding of pastels. It applies it to logo and design. But from a very business point of view, what does this mean for your business? Crystal Carter: I think- Mordy Oberstein: Which really speaks to the intent. Crystal Carter: And what I think is really interesting is that we were talking about like literal keywords and things like that. The actual page is called using pastel colors in your brand. That's what it's called. It doesn't say using it in your logo. But as you go through it, they have lots of visuals and they're talking about logos and they have tons and tons of examples of pastel colors and logos so that you ... And Google understands that if you're talking about pastel colors and logos, you not only want to talk about pastel colors, you not only want to talk about the ... But you also want to see them in the logo. They're ranking top, even though they're not explicitly saying logo, logo, logo all over the page. But they've got good examples of logos and how you can use them. From an intent point of view, it's giving you information and it's also giving you demonstration of what you need. And I think that's one of the things [inaudible 00:26:26]. Mordy Oberstein: I think all of the pages that are ranking well the top of the SERP, they are doing things like that. They're giving you a little bit of context. There's a page from tailorbrands.com and they're talking about muted pastels. And they write ... I was going to say something like they literally write, I'll read it to you, a muted palette can actually help highlight a specific part of your logo, like an icon or your brand name. You can always experiment blending muted pastels with colors, with a brighter accent to give it a unique look that pops off the page, as opposed to just saying that you should always experiment with blending muted pastels and colors. It gives you the whole context around why that is, and it goes even deeper into it. The pages that I see, at least from my point of view, that are ranking well are not just listing information or showing you examples, but they're giving you some kind of context around how this works. You can extrapolate out what they're saying and apply it to your own situation, which I think Google sees that. Crystal Carter: Exactly, because I think Google understands what the next query is going to be. They know what people are going to come back for. They can see when they ... And a bit of content is addressing multiple stages of the query at once. Not only understanding what the past logo is and not going, these are pastel colors, lavender is pastel and baby pink is pastel and things, and not just listing them all and then somebody has to go back and find another thing. But it's a rich bit of content that's working there. I think what's also interesting about these is the top ranking ones, is that they're pretty robust. They're fairly longer form bits of content. Which means that they're probably ranking for multiple terms, which is very, very interesting to see. They're both doing a really good job on delivering content that is valuable to users. Mordy Oberstein: So, takeaway for this kind of query and perhaps your kind of query is also if you see this out there for the things that you're trying to rank for, a little bit of context and around what you're saying and why you're saying it and how it applies to the particular use case of what people are looking for, in this case, their business, definitely help here. It seemed that Google is saying, hey, we want users to be able to take away something and being able to apply it to their own site. And the only way you can do that is if you offer people a concept that they could take away and apply it to their own site, not just like, here's the information. Now, to the pages that didn't do so well. Now these are pages that maybe were on page two, maybe bumped up to page one for a little while, went back down to page two. One of the pages we looked at, one was on page two and then one was on page four. Maybe it'll get backed up to page two. But it wasn't consistently performing well, is our point. What did you see there? Crystal Carter: Yes. This is one that I saw from invideo.io and they're talking about pastel colors. What's very interesting here is that InVideo is a video website. It looks like they're providing a video tool and this is talking about pretty much different color palettes that you might use. And so the content is called pastel colors and it was ranking page two. It's now ranking lower. And I think part of this is because it's not explicitly talking about logo design. It's talking about pastel colors, generally. Even though they don't state it in the title, there's an implied connection between using pastel colors and video rather than using it in a logo design. They mention the word logo, but it's not really an emphasis. I don't think this is necessarily that this page needs to be optimized for the pastel colors for your logo query. I think this is a question that this is kind of in the general neighborhood, but this content doesn't actually satisfy this particular query. It probably ranks for something else very well. But in this particular instance, it's not actually satisfying it. It's in the ballpark, but it's not going to be taught because it's not actually satisfying the query. I think if you had this page and you saw that it lost rank, don't worry about it. Because you weren't supposed to rank for it in the first place. Mordy Oberstein: That's a really good point, by the way, general point for listening to this. Again, we're not trying to be judgmental. These are good pages, but not for this particular keyword or this particular intent. And I think you're right. And for this particular page, what it did that I think doesn't work for this particular query is like, let's say, it talks about the pale lemon color. This color too is named after [inaudible 00:30:16] and it's softer version of a vibrant yellow, doing the job of a perfect background with your visuals whenever you need an alternative for white. And it tells you, okay, this is a good alternative for white, but it doesn't give you a concept or context around why this color might be good in the business context, how you might pair this color. The next step is not there. There's no context around it. Crystal Carter: Exactly. It's not talking about logo design, which is a different thing from a video palette. Another one that was ranking page two, for the color is pastel colors and design, ideas, examples, mega inspiration. And this one is just general pastel colors and it's GraphicMama blog. What I think is interesting about this one is, again, it discusses logos a little bit, but it's not dedicated to logo design. And it's just discussing pastel colors, generally. But again, it's not dedicated to logo design. But what's also interesting about this one is that this has a lot of social proof. I think the reason why this is ranking on page two rather than ranking on page four is that if you look at it says that it's been viewed 12,000 times. That's pretty good. Based on that, I'm guessing that GraphicMama has a lot of social media followings and things like that. And they've also really done really well with showing lots of different illustrations of use cases for capsule design. Some of them which include logos. But again, it's not dedicated to that particular thing. Again, this is one where the content is perfectly solid, but Google's trying to find the content that is the most useful and the most appropriate for that particular query, and that's what they're going to put on top. Mordy Oberstein: That's what we were talking about earlier in the podcast, where you're trying to write nuance content for a particular audience and this content doesn't speak this particular audience. Because the audience in mind is coming from a business point of view. They're using it for their logo, for their what? For their business, for their website, whatever it is, some kind of business professional use. And what the content that you have here just gives you the information about pastels in a vacuum, but not in the context of how you can actually use it. I think it lacks from that point of, again, intent and that level of nuance that the intent demands. But either way, just to sum it all up, it's about intent, it's about nuance, it's about the right content at the right place, at the right time. And in this particular case, it seems to be about creating context and creating concepts that the user is able to walk away from and therefore apply to their own site, which again, speaks to the intent- Crystal Carter: Exactly. Mordy Oberstein: ... of. Crystal Carter: They want to be able to learn how to do something and they want to be able to learn how to apply some information. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And you can't do that without concepts. It's just not possible. Amazing. Crystal Carter: There we go. Mordy Oberstein: Now we're not done with content just yet, there's more. But wait, there's more. Crystal Carter: There's more. Mordy Oberstein: Because content, when you talk about content, it's always hard to pin it down. And whether it's using tools to analyze content or which tools are the best for how do you define content, what kind of content are you talking about? Content is always ... Again, here's that word again, so nuanced. [00:33:13] Deep Thoughts | What IS Content? We thought, why don't we try to define, what is content? Crystal Carter: What is content? Mordy Oberstein: Is content? Here's a deep thought by Crystal and Mordy. Crystal Carter: I think on this one, I think the reason why I wanted to bring this up is because I think a lot of people, when they say, "Oh, we're going to make some content," is they think about blogs. That's the first thing they think about. They think, oh, we're going to make some blogs. That's the content. Once we've done the blogs, we've done the content. And I- Mordy Oberstein: I love the blogs. Crystal Carter: Love the blogs, don't get me wrong. Blogs are great. Blogs are good. Blogs are fantastic. However, that's not all your content. That's not the end all be all of your content. There is a lot of different content on your site. And content can include like really tiny things. Content can include big things like images, videos, audio, lots of different multimedia, but can also include things like microcopy, like things for buttons. Or a really good example that I can think of is in MailChimp, for instance. One of the reasons why I think MailChimp has such a good following is that when you press send on MailChimp, while it's loading up your email templates and getting them all the things, they put cute little quotes or they'll say cute little thing, something to do with bananas or something like that in between. And those little moments, those that lose a little bit of moments, those are also content. That's like a Microcopy Canvas. Another one, while they're waiting for things to load, it'll have a quote about something creative or something like that. And all of those different parts of your content are part of your content. And I think that it's important to remember that, to me, my deep thought is that content is about everything that people experience from your brand and from your website. Mordy Oberstein: That's exactly where I went with this. I defined content as that which communicates. And that's everything. Crystal Carter: Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Mordy Oberstein: I want to be thorough. No, but for real. And by the way, most of the communication is done lately. And we, as marketers or SEOs or content creator, just by default, end up focusing on the more manifest parts of your content. But like a dream, it's really the latent part of your content that really matters. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I'm just trying to think, there's definitely times where if I go to a website and stuff and it's like, nothing they said, but you just go, oop, no. This isn't a thing. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. Crystal Carter: And you just run away straight away. Mordy Oberstein: Everything. Yes, the content is the actual facts or the messaging or ideas or product or whatever it is that you're trying to communicate, but it's way more than that. It's everything about communication. It's everything you're signaling, everything you're giving off. Which means, by the way, if you wanted to take it from the same concept on the flip side, content is relationship building. Crystal Carter: That's very interesting. That's very interesting. And I think, also, that comes with ... That helps you to decide about which content to make. I think if you're building relationships, when you're making this content, you are trying to build a relationship with people. There are people that I follow. There's an artist that I follow, and she makes amazing content. And I look at her pictures all the time and I tell people about her all the time. I've only bought three things from her, but I tell people about her all the time because I feel like- Mordy Oberstein: Resonates. Crystal Carter: ... I have a relationship with her content because it makes me happy. And- Mordy Oberstein: No, no joke. That's totally true. When you read a piece of content, when you're looking at an image, when you're listening to whatever it is, it hits you a certain way and that builds associations. I compare it to you have a doctor and they can treat you. And everything is like 100%, on the up and up, they are the best at their craft. But then there's also the bedside manner part of it. And your content is really both. Your content is obviously the actual facts. And so you're talking about, you have a blog about scientific theories of theory, theory of relativity. But it's also how you're communicating it. In event, you came up really pretentious. Your reader might have the best facts, but would they be able to actually assimilate that information? Were they so turned off by your tone that they would forget about this? I love what you said as facts, but I hate how you said it. I'm not taking this content in. Crystal Carter: It's very interesting. And I think that people forget that it's not just ... These are the deal breakers. When people are deciding which content to go to or which information to access or which thing to buy, those bits of nuance in between can be what makes the difference. I know there are people who really, really like iPhones, for instance, who really just love the box for years. I remember people would be like, oh, I just love the boxes. And that would be part of the experience, would be that like they're- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, totally. Crystal Carter: They had these really good boxes and you could have the same phone. Again, you can resell an iPhone, for instance, but if it comes in a box. That's- Mordy Oberstein: Right. Imagine your iPhone came in a brown paper bag, like a lunch bag. Crystal Carter: Right. You feel differently about it. You feel differently about it. And you know it's the same content, but you feel differently about it because it feels different. And like you said, it's very ethereal. It can be very in between, there's a lot of in between. But I think it's sometimes when we're talking about why people can't make great content and I think sometimes people feel nervous about actually investing the time or actually showing some personality, but do it. Just do it. And you can also try it in different channels. I mentioned not just blogs, but a blog is a really good ... You can do a litmus test so you can just try it and see what people think. You write one little blog and see if people take to that. And if you can get feedback on it, you go, okay, so this didn't resonate that well, okay, this did resonate. And then you can build on that and you can ... You don't have to do everything all at once. You can try things and see how it connects with people. But I think that thinking about relationship- Mordy Oberstein: Content. Crystal Carter: ... element of content is really important. Mordy Oberstein: It's a relationship. It's communication that relates. Crystal Carter: Relatable communication. Mordy Oberstein: Relatable communications. Do you know what else- Crystal Carter: If no one can understand you, then are you [inaudible 00:39:30] communicated? Mordy Oberstein: Doesn't matter. Crystal Carter: It's like they say, if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? And my answer to that is, who cares? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, who cares? [00:39:37] Snappy SEO News You know what we do care about? The news. So, here- Crystal Carter: The news. Mordy Oberstein: The news. Some snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Two things for you today. You have PSA, just in case you missed it. [00:39:55] News: Beauty Blog With Financial & Medical Advice A Bit Sus But first, vindication from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable, Google beauty blog with financial and medical advice, a bit sus, that's suspect. Google's John Mueller was asked if offering medical advice on a beauty blog was a viable plan. Now for the record, the question was a hypothetical so they can pull out a concept. Just FYI, no one was actually proposing doing something like that. John from Google said, "If you're giving financial and medical advice on a beauty blog, I suspect users are probably rightly going to find that a bit sus," as in suspect. Vindication, I've been saying this forever, well, since August 2018, where I wrote a post for Rank Ranger, is Google profiling your site? Well, while John is going to say, Google treats this as suspect in the algorithm. Technically, you have to think that if the quality of each page is great, but it's on completely different topics, again, you're talking about financial advice or medical advice on a beauty blog that's going through setting very mixed signals to Google and call into question the reliability of that content. Because quality looks at the entire domain of the site. Meaning Google looks at the quality of the site overall, not just specific pages. For long time SEOs, that might sound a bit odd. But it's true [00:41:41] News: Google's Helpful Content Update when it brings us to our PSA. Just in case you missed it, Google announced it will be launching the helpful content update. By the time you are listening to this, it may already be live and rolling out. Police check the SEO news outlets for more coverage, such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable, and Search Engine Journal, and so forth. I'm not going to get into too many details here because it's snappy. But basically, the update is going after content written for bots first and not users. Content, you write so that you rank, but not really focused on your audience being happy. That's what this update is going after. It is a sitewide algorithm. Google is scoring the entire site, not just pages, so willing to some more resources around the update in the show notes so that you can learn more. And that is the snappy news. Crystal Carter: Let's roll. [00:42:08] Follow of the Week Mordy Oberstein: Before we leave every week, what we would like to do is to give you, our dear listeners, more resources to learn more SEO. One of the greatest resources out there is the SEO community. Now there are some great people to follow, some not so great people to follow in the SEO community, like any community. Here, however, is a great person to follow. Crystal, who we following this week? Crystal Carter: This week, I'm going to give a shout out to Ross Simmonds. Ross Simmonds is @TheCoolestCool on Twitter. And Ross is someone who has a big following, but I'm always surprised that more people aren't aware of him. Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, Ross Simmonds says this," and people say, "Oh, I don't follow him." And I'm like, "You should. You absolutely should follow him." And one of the things that he specializes in is content distro. He talks about repurposing your content, about making sure that your content is being found in different places. So that not only are you making unusually awesome content, but that you're also making sure that it's found in lots of unusually awesome ways. And this is something that I have done for clients, and I've seen incredible results. And I think that it's something that you can add to your SEO process. Because that way, you don't have to just hope that people will find your content and all that time you spent connecting with your users and building relationships and doing all of that sort of stuff can find more fruits. And I think the other thing is that he talks about using about different channels and formatting, specifically, for those channels, so making Twitter threads or making videos or making this other or the other to make that content really sing in lots of new ways. And I think he does it really, really well. Mordy Oberstein: Which is a perfect place to end off. Because you need to not only create that great content, but you need to know how to share that great content and spread that great content around., Crystal Carter: Spread it around. Mordy Oberstein: Appropriate. Thank you, Crystal. That was so appropriate. And thank you to our great audience. Thank you for joining us with the SERP’s Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Well, not to worry, we're back next week with an all new episode as we get into the algorithm. Crystal Carter: Mm. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh, algorithm updates. Ooh, scary. [00:44:18] Wix.com/SEO/Learn Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our very own Wix SEO learning hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Look and learn more about everything SEO. Check out all the great content at webinars over at the Wix SEO learning hub at, you guess it, I'll say it again one more time, wix.com/seo/learn. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Crystal Carter: SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Shelby Blackley Jessie Willms Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub WTFSEO Newsletter News: Google: Beauty Blog With Financial & Medical Advice A Bit Sus What creators should know about Google's helpful content update Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Shelby Blackley Jessie Willms Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub WTFSEO Newsletter News: Google: Beauty Blog With Financial & Medical Advice A Bit Sus What creators should know about Google's helpful content update 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 branding here at Wix. And I'm joined by our head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, SERP's people. I'm very happy to be here. Mordy Oberstein: I thought you were going to say like, hey, all you groovy cats and kittens because- Crystal Carter: I love cool cats and kittens and dogs and- Mordy Oberstein: And gerbils. Crystal Carter: Gerbils. And also- Mordy Oberstein: Hamsters. Crystal Carter: ... hamsters, guinea pigs. I've got a friend who's- Mordy Oberstein: Birds. Crystal Carter: ... He has a lizard. This is- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, forget about lizards, birds. Crystal Carter: Birds. Birds are good. Yeah, that's good. Mordy Oberstein: People who have pets, you are welcome on this podcast. And those of you who don't. Crystal Carter: Yes. Those of you who don't. Those of you who virtual pets or potted plants, potted plants are cool. Mordy Oberstein: Or even just like pets, altogether. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: I have animal friends. I just anthropomorphized the animals in my midst. There are seagulls nesting across the street from my house and I've named them Gerald and Susan. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's wonderful. Crystal Carter: Yeah, the- Mordy Oberstein: That's really lovely. Are you sure it's the same two seagulls every single day? Crystal Carter: Dude, they got a little baby. Mordy Oberstein: Oh. Crystal Carter: And the baby is like ... Yeah, I can see them. Mordy Oberstein: But you didn't name the baby? Crystal Carter: Well, I mean, we were still deciding on it. But he's really cute. He's really friendly. Mordy Oberstein: You have list of names? Crystal Carter: Yeah, we got a list of names. We're going to have a gender reveal party and everything. Mordy Oberstein: Perfect. On that note, the SERP’s Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can run a quick and link site audit with our Deepcrawl integration have again during the Wix app market to make your site healthy today with the Deepcrawl app. So much going on in this episode. I feel like we're just going to say that at every episode, but it's true. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of content. We have a lot of content today. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot of content. [00:01:59] What are we talking about in this episode? I like what you did there. Because this week, we're talking about creating uncommonly good content for users and for bots. We're going to be covering being uncommon by creating some uncommonly awesome content for both users and bots. Crystal Carter: Users and bots. Bots would like content that is interesting as well, and not just the same as everyone else's content. Mordy Oberstein: You sound like a coneheads consume mass consumptions. Those of you watch Saturday Night Live way back in the day. Anyway, we're going to go into what it means to create good content, how to create good content with guest drops from, Shelby Blackley over at Mashable and Jessie Willms. So looking forward to that. We're also going to get lost in the ether of, what is content? That's my William Shatner impersonation, by the way, as we have a deep thought moment for you. Crystal Carter: Deep thoughts. Deep, deep thoughts of the content. Mordy Oberstein: Mm, deep thoughts. We're also going to be taking a hard look at the SERP itself to see what ranks, what doesn't, why it does, why it doesn't as we take a look at the keyword, should I use pastels, pastels, I never get this word right, in my business logo design. Crystal Carter: It's something that we've all considered. Are we going for lavender or powder blue eggshell? Mordy Oberstein: I love pastels. Crystal Carter: What do [inaudible 00:03:14]? Mordy Oberstein: Eggshell. I painted my apartment eggshell one time. Anyways, we're getting ready for some real life lessons on what content is ranking and what Google likes and what it doesn't like, so you can apply that to your own content. Plus, some snappy SEO news and who to follow in the SEO industry for some SEO awesomeness. So much going on. Well, let's snap into it. Content. [00:03:36] Focus Topic of the Week | Content Content is the commodity of your website. People are going to your website to consume something. That thing is pizza. No, content. Crystal Carter: Content. Mordy Oberstein: Content, not a pizza. It could be content around pizza. It could be content around a product so they can buy it. It could be a podcast episode like this one. It could be a blog post. Whatever it is, it's some form of? Content. Crystal Carter: Content. Mordy Oberstein: A site without content is basically like a body without bones. It's a giant lump of mush. Crystal Carter: Are you getting into the deep thoughts already? Who are we- Mordy Oberstein: That's right, yeah. Crystal Carter: ... without content Mordy Oberstein: Deep metaphors by Mordy Oberstein. Back in the day, if you've been doing SEO for a while, you'll remember this. But if you haven't been, this is a good lesson for you to learn. Back in the day, when you wrote content for the web, you wanted to rank and pulling traffic from search, so you created content that wasn't, I don't know, call it not exactly natural. Crystal Carter: Mm, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Mm. Crystal Carter: Yeah, we've seen not-good content. Mordy Oberstein: Gee, not good content. You were doing things like making sure your keywords and your title and the first end of the first paragraph, of the first heading, of every single page, and every heading in the last paragraph, keywords here, keywords there, keywords everywhere. The only thing that wasn't actually there, other than the keyword, was actually good content. Crystal Carter: Oh. Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh, snap. We're getting salty. By the way, if anybody tells you, if you're listening to this, you need to have your keyword over here and your keyword over there and your keyword in the first end. Do not listen to them. For the love of God, do not listen to them. That's bad SEO advice. Crystal Carter: It can lead to some trouble. Mordy Oberstein: Really bad trouble, really not good for anything. Why? Well, Google's got via machine learning and NLP and a bunch of other things that make me sound well smart when I say that. Google has gotten really good in understanding what content is, what users want. You should now write content that isn't bleh. Which is why today ... By the way, it's the official diagnosis of bad content, it's bleh. Crystal Carter: Exactly. And I think on the machine learning point, it's really important to think about the machine learning is powered by NLP, which is natural- Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Crystal Carter: ... language processing. It's natural language. One of the problems with writing keywords or writing four keywords in the way that people did back in the day is that it wasn't very natural. And that's not how people write and it's not how people talk to their computers anymore. And it's certainly not the way that we should be making content anymore. Mordy Oberstein: No. It's really just bad, which, again, why, today, we're talking about creating uncommonly good content and what that actually means, which is, I guess, where we should begin. What does it actually mean to create good content from an SEO point of view? It sounds like a simple question for the probably simple answer, but it is not. It is not simple. Crystal Carter: It's not. It is not simple and it's very ... Whenever Google has an algorithm update, they always say, oh, just make good content, just make good content. And everyone is like, but what is good? Mordy Oberstein: What does that mean? Crystal Carter: What does it mean? What does good content mean? Mordy Oberstein: What's in the box? What's in the box? Crystal Carter: Just tell us what do you want us to do, Google. Everyone gets very confused. And I think that there's a very interesting thing. And I always think about this as a tech SEO. And I've got a quote here from John Mueller. He is quoted in search engine journal, and he says, "When it comes to the quality of the content, we don't mean just the text of your articles." And we're talking about good content. It's really about the quality of the website overall that includes everything from layout to design, like how you have things presented on your page, how you integrate images, how you work with speed, all of those factors contribute to what is good. Because the thing is, what is good also has to do with the context. If you have a delicious five-star gourmet meal that's presented on a dirty plate, the meal might be good content, but the context of the meal doesn't mean it's not good. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. Arghhhh. Arghhhh. Crystal Carter: You need to think about all of those things. And so, I think that when you think about good content, it's important to think about the overall content experience, not just the words. Mordy Oberstein: That's so true, so true. And we'll, hopefully, get to it later. I have a whole sniff test around that. To me, good content is all about ... If you wanted to ask me like, how do I define ... There's multiple ways you could define what is good content. I define good content as nuance content, meaning it's content that you created that you're trying to predict the problems that users are going to have with the content itself. And therefore, you're creating with nuance. If you're creating content, and while you're doing, you're thinking about, well, this user, when they read this, they're not going to really understand this. Let me add this line and let me add a link in, let me do this with this or this. Or this user, they might understand this point that the other user won't, but they're not going to understand this point. Or they're going to need another piece of content after they read this piece of content to really get what they want. And when you start predicting the problems that your users are going to have with your content, and that's not a bad thing to going to have problems, they will never really have problems. You end up running with nuance. It's like when I was teaching, was like that you try to predict this type of students going to have a problem with what I'm saying, but this type of student won't, but this type of student will have a different problem. And you try to build your lesson around that. You're trying to build content around the different problems that users are going to have. And that usually means you end up creating content with the right page structure, with the right level of detail, with the right nuance, with the right kind of links. You're creating, in the end, as a default, substantial content by doing that. Crystal Carter: And I think that what you're talking about, the crux of what you're talking about, is thinking the user. As a user, how would you feel if you came to this content? Would you have more questions? Would you need more support? Would you need to be provided with more information? Would you want it in a different format? You need to think about the users. I had an experience, I don't eat meat. I went to a place and they were like, "We've got new vegetarian options." And I said to the waitress, "I would like the vegetarian options." And then she's like, "We don't have it." And that was it, that's all she said. She didn't give me more options. I needed more options. She didn't care about what I was doing. And I think that when you're thinking about users, don't leave them with that end. Don't leave them with content that doesn't go anywhere. Think about the content that matters for them. And I think that's super important. And for a tech SEO point of view, again, I mentioned format, but from a tech SEO point of view, there's a lot of things that can be done from the same content, the same written content, but provided in a different way. If they were to say about, oh, I want to listen to like, I don't know, Beyoncé's whole back catalog and someone would say, great. And they gave me a stack of vinyl records and I was on a train, that wouldn't be any help. That would be useless with me. The content is the same, but- Mordy Oberstein: You don't walk around the phonograph? Because that's-, Crystal Carter: Right. I'm not going to do that. The content is the same, but being able to play it on Spotify is much better content for me than being able to play it on a record. From a tech SEO point of view, you can sometimes make content better just by changing the format, making it better for mobile, making it more accessible for other users using audio and video and all this sorts of different things. And that can make content really good. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm trying to link with this show. And so I have a whole post about it, and so I wrote for so much a while back of why usability is going to be the differentiating factor going forward. But tech SEO comes in because they make sure content either less or more usable, and that's a huge part of UX UI. It's really all one thing. And then I'll go back to my sniff test that we get to later. But I want to briefly talk about like what prevent ... It sounds really simple what we're saying, right? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: It's not like, wow, that's earth shattering. There are really good points, I hope, I think. But for some reason, most of the content on the web gets this wrong. And I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say most of it gets it wrong because there's page 1, but then there's page 2 through 20. And that's not always means that it's bad. It might be irrelevant for the key, whatever. But I think there's two things in my mind that make people hesitant about going this direction with their content. And that is, one, they're anxious about sales. And it's just landing pages all of the time. Where people on a landing page, you really want to try to drive ... That's where you're making the money. You really want to drive the sales, so CTA here, CTA there, and quick marketing kind of content. And you don't offer more informational content that gives context to the user. Or you don't scale back those CTAs because you're just anxious about making the sale. I'm not blaming anybody. I get that you're anxious, but that anxiety can lead you to go too far with pushing a sale, let's say, and not creating really good content. And the second thing is relying on wrong metrics. Let's take search volume, a tool, like Samra says, that every single month, a million people are looking for this keyword. So I'm going to write about this keyword, I'm going to do whatever I can and try to get search. And then said, no, I wrote about this keyword. But the end, you're not thinking about, A, is this content I should be writing? Is this good for my user? And even if it should be written on your blog or on your website, whatever it is, you're not thinking about what makes us good content. You're just thinking about how to get a million users to come and look at your content every month. And those metrics- Crystal Carter: Right. And I- Mordy Oberstein: ... just throw things off sometimes. Crystal Carter: And I think that one of the things that's good about those metrics is that they're really accessible. You've got your average search volume metric and you can see that and you can show that to someone and that sort of thing, but there are other metrics that you can use and there are other ways that you can get content ideas. And I think, also, Google often says that like, there's the ... I think the number they normally bat around is around 15% of queries have never been made. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, 15%. Crystal Carter: And you have other tools available than just the same tools that everyone has. If you have a customer service team, they will know the kinds of questions that people are regularly asking them about what you do. If you have a sales team, they will regularly ask you about those things. If you genuinely are using your product, there's probably questions that you have. Or if you, let's say, show it to your mom and she's like, "But how do I actually bake the cake?" And you're like, "Oh, follow the recipe." She's like, "Yeah, but this doesn't say that." If she says that, that's a gap, that's a content gap, that's an opportunity, and that's something that people are going to be looking for. There are other things. And reviews are a really good source of this. I've had it before where I've written content on golf. I know nothing about golf, but I have a friend who's related to golf and I followed him. And I also went through the reviews and looked at the kinds of stuff that everybody was talking about in the reviews. And we made the content based on that, not just on keyword volumes, but on the kinds of things that you're seeing come up from users and that you can actually answer. Mordy Oberstein: And I've actually done this, where I've gone to keyword research tools, plucked out the questions that they offer, then gone to real people I knew who are dealing with it, whatever it was I was researching. And the questions that I got back were completely different. That's a really good point. The last thing I want to hit on before we head over to our guest tips for this week is, practically speaking, how do you actually go about creating the really good content? This comes by my sniff test. Well, first, I want to say is, and I'll probably say this a lot on this podcast, start with empathy. Start with really understanding your audience. What are their pain points? What's their life situation? And what do they actually need? Because otherwise, you can't actually write that content I was talking about earlier where you're predicting what they're going to need if you don't understand who they are and what they need. [00:14:21] The Brand Sniff Test The second thing is that I call it the brand sniff test. Whenever you go to a page or you go really anything, you go to a store, you walk in, you look around and you're like, the prices might be great, they might have exactly what you need, but you look at it, and something just doesn't give you a great impression. And we, as human beings, we do this in three seconds flat. You go to a webpage, you're looking at it like the overall experience, there's something off with it. All of the latent signals that you're getting from the page, whether it be the tone, whether it be like they're still using tables from 1995. All of those things that give off and what brand marketers will use all the time as signals, like how effective are we, I call it the brand sniff test. Does your page pass the brand sniff test? Is the tone right? Is the format right? Or is the graphics right? Everything, all of those latent signals. When someone reads the content, does it come off that's well written, that is substantial, that is detailed, that has nuance to it, that's not just fluff? Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I- Mordy Oberstein: Those latent signals. And Google's trying to mimic that. It's the same thing that Google's trying to mimic. Obviously, they're not you, they can't show up and do that in three seconds. They're trying to mimic that through quantitative analysis, but that's what they're trying to accomplish. Give your content- Crystal Carter: And I think that- Mordy Oberstein: ... the brand sniff. Sorry, you're going. Crystal Carter: No, no. And I think it's true. If you're arriving on a new website and whether you're getting information or whether you're looking to buy something or whether you're looking to answer a question, whatever your intent might be, you want to know that the person that you're getting this information from is a decent source and that whatever the query have is actually in their wheelhouse, that they actually know what they're talking about. I could ask anybody about, I don't know why I've got a cold or something like that, but my doctor probably knows better than the person that I met down the pub. And because it's in my doctor's wheelhouse, it's important to remember that. And I think also, you talked about empathy. It's important to think about being genuinely of use to your users. I think I see a lot of content that is around like, we do this, we are great, we've got this, we do that. When you see content that's really good, it explains why. I saw a gym that was like, we have lots of machines, so you don't have to wait. We keep everything clean so that you can see healthy. We are open all the hours so that you can exercise whenever you want. Phones, in particular, are very personal. It's very important to think about like you were talking to one person when you're writing that content. And so, think about that person when you're writing the content. And I think if you do that, you'll make much better content. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And by the way, I so agree with you. And I think, speculate, that Google understands the difference between language profile. It understands when you write a certain way and when you're not writing a certain way. And it says, this way is good and that way is bad for whatever topic that you're dealing with. [00:17:05] Focus Topic Guest: Shelby Blackley and Jesse Williams But speaking of experts, as you brought up, we have two experts who are going to be talking to you about how do you not only get people to click on the content. You rank, they click, how do you get them to ultimately buy into that content, trust it, and come back for more maybe or actually, buy that product in the end? Here's Shelby Blackley over at Mashable and Jessie Willms from WTF SEO, or they're both from WTF SEO. We'll link to those links in the show notes on how to get people to trust your content after they click on it from the SERP. Jessie Willms: The question that we're answering today is, how do you create content that doesn't just get clicks, but really resonates and engages the user once they land on the page? Shelby Blackley: Well, I think that the big thing about having a quality piece of journalism or having a quality piece of content is really focusing on three pillars, search intent, keyword research, and the actual reader experience and how they are immersed in the piece. When you think about search intent, it's very much like why people are searching these things. They're looking at what is the actual main purpose of the page. To create a quality piece, you need to look at what's actually out there and what people are actually creating. If someone's looking up a specific keyword and they want an FAQ, how can you take that FAQ and take it an extra level? Is there a way to engage it? Can you add in schema? Is there an H2 subheading that you can add in? All of these will allow the readers to get what they need out of it. Jessie Willms: Right. By aligning the search intent with the content that we end up creating, we can make sure that we really fulfill that request that people are making when they turn to a search engine, I should say. Shelby Blackley: Exactly. And then you think about the keyword research behind it too. And we do so much around keyword research, right, Jessie? Jessie Willms: Yeah. Keyword research is the first thing that any new SEO will do when they are thinking about creating a new piece of content. We really want to, first, understand what it is people are looking for to understand the questions that we need to answer and the topics that we need to cover in whatever piece of content that we create. The other thing between keyword research as your first step is it helps inform not just what you cover, but how you cover it. Like Shelby said, if you are doing key research and you see that other publishers are creating FAQs to answer these reader questions, then you know that this is in line with how readers want to consume this content. A series of questions and answers is a really effective tool for creating that engagement with readers, because it allows them to answer specifically the question that they're after, but also scan and skim over other questions that they might find useful. Shelby Blackley: Right. And it's a perfect opportunity for internal linking out to other stories. Jessie Willms: Exactly. Shelby Blackley: For example, if you've got that FAQ, you can link out to a really great piece of enterprise journalism that will definitely hook people and keep them there for longer, right? Jessie Willms: Yeah. Internal links are really great two-way relationship between your content. If you have, in the context of journalism, for example, a really big investigation, pairing that with an FAQ that answers the most common questions that came up during this investigation is a really excellent way to make sure that you have multiple entry points for your readers into your most valuable content. Shelby Blackley: Which takes us into our third part about the reader experience, because it's all about, how can you give the reader as much information as possible in the easiest way, but also the most engaging. If you're creating a piece of content and you've got a video that you can throw in, absolutely, it should be in there. Not only can that video rank on its own, but you're already adding to that reader experience. And then you can add in an audio clip. What if there's another piece of journalism that's connected to it? Jessie Willms: Mm-hmm. Exactly. We need to remember that readers get information in a variety of ways. So wanting to make sure that we create those access points, as Shelby said, pairing a piece of text journalism with a video component or a piece of audio or even, for example, a static graphic that explains a concept. These are all really useful ways to make sure that whatever reader finds your content, that that particular type of reader can get something out of the information that you're servicing. Shelby Blackley: Absolutely. And we recently had an issue on 10X content. And I think this whole question can be answered, really thinking about content in that sphere of 10X. If you're not familiar, 10X content was coined by Rand Fishkin or the co-founder of moz, now it's SparkToro. And it's really about taking a piece of journalism or a piece of content and making it 10 times better than what's out there. What's on SERP's right now? Are you seeing regular FAQs that are just lists? How do you take it 10 times better to really serve that audience and make those readers want to come back to your site? Jessie Willms: And for any journalist listening, this is a very key pillar of journalism. You don't want to just match what your competitors are doing. You want to beat them by producing something that is better than what they've created. Shelby Blackley: Absolutely. And always thinking about how can you best serve the reader and give them the most information they can. Jessie Willms: Yeah. Centering the reader in your experience is a great way to make content that resonates. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much to Shelby and Jessie for that really interesting. Crystal, wonder what you're thinking. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that it's really on the mark with a lot of what we've been discussing. User-centric content is really important. And they also talked about format, which I'm a big proponent of and making sure that you have content that is good on a lot of different levels. And I think that they also mentioned how can you make your content better. I think we think about making new content a lot, but a lot of the work that I've done in the past has been around enhancing content that already exists. And there's a lot of times where you can go back over well performing content or existing content or content that's on the board, but maybe not at the top and actually tailor it with new elements to make it rank better and perform better for users. But keeping users at the center is absolutely key. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, again, to Jessie and to Shelby, really appreciate you sending that into us. Be sure to check out WTF SEO. It's a newsletter for journalists who do SEO. But again, journalism and content go hand in hand. If you're looking to create content, there's some really great tips in there. They also have a Slack group, a Slack channel. Check that out as well. We'll link to it all in the show notes. Again, thank you so, so much from us, here at the SERP’s Up podcast. Okay. I had this great idea. I think it was a great idea. Why don't we take a look at- Crystal Carter: We'll see. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think you are being so skeptical, Crystal. [00:23:20] From the Top of the SERP I had this idea. Why don't we take a look at content that ranks really well and that doesn't rank as well or so, so, or not well at all, maybe, and see if we can maybe diagnose some reasons why content is ranking well and why it's not ranking well. So that you, our lovely audience, could have some tips around creating content that ranks well and doesn't rank well. And we're calling it from the top of the SERP. My association, by the way, the top of the SERP, when I was a kid, I grew in New York and Z100 was a radio station. Their thing was from the top of the Empire State Building. My mind, I hear from the top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Do you know what, I live in England and there's something called Top of the Pops, which is a bit like American bandstand. And so that's what I think of. You said, top of the SERP, and I'm like, top of the pops. Yeah, top of the pops. Mordy Oberstein: What do you think of, our dear audience? Let us know on Twitter. Anyway, for real. We're looking down, but we're not judging any site or any page here in particular. That's why I need to say that. But this week, we're going to look at content around the keyword. Should I use pastels in my business logo design? And Crystal has a very different way of saying pastels, it's pastels? Crystal Carter: Pastels. Mordy Oberstein: Pastels, all right. Crystal Carter: Pastels. Mordy Oberstein: Pastels. I say it pastels. Crystal Carter: Pastels. Mordy Oberstein: Potato, potato yet again. When we ran this keyword, and by the way, if you go ahead in Google, as you might not see the exact same thing as we saw because rank is always changing. Crystal Carter: Exactly, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But there was a page from ZillionDesigns that ranks really, really well. And what I liked about this page is that ... And so I'm getting zilliondesigns.com. What it does really well is it gets really deep into pastels, which is so exciting, right? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: And how you could use them for design. For example, it gets into things around like the intensity of pastels and what that means for using it in a logo and how the different colors relate and how that evokes different emotions. It really what I thought it did a really good job. And I think what Google sees in this piece of content is that it takes understanding of pastels. It applies it to logo and design. But from a very business point of view, what does this mean for your business? Crystal Carter: I think- Mordy Oberstein: Which really speaks to the intent. Crystal Carter: And what I think is really interesting is that we were talking about like literal keywords and things like that. The actual page is called using pastel colors in your brand. That's what it's called. It doesn't say using it in your logo. But as you go through it, they have lots of visuals and they're talking about logos and they have tons and tons of examples of pastel colors and logos so that you ... And Google understands that if you're talking about pastel colors and logos, you not only want to talk about pastel colors, you not only want to talk about the ... But you also want to see them in the logo. They're ranking top, even though they're not explicitly saying logo, logo, logo all over the page. But they've got good examples of logos and how you can use them. From an intent point of view, it's giving you information and it's also giving you demonstration of what you need. And I think that's one of the things [inaudible 00:26:26]. Mordy Oberstein: I think all of the pages that are ranking well the top of the SERP, they are doing things like that. They're giving you a little bit of context. There's a page from tailorbrands.com and they're talking about muted pastels. And they write ... I was going to say something like they literally write, I'll read it to you, a muted palette can actually help highlight a specific part of your logo, like an icon or your brand name. You can always experiment blending muted pastels with colors, with a brighter accent to give it a unique look that pops off the page, as opposed to just saying that you should always experiment with blending muted pastels and colors. It gives you the whole context around why that is, and it goes even deeper into it. The pages that I see, at least from my point of view, that are ranking well are not just listing information or showing you examples, but they're giving you some kind of context around how this works. You can extrapolate out what they're saying and apply it to your own situation, which I think Google sees that. Crystal Carter: Exactly, because I think Google understands what the next query is going to be. They know what people are going to come back for. They can see when they ... And a bit of content is addressing multiple stages of the query at once. Not only understanding what the past logo is and not going, these are pastel colors, lavender is pastel and baby pink is pastel and things, and not just listing them all and then somebody has to go back and find another thing. But it's a rich bit of content that's working there. I think what's also interesting about these is the top ranking ones, is that they're pretty robust. They're fairly longer form bits of content. Which means that they're probably ranking for multiple terms, which is very, very interesting to see. They're both doing a really good job on delivering content that is valuable to users. Mordy Oberstein: So, takeaway for this kind of query and perhaps your kind of query is also if you see this out there for the things that you're trying to rank for, a little bit of context and around what you're saying and why you're saying it and how it applies to the particular use case of what people are looking for, in this case, their business, definitely help here. It seemed that Google is saying, hey, we want users to be able to take away something and being able to apply it to their own site. And the only way you can do that is if you offer people a concept that they could take away and apply it to their own site, not just like, here's the information. Now, to the pages that didn't do so well. Now these are pages that maybe were on page two, maybe bumped up to page one for a little while, went back down to page two. One of the pages we looked at, one was on page two and then one was on page four. Maybe it'll get backed up to page two. But it wasn't consistently performing well, is our point. What did you see there? Crystal Carter: Yes. This is one that I saw from invideo.io and they're talking about pastel colors. What's very interesting here is that InVideo is a video website. It looks like they're providing a video tool and this is talking about pretty much different color palettes that you might use. And so the content is called pastel colors and it was ranking page two. It's now ranking lower. And I think part of this is because it's not explicitly talking about logo design. It's talking about pastel colors, generally. Even though they don't state it in the title, there's an implied connection between using pastel colors and video rather than using it in a logo design. They mention the word logo, but it's not really an emphasis. I don't think this is necessarily that this page needs to be optimized for the pastel colors for your logo query. I think this is a question that this is kind of in the general neighborhood, but this content doesn't actually satisfy this particular query. It probably ranks for something else very well. But in this particular instance, it's not actually satisfying it. It's in the ballpark, but it's not going to be taught because it's not actually satisfying the query. I think if you had this page and you saw that it lost rank, don't worry about it. Because you weren't supposed to rank for it in the first place. Mordy Oberstein: That's a really good point, by the way, general point for listening to this. Again, we're not trying to be judgmental. These are good pages, but not for this particular keyword or this particular intent. And I think you're right. And for this particular page, what it did that I think doesn't work for this particular query is like, let's say, it talks about the pale lemon color. This color too is named after [inaudible 00:30:16] and it's softer version of a vibrant yellow, doing the job of a perfect background with your visuals whenever you need an alternative for white. And it tells you, okay, this is a good alternative for white, but it doesn't give you a concept or context around why this color might be good in the business context, how you might pair this color. The next step is not there. There's no context around it. Crystal Carter: Exactly. It's not talking about logo design, which is a different thing from a video palette. Another one that was ranking page two, for the color is pastel colors and design, ideas, examples, mega inspiration. And this one is just general pastel colors and it's GraphicMama blog. What I think is interesting about this one is, again, it discusses logos a little bit, but it's not dedicated to logo design. And it's just discussing pastel colors, generally. But again, it's not dedicated to logo design. But what's also interesting about this one is that this has a lot of social proof. I think the reason why this is ranking on page two rather than ranking on page four is that if you look at it says that it's been viewed 12,000 times. That's pretty good. Based on that, I'm guessing that GraphicMama has a lot of social media followings and things like that. And they've also really done really well with showing lots of different illustrations of use cases for capsule design. Some of them which include logos. But again, it's not dedicated to that particular thing. Again, this is one where the content is perfectly solid, but Google's trying to find the content that is the most useful and the most appropriate for that particular query, and that's what they're going to put on top. Mordy Oberstein: That's what we were talking about earlier in the podcast, where you're trying to write nuance content for a particular audience and this content doesn't speak this particular audience. Because the audience in mind is coming from a business point of view. They're using it for their logo, for their what? For their business, for their website, whatever it is, some kind of business professional use. And what the content that you have here just gives you the information about pastels in a vacuum, but not in the context of how you can actually use it. I think it lacks from that point of, again, intent and that level of nuance that the intent demands. But either way, just to sum it all up, it's about intent, it's about nuance, it's about the right content at the right place, at the right time. And in this particular case, it seems to be about creating context and creating concepts that the user is able to walk away from and therefore apply to their own site, which again, speaks to the intent- Crystal Carter: Exactly. Mordy Oberstein: ... of. Crystal Carter: They want to be able to learn how to do something and they want to be able to learn how to apply some information. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And you can't do that without concepts. It's just not possible. Amazing. Crystal Carter: There we go. Mordy Oberstein: Now we're not done with content just yet, there's more. But wait, there's more. Crystal Carter: There's more. Mordy Oberstein: Because content, when you talk about content, it's always hard to pin it down. And whether it's using tools to analyze content or which tools are the best for how do you define content, what kind of content are you talking about? Content is always ... Again, here's that word again, so nuanced. [00:33:13] Deep Thoughts | What IS Content? We thought, why don't we try to define, what is content? Crystal Carter: What is content? Mordy Oberstein: Is content? Here's a deep thought by Crystal and Mordy. Crystal Carter: I think on this one, I think the reason why I wanted to bring this up is because I think a lot of people, when they say, "Oh, we're going to make some content," is they think about blogs. That's the first thing they think about. They think, oh, we're going to make some blogs. That's the content. Once we've done the blogs, we've done the content. And I- Mordy Oberstein: I love the blogs. Crystal Carter: Love the blogs, don't get me wrong. Blogs are great. Blogs are good. Blogs are fantastic. However, that's not all your content. That's not the end all be all of your content. There is a lot of different content on your site. And content can include like really tiny things. Content can include big things like images, videos, audio, lots of different multimedia, but can also include things like microcopy, like things for buttons. Or a really good example that I can think of is in MailChimp, for instance. One of the reasons why I think MailChimp has such a good following is that when you press send on MailChimp, while it's loading up your email templates and getting them all the things, they put cute little quotes or they'll say cute little thing, something to do with bananas or something like that in between. And those little moments, those that lose a little bit of moments, those are also content. That's like a Microcopy Canvas. Another one, while they're waiting for things to load, it'll have a quote about something creative or something like that. And all of those different parts of your content are part of your content. And I think that it's important to remember that, to me, my deep thought is that content is about everything that people experience from your brand and from your website. Mordy Oberstein: That's exactly where I went with this. I defined content as that which communicates. And that's everything. Crystal Carter: Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Mordy Oberstein: I want to be thorough. No, but for real. And by the way, most of the communication is done lately. And we, as marketers or SEOs or content creator, just by default, end up focusing on the more manifest parts of your content. But like a dream, it's really the latent part of your content that really matters. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I'm just trying to think, there's definitely times where if I go to a website and stuff and it's like, nothing they said, but you just go, oop, no. This isn't a thing. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. Crystal Carter: And you just run away straight away. Mordy Oberstein: Everything. Yes, the content is the actual facts or the messaging or ideas or product or whatever it is that you're trying to communicate, but it's way more than that. It's everything about communication. It's everything you're signaling, everything you're giving off. Which means, by the way, if you wanted to take it from the same concept on the flip side, content is relationship building. Crystal Carter: That's very interesting. That's very interesting. And I think, also, that comes with ... That helps you to decide about which content to make. I think if you're building relationships, when you're making this content, you are trying to build a relationship with people. There are people that I follow. There's an artist that I follow, and she makes amazing content. And I look at her pictures all the time and I tell people about her all the time. I've only bought three things from her, but I tell people about her all the time because I feel like- Mordy Oberstein: Resonates. Crystal Carter: ... I have a relationship with her content because it makes me happy. And- Mordy Oberstein: No, no joke. That's totally true. When you read a piece of content, when you're looking at an image, when you're listening to whatever it is, it hits you a certain way and that builds associations. I compare it to you have a doctor and they can treat you. And everything is like 100%, on the up and up, they are the best at their craft. But then there's also the bedside manner part of it. And your content is really both. Your content is obviously the actual facts. And so you're talking about, you have a blog about scientific theories of theory, theory of relativity. But it's also how you're communicating it. In event, you came up really pretentious. Your reader might have the best facts, but would they be able to actually assimilate that information? Were they so turned off by your tone that they would forget about this? I love what you said as facts, but I hate how you said it. I'm not taking this content in. Crystal Carter: It's very interesting. And I think that people forget that it's not just ... These are the deal breakers. When people are deciding which content to go to or which information to access or which thing to buy, those bits of nuance in between can be what makes the difference. I know there are people who really, really like iPhones, for instance, who really just love the box for years. I remember people would be like, oh, I just love the boxes. And that would be part of the experience, would be that like they're- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, totally. Crystal Carter: They had these really good boxes and you could have the same phone. Again, you can resell an iPhone, for instance, but if it comes in a box. That's- Mordy Oberstein: Right. Imagine your iPhone came in a brown paper bag, like a lunch bag. Crystal Carter: Right. You feel differently about it. You feel differently about it. And you know it's the same content, but you feel differently about it because it feels different. And like you said, it's very ethereal. It can be very in between, there's a lot of in between. But I think it's sometimes when we're talking about why people can't make great content and I think sometimes people feel nervous about actually investing the time or actually showing some personality, but do it. Just do it. And you can also try it in different channels. I mentioned not just blogs, but a blog is a really good ... You can do a litmus test so you can just try it and see what people think. You write one little blog and see if people take to that. And if you can get feedback on it, you go, okay, so this didn't resonate that well, okay, this did resonate. And then you can build on that and you can ... You don't have to do everything all at once. You can try things and see how it connects with people. But I think that thinking about relationship- Mordy Oberstein: Content. Crystal Carter: ... element of content is really important. Mordy Oberstein: It's a relationship. It's communication that relates. Crystal Carter: Relatable communication. Mordy Oberstein: Relatable communications. Do you know what else- Crystal Carter: If no one can understand you, then are you [inaudible 00:39:30] communicated? Mordy Oberstein: Doesn't matter. Crystal Carter: It's like they say, if a tree falls in the woods does it make a sound? And my answer to that is, who cares? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, who cares? [00:39:37] Snappy SEO News You know what we do care about? The news. So, here- Crystal Carter: The news. Mordy Oberstein: The news. Some snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Two things for you today. You have PSA, just in case you missed it. [00:39:55] News: Beauty Blog With Financial & Medical Advice A Bit Sus But first, vindication from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable, Google beauty blog with financial and medical advice, a bit sus, that's suspect. Google's John Mueller was asked if offering medical advice on a beauty blog was a viable plan. Now for the record, the question was a hypothetical so they can pull out a concept. Just FYI, no one was actually proposing doing something like that. John from Google said, "If you're giving financial and medical advice on a beauty blog, I suspect users are probably rightly going to find that a bit sus," as in suspect. Vindication, I've been saying this forever, well, since August 2018, where I wrote a post for Rank Ranger, is Google profiling your site? Well, while John is going to say, Google treats this as suspect in the algorithm. Technically, you have to think that if the quality of each page is great, but it's on completely different topics, again, you're talking about financial advice or medical advice on a beauty blog that's going through setting very mixed signals to Google and call into question the reliability of that content. Because quality looks at the entire domain of the site. Meaning Google looks at the quality of the site overall, not just specific pages. For long time SEOs, that might sound a bit odd. But it's true [00:41:41] News: Google's Helpful Content Update when it brings us to our PSA. Just in case you missed it, Google announced it will be launching the helpful content update. By the time you are listening to this, it may already be live and rolling out. Police check the SEO news outlets for more coverage, such as Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable, and Search Engine Journal, and so forth. I'm not going to get into too many details here because it's snappy. But basically, the update is going after content written for bots first and not users. Content, you write so that you rank, but not really focused on your audience being happy. That's what this update is going after. It is a sitewide algorithm. Google is scoring the entire site, not just pages, so willing to some more resources around the update in the show notes so that you can learn more. And that is the snappy news. Crystal Carter: Let's roll. [00:42:08] Follow of the Week Mordy Oberstein: Before we leave every week, what we would like to do is to give you, our dear listeners, more resources to learn more SEO. One of the greatest resources out there is the SEO community. Now there are some great people to follow, some not so great people to follow in the SEO community, like any community. Here, however, is a great person to follow. Crystal, who we following this week? Crystal Carter: This week, I'm going to give a shout out to Ross Simmonds. Ross Simmonds is @TheCoolestCool on Twitter. And Ross is someone who has a big following, but I'm always surprised that more people aren't aware of him. Sometimes I'm like, "Oh, Ross Simmonds says this," and people say, "Oh, I don't follow him." And I'm like, "You should. You absolutely should follow him." And one of the things that he specializes in is content distro. He talks about repurposing your content, about making sure that your content is being found in different places. So that not only are you making unusually awesome content, but that you're also making sure that it's found in lots of unusually awesome ways. And this is something that I have done for clients, and I've seen incredible results. And I think that it's something that you can add to your SEO process. Because that way, you don't have to just hope that people will find your content and all that time you spent connecting with your users and building relationships and doing all of that sort of stuff can find more fruits. And I think the other thing is that he talks about using about different channels and formatting, specifically, for those channels, so making Twitter threads or making videos or making this other or the other to make that content really sing in lots of new ways. And I think he does it really, really well. Mordy Oberstein: Which is a perfect place to end off. Because you need to not only create that great content, but you need to know how to share that great content and spread that great content around., Crystal Carter: Spread it around. Mordy Oberstein: Appropriate. Thank you, Crystal. That was so appropriate. And thank you to our great audience. Thank you for joining us with the SERP’s Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Well, not to worry, we're back next week with an all new episode as we get into the algorithm. Crystal Carter: Mm. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh, algorithm updates. Ooh, scary. [00:44:18] Wix.com/SEO/Learn Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our very own Wix SEO learning hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Look and learn more about everything SEO. Check out all the great content at webinars over at the Wix SEO learning hub at, you guess it, I'll say it again one more time, wix.com/seo/learn. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Crystal Carter: 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

Is there a difference between enterprise SEO and SMB SEO? Yes, there is, but it’s probably not what you think it is. Hosts Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein sit down with Wix’s own Matt Matergia, Vice President of Global Strategic Sales, to discuss the challenges of navigating the enterprise space. They also welcome guest Eli Schwartz, author of Product-Led SEO, who discusses how SEOs can ensure that they’re staying hands-on and sharp at their craft. Walk with us into the enterprise this week on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Back What you need to know if you want to go Enterprise SEO Is there a difference between enterprise SEO and SMB SEO? Yes, there is, but it’s probably not what you think it is. Hosts Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein sit down with Wix’s own Matt Matergia, Vice President of Global Strategic Sales, to discuss the challenges of navigating the enterprise space. They also welcome guest Eli Schwartz, author of Product-Led SEO, who discusses how SEOs can ensure that they’re staying hands-on and sharp at their craft. Walk with us into the enterprise this week on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 33 | April 12, 2023 | 40 MIN 00:00 / 40:26 This week’s guests Eli Schwartz Eli Schwartz is the bestselling author of Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy. A growth advisor and consultant, his ability to demystify and craft organic marketing strategies has generated billions in value for some of the internet's top sites. Matt Matergia Matt works with some of Wix’s largest channel partners. With over 10 years of experience in the digital marketing and SaaS industries, Matt knows what it takes for digital service providers and software companies to successfully serve small businesses’ online needs. 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 branding at Wix, and I'm joined by someone who is good, Crystal Carter, head of SEO Communications here at Wix. Totally got you by surprise at that one. Crystal Carter:: You did. I thought you were going to be like, "Ooh." Mordy Oberstein: Nope. Someone who is good. Crystal Carter:: That was a good note. Thanks for just... Yes. Also, thank you. Mordy Oberstein: So, the context for this is, and I guess you'll see our recording schedule and I'll hint at it. Yesterday was Barry Schwartz's birthday. Happy birthday, Barry. Crystal Carter: Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Barry rested break. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But by the time he hears it's going to be weeks after his actual birthday, but Barry- Crystal Carter:: We should also wish him happy birthday when this comes out. Mordy Oberstein: We should. So, Barry put out a Tweet saying, "I wish there was some kind of automated AI that would automatically reply back to when people wish you happy birthday on Twitter with, 'Thank you.'" So, you could have gone on Twitter and wrote an entire spiel to Barry like, "Barry, we love you. You're amazing." He would literally reply back to everyone, "Thank you." Period. Crystal Carter:: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: So, that's where I got my intro to Crystal this week. Crystal Carter:: There you go. Thank you. Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Period. Crystal Carter:: Full stop. End of sentence. Mordy Oberstein: Full stop. End of sentence. Crystal Carter:: Moving on. Mordy Oberstein: All right, please. Moving on. Period. Thank you. Period. Do you know who Barry Schwartz is? By the way, Barry Schwartz, I call him the Godfather of SEO. He has been covering the SEO news for literally forever. He has SERoundtable.com, news editor at SearchEngineland.com. He is a huge asset to the industry. So, please follow Barry Schwartz and read his news content. You will learn a tremendous amount about SEO. And he's a great follow on Twitter because he is, as much as he denies it, he's a real character. Crystal Carter:: He also has a weekly video roundup, which is sponsored by Wix. Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Crystal Carter:: So, yeah, check that out. That's a really good watch on a Friday morning while you're having your cup of coffee. It's a good way to keep up on point. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. You can see Barry wearing a Wix hat. This episode is sponsored by Barry. No, just kidding. Crystal Carter:: No, it's not. Mordy Oberstein: This podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can filter through all of your pages with the Wix site inspection tool. Literally, filter through them because they now have filters. So, you can filter through up to 2000 pages of Google Search Console, URL inspection, API data to look at the indexation status of the specific types of pages on your site, or filter according to indexation status. Or filter according to a whole bunch of other different ways, because it's Wix making it easier for you to work at scale, which is a large part of... Crystal Carter:: I just wanted to chime in and just say I love it. I love that feature so much. I'm sure Daniel Weisberg from Google might be listening, but it's better than Google Search Console because you can search for a word that might be in your URL, it might be in the page title. You can search by that. You can filter by rich results. You can see that all on one table. I literally love it so much. Mordy Oberstein: Same here. Crystal Carter:: They announced that there was a filter and I lost my mind. It's brilliant. Check it out, please. Mordy Oberstein: You can now search for pages by the keyword in the URL, by the words in the URL. There's a million ways to now organize your data. Crystal Carter:: And on Google Search Console, you have to do three clicks or a redjects or a thing to find the thing. It's like, what? Just let me search for- Mordy Oberstein: Before you even finish the whole word that you type in, it's already pulled it out for you. Crystal Carter:: Yes, I love it. I literally love it. Mordy Oberstein: It is amazing. Which is a large part of doing SEO at scale, which is a large part of enterprise SEO, which is what today's episode is all about. No, it's not a Star Trek convention. It's the enterprise, but it's enterprise SEO. Or SEO for enterprise, however you want to phrase it. Crystal Carter:: Engage. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, thank you. Engage. Thank you. Make it so. Today, we are looking at what you should expect when working SEO at the enterprise level. How enterprise SEO does and doesn't differ from "regular SEO." What skills come into focus when doing enterprise SEO? And we have someone who has become synonymous with enterprise SEO stopping by to talk about how you can do enterprise SEO and still be hands on. Eli Schwartz, the author of Product-Led SEO is stopping and by to share his thoughts and his insights. Plus, we're going to talk to vice president of Global Strategic Sales at Wix, Matt Matergia, who's going to stop by with us to chat all about what it means and what you should know when talking to enterprise level clients. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. Beam me up, Scotty, because episode number 33 of the SERP's Up podcast is taking on the enterprise. Crystal Carter:: I'm like, more Star Trek jokes. Honestly, please. Mordy Oberstein: Endless. Did you know by the way, that he never, Kirk never said Captain Kirk, William Shatner of Star Trek, never said, "Beam me up, Scotty," ever on the show or the movies? Crystal Carter:: Who said, "Beam me up, Scotty"? Mordy Oberstein: No one. Crystal Carter:: Leonard Nemoy? Mordy Oberstein: No one said it. He said something similar to it. Crystal Carter:: That's not rational. Mordy Oberstein: Fascinating. Crystal Carter:: In a sense it's futile. I know. I can literally just spat out things. Mordy Oberstein: Endless. Endless. We'll know we've gone too far when we break out into William Shatner impersonations. Okay, so. Crystal Carter:: Okay, wait, wait, wait. Who's your favorite Star Trek captain? Mordy Oberstein: Kirk. Crystal Carter:: Kirk. Mordy Oberstein: Kirk. It's absolutely. Crystal Carter:: Come on. Mordy Oberstein: First of all, I grew up on Kirk in the movies. It's very nostalgic for me. Crystal Carter:: I'm sorry. So, it's a close tie between Janeway and Picard, and all Sisko. Mordy Oberstein: Janeway is wonderful. I think the number two for me is Picard, followed by Janeway, followed by a Sisko, followed by it doesn't matter anymore. Crystal Carter:: I put Kirk pretty low on the thing. People, listeners, listeners, listeners to this podcast of who I know the Treking community is a lot, chime in. Tell us who's your favorite captain? Who's your favorite captain? Mordy Oberstein: There is no competition. We've gone too far. There is a bias. There is a bias in SEO. If I can go out on a limb here, people will think local SEO was simple because it's SMBs, and enterprise SEO is complex because it's huge in large organizations. That I don't think is the truth. Certainly not in the way that the perception of many of us think it is. Local SEO can in fact, by the way, be enterprise. Right? Think, I don't know, you're doing local SEO for Taco Bell. Crystal Carter:: Yeah. Dairy Queen. Mordy Oberstein: There you go. Crystal Carter:: Pret a Manger. Mordy Oberstein: We listed all these companies. Papa Johns. Forever. Crystal Carter:: People who have multiple locations. Mordy Oberstein: Right. That is what we're trying to say. Also, by the way, small websites have their own complications and SEO at the enterprise level might not be as complicated as you think the way you think. Sure, they might have lots of pages. More pages than a typical SMB. But is that fundamentally what makes enterprise SEO more complex? Let's find out. Crystal Carter:: Make it so. Mordy Oberstein: Make it so. Engage. I think there's this general thought around enterprise SEO where it's more paid ads, therefore it's more complex. That's what enterprise SEO more complex words to me, and being at Wix at the enterprise level, why at SEMrush also is very enterprise. To me, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here, we could talk to Nick Wilson about this on another podcast. What makes enterprise SEO complicated is the sheer size of the company itself, not the size of the website. Crystal Carter:: Yeah. I think it can be a little bit of both and I think it can also be the difference between a tugboat and a cruise ship. If you need to move a cruise ship through a space, you have to move it all at once and you have to do a lot of planning. It's going to take a lot of planning in order to make sure. If you've got a tugboat or a canoe or whatever and you need to leave the harbor, you just go. Mordy Oberstein: You untie the boat, you throw on your little captain's hat. Crystal Carter:: Right, exactly. Let's talk about captains. Lots of stuff about captains, right. So, you can get yourself on your little ship and you can sail away into the blue. Mordy Oberstein: Someone put on the Styx Come Sail Away right now. Crystal Carter:: I was thinking of Enya, Sail Away. Anyway. So, if you're sailing out, it's not a big deal. Yeah, you can do that and you can be nimble. It's not a big deal because you can say, oh, you know what? I'm just going to post that blog. You could be nimble. If you are moving an entire unit, then you have to plan and that planning can take a long time. So, if we're talking about the cruise ship metaphor, because I love a folksy metaphor, if we're talking about that you need to tell the harbor master, you need to tell the people who look after the harbor, I'm moving my ship. Right? I'm getting out of this dock and I'm moving my ship. They're like, okay, we need to clear the way, we need to do these things. Mordy Oberstein: Sign these forms. Crystal Carter:: Right. There's things you have to do in order to engage that. On an enterprise level, if you want to do things, there's lead time. You have to take lead time into account, and sometimes that lead time can be months. Sometimes that lead time can be even longer than that. So, when you're thinking about your SEO and you're thinking about SEO implementations, particularly like tech SEOS implementations. If you want to address some tech debt for instance, that's in your website stack. Or if you want to create a new asset on your blog or create a new asset for the digital asset or something. You have to think about the fact that there are wheels within wheels within wheels, and you have to be able to move as a unit. You can't think of yourself in a siloed space because you're part of a larger unit. Mordy Oberstein: You know what it's like, to use another analogy? Let's say you want to get ice cream. You hop in the car, you get ice cream. Now, let's say you have 10 kids. Now go try to get ice cream. Crystal Carter:: Right, right, right. Exactly. Mordy Oberstein: You have 10 different people with 10 different considerations and it's at the enterprise level. So, you might think, wow, let's target this keyword. Make it a really simple case. Target this keyword, engage. Then someone says, the brand manager says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is not on brand for us." But the SEO, the traffic. That's not what the brand does. There's so many different teams with so many different considerations, who have a voice and a legitimate voice on what you do and what you don't do. Navigating all of that, extremely complex. If you were to ask me, if I'm doing SEO with scale already and I want to move to the enterprise level. Or I'm not doing SEO with what I want to go into enterprise. The greatest skill I think you can have is being able to navigate different relationships, considerations, compromising, planning. That back and forth with other people comes much into focus, uniquely so, in enterprise SEO. Crystal Carter:: This is something that Eli Schwartz talks about. He says you need to make friends with everyone. I think also you need to have your ears to the ground about where things are moving. I was on a recent discussion with the women in tech SEO crew, talking about their state of technical SEO report that they put out with ERA digital. We were talking about enterprise SEO and we were talking about how you get things implemented. One of the consensuses that we came to was that timing is everything. If you know that a team is moving on an initiative across your company, and this also applies to smaller businesses as well. But let's say that you're working for a theme park or something and the theme park has a new ride that they want to promote. And you have an SEO thing that you want to get done and you've been trying for months to get it done. If you can position the SEO tactic, the SEO implementation that you want as a benefit to this other initiative that's coming down the pipe, which you know that the company has momentum on, then you're more likely to get that sign off than if you just have something random that's like a thing that you think is a good thing that's best practice that will generally help the website. If you have something that works with the timing of the company, that's really useful to think about. And thinking about budgets allocation, thinking about when your company signs off marketing plans, for instance. If the marketing plans are signed off in October and you show up with this great idea in December, they've already signed it off and they're midway through and you need to think about that as well. So, I think there's a lot of wheels within wheels and finding out is really helpful. Mordy Oberstein: That goes back to your point about the boats, or in my case, the kids and the ice cream. If you want to successfully navigate that slow moving ship, it means that you have to be almost a type A personality to a certain extent. If that's not you, by the way, then make sure there's somebody on your team who that is them. Because you need to know in advance, be able to plan it in advance and predict the various scenarios that will play out. If this happens, we're going to have to do that and now I'm going to know these five different things and set up meetings with these five different people, and have that all planned out. So, before you even get to the doc, or before you even offer the kids, hey, let's go for ice cream, you need to have a plan of how that's going to happen and what that's going to look like. Crystal Carter:: I know that for instance with Wix there's a logo maker tool, which the team put together, and that took a little while to put together, but it's a fantastic tool. It's a fantastic tool for users in lots of ways and adds a lot of user value for users for instance. Putting that together and getting all the moving parts and getting everyone together to make that happen is something that's really valuable. I think also when you're in an enterprise team, and even when you're in a smaller in-house team or an agency as well, being prescient, being aware of who the gatekeepers are. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Very much so. Crystal Carter:: Can be really, really, really useful. I don't mean gatekeepers as in like boo, you can't come in, but I mean people that are facilitators. Being conscious of who those people are and identifying them and being able to see who that works, because it might not even be the people that you would normally on paper assume. It might be that there's somebody who manages the diary for the CEO or manages the diary for the CMO or something. If you don't speak well to them, you will not get a meeting. It might be that might be the person that you need to think about. It might be that it's not necessarily the person who is the team lead, but it's the project lead who's actually driving some of the decisions and things. So, be aware of those so that you can get your implementations met. Also, when you're thinking about your SEO implementations, I think it's also important to tie them into the team's priorities. If they don't fit in with the team's priorities, then it's going to be very difficult to get signed off. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. That's another thing that really has to align priorities. Also, because in my experience you could only, and I think you understand this also, we've experienced this both, where you're going to have overlap. People have their own priorities and your priorities are going to overlap. Sometimes your priorities align and you work together, and sometimes your priorities are the same and it means cannibalization. Crystal Carter:: Right. So, you've got to think about that. I think from a keyword research point of view, from an enterprise, that's definitely something that people should think about. If you're working on a big domain, and one of the things that's tricky with enterprise domains is that not only do you have your main domain, but you very often will have your knowledge base or whatever. You'll very often have support docs, help docs and things like that. You may also have a lot of old content. So, if you're working on a website, if you've gotten to an enterprise level, chances are the domain is a little bit older and is going to have a lot of webpages. It might be that there are pages from way, way, way, way, way back. Mordy Oberstein: You talked about this in a previous podcast, you have to be careful with those things also because if you pull off the wallpaper, sometimes the wall crumbles. Crystal Carter:: Right. Precisely. I think that when you're looking at your keyword research, you should also be looking at how to make sure that you're not overlapping with yourself. I think we talked a little bit about keyword cannibalization, which I think is a challenge for enterprise SEOs. One of the tools that I found recently that's really useful is a keyword gap analysis tool, Semrush. Mordy Oberstein: Pretty cool. Crystal Carter:: Which is supposed to be for they're looking at competitors. But it's actually really, really useful for looking at your own content and finding the gaps in the existing content you have, so that you can create some complimentary rather than competitive content. Mordy Oberstein: Right. So, different folders compared to each other, different sub-domains compared to each other, that kind of thing. Crystal Carter:: Precisely. It's a really, really good tool that you can look at for your own. So, if you compare all of those different things and then you can see untapped, picked from the untapped. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Where it's overlapped and you're just going to end up killing their page, people are not going to be happy. Don't do that. Yeah. Crystal Carter:: Yeah. It may even mean you have to work harder to make your content rank and perform and engage and all of that sort of stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Or if you are going to do that, you need to sync up to make sure that everyone's aligned in all the resources and all of the SEO juice are going to one place, for lack of a better word. Now, if you're doing keyword research, that's great. You're at the enterprise level, you're doing keyword research. Are you really though? Are you that hands-on? Is it all strategies? Should you be hands-on? Probably, yeah, but how do you remain hands-on at the enterprise level when you're so busy? All these big pages and big things and different meetings and different teams. Oh my goodness. To help us answer that, Product Led SEO's author, Eli Schwartz, is here to tell us how to remain hands on when working at the enterprise level. Eli Schwartz: Figuring out how to stay hands on an SEO when you're working at an enterprise level is no easy feat. By the very nature of the job, your job is more likely to be focused on meetings, architecture, strategy, diplomacy, politics and all things that are the furthest thing from hands-on. As a consultant, this is even more challenging for me because I'm not hands on. I'm not working within a company. I don't really get to look at the source code of anything. I don't see Jira tickets. I'm barely in Slack conversations. When I am in, these are the conversations that I'm invited into. So, I have to find other ways to be hands-on. I'll do things like work on my own projects, launch pages, break pages. I recently launched a new website with Wix, and when I forwarded my website over from WordPress over to Wix, I intentionally 404ed pages to see how long they would still be in the index. Spoiler, it's been about two months and they're still in the Google index. So, if you do a site query on my site, EliSchwartz.co, you're still going to find webpages that are 404ed and they're still in the Google index. So, I do things like that to stay really on top of the real hands-on part of SEO. The other things I'll do is I'll do things that are out of my typical role as a consultant. I'll coach new SEOs or I'll coach enterprise SEOs and help them understand and help work with them, and really for my own learning to understand how to navigate the challenges that they're working on as a part of their roles. If they have a challenge with how do they get an engineer to do something, how do they understand the reporting they have? These aren't things that I get to do in my regular consulting, but these are things that I get to really learn and do from coaching. Coaching isn't necessarily the part of consulting that I might earn the most from or I might focus the most time on, but it actually is for me the most rewarding because I am getting my hands dirty. I am learning things and I am navigating challenges, and it keeps me up to date with existing issues around SEO. For example, most of my larger clients are very, very unlikely to ever get hit by a Google algorithm update. They aren't going to get penalties, they aren't even doing things that are big enough and important enough to get the attention of Google. However, with some of the coaching projects that I work on, those are smaller sites. Those will be the kinds of things where they are seeing changes from Google algorithm updates and they need to message that to executives. They are seeing things and they need to message to counterparts across the company, how do we go ahead and fix this? That's the primary way that I'll get most of my hands-on access and really stay up to date. Of course, I'm sure other people are recommending and I would totally agree with that, read blog posts. Be on Twitter, be on LinkedIn, be a part of conversations. But the one extra piece I do is when I hear these things and I see these conversations, I go ahead and try to test it on my own. But this is something that I am very proactive about. How do I stay hands-on rather than just staying high level? Mordy Oberstein: Thank you very much, Eli. Don't forget to check out Eli's book, Product-Led SEO. A little plug for Eli. Hey, if somebody's coming on the podcast and they have a book, we have to plug the book. Crystal Carter:: Plug the book. Mordy Oberstein: Plug the book. Crystal Carter:: That's what you do. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like I'm like Jay Leno or something. I have a guest on, I'm plugging the book. Crystal Carter:: Some shameless self-promotion but not self-promotion. Something that's just- Mordy Oberstein: Marketer's going to market. That's how it goes. Crystal Carter:: This is it. This is it. Mordy Oberstein: Respect. Crystal Carter:: Resistant is futile. Mordy Oberstein: It's a good point and it's a good point at the enterprise level and in general. If you want to get hands-on experiences with SEO and you're like, I don't know, I don't have a local SEO client or whatever it is, I don't have an eCommerce. So, try to spin up a mock site. Try to get your hands on. Take that extra initiative. If you're sitting at strategy meetings all day long, great, start a podcast. Create a podcast website. Run that website. Do something with it, not just a test. Actually run something. Create a blog, run that blog, do the work read. Keep your hands dirty in the SEO by being a little bit proactive and spending a little bit of time on, even if it's a small website, it's something tangible. Crystal Carter:: Yeah, yeah, it's so true and the best SEOs do this all the time. I hear people who are like, oh, I did this course but I need to get some SEO experience and I need to get a job somewhere. Or I need to get a thing somewhere. I'm like, you don't need anyone's permission to do SEO. You can just do SEO. You can start a website right now and you can do SEO. You can start creating content. You can start doing content optimization. You can start thinking about your content and that sort of thing on things like Medium, on things like LinkedIn, on things like that. But do SEO. And then I think really nice working on enterprise level, John Sehada is also somebody who does this a lot. Barry interviewed him recently, or there's a video interview of Barry and John talking about this as well. John's like, oh yeah, I did this, I did that, I did this, I did that. Barry was like, I literally love how in the weeds you are. The best SEOs are doing this all the time. I know somebody who is an enterprise SEO who works for a major fashion label. She's like, oh yeah, we've been experimenting on this project with AI content and seeing how that performs and that sort of thing. I think that if you want to learn how to do SEO, doing is the most important thing. Because SEO in theory is great and you can learn a lot of stuff from reading blogs, but until you put the content into, until you set it live, it's not really active. You have to set it live and you have to see how Google responds, how people respond, how the internet responds to your content. Mordy Oberstein: This goes to a point John Mueller made a while back a couple years ago, where someone's talking about creating a test site. John's like, well. John, the search advocate over at Google. You don't usually put the same kind of effort into a test site as you do a real site, so it's hard to really see how things would actually work and play themselves out. The real thing is the real thing. Now, sometimes in enterprise SEO, you work in-house. Sometimes, however, very often actually, you consult at the enterprise level when doing SEO. Which means you have clients, which means you have high stake clients who have big budgets and big expectations, on my. To ease our anxiety around this, we're going to talk to someone who knows a thing or two about how to talk to big name brands or running big budgets with big expectations. Our very own vice president of Global Strategic Sales at Wix, Matt Matergia stops by as we go across the Wix verse. Speaker 5: Three, two, one. Ignition. Lift-off. Mordy Oberstein: Welcome to the show, Matt. Really nice to have you here. Matt Matergia: Pleasure to be here. Mordy Oberstein: I'm kind of excited to pick your brain. Enterprise level clients. When you're talking to SEO, not SEO, just purely in abstract, not connected to any vertical, what goes through your mind when you have to deal with a, say, a complicated SEO? I'm sorry, a complicated enterprise. We're not doing SEO. A complicated enterprise client. Matt Matergia: You can't get off of the SEO. Mordy Oberstein: It's like a drug. Matt Matergia: So, all right. I think SEO doesn't matter what you're talking about with an enterprise client, right? It all comes back to understanding their business and understanding the problems that they're having and how their business works. In the sales world, we talk about discovery, right? Discovery is basically understanding who you're talking to, where they are in the organization, what their goals are, what their problems are, what opportunities you can gain out of this. So, we always say good discovery leads to good opportunities, and that's Sales 101, right? But that is really understanding clients and understanding their business. Crystal Carter:: What's your process for getting that level of understanding that helps you to create an effective relationship between yourself and an enterprise client? Matt Matergia: I would say base level, it's curiosity. Crystal Carter:: Okay. Matt Matergia: It's curiosity and asking good questions. Mordy Oberstein: You and John Mueller. So, we did an episode on building the good SEO team, and we asked Google's John Mueller, what are the traits of a good SEO team? He said curiosity. Matt Matergia : All right. Mordy Oberstein: Great minds. Matt Matergia: Yeah. Wow, what a level I've set myself at. Mordy Oberstein: That is, right? You've reached. We all aspired to each level of John. You have just said we've been trying for this, what, how many episodes? Like 33 episodes? And you've been here for five minutes. Matt Matergia: Yeah. Well, I'm honored. I think maybe we should just end this right here. Mordy Oberstein: Somebody's got another meeting to go to. Crystal Carter:: I would say also when you're working with clients who are enterprise or are part of a larger organization, in my experience, timelines can be something of a challenge or can be something that needs to be managed anyway. Have you found that to be the case as well? Matt Matergia : Yes, of course. Timelines, budgets, and also what is driving the timeline is usually it's the process on the other side. It's that decision making process that you need to understand, because we all have maybe a timeline in our head of the ideal process that we want to go through. But if you don't understand what's going on the other side and the business case that they need to make, the people that they need to get involved, the approval that they have to get, then those timelines, it's expectation versus reality. There can be some huge gap between what you're expecting the timelines to be and what they might be expecting. Which goes back to curiosity because you need to ask the questions to understand what that process is going to be. Crystal Carter:: Right, and I think that that's part of building a relationship with someone from a team like that. And that's a healthy relationship because you don't want to be pressuring someone. How come you haven't responded to this email when they don't have the capacity to get back to you straight away. Or they've got some other things that are going on around or that sort of thing. So yeah, I don't know if you can talk more about that. Matt Matergia: Well, I was joking. We had a sales kickoff in New York, I guess it was two months ago now, but I was joking with the team because we were talking about building trust and where you need to get with your main stakeholders and the sales process. We were talking about breaking the cell phone barrier. We were saying if you don't have your main contact cell phone and you don't have the right to be texting, calling, whatever, and you don't have that relationship, forget it. You're not closing the deal because you haven't established trust. Right? I made that up, breaking the cell phone barrier, but it goes back to trust really. Mordy Oberstein: I don't have your number so I kind of... Matt Matergia: We don't have a good relationship. Mordy Oberstein: We're not there, huh? Oh man. I really misassessed this whole relationship. Matt Matergia: I'll Slack it to you. We're on Slack. Mordy Oberstein: Oh okay, we're on Slack? Okay, so Slack is not... Wait, what if you're in a group Slack together with them, so it's a cross company Slack? Matt Matergia: Actually, that is definitely a good sign, right? When you have something like a joint Monday board or a joint Slack channel and now you're bringing in all the players. I feel like now you're starting to work on actual implementation or getting to the actual project, for sure. Mordy Oberstein: So, you're really trying to integrate with that person as much as possible. Matt Matergia: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Crystal Carter:: I think from an SEO point of view, the process of building trust with your clients is very similar whether they're enterprise or whether they're a smaller scale. I think when you have that level of trust, when you think about timelines, sometimes it might not be the right time for whatever it is that you're doing. But if you have a level of trust where they've got you on speed dial, they've got your number, they've got all your information, they know that you're solid and stuff. Then you were talking about opportunity as well, then they're able to connect with you when they need you for whatever it is, and you're able to fulfill whatever it is that they need. Matt Matergia: It's expectation setting. It's been a long time since I've worked selling SEO to enterprise clients, and I'm sure in a decade. But sophistication of the marketing teams, I'm sure it has improved or let's hope. But a lot of the partners that I'm working with today, they're working with small businesses. You think, all right, I'm going to invest money in SEO and overnight I'm going to show up on Google first page because you have a unscrupulous SEO agencies that are always saying that, right? So, part of the way that you can build trust is also that you do proper expectation setting. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, a great positive or bonus is that when this person you've made contact with, whether it be you have their home phone number, their children's names, whatever it is that you have, if they go to another company, I've seen this a gazillion times, if they like you, they'll bring you into that company. Which means that you've not lost the other client. They don't necessarily get rid of you because your POC is gone and you've gained a new client, because your POC is now in a new company. And you know that person's children's names and you're on a first name basis, and you go to the country club. Whatever it is that you do together. Matt Matergia: I feel like CMO turnover is the bread and butter of marketing agents. Mordy Oberstein: You're like, all right, let's see. When you intake a new client, I wonder what's their churn rate going to be here at their own company? Matt Matergia: Yeah. Like, all right, every two years I can just hit the. Mordy Oberstein: This guy's great. I love this person. He just brought me 10 clients just by himself moving around. Matt Matergia: Exactly. Crystal Carter:: I think there's also, talking about churn, sometimes when there's new team, let's say you're working with an account or you're working with a team, sometimes when there's a new company or a new team member, sometimes they're like, we want to clear out. We want to get new contacts and things like that. Have you got any advice for how to establish good relationships with talent incoming management? Matt Matergia: Yeah. In the sales world, we look for signals. Signals could be maybe a company has raised money or maybe they had a change in strategy. But certainly a signal could be new leadership coming in. Because 100% whether they're going to come in and bring existing vendors and existing relationships, or they're going to look for new ones, they're going to 100% make changes and they're going to want to make those changes usually within the first 90 to 180 days. So, specific to how do I establish those new relationships, I don't think it's any different necessarily than just establishing relationships in general. But I think looking for those buying signals is very important, and having your finger on the pulse to know what's going on to be proactive in those situations is important. Crystal Carter:: In my experience, also having your act together also helps. So, if you have a well-oiled machine and you're like, this is our report that we do every month and this is our thing that we do every month, then when the new person comes in, you've got all that stuff for them to see and the transition is easier. I don't know if you find that that's useful from a sales point of view as well? Matt Matergia: Everybody wants to look good. So, if you are the facilitator of that person looking good, then you've just earned their trust, right? 100%. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter:: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of looking good, if people wanted to look good and follow you out there on social media, where can they find you? Matt Matergia: I am MTerg on Twitter. M-T-E-R-G. Mordy Oberstein: Nice, and we'll link to that in the show notes. Matt Matergia: I'm not as active as either of you, but I am there. Crystal Carter:: But you're on LinkedIn as well, yes? Matt Matergia: And on LinkedIn. Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, nice. LinkedIn's great. I go there once in a while. I visit. Not like TikTok. I don't even know what that is. Crystal Carter:: That's not true. Marty has a very active TikTok where he does lots of dances, too. Mordy Oberstein: Dancing and I fall downstairs. That's what I do. On purpose. Or some people can like it, laugh at me. I just hurt myself. Anyway, forgetting that rabbit hole, Matt, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate you sharing your expertise and experience with us and look forward to seeing you around the virtual office, because we're not in the same office. We're not in any office together. Matt Matergia: Nope. One day I'll get to Tel Aviv. Mordy Oberstein: One day I'll get to Denver. Matt Matergia: Yes. Look forward to that. Crystal Carter:: Fantastic. Matt Matergia: Thank you both. It's a pleasure. Mordy Oberstein: Three, two, one, ignition. Lift-off. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Matt. I've had numerous conversations over the years with Matt. Super nice guy, super friendly, super accessible, and one of these people who you walk away feeling like they know way more than they let on kind of thing. Crystal Carter:: In a good way. Mordy Oberstein: In a good way. I mean it in the best way possible. Some things that I'm not going to let on that I do know, well maybe I will, that you'll soon know, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I'm not sure. As I pivot into the snappy news. Crystal Carter:: And now, with the snappy news and news from Bing, they have announced that their new Bing has increased the number of conversations that you can have with Bing chat from 15 up to 20. You can also have a total of up to 200, which is an increase from 150. They've also explained that they are adding in image and video search, which will make it a lot easier for you to have a bit more information there. And that they're adding local grounding to give better results for local search. Also in local search, if you are using Bing places, you might also be interested to know that they have improved their location recognition API to include something called local intelligence, which allows you to create territories and to do better local SEO via Bing. They're also adding more information about demographics and continuing to build and grow. We reported last week that the March core algorithm update had completed. However, in the early days of April, we are starting to see a lot of movement around there, to the point that Barry Schwartz reported seeing early signs of a Google search algorithm update on the third. A lot of people were saying that they have seen some reversals and a lot of changes early in the month. So, if you have a website that you're looking after, have a look at those results and see if anything has changed. Picking up on the AI news from Google, they continue to roll out Bard in a testing framework, so more people are reporting that they're getting access to Bard. They also announced recently during a podcast with the New York Times that they are also testing Bard in Gmail. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, discussed some of their approaches to innovation and responsibility, and also discussed and denied that he ever issued a code red as part of their approach to AI. Finally, news from ChatGPT is that ChatGPT has been disabled for users in Italy, reported by Christie Hines in Search Engine Journal. It seems that OpenAI did not in properly inform users that it was collecting personal data. This may have been in contravention with GDPR. And as such, they have now blocked access to ChatGPT for Italian users while they tried to make adjustments to potentially reestablish the ground rules for use in that area. This brings into question some potential challenges for how generative AI tools like Chachi PT, Bard and New Bing may approach this privacy space going forward. That's all for today's SERP's Up podcast snappy news. Mordy Oberstein: Coming back now from the snappy news, always good to have news. Crystal Carter:: Always good. Have we reached the final frontier of our podcast? Mordy Oberstein: It was the undiscovered country of SEO enterprises. Crystal Carter:: That's very fair. Mordy Oberstein: A little Star Trek Six reference for you there. All right. I feel like we're spanning generations, we keep this podcast going on any longer. But before we do lead the part, we need to talk about who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness, and this week we have a great follow for you, Paul Andre Devera, also known as Dre. An absolute character who you may not realize specializes in enterprise SEO. Crystal Carter:: So, he is living my podcast sound effects dreams because he has a fantastic podcast and webcast called The SEO Show. Do check the out on YouTube and on all of your best channels. He is somebody who drops the air horns that go. He just drops them in the middle of whatever he's doing and it's amazing. He has a lot of fun with his podcast and with a lot of his web stuff, but don't let the fun fool you. He's so smart and so strategic about the things that he does. I was on a recent discussion for Majestic, where we were talking about enterprise level SEO. The amount of sense he was talking, the amount of clarity that he has about how to approach enterprise SEO is phenomenal. He's super intelligent and really engaging, and a great follow. Mordy Oberstein: I've had numerous conversations with him. I've interviewed him. He is so on the ball and his take on SEO is so accurate and it's real. You're not getting the influencer flop. You're getting a real take from him. Again, like the SEO Video Show, the production value is off the chain. Little plug from myself, beginning of each show I do the SEO joke. So, if you want to hear me do an SEO joke, check out Dre's show. Marketers going to market. Crystal Carter:: Yeah, he's got a fantastic theme song as well. Which I thought that he'd done it himself, but he didn't do it himself. I wish he had, but there we go. Mordy Oberstein: He's over on Twitter at Paul Andre, that's P-A-U-L-A-N-D-R-E. Paul Andre on Twitter. We'll link to it in the show notes so you could follow him, check him out across all of his platforms, especially on YouTube and his SEO Video Show. And that's it. That's all we got. Crystal Carter:: That's it. We've reached the final frontier. We have- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, you made that joke already today. Crystal Carter:: Did I? Can I not do it again? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You can pick it again. Crystal Carter:: Oh, come on. Mordy Oberstein: Another Star Trek joke. Crystal Carter:: Oh, an insert Star Trek joke here. Mordy Oberstein: Live long and prosper, everybody. Thank you for joining us on the SERB's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with the new episode as we dive into SEO on PPC with our powers combined. Look for wherever you could consume your podcast or on our Wix SEO loading app over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn a little more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning at, you guessed it, Wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Eli Schwartz Matt Matergia Paul Andre De Vera Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Enterprise SEO Tips Product Led SEO Eli Schwartz SEO Consulting State of Technical SEO 2023 The Searchlight Newsletter News: Google CEO Sundar Pichai Talks Bard & The Future Of Search Seeing Early Signs Of A Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Maximizing Sales Team Efficiency with Location Intelligence Bing Preview Release Notes: Image & Video Search Exploring Italy’s ChatGPT Ban And Its Potential Impact Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Eli Schwartz Matt Matergia Paul Andre De Vera Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Enterprise SEO Tips Product Led SEO Eli Schwartz SEO Consulting State of Technical SEO 2023 The Searchlight Newsletter News: Google CEO Sundar Pichai Talks Bard & The Future Of Search Seeing Early Signs Of A Google Search Ranking Algorithm Update Maximizing Sales Team Efficiency with Location Intelligence Bing Preview Release Notes: Image & Video Search Exploring Italy’s ChatGPT Ban And Its Potential Impact 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 branding at Wix, and I'm joined by someone who is good, Crystal Carter, head of SEO Communications here at Wix. Totally got you by surprise at that one. Crystal Carter:: You did. I thought you were going to be like, "Ooh." Mordy Oberstein: Nope. Someone who is good. Crystal Carter:: That was a good note. Thanks for just... Yes. Also, thank you. Mordy Oberstein: So, the context for this is, and I guess you'll see our recording schedule and I'll hint at it. Yesterday was Barry Schwartz's birthday. Happy birthday, Barry. Crystal Carter: Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Barry rested break. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But by the time he hears it's going to be weeks after his actual birthday, but Barry- Crystal Carter:: We should also wish him happy birthday when this comes out. Mordy Oberstein: We should. So, Barry put out a Tweet saying, "I wish there was some kind of automated AI that would automatically reply back to when people wish you happy birthday on Twitter with, 'Thank you.'" So, you could have gone on Twitter and wrote an entire spiel to Barry like, "Barry, we love you. You're amazing." He would literally reply back to everyone, "Thank you." Period. Crystal Carter:: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: So, that's where I got my intro to Crystal this week. Crystal Carter:: There you go. Thank you. Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Period. Crystal Carter:: Full stop. End of sentence. Mordy Oberstein: Full stop. End of sentence. Crystal Carter:: Moving on. Mordy Oberstein: All right, please. Moving on. Period. Thank you. Period. Do you know who Barry Schwartz is? By the way, Barry Schwartz, I call him the Godfather of SEO. He has been covering the SEO news for literally forever. He has SERoundtable.com, news editor at SearchEngineland.com. He is a huge asset to the industry. So, please follow Barry Schwartz and read his news content. You will learn a tremendous amount about SEO. And he's a great follow on Twitter because he is, as much as he denies it, he's a real character. Crystal Carter:: He also has a weekly video roundup, which is sponsored by Wix. Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Crystal Carter:: So, yeah, check that out. That's a really good watch on a Friday morning while you're having your cup of coffee. It's a good way to keep up on point. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. You can see Barry wearing a Wix hat. This episode is sponsored by Barry. No, just kidding. Crystal Carter:: No, it's not. Mordy Oberstein: This podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can filter through all of your pages with the Wix site inspection tool. Literally, filter through them because they now have filters. So, you can filter through up to 2000 pages of Google Search Console, URL inspection, API data to look at the indexation status of the specific types of pages on your site, or filter according to indexation status. Or filter according to a whole bunch of other different ways, because it's Wix making it easier for you to work at scale, which is a large part of... Crystal Carter:: I just wanted to chime in and just say I love it. I love that feature so much. I'm sure Daniel Weisberg from Google might be listening, but it's better than Google Search Console because you can search for a word that might be in your URL, it might be in the page title. You can search by that. You can filter by rich results. You can see that all on one table. I literally love it so much. Mordy Oberstein: Same here. Crystal Carter:: They announced that there was a filter and I lost my mind. It's brilliant. Check it out, please. Mordy Oberstein: You can now search for pages by the keyword in the URL, by the words in the URL. There's a million ways to now organize your data. Crystal Carter:: And on Google Search Console, you have to do three clicks or a redjects or a thing to find the thing. It's like, what? Just let me search for- Mordy Oberstein: Before you even finish the whole word that you type in, it's already pulled it out for you. Crystal Carter:: Yes, I love it. I literally love it. Mordy Oberstein: It is amazing. Which is a large part of doing SEO at scale, which is a large part of enterprise SEO, which is what today's episode is all about. No, it's not a Star Trek convention. It's the enterprise, but it's enterprise SEO. Or SEO for enterprise, however you want to phrase it. Crystal Carter:: Engage. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, thank you. Engage. Thank you. Make it so. Today, we are looking at what you should expect when working SEO at the enterprise level. How enterprise SEO does and doesn't differ from "regular SEO." What skills come into focus when doing enterprise SEO? And we have someone who has become synonymous with enterprise SEO stopping by to talk about how you can do enterprise SEO and still be hands on. Eli Schwartz, the author of Product-Led SEO is stopping and by to share his thoughts and his insights. Plus, we're going to talk to vice president of Global Strategic Sales at Wix, Matt Matergia, who's going to stop by with us to chat all about what it means and what you should know when talking to enterprise level clients. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. Beam me up, Scotty, because episode number 33 of the SERP's Up podcast is taking on the enterprise. Crystal Carter:: I'm like, more Star Trek jokes. Honestly, please. Mordy Oberstein: Endless. Did you know by the way, that he never, Kirk never said Captain Kirk, William Shatner of Star Trek, never said, "Beam me up, Scotty," ever on the show or the movies? Crystal Carter:: Who said, "Beam me up, Scotty"? Mordy Oberstein: No one. Crystal Carter:: Leonard Nemoy? Mordy Oberstein: No one said it. He said something similar to it. Crystal Carter:: That's not rational. Mordy Oberstein: Fascinating. Crystal Carter:: In a sense it's futile. I know. I can literally just spat out things. Mordy Oberstein: Endless. Endless. We'll know we've gone too far when we break out into William Shatner impersonations. Okay, so. Crystal Carter:: Okay, wait, wait, wait. Who's your favorite Star Trek captain? Mordy Oberstein: Kirk. Crystal Carter:: Kirk. Mordy Oberstein: Kirk. It's absolutely. Crystal Carter:: Come on. Mordy Oberstein: First of all, I grew up on Kirk in the movies. It's very nostalgic for me. Crystal Carter:: I'm sorry. So, it's a close tie between Janeway and Picard, and all Sisko. Mordy Oberstein: Janeway is wonderful. I think the number two for me is Picard, followed by Janeway, followed by a Sisko, followed by it doesn't matter anymore. Crystal Carter:: I put Kirk pretty low on the thing. People, listeners, listeners, listeners to this podcast of who I know the Treking community is a lot, chime in. Tell us who's your favorite captain? Who's your favorite captain? Mordy Oberstein: There is no competition. We've gone too far. There is a bias. There is a bias in SEO. If I can go out on a limb here, people will think local SEO was simple because it's SMBs, and enterprise SEO is complex because it's huge in large organizations. That I don't think is the truth. Certainly not in the way that the perception of many of us think it is. Local SEO can in fact, by the way, be enterprise. Right? Think, I don't know, you're doing local SEO for Taco Bell. Crystal Carter:: Yeah. Dairy Queen. Mordy Oberstein: There you go. Crystal Carter:: Pret a Manger. Mordy Oberstein: We listed all these companies. Papa Johns. Forever. Crystal Carter:: People who have multiple locations. Mordy Oberstein: Right. That is what we're trying to say. Also, by the way, small websites have their own complications and SEO at the enterprise level might not be as complicated as you think the way you think. Sure, they might have lots of pages. More pages than a typical SMB. But is that fundamentally what makes enterprise SEO more complex? Let's find out. Crystal Carter:: Make it so. Mordy Oberstein: Make it so. Engage. I think there's this general thought around enterprise SEO where it's more paid ads, therefore it's more complex. That's what enterprise SEO more complex words to me, and being at Wix at the enterprise level, why at SEMrush also is very enterprise. To me, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here, we could talk to Nick Wilson about this on another podcast. What makes enterprise SEO complicated is the sheer size of the company itself, not the size of the website. Crystal Carter:: Yeah. I think it can be a little bit of both and I think it can also be the difference between a tugboat and a cruise ship. If you need to move a cruise ship through a space, you have to move it all at once and you have to do a lot of planning. It's going to take a lot of planning in order to make sure. If you've got a tugboat or a canoe or whatever and you need to leave the harbor, you just go. Mordy Oberstein: You untie the boat, you throw on your little captain's hat. Crystal Carter:: Right, exactly. Let's talk about captains. Lots of stuff about captains, right. So, you can get yourself on your little ship and you can sail away into the blue. Mordy Oberstein: Someone put on the Styx Come Sail Away right now. Crystal Carter:: I was thinking of Enya, Sail Away. Anyway. So, if you're sailing out, it's not a big deal. Yeah, you can do that and you can be nimble. It's not a big deal because you can say, oh, you know what? I'm just going to post that blog. You could be nimble. If you are moving an entire unit, then you have to plan and that planning can take a long time. So, if we're talking about the cruise ship metaphor, because I love a folksy metaphor, if we're talking about that you need to tell the harbor master, you need to tell the people who look after the harbor, I'm moving my ship. Right? I'm getting out of this dock and I'm moving my ship. They're like, okay, we need to clear the way, we need to do these things. Mordy Oberstein: Sign these forms. Crystal Carter:: Right. There's things you have to do in order to engage that. On an enterprise level, if you want to do things, there's lead time. You have to take lead time into account, and sometimes that lead time can be months. Sometimes that lead time can be even longer than that. So, when you're thinking about your SEO and you're thinking about SEO implementations, particularly like tech SEOS implementations. If you want to address some tech debt for instance, that's in your website stack. Or if you want to create a new asset on your blog or create a new asset for the digital asset or something. You have to think about the fact that there are wheels within wheels within wheels, and you have to be able to move as a unit. You can't think of yourself in a siloed space because you're part of a larger unit. Mordy Oberstein: You know what it's like, to use another analogy? Let's say you want to get ice cream. You hop in the car, you get ice cream. Now, let's say you have 10 kids. Now go try to get ice cream. Crystal Carter:: Right, right, right. Exactly. Mordy Oberstein: You have 10 different people with 10 different considerations and it's at the enterprise level. So, you might think, wow, let's target this keyword. Make it a really simple case. Target this keyword, engage. Then someone says, the brand manager says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That is not on brand for us." But the SEO, the traffic. That's not what the brand does. There's so many different teams with so many different considerations, who have a voice and a legitimate voice on what you do and what you don't do. Navigating all of that, extremely complex. If you were to ask me, if I'm doing SEO with scale already and I want to move to the enterprise level. Or I'm not doing SEO with what I want to go into enterprise. The greatest skill I think you can have is being able to navigate different relationships, considerations, compromising, planning. That back and forth with other people comes much into focus, uniquely so, in enterprise SEO. Crystal Carter:: This is something that Eli Schwartz talks about. He says you need to make friends with everyone. I think also you need to have your ears to the ground about where things are moving. I was on a recent discussion with the women in tech SEO crew, talking about their state of technical SEO report that they put out with ERA digital. We were talking about enterprise SEO and we were talking about how you get things implemented. One of the consensuses that we came to was that timing is everything. If you know that a team is moving on an initiative across your company, and this also applies to smaller businesses as well. But let's say that you're working for a theme park or something and the theme park has a new ride that they want to promote. And you have an SEO thing that you want to get done and you've been trying for months to get it done. If you can position the SEO tactic, the SEO implementation that you want as a benefit to this other initiative that's coming down the pipe, which you know that the company has momentum on, then you're more likely to get that sign off than if you just have something random that's like a thing that you think is a good thing that's best practice that will generally help the website. If you have something that works with the timing of the company, that's really useful to think about. And thinking about budgets allocation, thinking about when your company signs off marketing plans, for instance. If the marketing plans are signed off in October and you show up with this great idea in December, they've already signed it off and they're midway through and you need to think about that as well. So, I think there's a lot of wheels within wheels and finding out is really helpful. Mordy Oberstein: That goes back to your point about the boats, or in my case, the kids and the ice cream. If you want to successfully navigate that slow moving ship, it means that you have to be almost a type A personality to a certain extent. If that's not you, by the way, then make sure there's somebody on your team who that is them. Because you need to know in advance, be able to plan it in advance and predict the various scenarios that will play out. If this happens, we're going to have to do that and now I'm going to know these five different things and set up meetings with these five different people, and have that all planned out. So, before you even get to the doc, or before you even offer the kids, hey, let's go for ice cream, you need to have a plan of how that's going to happen and what that's going to look like. Crystal Carter:: I know that for instance with Wix there's a logo maker tool, which the team put together, and that took a little while to put together, but it's a fantastic tool. It's a fantastic tool for users in lots of ways and adds a lot of user value for users for instance. Putting that together and getting all the moving parts and getting everyone together to make that happen is something that's really valuable. I think also when you're in an enterprise team, and even when you're in a smaller in-house team or an agency as well, being prescient, being aware of who the gatekeepers are. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Very much so. Crystal Carter:: Can be really, really, really useful. I don't mean gatekeepers as in like boo, you can't come in, but I mean people that are facilitators. Being conscious of who those people are and identifying them and being able to see who that works, because it might not even be the people that you would normally on paper assume. It might be that there's somebody who manages the diary for the CEO or manages the diary for the CMO or something. If you don't speak well to them, you will not get a meeting. It might be that might be the person that you need to think about. It might be that it's not necessarily the person who is the team lead, but it's the project lead who's actually driving some of the decisions and things. So, be aware of those so that you can get your implementations met. Also, when you're thinking about your SEO implementations, I think it's also important to tie them into the team's priorities. If they don't fit in with the team's priorities, then it's going to be very difficult to get signed off. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. That's another thing that really has to align priorities. Also, because in my experience you could only, and I think you understand this also, we've experienced this both, where you're going to have overlap. People have their own priorities and your priorities are going to overlap. Sometimes your priorities align and you work together, and sometimes your priorities are the same and it means cannibalization. Crystal Carter:: Right. So, you've got to think about that. I think from a keyword research point of view, from an enterprise, that's definitely something that people should think about. If you're working on a big domain, and one of the things that's tricky with enterprise domains is that not only do you have your main domain, but you very often will have your knowledge base or whatever. You'll very often have support docs, help docs and things like that. You may also have a lot of old content. So, if you're working on a website, if you've gotten to an enterprise level, chances are the domain is a little bit older and is going to have a lot of webpages. It might be that there are pages from way, way, way, way, way back. Mordy Oberstein: You talked about this in a previous podcast, you have to be careful with those things also because if you pull off the wallpaper, sometimes the wall crumbles. Crystal Carter:: Right. Precisely. I think that when you're looking at your keyword research, you should also be looking at how to make sure that you're not overlapping with yourself. I think we talked a little bit about keyword cannibalization, which I think is a challenge for enterprise SEOs. One of the tools that I found recently that's really useful is a keyword gap analysis tool, Semrush. Mordy Oberstein: Pretty cool. Crystal Carter:: Which is supposed to be for they're looking at competitors. But it's actually really, really useful for looking at your own content and finding the gaps in the existing content you have, so that you can create some complimentary rather than competitive content. Mordy Oberstein: Right. So, different folders compared to each other, different sub-domains compared to each other, that kind of thing. Crystal Carter:: Precisely. It's a really, really good tool that you can look at for your own. So, if you compare all of those different things and then you can see untapped, picked from the untapped. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Where it's overlapped and you're just going to end up killing their page, people are not going to be happy. Don't do that. Yeah. Crystal Carter:: Yeah. It may even mean you have to work harder to make your content rank and perform and engage and all of that sort of stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Or if you are going to do that, you need to sync up to make sure that everyone's aligned in all the resources and all of the SEO juice are going to one place, for lack of a better word. Now, if you're doing keyword research, that's great. You're at the enterprise level, you're doing keyword research. Are you really though? Are you that hands-on? Is it all strategies? Should you be hands-on? Probably, yeah, but how do you remain hands-on at the enterprise level when you're so busy? All these big pages and big things and different meetings and different teams. Oh my goodness. To help us answer that, Product Led SEO's author, Eli Schwartz, is here to tell us how to remain hands on when working at the enterprise level. Eli Schwartz: Figuring out how to stay hands on an SEO when you're working at an enterprise level is no easy feat. By the very nature of the job, your job is more likely to be focused on meetings, architecture, strategy, diplomacy, politics and all things that are the furthest thing from hands-on. As a consultant, this is even more challenging for me because I'm not hands on. I'm not working within a company. I don't really get to look at the source code of anything. I don't see Jira tickets. I'm barely in Slack conversations. When I am in, these are the conversations that I'm invited into. So, I have to find other ways to be hands-on. I'll do things like work on my own projects, launch pages, break pages. I recently launched a new website with Wix, and when I forwarded my website over from WordPress over to Wix, I intentionally 404ed pages to see how long they would still be in the index. Spoiler, it's been about two months and they're still in the Google index. So, if you do a site query on my site, EliSchwartz.co, you're still going to find webpages that are 404ed and they're still in the Google index. So, I do things like that to stay really on top of the real hands-on part of SEO. The other things I'll do is I'll do things that are out of my typical role as a consultant. I'll coach new SEOs or I'll coach enterprise SEOs and help them understand and help work with them, and really for my own learning to understand how to navigate the challenges that they're working on as a part of their roles. If they have a challenge with how do they get an engineer to do something, how do they understand the reporting they have? These aren't things that I get to do in my regular consulting, but these are things that I get to really learn and do from coaching. Coaching isn't necessarily the part of consulting that I might earn the most from or I might focus the most time on, but it actually is for me the most rewarding because I am getting my hands dirty. I am learning things and I am navigating challenges, and it keeps me up to date with existing issues around SEO. For example, most of my larger clients are very, very unlikely to ever get hit by a Google algorithm update. They aren't going to get penalties, they aren't even doing things that are big enough and important enough to get the attention of Google. However, with some of the coaching projects that I work on, those are smaller sites. Those will be the kinds of things where they are seeing changes from Google algorithm updates and they need to message that to executives. They are seeing things and they need to message to counterparts across the company, how do we go ahead and fix this? That's the primary way that I'll get most of my hands-on access and really stay up to date. Of course, I'm sure other people are recommending and I would totally agree with that, read blog posts. Be on Twitter, be on LinkedIn, be a part of conversations. But the one extra piece I do is when I hear these things and I see these conversations, I go ahead and try to test it on my own. But this is something that I am very proactive about. How do I stay hands-on rather than just staying high level? Mordy Oberstein: Thank you very much, Eli. Don't forget to check out Eli's book, Product-Led SEO. A little plug for Eli. Hey, if somebody's coming on the podcast and they have a book, we have to plug the book. Crystal Carter:: Plug the book. Mordy Oberstein: Plug the book. Crystal Carter:: That's what you do. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like I'm like Jay Leno or something. I have a guest on, I'm plugging the book. Crystal Carter:: Some shameless self-promotion but not self-promotion. Something that's just- Mordy Oberstein: Marketer's going to market. That's how it goes. Crystal Carter:: This is it. This is it. Mordy Oberstein: Respect. Crystal Carter:: Resistant is futile. Mordy Oberstein: It's a good point and it's a good point at the enterprise level and in general. If you want to get hands-on experiences with SEO and you're like, I don't know, I don't have a local SEO client or whatever it is, I don't have an eCommerce. So, try to spin up a mock site. Try to get your hands on. Take that extra initiative. If you're sitting at strategy meetings all day long, great, start a podcast. Create a podcast website. Run that website. Do something with it, not just a test. Actually run something. Create a blog, run that blog, do the work read. Keep your hands dirty in the SEO by being a little bit proactive and spending a little bit of time on, even if it's a small website, it's something tangible. Crystal Carter:: Yeah, yeah, it's so true and the best SEOs do this all the time. I hear people who are like, oh, I did this course but I need to get some SEO experience and I need to get a job somewhere. Or I need to get a thing somewhere. I'm like, you don't need anyone's permission to do SEO. You can just do SEO. You can start a website right now and you can do SEO. You can start creating content. You can start doing content optimization. You can start thinking about your content and that sort of thing on things like Medium, on things like LinkedIn, on things like that. But do SEO. And then I think really nice working on enterprise level, John Sehada is also somebody who does this a lot. Barry interviewed him recently, or there's a video interview of Barry and John talking about this as well. John's like, oh yeah, I did this, I did that, I did this, I did that. Barry was like, I literally love how in the weeds you are. The best SEOs are doing this all the time. I know somebody who is an enterprise SEO who works for a major fashion label. She's like, oh yeah, we've been experimenting on this project with AI content and seeing how that performs and that sort of thing. I think that if you want to learn how to do SEO, doing is the most important thing. Because SEO in theory is great and you can learn a lot of stuff from reading blogs, but until you put the content into, until you set it live, it's not really active. You have to set it live and you have to see how Google responds, how people respond, how the internet responds to your content. Mordy Oberstein: This goes to a point John Mueller made a while back a couple years ago, where someone's talking about creating a test site. John's like, well. John, the search advocate over at Google. You don't usually put the same kind of effort into a test site as you do a real site, so it's hard to really see how things would actually work and play themselves out. The real thing is the real thing. Now, sometimes in enterprise SEO, you work in-house. Sometimes, however, very often actually, you consult at the enterprise level when doing SEO. Which means you have clients, which means you have high stake clients who have big budgets and big expectations, on my. To ease our anxiety around this, we're going to talk to someone who knows a thing or two about how to talk to big name brands or running big budgets with big expectations. Our very own vice president of Global Strategic Sales at Wix, Matt Matergia stops by as we go across the Wix verse. Speaker 5: Three, two, one. Ignition. Lift-off. Mordy Oberstein: Welcome to the show, Matt. Really nice to have you here. Matt Matergia: Pleasure to be here. Mordy Oberstein: I'm kind of excited to pick your brain. Enterprise level clients. When you're talking to SEO, not SEO, just purely in abstract, not connected to any vertical, what goes through your mind when you have to deal with a, say, a complicated SEO? I'm sorry, a complicated enterprise. We're not doing SEO. A complicated enterprise client. Matt Matergia: You can't get off of the SEO. Mordy Oberstein: It's like a drug. Matt Matergia: So, all right. I think SEO doesn't matter what you're talking about with an enterprise client, right? It all comes back to understanding their business and understanding the problems that they're having and how their business works. In the sales world, we talk about discovery, right? Discovery is basically understanding who you're talking to, where they are in the organization, what their goals are, what their problems are, what opportunities you can gain out of this. So, we always say good discovery leads to good opportunities, and that's Sales 101, right? But that is really understanding clients and understanding their business. Crystal Carter:: What's your process for getting that level of understanding that helps you to create an effective relationship between yourself and an enterprise client? Matt Matergia: I would say base level, it's curiosity. Crystal Carter:: Okay. Matt Matergia: It's curiosity and asking good questions. Mordy Oberstein: You and John Mueller. So, we did an episode on building the good SEO team, and we asked Google's John Mueller, what are the traits of a good SEO team? He said curiosity. Matt Matergia : All right. Mordy Oberstein: Great minds. Matt Matergia: Yeah. Wow, what a level I've set myself at. Mordy Oberstein: That is, right? You've reached. We all aspired to each level of John. You have just said we've been trying for this, what, how many episodes? Like 33 episodes? And you've been here for five minutes. Matt Matergia: Yeah. Well, I'm honored. I think maybe we should just end this right here. Mordy Oberstein: Somebody's got another meeting to go to. Crystal Carter:: I would say also when you're working with clients who are enterprise or are part of a larger organization, in my experience, timelines can be something of a challenge or can be something that needs to be managed anyway. Have you found that to be the case as well? Matt Matergia : Yes, of course. Timelines, budgets, and also what is driving the timeline is usually it's the process on the other side. It's that decision making process that you need to understand, because we all have maybe a timeline in our head of the ideal process that we want to go through. But if you don't understand what's going on the other side and the business case that they need to make, the people that they need to get involved, the approval that they have to get, then those timelines, it's expectation versus reality. There can be some huge gap between what you're expecting the timelines to be and what they might be expecting. Which goes back to curiosity because you need to ask the questions to understand what that process is going to be. Crystal Carter:: Right, and I think that that's part of building a relationship with someone from a team like that. And that's a healthy relationship because you don't want to be pressuring someone. How come you haven't responded to this email when they don't have the capacity to get back to you straight away. Or they've got some other things that are going on around or that sort of thing. So yeah, I don't know if you can talk more about that. Matt Matergia: Well, I was joking. We had a sales kickoff in New York, I guess it was two months ago now, but I was joking with the team because we were talking about building trust and where you need to get with your main stakeholders and the sales process. We were talking about breaking the cell phone barrier. We were saying if you don't have your main contact cell phone and you don't have the right to be texting, calling, whatever, and you don't have that relationship, forget it. You're not closing the deal because you haven't established trust. Right? I made that up, breaking the cell phone barrier, but it goes back to trust really. Mordy Oberstein: I don't have your number so I kind of... Matt Matergia: We don't have a good relationship. Mordy Oberstein: We're not there, huh? Oh man. I really misassessed this whole relationship. Matt Matergia: I'll Slack it to you. We're on Slack. Mordy Oberstein: Oh okay, we're on Slack? Okay, so Slack is not... Wait, what if you're in a group Slack together with them, so it's a cross company Slack? Matt Matergia: Actually, that is definitely a good sign, right? When you have something like a joint Monday board or a joint Slack channel and now you're bringing in all the players. I feel like now you're starting to work on actual implementation or getting to the actual project, for sure. Mordy Oberstein: So, you're really trying to integrate with that person as much as possible. Matt Matergia: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Crystal Carter:: I think from an SEO point of view, the process of building trust with your clients is very similar whether they're enterprise or whether they're a smaller scale. I think when you have that level of trust, when you think about timelines, sometimes it might not be the right time for whatever it is that you're doing. But if you have a level of trust where they've got you on speed dial, they've got your number, they've got all your information, they know that you're solid and stuff. Then you were talking about opportunity as well, then they're able to connect with you when they need you for whatever it is, and you're able to fulfill whatever it is that they need. Matt Matergia: It's expectation setting. It's been a long time since I've worked selling SEO to enterprise clients, and I'm sure in a decade. But sophistication of the marketing teams, I'm sure it has improved or let's hope. But a lot of the partners that I'm working with today, they're working with small businesses. You think, all right, I'm going to invest money in SEO and overnight I'm going to show up on Google first page because you have a unscrupulous SEO agencies that are always saying that, right? So, part of the way that you can build trust is also that you do proper expectation setting. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, a great positive or bonus is that when this person you've made contact with, whether it be you have their home phone number, their children's names, whatever it is that you have, if they go to another company, I've seen this a gazillion times, if they like you, they'll bring you into that company. Which means that you've not lost the other client. They don't necessarily get rid of you because your POC is gone and you've gained a new client, because your POC is now in a new company. And you know that person's children's names and you're on a first name basis, and you go to the country club. Whatever it is that you do together. Matt Matergia: I feel like CMO turnover is the bread and butter of marketing agents. Mordy Oberstein: You're like, all right, let's see. When you intake a new client, I wonder what's their churn rate going to be here at their own company? Matt Matergia: Yeah. Like, all right, every two years I can just hit the. Mordy Oberstein: This guy's great. I love this person. He just brought me 10 clients just by himself moving around. Matt Matergia: Exactly. Crystal Carter:: I think there's also, talking about churn, sometimes when there's new team, let's say you're working with an account or you're working with a team, sometimes when there's a new company or a new team member, sometimes they're like, we want to clear out. We want to get new contacts and things like that. Have you got any advice for how to establish good relationships with talent incoming management? Matt Matergia: Yeah. In the sales world, we look for signals. Signals could be maybe a company has raised money or maybe they had a change in strategy. But certainly a signal could be new leadership coming in. Because 100% whether they're going to come in and bring existing vendors and existing relationships, or they're going to look for new ones, they're going to 100% make changes and they're going to want to make those changes usually within the first 90 to 180 days. So, specific to how do I establish those new relationships, I don't think it's any different necessarily than just establishing relationships in general. But I think looking for those buying signals is very important, and having your finger on the pulse to know what's going on to be proactive in those situations is important. Crystal Carter:: In my experience, also having your act together also helps. So, if you have a well-oiled machine and you're like, this is our report that we do every month and this is our thing that we do every month, then when the new person comes in, you've got all that stuff for them to see and the transition is easier. I don't know if you find that that's useful from a sales point of view as well? Matt Matergia: Everybody wants to look good. So, if you are the facilitator of that person looking good, then you've just earned their trust, right? 100%. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter:: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of looking good, if people wanted to look good and follow you out there on social media, where can they find you? Matt Matergia: I am MTerg on Twitter. M-T-E-R-G. Mordy Oberstein: Nice, and we'll link to that in the show notes. Matt Matergia: I'm not as active as either of you, but I am there. Crystal Carter:: But you're on LinkedIn as well, yes? Matt Matergia: And on LinkedIn. Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, nice. LinkedIn's great. I go there once in a while. I visit. Not like TikTok. I don't even know what that is. Crystal Carter:: That's not true. Marty has a very active TikTok where he does lots of dances, too. Mordy Oberstein: Dancing and I fall downstairs. That's what I do. On purpose. Or some people can like it, laugh at me. I just hurt myself. Anyway, forgetting that rabbit hole, Matt, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate you sharing your expertise and experience with us and look forward to seeing you around the virtual office, because we're not in the same office. We're not in any office together. Matt Matergia: Nope. One day I'll get to Tel Aviv. Mordy Oberstein: One day I'll get to Denver. Matt Matergia: Yes. Look forward to that. Crystal Carter:: Fantastic. Matt Matergia: Thank you both. It's a pleasure. Mordy Oberstein: Three, two, one, ignition. Lift-off. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Matt. I've had numerous conversations over the years with Matt. Super nice guy, super friendly, super accessible, and one of these people who you walk away feeling like they know way more than they let on kind of thing. Crystal Carter:: In a good way. Mordy Oberstein: In a good way. I mean it in the best way possible. Some things that I'm not going to let on that I do know, well maybe I will, that you'll soon know, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I'm not sure. As I pivot into the snappy news. Crystal Carter:: And now, with the snappy news and news from Bing, they have announced that their new Bing has increased the number of conversations that you can have with Bing chat from 15 up to 20. You can also have a total of up to 200, which is an increase from 150. They've also explained that they are adding in image and video search, which will make it a lot easier for you to have a bit more information there. And that they're adding local grounding to give better results for local search. Also in local search, if you are using Bing places, you might also be interested to know that they have improved their location recognition API to include something called local intelligence, which allows you to create territories and to do better local SEO via Bing. They're also adding more information about demographics and continuing to build and grow. We reported last week that the March core algorithm update had completed. However, in the early days of April, we are starting to see a lot of movement around there, to the point that Barry Schwartz reported seeing early signs of a Google search algorithm update on the third. A lot of people were saying that they have seen some reversals and a lot of changes early in the month. So, if you have a website that you're looking after, have a look at those results and see if anything has changed. Picking up on the AI news from Google, they continue to roll out Bard in a testing framework, so more people are reporting that they're getting access to Bard. They also announced recently during a podcast with the New York Times that they are also testing Bard in Gmail. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, discussed some of their approaches to innovation and responsibility, and also discussed and denied that he ever issued a code red as part of their approach to AI. Finally, news from ChatGPT is that ChatGPT has been disabled for users in Italy, reported by Christie Hines in Search Engine Journal. It seems that OpenAI did not in properly inform users that it was collecting personal data. This may have been in contravention with GDPR. And as such, they have now blocked access to ChatGPT for Italian users while they tried to make adjustments to potentially reestablish the ground rules for use in that area. This brings into question some potential challenges for how generative AI tools like Chachi PT, Bard and New Bing may approach this privacy space going forward. That's all for today's SERP's Up podcast snappy news. Mordy Oberstein: Coming back now from the snappy news, always good to have news. Crystal Carter:: Always good. Have we reached the final frontier of our podcast? Mordy Oberstein: It was the undiscovered country of SEO enterprises. Crystal Carter:: That's very fair. Mordy Oberstein: A little Star Trek Six reference for you there. All right. I feel like we're spanning generations, we keep this podcast going on any longer. But before we do lead the part, we need to talk about who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness, and this week we have a great follow for you, Paul Andre Devera, also known as Dre. An absolute character who you may not realize specializes in enterprise SEO. Crystal Carter:: So, he is living my podcast sound effects dreams because he has a fantastic podcast and webcast called The SEO Show. Do check the out on YouTube and on all of your best channels. He is somebody who drops the air horns that go. He just drops them in the middle of whatever he's doing and it's amazing. He has a lot of fun with his podcast and with a lot of his web stuff, but don't let the fun fool you. He's so smart and so strategic about the things that he does. I was on a recent discussion for Majestic, where we were talking about enterprise level SEO. The amount of sense he was talking, the amount of clarity that he has about how to approach enterprise SEO is phenomenal. He's super intelligent and really engaging, and a great follow. Mordy Oberstein: I've had numerous conversations with him. I've interviewed him. He is so on the ball and his take on SEO is so accurate and it's real. You're not getting the influencer flop. You're getting a real take from him. Again, like the SEO Video Show, the production value is off the chain. Little plug from myself, beginning of each show I do the SEO joke. So, if you want to hear me do an SEO joke, check out Dre's show. Marketers going to market. Crystal Carter:: Yeah, he's got a fantastic theme song as well. Which I thought that he'd done it himself, but he didn't do it himself. I wish he had, but there we go. Mordy Oberstein: He's over on Twitter at Paul Andre, that's P-A-U-L-A-N-D-R-E. Paul Andre on Twitter. We'll link to it in the show notes so you could follow him, check him out across all of his platforms, especially on YouTube and his SEO Video Show. And that's it. That's all we got. Crystal Carter:: That's it. We've reached the final frontier. We have- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, you made that joke already today. Crystal Carter:: Did I? Can I not do it again? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. You can pick it again. Crystal Carter:: Oh, come on. Mordy Oberstein: Another Star Trek joke. Crystal Carter:: Oh, an insert Star Trek joke here. Mordy Oberstein: Live long and prosper, everybody. Thank you for joining us on the SERB's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with the new episode as we dive into SEO on PPC with our powers combined. Look for wherever you could consume your podcast or on our Wix SEO loading app over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn a little more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning at, you guessed it, Wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Back SEO agency project proposal template Create proposals for potential clients efficiently with this adaptable template. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this project proposal template to: Create an outline of services that address your potential clients’ needs head on Integrate an ongoing process that slots into your SEO agency’s workflow Ensure that necessary elements like communications, reporting, payment and terms & conditions are part of the proposal Joshua George Founder, ClickSlice LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Joshua George is the founder of ClickSlice, an e-commerce SEO agency based in London. They partner with 20+ DTC brands in various regions, have gained recognition from Forbes, Entrepreneur and Agency Analytics and have been sourced by the British Government for SEO training. More about this topic Read this article on developing SEO strategies on the Wix SEO Hub blog for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Are offline marketing efforts a lost art in the digital age? What's the SEO connection of it all? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter talk with Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling from Near Media to tackle the intricate balance between online and offline marketing strategies. Find out where common offline marketing mistakes play a critical role in your digital presence and SEO strategy. Dive into how word-of-mouth marketing translates into online growth for businesses We’re going “unplugged” in this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Back Unifying your offline & online marketing Are offline marketing efforts a lost art in the digital age? What's the SEO connection of it all? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter talk with Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling from Near Media to tackle the intricate balance between online and offline marketing strategies. Find out where common offline marketing mistakes play a critical role in your digital presence and SEO strategy. Dive into how word-of-mouth marketing translates into online growth for businesses We’re going “unplugged” in this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 109 | November 6, 2024 | 51 MIN 00:00 / 51:15 This week’s guests Mike Blumenthal Mike has been involved with offering web services since 1995. Prior to specializing in web design and search consulting in 2001, Mike was a principal in a family owned & operated retail business for over 30 years. That business was very successful until it wasn't and was crushed by the new reality of retail. Mike helped co-found LocalU in 2009 (acquired by SterlingSky in 2019) and co-founded GatherUp.com in 2012 (acquired by ByTraject in 2019). During the week, you can find him at Nearmedia.co where David, Greg and he do a weekly podcast on all things local and where he writes about local search and its impact on the business community. Greg Sterling Greg Sterling is one of the leading authorities on local digital marketing, location intelligence and the SMB market. He's been engaged in online strategy, research, content development and event programming since 1998. He most recently was the VP of Market Insights for Uberall and a former contributing editor for Search Engine Land, where he wrote for 14 years. Sterling is also, thankfully, a former attorney. 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. So we're going to have some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who is so hip, so cool, both offline and online, Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, everyone. I don't know, podcasts are very often, you're not in front of a screen when you listen to a podcast a lot of times. Lots of people are like, "Oh, I'm walking my dog. I'm hiking a mountain. I'm at the beach." That sort of thing. Mordy Oberstein: It's a good hybrid. It's both offline, especially if you download the episode, you don't have to be connected to the internet, and kind of online. It's digital, kind of, somewhat. Crystal Carter: Right. You could be on a plane and you could not be trying to argue with airplane wifi, which apparently is the slowest thing on earth, or above earth, I guess. And yeah, you could just be living your best podcast life, offline or online, I suppose. Mordy Oberstein: I download lots of podcasts before I go on an airplane, because I find watching movies on airplanes annoying at this point. I used to love watching movies on airplanes. Now I find it annoying. I don't know why. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I don't know. The last time I had a big flight, I just read Percy Jackson. Mordy Oberstein: I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: I enjoyed it. Mordy Oberstein: The books were good. I read them to my kids, but the movie was- Crystal Carter: No, I read the book. I was reading one of the books, Percy Jackson. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, you're reading the book, not watching the movie. No, the books are great. Sorry, Percy Jackson, I didn't mean to... Books are great. Okay. The SERF's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also leverage all the inbuilt marketing tools and capabilities, along with all the marketing apps inside of Wix Studio to build your and your clients' online presence, as this week, we're talking about the connection between online and offline marketing. How does offline marketing impact your digital efforts? Has online marketing become a lost art in the AI and digital age? And what's the SEO connection of it all? To help us run the proverbial extension cord between your offline and online marketing, Near Media's Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling will join us in just a bit, plus we got a look at a nifty little tool that'll help you see the impact of your offline marketing efforts on the digital stage. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness across social media. So pull out that rocking chair and acoustic guitar and put on your best grunge voice, because like MTV of yesteryear, Episode 109 of the SERP's Up podcast is going unplugged. Crystal Carter: That is a deep cut. I loved MTV Unplugged. Mordy Oberstein: Right? Crystal Carter: The Nirvana one is great. Mordy Oberstein: Nirvana. Stone Temple Pilots had a great one. Crystal Carter: Stone Temple Pilots did have a great one. Mariah Carey's was amazing, and also, they did the one in Latin American MTV and Shakira's Unplugged is phenomenal. Mordy Oberstein: Really? I didn't even know there was a Shakira Unplugged. Crystal Carter: It's phenomenal. Mordy Oberstein: It went that long. I tuned out of MTV by that point. Crystal Carter: I don't think it was on English speaking MTV, but I had the album and it was amazing. The band she had was fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: I'm trying to remember, because Eric Clapton Unplugged, it was like amazing. Crystal Carter: Oh yeah, that's classic. That's classic. Mordy Oberstein: But I can't remember if that was just him doing an episode Unplugged or it was for MTV. It was. I'm looking online. It was MTV. Crystal Carter: Yeah, they're all MTV. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, yeah. That's an amazing album. Crystal Carter: Oh, good. For any of you young whippersnappers, go check it out. Mordy Oberstein: MTV used to be about music. Is it even a thing? Does it exist anymore? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it does. They just had the MTV Awards, so Megan Thee Stallion hosted it. That's the only thing I know about it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm so busy online, I don't see all those offline things of MTV. Crystal Carter: Right, right. This is a thing, so much stuff going on, but I think that, for some of those events, they do tons of offline. And I think that it really is, I think, where you see some incredible mixes of marketing genius. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'll start this with a little bit of a hot tip before we get to Greg and Mike. Digital marketing tends to be pretty siloed about pretty much everything, like SEOs stick to SEO, PPCs stick to PPC. I think it's getting a little bit less maybe right now, but like PPCs are like, "Don't talk to me about organic. Just click on my paid ads." And the truth is, like everything in life, it's a little bit messy. There are all sorts of overlaps and implications across not just the disciplines of digital marketing, but of marketing overall. And that includes the things that you're doing offline. By the way, I prefer offline marketing. I like offline marketing more than I like online marketing as a consumer. Obviously, I do digital marketing, but as somebody who's watching the marketing happen, I feel that better marketing happens offline than online. For me, when you see that good, really solid TV spot, and I'm trying to think of a good one off the top of my head, and of course, I can't think of a good example, that hits home, like, "Oh, that's good branding right there. I like that." And it really resonates. Yet, we, the people of the digital, I don't think, tend to give enough credence to the power of offline marketing and the mindset that offline marketing produces. And in fact, I think the only place I ever hear SEOs talk about offline marketing is like, "Oh, if you're doing local link building, you should go to an event and talk to other people, and that'll help you get links." But the merge or the overlap between offline and online is so much richer than that. I feel like you want to say something, so I'm going to stop talking right now. Crystal Carter: Yeah, so I've seen this happen on so many occasions, and basically, this is where great SEOs really shine is that, if you're speaking to your clients and they're telling you about their offline marketing that they're doing, and a lot of clients are going to be sponsoring the little league team or they'll put up a billboard or they're taking out an ad in a newspaper or something like that. Now, I had a client that was working in a space and their audience was older, even older than MTV, Unplugged elder millennial myself. So it was older and they took out an ad in a big newspaper, a full sheet ad in the newspaper, and I was like, "Cool, when's it running?" And they were like, "It's running on Sunday." I was like, "Great. We will set up Facebook ads that are attached to people that follow that newspaper. We will target people that follow that newspaper and we will send them the same creative, so that, when they're flipping through the newspaper and they see that, they see the ad, they go, "Huh." Then when they're on Facebook and they see the ad again, they will click through it on it." And that campaign went really, really well. We got incredible engagement, we got incredible leads, and it all went really well. Similarly, you sometimes see fails, so you see something on a billboard or you see something on the subway or the bus stop or whatever it is, and you go to Google it and you cannot find it, right? And you're like, "I really want this thing. Where is it? I cannot find it." That's such a fail. It breaks my heart. Mordy Oberstein: Fail. Fail. And we spoke about this on the podcast, I forgot what episode it was, but the epitome of that, I think Eli Schwartz pointed this out, it was, I forgot, so long ago already, it was a Super Bowl, and a company ran an ad, and people, it was one of these unknown-ish kind of companies trying to break into a new market. They ran the ad and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to go Google them now." And they weren't even ranking for their name, so they spent all this money. And I'm like, "I don't know who you are." Crystal Carter: Right, right, right. This is it. So they'll do that or they won't put the email or they won't put the website on the visuals or they won't take into account the multiple channels. So layering your advertising to retargeting folks that are related to either the event or the location. So I've also done things where we've had a client that was doing an event and you can target, you can geotarget, your ads. So in Google Ads, for instance, you can geotarget, let's say you have an event at Madison Square Garden, you're sponsoring Madison Square Garden. You can geotarget your ads for people who are at Madison Square Garden. So if somebody's at Madison Square Garden and within like a quarter mile radius of the Madison Square Garden, you can target it at them. And then, when people search there, when they're in their hotel or when they're even at Madison Square Garden, you're more likely to show up on the top. And if they're seeing that you sponsored the halftime show or whatever it may be, then it allows you to connect the dots. And so, I think that's really useful. And also, there's also retargeting from brand engagement. So let's say somebody signs up for your newsletter or people put their cards in a fish bowl and then you win a prize or something like that, people will sign up for something there, then you can put them on a dedicated cohort mailing list and then, you can roll out your marketing accordingly for that. There's lots of things you can do there. Another one to think about, in terms of uniting your offline with your online marketing, is visual search. So I've had it before where I've been at a conference and I have taken a picture of somebody's role banner. And Google lens, if you're on an Android, is baked into your images. So if you take a picture of somebody's role banner, it will scan it for text, and if there's a website, it will give you the opportunity to click on that website. If there's a QR code on the role banner, it will give you the opportunity to click on that role banner. And it will tell you about the business that you're looking at. And if you have your logo in your website, then it'll be able to say, "This is that element." So I've spoken about this significantly, but yeah, the way you think about your positioning, your brand positioning, in real life is really, really important. Because people are taking photos all the time, and Google allows you to search any photo at any point. So it really is a missed opportunity if you're not thinking about making sure that your branding is really cohesive, that your logo is the way it's supposed to be, that it's the right color, that it's well illuminated, that it's not behind something else, it's not surrounded by a bunch of other logos, all of that sort of thing, so that you can get both online and offline impact. Mordy Oberstein: You mentioned conference. Before we pivot to Greg and Mike, I just want to mention, when we do a conference, one of the things we're looking to do is to create buzz on social media. It's like it's not a secret, and the way you do that is all of your offline activities. What do you do? You take a cutout of Barry Schwartz, you take a cornhole game, you put it in front of your booth at brightonSEO in the UK, and you have tons of people playing this thing. And right behind Barry is a big old Wix logo, and people are taking pictures with the cutout of Barry Schwartz and the cornhole game. In the meantime, they're taking pictures of the Wix logo and sharing it all over social media. None of that, all of that buzz and visibility and brand awareness on social media, all of that happened because of all the things we're focused on offline. Online wasn't even really a thought in terms of the actual process of what we were trying to do in terms of creating that cadence. It was just like, "Okay, we know this will happen if we do this, so yeah, let's do it." But in terms of the execution of the thing itself, it was all focused offline, but huge online. Crystal Carter: And I think it's really important to remember that a lot of our offline lives are online. Like pics or it didn't happen. If I go on vacation, people are going to know about it. I'm going to take a picture. And so, it's important that we remember that there is a lot of hybrid experiences in all of the things we're going around in, and also, that people will talk about these things in real life. So if you have, I think, Amex Bike sponsors like bicycles in different towns, that there's Barclays has had some bikes that they were sponsoring in London. And people call them like the Barclays bikes. "Oh, I was using a Barclays bike." Mordy Oberstein: Right, exactly. Crystal Carter: And that's something that's offline that comes into online parlance, because it exists in the real world. So I think it's really important to remember that and to pay attention to how people are discussing your offline activity and monitoring those things. So if you're able to see that people are talking about the Pink Wall, for instance, there was, I think, Fred Segal has the Pink Wall in Beverly Hills or whatever, then maybe you should have a page on your website about the Pink Wall, so that people, when they Google that, you show up for that. And Google will give you that traffic, because it's your Pink Wall. Mordy Oberstein: And with that, let's pivot into our conversation with Near Media's own Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal. Welcome to the show, Greg and Mike. How you doing? Greg Sterling: Good. Thanks for having us. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm sorry you had to endure that really long intro. Greg Sterling: It was very long and painful to listen to. Mordy Oberstein: For the record, we're jumping right into the interview. They don't even know how long the intro was. It didn't even happen yet, to break the fourth wall. Greg Sterling: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: So pitch your podcast, the Near Media. Greg Sterling: Yeah, so Near Media is now on, I think, 175. We're ahead of you by a few, Mordy. Hopefully, we'll stay that in that position. It has become a podcast mostly about Google and local SEO, but we do also talk about other things, privacy and AI trust. I think it's pretty interesting, if I do say so myself. And it usually features Mike, in addition to me, and David Mihm, who's also one of the co-founders of Near Media. And we just recently had you on, Mordy, to talk about the role of brand now in SEO, which was a really great session. And we do three segments typically. Each of us takes, unless we have a special guest, we take a sort of a news item from the week and then, unpack it and debate it and discuss it. So that's the simple version. Mike Blumenthal: And the more complex version for me is that I do it, because at least once a week, I get to sit with two very smart people and dissect things in a way that maybe I hadn't thought about. And by doing it weekly and having three or four topics, it really brings local and local marketing more clearly into focus for me. And so, for me, I do it for myself, because I gain so much every week by talking to David and Greg. Greg Sterling: We try and contextualize things also. We're not simply just telling what happened, but go ahead, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I was going to say that, because no, because you should also sign up for the newsletter. I actually just used what you all write. Someone was asking me for exemplar content where there's a lot of information, but you also understand what they're actually thinking and how they're thinking about it and actually use your newsletter for that. So I highly recommend that people sign up for it. Links in the show notes. Mike Blumenthal: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, you're one of the only newsletters I get that I actually read. It's in my inbox right now. I have to read it. Greg Sterling: That's perhaps the most flattering thing anybody could say, because there's so many newsletters. And you're not the only person to say that, but it's an enormous compliment. Mike Blumenthal: Greg's mother said it too. Greg Sterling: From beyond the grave. Remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where the Tevye's dream, that's what it was like. It was exactly like that. Mordy Oberstein: My wife quotes that scene all the time, "What are you talking about?" Greg Sterling: Perhaps we should get your wife on here. We should be having a conversation with her. Mordy Oberstein: That would be an interesting conversation by the way to have and one that would probably not work out well for me. Greg Sterling: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: What will work out well for me is talking about online and offline marketing, something that we touched on when I was on your podcast that got me thinking about it. So let's talk a little bit about, I don't know like a hot topic, but has offline marketing, because you all are very thoughtful thinkers, has it become a lost art? Does it feel like it's become a lost art, at least from the digital folks? Greg Sterling: I would say, to sort of jump in here, I would say yes is the short answer to that. I think that people see online marketing and offline marketing as two completely distinct universes, with offline marketing being sort of dying a slow death, maybe with a couple of exceptions, like out-of-home billboards and maybe direct mail. But people sort of think that digital marketing is the successor to offline marketing, traditional marketing. And traditional marketing has almost no role to play anymore, because everybody's online and everybody does everything online. That's the sort of simple version, I think. Mike, do you have a different view? Mike Blumenthal: Well, at LocalU, we always pitched the idea that offline and online were two sides of the same coin, in that, if you are doing something in the real world, say sponsoring the little league in local or helping the blood drive, then putting that online had the double benefit of appealing to your existing customers, plus appealing to Google. So we always pitched it, and I still do, as sort of a duality. And in the end, when you think about it, really, Google needs that offline stuff, as we learned, particularly with things like Navboost and other sort of links. But Google needs that sort of view to really be able to rank businesses effectively. So from my point of view, they've never been separate. Now, clearly, there's been this decline of traditional offline in local, like the Yellow Pages went south. Greg Sterling: Newspapers. Mike Blumenthal: Newspapers went south to a large extent, although in my community, newspapers still play a role. So it's important, from my point of view, that these businesses, and I think this showed up in the survey you did, Greg, that businesses still do some offline stuff and prioritize it. Greg Sterling: Yeah. It's really different by industry, and you see a lot of variation. And some industries still do traditional media and say it performs pretty well. It outperforms expectations. There's an interesting sort of, people have expectations of how something's going to work out versus something else, and traditional media seems to often outperform expectations. Because people have very low expectations. I want to add one thing to what Mike was saying. Reviews is the area where these two things come together most obviously, right? People are typically having an offline experience of some kind with a service business or a restaurant or a hotel or whatever it is, and then, they write a review online. So that offline experience and activity shows up directly in reviews, and those impact local rankings and general rankings, depending on the website. Mike Blumenthal: I would extend that metaphor though or that idea, because like I said, with the little league, most local businesses at least are already doing donations to the little league or whatever they choose. And the only thing they should be doing, in addition to that contribution, is making sure that it's visible on the little league websites or Google knows about it. Or in the case of joining membership groups, like the Chamber, they're already doing that. The critical issue there is making sure that the Chamber has the right link to your business, so that Google can see it. Or becoming a member of the Better Business Bureau. And the same with media, that, if you have a local newspaper, which we still do, getting in that local paper and making sure that you're visible in their online version, so Google can see it. That sort of, to me, is the ultimate local marketing strategy, where you're doing all the traditional stuff to build your brand, going to business meetings, helping people through the community, asking for testimonials, and getting media, all that stuff should have an online mirror and an offline reality. And if you do that, then Google will naturally rank you higher. Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting, because you're talking about the little league example, which is such a nostalgic example for me. For those who are not from the US, little league is the kids' baseball teams and you would normally have their uniforms and the local grocery store would be a sponsor and they have the logo on the uniform and so forth. Mike Blumenthal: And there'd be a big banner in center field. Mordy Oberstein: Right, right, right. It's funny, because that's a mindset and I feel like that's a mindset that people don't have online sometimes, "I'm going to go interact, I'm going to do community work, I'm going to create partnerships." And that should all translate online. But that way of thinking, I find, sometimes, people don't translate from offline to online. Offline is about partnership, it's about community, it's about whatever, relationships, because there is no click. There's no way to click on the center field banner, on the uniform banner. You have to think a little bit more strategically, because there's nothing immediately in front of you. But on online, I feel we all get distracted though, "I'll get a click, I'll get the traffic, I'll get the ROI, yada, yada, yada," and you don't take those offline ways of thinking and then, translate them, use them online, which I feel like you should be doing. Greg Sterling: One thing I would add to that is that this online marketer mindset, which is about measuring everything, tracking everything, everything has to be accountable. It's this sort of brand performance marketing dichotomy in a certain way. In order to build your brand, you have to be willing to do things that you can't immediately measure and that have a sort of a ripple effect or an intangible effect. And I think there's a lot of bias that digital marketers have toward doing only things that can be tracked, that you can show to your boss, that contribute to your KPIs, that there's a certain kind of mindset and worldview that, I think, results in a bunch of lost opportunities. Rand Fishkin has advocated doing things that can't be measured. You've got to do stuff that isn't necessarily going to be measurable or visible to you in Google Search Console. And I think that that's exactly right. You have to do a bunch of stuff, especially in the offline world that builds goodwill, loyalty, word of mouth. Consistently, if you're a small business owner, consistently what you say, whether or not it's true, what you say and what you often perceive is word of mouth is the number one source of leads for you, right? And that's really about customer experience and brand ultimately. Sometimes, it's about price, but mostly, it's about a holistic kind of idea, "Oh, this person painted my house, they did a great job. I need somebody to do my taxes. I need whatever it is. I need a landscape designer." And it's consistently the most reliable and, very often, the biggest source of leads for these local businesses, not withstanding all the online stuff. And so, that's a lot about the things you do in the world to enhance your reputation, enhance your brand. And they're not really measurable in most cases. A lot of businesses will say, "Well, how'd you find us?" And sometimes that's inaccurate, but that's kind of a crude way to do it in a way that has been done historically. Anyway, I could go on. Mordy Oberstein: No. Oh no, I don't want to stop... Mike Blumenthal: My take on that is that particularly small bricks and mortars, who never really measure that, like you said, should occasionally measure it once a year, once a quarter, should survey their clients. So at least they have this general sense of what is driving traffic, right? If they say word of mouth and that turns out to be 35%, then they know that and they can then focus on the things that matter. But I think that, to some extent, it is at least broadly measurable and small businesses should take the time to occasionally do it. All too often, they're too busy, they don't think of it. But in the businesses I worked with who I recommended it, it was incredibly insightful. Also, when you map that against the analytics, you can get a sense of how many map directions or calls actually convert to sales, so that you can then model what a growth in phone calls might mean, in terms of business. So it's critical component to both understand and plan, but it's also critical component to get the most out of your digital marketing. So I would highly recommend it to a small business, if they have any business, to occasionally be doing that, which is how they found them. Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting, Greg, that you mentioned Rand, because I don't know if you all saw this, he did a, I think it was a video on LinkedIn or something like that, where he showed Google brings whatever amount of traffic, 55%, 60% of all web traffic. But if you're only looking at it directly, "Oh, Google is where I should focus, because that's where the web traffic is coming from," you're really missing how it all works. Because what happened is they saw you at an event, they saw you on social media, they saw you at a conference, they saw you at a little league, whatever it is, and then, they Googled you, found you, and that traffic gets attributed to Google, but it's not really Google's traffic. It's just they're a facilitator in that sense. Greg Sterling: That's totally true. It's kind of a last-click mindset in a certain way. I think, if we all just reflect on our own behavior in the world, you see something, you see an ad, you see a billboard, somebody tells you, recommends somebody, and what you do then is you typically search on that business or that person to look at their reviews or to get more information or get an address. Yesterday, I'm having some car issues, and so, I was at a mechanic and it turned out they couldn't help me. And so, I said, "Could you recommend somebody else?" And they said, "Oh, I recommend this other person." And so, I looked up that other person online, I looked at the reviews, and I called from the GBP page. So what they're not going to see is that whole interaction in the real world. They're going to just see the Google interaction and make some assumptions, as you're saying, about the source of that being Google. But really, the source of it was this guy's recommendation and this other mechanic's recommendation, which would not be visible, but it illustrates the larger point that there's a lot of stuff going on, as Rand says, in the world, that then people follow up with a Google search. Mike Blumenthal: And what Greg left unsaid was he wanted to check this guy's rating to confirm that the person who recommended it was right. Greg Sterling: Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's what people do. What is that called, Mike? What is the term for that? Mike Blumenthal: I'm not sure. Greg Sterling: Word of mouth now usually comes along with some kind of Google search or some kind of lookup online to validate the referral. You can learn a lot about behavior just from reflecting on your own and your immediate family and your friends' behavior, which people don't do that much. It's anecdotal, it's unreliable as a sort of a you can't make a lot of business decisions on the basis of that alone. But it's really helpful information that gives you context that you don't otherwise get just from data. Mordy Oberstein: To bring that into the local space for a second, because I feel like one of the things that I do when I'm looking something up and you're looking at their GBP profile and there's nothing there, they may be a great business, there's no post or products, there's no description, it kind of feels bare bones. That leaves me feeling like maybe they're not so great. And it's kind of like, is that a ranking factor? Some of the things might be, but the fact that you don't have Google posts there, I don't believe is a ranking factor, unless Joy Hawkins has discovered that, somehow, it is a ranking factor, and I completely missed that study. But it does come from that mindset. It's not something that maybe is attributable to any traffic. I can't measure its effectiveness in my bottom line, but if I'm thinking like I'm a real marketer, I'm going to realize that, if I don't have that profile filled out, when people are coming to verify if I'm actually somebody of decent reputation, they're going to be left feeling like, "Ah, this looks a little bare bones. Do they not really care? Are they not really active? Are they not really alive?" And being alive for a business is a very big thing, but it's not a measurable thing that you could tangibly say, "Because of this feeling of vitality, I got X number of more leads." Mike Blumenthal: I would reinforce that, in our research, where we do consumer behavior research, and we've done a number of verticals. But hotels was the most recent one. And people spent a tremendous amount of time looking at the photographs on Google and on, say, Booking.com in Europe, because that's very popular. One woman I had looked at 11 different places to stay, looking for a full-length mirror in the bedroom, because you couldn't tell how well you were dressed if you only had a half-length mirror. And it's like hotel after hotel, but she would look at all the pictures and literally look for the picture of the room with the full-length hotel. So pictures play an incredibly important role, both on Google, on your website, and on whatever directory is important in your industry. We know that from our research, but other attributes do as well. Reviews. We listen to people when they're doing these searches, and 65% of them say, "Reviews are important to us." Now, we don't know about the other 35%, but they just didn't say it, doesn't mean it isn't important to them. BrightLocal indicates it's upwards of 85%, although they're mostly looking at stars and quantity of reviews, and only 25% of the time do they ever actually read them. But I agree with you, having a full profile now, most people don't dig in as deep as posts, but from where I sit, any page on Google you can control, you should. And it makes sense to me to maximize your potential surfaces. And that's Q&A, that's posts, it's all that sort of stuff. Greg Sterling: People are evaluating the credibility of businesses. It's kind of curb appeal. The Google Business Profile, as well as your website, are kind of your brand online. If things are well filled out, well developed, there's a lot of information there. It's going to give people confidence. What people are looking for online very often is confidence to try that business or call that business or include that business in their final consideration set. And so, as you sort of point out, even though somebody's heard that this is a good business, they might be skeptical if they see something that looks very thin or is unclaimed or doesn't have a lot of information. And there are tons and tons of businesses that fall into that category, that may be doing a great job, but they just haven't taken the time to claim their profile or do anything with it. Mike Blumenthal: An example where we saw this very explicitly in consumer research was in physician search. People would come in looking for an OBGYN or a general practitioner and they'd say, "I want the best." They'd go into the Local Finder, which I thought people never went into. They'd scroll 20 deep and pick three or four that had the best reviews, and it was a case where they would skip over people that didn't have pictures or reviews. And they'd go to the ones that did, and it was clear they were willing to scroll. And so, you saw a very long tail in the Local Finder in that industry, in that vertical, because people did take the time to look for more complete profiles. Mordy Oberstein: That totally aligns. It's what I do. It totally aligns with my actual experience. Do you find, because you both are so heavily in local, and there's such a natural tendency to see the connection... Mike Blumenthal: "All local all the time," that's our radio show's motto. Mordy Oberstein: There's a natural bridge between offline and online, I think, is unique to local. Do you find that the local businesses realize that connection more so than, say, like a SaaS platform, that kind of thing? Greg Sterling: Go ahead, Mike. Mike Blumenthal: Well, I was going to say it's very vertically dependent, right? In storage. Most of them get it. In doctors, two-thirds of them didn't get it. It's very vertically dependent, whether they're engaging with Google. Greg Sterling: I think, for the longest time, since the beginning of the internet, the consumer behavior really has been search online, buy offline, and then, that's changed with the rise of e-commerce, but it's still relatively small, 15, 20% of total retail, and at least in the United States. Elsewhere, it may be different. And so, consumers, for 20-plus years, have been using the internet as a tool to do research and get information about often local businesses or things to do in their area or where to buy something or where to find something. And I think business owners do this themselves, but they often don't, this comes back to what I was saying earlier, they often don't generalize and think, "My customers are doing this too." I think they tend to focus on channels as independent of one another. It's like, "This is Google, this is social, this is email, this is my website." And they're not thinking kind of holistically about the relationships of all these things together. I think that that's an unusual small business, a more savvy marketer that is thinking holistically, thinking about the relationship of online to offline, even though these business owners themselves and marketers, however sophisticated, are doing this very thing, they are using the internet, they're interacting with businesses in the world, they're seeing stuff that's happening. I think marketers on TV maybe get it more than others, where they try and connect TV to... Well, TV now is part of online, because it's often streaming, but connect to TV. But things like QR codes and using search volume to measure certain kinds of TV advertising. There are certain pockets where people do really get it and ticket integrated approach, but most small businesses, I don't think do. They don't have that overall view of how these channels work together. Mordy Oberstein: You're basically, in a way, describing Nike. I know Nike doubled down on digital, said, "We're going to go direct to consumer and we're going to bypass the store." And people were like, "I love looking for your shoes online, but I'm going to go try them out in the store before I actually go ahead and buy them." And you can see Nike had major, major problems. They actually opened the door for a bunch of other brands, On, to come in, because they weren't filling... Mike Blumenthal: Hokas. Mordy Oberstein: Hoka, yeah. Mike Blumenthal: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Because Nike wasn't filling the stores up and there was shelf space, so foot Locker was putting Hoka up on the shelf and not Nike. And the rankings aren't Nike's problem. Looking at Semrush right now, since 2020, their traffic's been up like crazy. Traffic is great, but the conversions were the issue. Because, "I don't want to buy it online. I want to go to the store," that gap and not realizing the consumers germinating offline and online killed them. Greg Sterling: Yeah, there's also a brand impact there. Ultimately, people are concerned about sales and revenue, but not seeing Nike in the store, not seeing Nike featured prominently does have a kind of degrading impact on the brand. Degrading meaning erosion, as opposed to humiliation, as the case may be. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point. Mike, last word? Mike Blumenthal: At one of these rare occasions in life, don't have one. Mordy Oberstein: No, really? Do you want me to throw another question out there, so you can have the last word over Greg? Mike Blumenthal: Not necessary. Like I said, I meet with Greg every week, because I like to hear his pearls of wisdom. Mordy Oberstein: Greg does have pearls of wisdom. Greg Sterling: Such as they are. Such as they are. Mike Blumenthal: I don't always agree with them, but... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, there's the last word right there. Mike Blumenthal: There you go. Mordy Oberstein: Where can people find you online? Mike Blumenthal: I'm on Twitter still, unfortunately, mblumenthal Twitter, I'm trying to increase my presence on LinkedIn and at Near Media, where I do the weekly podcast and try to do two or three analysis pieces a month around tactics and strategy in local marketing. Mordy Oberstein: And Greg? Greg Sterling: I'm at gsterling on Twitter, I refuse to call it X, and I don't know what my LinkedIn handle is, but you can find me on LinkedIn and Near Media. And my email, for people that want to harass me or give me death threats, is Greg.Sterling.gmail. Mike Blumenthal: And mine is MBlumenthal@NearMedia.co . Mordy Oberstein: So for the death threats, not on Twitter and not on LinkedIn, specifically email? Greg Sterling: Yeah, it's more effective, I think, if you do it directly in email, because otherwise, it'll be sort of diffused and people may comment and may turn it into something humorous. But if you're really serious, you want to go straight to the email, I think. Mordy Oberstein: All right, great. So link to the show notes, case you want to follow these fine gentlemen. And remember, I won't put their emails in the show notes, but if you want to send them a death threat, just play back the episode and you'll hear their emails again and you can send them a death threat. Thank you both so much for coming on the show. It's a lot of fun. Make sure you check out Near Media and the podcast and the newsletter. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for coming on the show. Greg Sterling: Thank you. Mike Blumenthal: Thanks for having us. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Greg and Mike, for coming on the show. Make sure you give them a follow. Check out their newsletter, again. I love their newsletters. Again, I told you during the interview, it's one of the only ones I actually open and actually read, which is a rarity, right? Come on, you know what I'm talking about, which is why you don't put too much emphasis on open rates in newsletters. Because I open them so my inbox will be less. Crystal Carter: I always open and read the Searchlight newsletter. That's my favorite newsletter. Mordy Oberstein: Oh yeah, don't do it to Searchlight. No, no, no. Crystal Carter: Of course. Mordy Oberstein: No, no. Crystal Carter: That's my favorite one to open. Mordy Oberstein: It’s about all the other newsletters, other than the ones that we also like, like SEOFOMO, Core Updates by Mike Williams-Cook, #SEOForLunch, Nick LeRoy, those ones you should read. It's the other ones. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's very tricky. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm just trying to talk truth. Anyway. Anyway, your offline marketing impacts what happens on the digital side of things. We've seen this, we've discussed that. We're at a lot of conferences, and if we do a good job, like you mentioned before, engaging with folks, you see it on social very easily. So here's a little dive into a tool that can help you see it on social, as we go tool time on the SERP's Up podcast. So here's a cool tool for you that I came across and we both came across, that looks like it's like, there's a lot of tools that do this kind of thing, but it looks pretty prolific. It's called Brand24. And what it helps you do is basically monitor your mentions across social and beyond social, because a lot of these tools monitor social, but they don't go beyond social. But it helps you see the impact of an offline event and the communications impact of that. It can help you see how you're comparing with your competitors. It can help you track sentiment, which is super helpful, and it has all sorts of topic analysis tools as well. So Brand24 for you. Crystal Carter: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's something that seems to be useful for agencies. It's also something that offers things for information on how to measure your share of voice. So they've got a lot of really great resources for helping you to understand that. I've seen marketers who are working across the social space significantly, and this can be really, really important. I think that, if there's a particular product or particular product vertical where it's quite competitive, that share of voice element is so critical in order to cut through. So being able to see that and be able to have some metrics for that, to be able to illustrate the value of that in-person sponsorship, the value of that influencer engagement, the value of that brand activation can be really, really important. Mordy Oberstein: So people always ask, "Oh, well, brand, you can't measure brand, you can't measure offline activity." And it's not true, by the way. It's completely not true. It's just a little bit different than what we're used to on the performance side. You can absolutely track and measure. It's just a little bit correlative. You know correlations equal causation? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. But sometimes, a good correlation ain't nothing like a good correlation. And what this allows you to do is, for example, if you're looking at your trend of negative mentions in the tool, you can kind of correlate, "Oh, wait a second. We launched a new campaign." I will say, North Face launched a new campaign and I did not like it. So if I'm North Face, and all of a sudden, you have these yo-yos like Mordy Oberstein going out there on X and LinkedIn, saying, "I didn't like that campaign," and you start seeing those negative mentions, if it correlates to when you started that campaign, that'll give you a good, "Hey, wait a second. That might be a good indicator of how we measure the success of this new campaign or not." Now, obviously, you need to go deeper and see what are people saying and who is saying it, because maybe I'm not your customer, so who cares that I'm crapping all over it. But having a tool like this helps you better measure brand, because it helps you find those correlative activities and the data that correlates to them. So that you can dive in a little bit deeper. Crystal Carter: And I think that it helps you to sign off, helps you get more funding for the things that you want to do, helps you get more conversions, helps you just move forward with your campaigns. So yeah, it's never bad to have more data. Mordy Oberstein: No, and it's also never bad to have more SEO news from Barry Schwartz, whether it's a small change to a line of a SERP feature that's completely inconsequential or an actual thing like, oh my gosh, search console data has an enormous gap or there's an issue with indexing. Barry Schwartz is your go-to source for the SEO news, and we are your go-to source for covering Barry, even snappier than Barry already writes, which is pretty snappy to be honest with you. Crystal Carter: That's snappy. Mordy Oberstein: So it's like snappy snappiness with our snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news, big news this week, as per Search Engine Journal and everybody else covering the story, which is everybody else, SearchGPT launches as ChatGPT's, real-time search feature. So there is a search engine-ish version of ChatGPT, which is called now called SearchGPT, and you can ask it to search for stuff and it'll give you citations and whatnot and whatnot. This is not live, as of this recording, everyone everyone yet for OpenAI. It said all ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as SearchGPT waitlist use, will have access today, today being the day they launched this, which was on October 31st. It's interesting. I will say this, it's interesting. On the mobile version, what happens is there's an icon for search, right? You type in your query like, I don't know, like, "Who is Aaron Judge?" or whatever, and you have a little option to search. And on the search, what happens is there's a little button at the end of the summary, you know your typical ChatGPT summary for sources, and you click on sources and up comes a whole list of the URLs. You can pull that panel up, and then, you can see the full list of URLs and click on whatever URL you want to. And of course, there's questions of like, will this replace Google and blah, blah, blah, yada, yada yada, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Kind of talked this about this, I think, two weeks ago on the episode. It's interesting. Leaving that question aside for a minute, it's interesting. I don't find yet that the URLs are accessible in the way I like them to be accessible, particularly on the mobile side. And I think it's a problem, not just because of SearchGPT. I think it's a problem because there's multiple things happening at one time. For example, social media is kind of a mess right now. A lot of these things create a disincentive to create new content. If I can't get my URLs out there the same way, if I can't get engagement on social, which will drive content to the links that I'm sharing on social, do I still have that same incentive to create content? And I think, it might be a little bit of a hot take, I think the web is in a place right now where that's going to become problematic down the line, unless something changes. The path forward would indicate that there'll be a problem down the line of some sort, and I think it's really problematic for the web ecosystem overall and things like SearchGPT could contribute to that problem. That's my take. That's my personal take. Anyway, onto more AI and search information. This from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. I've always wanted to see this roundtable, by the way, Barry. Where's the roundtable? Do you have a roundtable? If not, I feel like false advertising. There's no roundtable. There is no actual SEO Roundtable. Anyway, Barry writes, "Google AI Answers in Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries, & About This Place." To translate, Google added a bunch of AI stuff to local stuff. One of the things, for example, is, in Google Maps, you can now say like, "Hey, show me things to do with a friend at night in Lower Manhattan," and Gemini will curate a list for you of little cards, carousel of cards, a typical format you've seen for all sorts of carousels on Google with a bunch of places. And they'll categorize them like things to do with live music, I don't know, comedy clubs, whatever it is. I think that's great. I think that's a great way to get your listings in front of people. I think it's a great way to get people to the Google Business Profile, eventually to your website, and to your business like that. To my previous point, this would be using AI to send traffic to an actual business. At the same time, Google has also announced that they're doing review summaries based on AI. So they'll go through your reviews and they'll pull out a summary and it will say, "Summarized with Gemini," basically summarizing all the things in the reviews, so you don't have to look through all the reviews. You just get a, "People say this is a great place for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Obviously, my apprehension here is, if you have negative reviewers or you have negative review spammers or whatever it is, that can influence the AI answer. Also, I like to think of the Google Business Profile as a place where there's more control for the business, not less, and this would seemingly be less control in a way. Okay. At the same time, there's also a feature about ask about this place. So let's say you have a listing, I don't know, like Bob's Comedy Club, and you want to know, does Bob's Comedy Club Serve cocktails? And you can now ask Maps about that place, and Maps will tell you, "Oh yes, they serve wonderful cocktails, yada, yada, yada." Again, great. Could be really, really helpful, but it's because you're directly impacting what someone might do with their money at a particular business or might not do with their money at a particular business, like, "Oh, there's no cocktails here. I'm not going to this comedy club now," but maybe they do offer cocktails. I think it's really, really important for something like this to make sure that the AI answers are as accurate as possible, because you are actually impacting people's livelihoods directly with something like this. Check out the full write up that Barry has over here on SERoundtable.com. Again, is there a roundtable? I would like to know. And that is this week's version of the Snappy News. There are the occasions where I drone on with the Snappy News, and it's not so snappy. Barry actually called one of those instances out on social media. He's like, "You went on too long." Crystal Carter: Barry is the king of efficiency. He's like, "How can we get this done?" Mordy Oberstein: If you watch, It's New, which is our Monday through Thursday new show with Barry and Greg Finn. I'm repeating myself here, but Barry says that he wears his cell phone in his nerd pocket. Crystal Carter: Yeah, front pocket. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, your front pocket, the nerd pocket. Because I'm thinking back of when you have pocket protectors. Crystal Carter: Revenge of the Nerds. Mordy Oberstein: Revenge of the Nerds, exactly. That movie didn't age well, and he puts his phone in there, so that it takes less time to pull out when he has to use it, that fraction of a second. Crystal Carter: Yes. It reminded me of stock changing things. When people buy stuff, there are machines that buy stocks and shares and they make them closer to the server, because they save a fraction of a second and get the share faster or something like that. And that works if you're like, I don't know, some giant stock company or something, but I didn't realize that Barry was working in those milliseconds. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot of SEO news to cover. Every fraction of a second counts. Crystal Carter: I think you might be right. But your hands are closer to your pockets, to your hip pockets, right? Mordy Oberstein: Not when you're sitting on a keyboard writing SEO news all day long. Then your hands is actually closer to your front pocket, nerd pocket. Crystal Carter: I suppose so. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, Barry thinks of these things. Don't worry. I trust Barry. Crystal Carter: Sure, I'm sure. Mordy Oberstein: In Barry, we trust. Speaking of great personalities out there across the internet, our follow of the week is somebody who does a great job pulling his offline activities and pulling them online for his personal branding. It's Terry Rice, who is actually a part of our meetup in New York City, the digital marketing meetup with Search Engine Journal. So look at Terry's LinkedIn profile, and you will see a ton of personal things about exercise and fitness. And he leverages it in and pulls it into his profile to create something that has an amazing personal brand for himself. It has so much value, and it has so much personality. And it's a great way of seeing that, if you do great things offline, you can pull those things into online to add value that way. Crystal Carter: Nice. Nice. Mordy Oberstein: It's good stuff. Crystal Carter: I'll check it out. Mordy Oberstein: Please check them out. So Crystal, you going to be offline anywhere? People should come look for you soon. Crystal Carter: I'm offline all the time. I'm offline all the time, probably at a conference near you. Mordy Oberstein: Look for Crystal at a conference near you. By the way, I'm surprised that there's not an SEO conference out there called Conference Near You. Crystal Carter: They totally should do that. Mordy Oberstein: They should totally do that. Crystal Carter: We just did a conference with the team at LocalU and the team at Sterling Sky. They were fantastic. Guys, Joy Hawkins and co, Conference Near You. Mordy Oberstein: Conference Near You, maybe not a rebrand, because I know LocalU's got a whole brand, but maybe a special event. Conference Near You. Crystal Carter: Local SEOs, y'all need to bring this together. It's just waiting for it. It's like this open goal. Mordy Oberstein: I can't believe it hasn't happened already. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Or, okay, either that or if they do, let's say they did a conference in Boston, but name the conference Boston SEO Conference Near You, Boston Conference, SEO Conference Near You, SEO Conference Boston. Crystal Carter: Greater Metropolitan Boston Area. Mordy Oberstein: Right, Near You. Crystal Carter: Massachusetts. Mordy Oberstein: Massachusetts. So that's a lot of letters. Yeah, it's too much. Crystal Carter: Cannot spell that. I can't spell that. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, no, not a clue. Crystal Carter: I can spell Mississippi, but that's because it's like... Mordy Oberstein: Is there a thing like a song like M-I-S-S letter? Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Sorry, Massachusetts. Well, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we'll be next week with a new episode, as we dive into doing SEO for a sub-brand. Look for wherever you consume your podcasts or on the Wix Studio SEO learning over at Wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars and whatnot on the Wix Studio SEO Learning over 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 of love and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Greg Sterling Mike Blumenthal Terry Rice Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center Near Media The Near Memo Podcast Brand24 News: SearchGPT Launches As ChatGPT’s Real-Time Search Feature Google AI Answers In Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries & About This Place Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Greg Sterling Mike Blumenthal Terry Rice Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center Near Media The Near Memo Podcast Brand24 News: SearchGPT Launches As ChatGPT’s Real-Time Search Feature Google AI Answers In Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries & About This Place 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. So we're going to have some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who is so hip, so cool, both offline and online, Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, everyone. I don't know, podcasts are very often, you're not in front of a screen when you listen to a podcast a lot of times. Lots of people are like, "Oh, I'm walking my dog. I'm hiking a mountain. I'm at the beach." That sort of thing. Mordy Oberstein: It's a good hybrid. It's both offline, especially if you download the episode, you don't have to be connected to the internet, and kind of online. It's digital, kind of, somewhat. Crystal Carter: Right. You could be on a plane and you could not be trying to argue with airplane wifi, which apparently is the slowest thing on earth, or above earth, I guess. And yeah, you could just be living your best podcast life, offline or online, I suppose. Mordy Oberstein: I download lots of podcasts before I go on an airplane, because I find watching movies on airplanes annoying at this point. I used to love watching movies on airplanes. Now I find it annoying. I don't know why. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I don't know. The last time I had a big flight, I just read Percy Jackson. Mordy Oberstein: I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: I enjoyed it. Mordy Oberstein: The books were good. I read them to my kids, but the movie was- Crystal Carter: No, I read the book. I was reading one of the books, Percy Jackson. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, you're reading the book, not watching the movie. No, the books are great. Sorry, Percy Jackson, I didn't mean to... Books are great. Okay. The SERF's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also leverage all the inbuilt marketing tools and capabilities, along with all the marketing apps inside of Wix Studio to build your and your clients' online presence, as this week, we're talking about the connection between online and offline marketing. How does offline marketing impact your digital efforts? Has online marketing become a lost art in the AI and digital age? And what's the SEO connection of it all? To help us run the proverbial extension cord between your offline and online marketing, Near Media's Mike Blumenthal and Greg Sterling will join us in just a bit, plus we got a look at a nifty little tool that'll help you see the impact of your offline marketing efforts on the digital stage. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness across social media. So pull out that rocking chair and acoustic guitar and put on your best grunge voice, because like MTV of yesteryear, Episode 109 of the SERP's Up podcast is going unplugged. Crystal Carter: That is a deep cut. I loved MTV Unplugged. Mordy Oberstein: Right? Crystal Carter: The Nirvana one is great. Mordy Oberstein: Nirvana. Stone Temple Pilots had a great one. Crystal Carter: Stone Temple Pilots did have a great one. Mariah Carey's was amazing, and also, they did the one in Latin American MTV and Shakira's Unplugged is phenomenal. Mordy Oberstein: Really? I didn't even know there was a Shakira Unplugged. Crystal Carter: It's phenomenal. Mordy Oberstein: It went that long. I tuned out of MTV by that point. Crystal Carter: I don't think it was on English speaking MTV, but I had the album and it was amazing. The band she had was fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: I'm trying to remember, because Eric Clapton Unplugged, it was like amazing. Crystal Carter: Oh yeah, that's classic. That's classic. Mordy Oberstein: But I can't remember if that was just him doing an episode Unplugged or it was for MTV. It was. I'm looking online. It was MTV. Crystal Carter: Yeah, they're all MTV. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, yeah. That's an amazing album. Crystal Carter: Oh, good. For any of you young whippersnappers, go check it out. Mordy Oberstein: MTV used to be about music. Is it even a thing? Does it exist anymore? Crystal Carter: Yeah, it does. They just had the MTV Awards, so Megan Thee Stallion hosted it. That's the only thing I know about it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm so busy online, I don't see all those offline things of MTV. Crystal Carter: Right, right. This is a thing, so much stuff going on, but I think that, for some of those events, they do tons of offline. And I think that it really is, I think, where you see some incredible mixes of marketing genius. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'll start this with a little bit of a hot tip before we get to Greg and Mike. Digital marketing tends to be pretty siloed about pretty much everything, like SEOs stick to SEO, PPCs stick to PPC. I think it's getting a little bit less maybe right now, but like PPCs are like, "Don't talk to me about organic. Just click on my paid ads." And the truth is, like everything in life, it's a little bit messy. There are all sorts of overlaps and implications across not just the disciplines of digital marketing, but of marketing overall. And that includes the things that you're doing offline. By the way, I prefer offline marketing. I like offline marketing more than I like online marketing as a consumer. Obviously, I do digital marketing, but as somebody who's watching the marketing happen, I feel that better marketing happens offline than online. For me, when you see that good, really solid TV spot, and I'm trying to think of a good one off the top of my head, and of course, I can't think of a good example, that hits home, like, "Oh, that's good branding right there. I like that." And it really resonates. Yet, we, the people of the digital, I don't think, tend to give enough credence to the power of offline marketing and the mindset that offline marketing produces. And in fact, I think the only place I ever hear SEOs talk about offline marketing is like, "Oh, if you're doing local link building, you should go to an event and talk to other people, and that'll help you get links." But the merge or the overlap between offline and online is so much richer than that. I feel like you want to say something, so I'm going to stop talking right now. Crystal Carter: Yeah, so I've seen this happen on so many occasions, and basically, this is where great SEOs really shine is that, if you're speaking to your clients and they're telling you about their offline marketing that they're doing, and a lot of clients are going to be sponsoring the little league team or they'll put up a billboard or they're taking out an ad in a newspaper or something like that. Now, I had a client that was working in a space and their audience was older, even older than MTV, Unplugged elder millennial myself. So it was older and they took out an ad in a big newspaper, a full sheet ad in the newspaper, and I was like, "Cool, when's it running?" And they were like, "It's running on Sunday." I was like, "Great. We will set up Facebook ads that are attached to people that follow that newspaper. We will target people that follow that newspaper and we will send them the same creative, so that, when they're flipping through the newspaper and they see that, they see the ad, they go, "Huh." Then when they're on Facebook and they see the ad again, they will click through it on it." And that campaign went really, really well. We got incredible engagement, we got incredible leads, and it all went really well. Similarly, you sometimes see fails, so you see something on a billboard or you see something on the subway or the bus stop or whatever it is, and you go to Google it and you cannot find it, right? And you're like, "I really want this thing. Where is it? I cannot find it." That's such a fail. It breaks my heart. Mordy Oberstein: Fail. Fail. And we spoke about this on the podcast, I forgot what episode it was, but the epitome of that, I think Eli Schwartz pointed this out, it was, I forgot, so long ago already, it was a Super Bowl, and a company ran an ad, and people, it was one of these unknown-ish kind of companies trying to break into a new market. They ran the ad and you're like, "Okay, I'm going to go Google them now." And they weren't even ranking for their name, so they spent all this money. And I'm like, "I don't know who you are." Crystal Carter: Right, right, right. This is it. So they'll do that or they won't put the email or they won't put the website on the visuals or they won't take into account the multiple channels. So layering your advertising to retargeting folks that are related to either the event or the location. So I've also done things where we've had a client that was doing an event and you can target, you can geotarget, your ads. So in Google Ads, for instance, you can geotarget, let's say you have an event at Madison Square Garden, you're sponsoring Madison Square Garden. You can geotarget your ads for people who are at Madison Square Garden. So if somebody's at Madison Square Garden and within like a quarter mile radius of the Madison Square Garden, you can target it at them. And then, when people search there, when they're in their hotel or when they're even at Madison Square Garden, you're more likely to show up on the top. And if they're seeing that you sponsored the halftime show or whatever it may be, then it allows you to connect the dots. And so, I think that's really useful. And also, there's also retargeting from brand engagement. So let's say somebody signs up for your newsletter or people put their cards in a fish bowl and then you win a prize or something like that, people will sign up for something there, then you can put them on a dedicated cohort mailing list and then, you can roll out your marketing accordingly for that. There's lots of things you can do there. Another one to think about, in terms of uniting your offline with your online marketing, is visual search. So I've had it before where I've been at a conference and I have taken a picture of somebody's role banner. And Google lens, if you're on an Android, is baked into your images. So if you take a picture of somebody's role banner, it will scan it for text, and if there's a website, it will give you the opportunity to click on that website. If there's a QR code on the role banner, it will give you the opportunity to click on that role banner. And it will tell you about the business that you're looking at. And if you have your logo in your website, then it'll be able to say, "This is that element." So I've spoken about this significantly, but yeah, the way you think about your positioning, your brand positioning, in real life is really, really important. Because people are taking photos all the time, and Google allows you to search any photo at any point. So it really is a missed opportunity if you're not thinking about making sure that your branding is really cohesive, that your logo is the way it's supposed to be, that it's the right color, that it's well illuminated, that it's not behind something else, it's not surrounded by a bunch of other logos, all of that sort of thing, so that you can get both online and offline impact. Mordy Oberstein: You mentioned conference. Before we pivot to Greg and Mike, I just want to mention, when we do a conference, one of the things we're looking to do is to create buzz on social media. It's like it's not a secret, and the way you do that is all of your offline activities. What do you do? You take a cutout of Barry Schwartz, you take a cornhole game, you put it in front of your booth at brightonSEO in the UK, and you have tons of people playing this thing. And right behind Barry is a big old Wix logo, and people are taking pictures with the cutout of Barry Schwartz and the cornhole game. In the meantime, they're taking pictures of the Wix logo and sharing it all over social media. None of that, all of that buzz and visibility and brand awareness on social media, all of that happened because of all the things we're focused on offline. Online wasn't even really a thought in terms of the actual process of what we were trying to do in terms of creating that cadence. It was just like, "Okay, we know this will happen if we do this, so yeah, let's do it." But in terms of the execution of the thing itself, it was all focused offline, but huge online. Crystal Carter: And I think it's really important to remember that a lot of our offline lives are online. Like pics or it didn't happen. If I go on vacation, people are going to know about it. I'm going to take a picture. And so, it's important that we remember that there is a lot of hybrid experiences in all of the things we're going around in, and also, that people will talk about these things in real life. So if you have, I think, Amex Bike sponsors like bicycles in different towns, that there's Barclays has had some bikes that they were sponsoring in London. And people call them like the Barclays bikes. "Oh, I was using a Barclays bike." Mordy Oberstein: Right, exactly. Crystal Carter: And that's something that's offline that comes into online parlance, because it exists in the real world. So I think it's really important to remember that and to pay attention to how people are discussing your offline activity and monitoring those things. So if you're able to see that people are talking about the Pink Wall, for instance, there was, I think, Fred Segal has the Pink Wall in Beverly Hills or whatever, then maybe you should have a page on your website about the Pink Wall, so that people, when they Google that, you show up for that. And Google will give you that traffic, because it's your Pink Wall. Mordy Oberstein: And with that, let's pivot into our conversation with Near Media's own Greg Sterling and Mike Blumenthal. Welcome to the show, Greg and Mike. How you doing? Greg Sterling: Good. Thanks for having us. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm sorry you had to endure that really long intro. Greg Sterling: It was very long and painful to listen to. Mordy Oberstein: For the record, we're jumping right into the interview. They don't even know how long the intro was. It didn't even happen yet, to break the fourth wall. Greg Sterling: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: So pitch your podcast, the Near Media. Greg Sterling: Yeah, so Near Media is now on, I think, 175. We're ahead of you by a few, Mordy. Hopefully, we'll stay that in that position. It has become a podcast mostly about Google and local SEO, but we do also talk about other things, privacy and AI trust. I think it's pretty interesting, if I do say so myself. And it usually features Mike, in addition to me, and David Mihm, who's also one of the co-founders of Near Media. And we just recently had you on, Mordy, to talk about the role of brand now in SEO, which was a really great session. And we do three segments typically. Each of us takes, unless we have a special guest, we take a sort of a news item from the week and then, unpack it and debate it and discuss it. So that's the simple version. Mike Blumenthal: And the more complex version for me is that I do it, because at least once a week, I get to sit with two very smart people and dissect things in a way that maybe I hadn't thought about. And by doing it weekly and having three or four topics, it really brings local and local marketing more clearly into focus for me. And so, for me, I do it for myself, because I gain so much every week by talking to David and Greg. Greg Sterling: We try and contextualize things also. We're not simply just telling what happened, but go ahead, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I was going to say that, because no, because you should also sign up for the newsletter. I actually just used what you all write. Someone was asking me for exemplar content where there's a lot of information, but you also understand what they're actually thinking and how they're thinking about it and actually use your newsletter for that. So I highly recommend that people sign up for it. Links in the show notes. Mike Blumenthal: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, you're one of the only newsletters I get that I actually read. It's in my inbox right now. I have to read it. Greg Sterling: That's perhaps the most flattering thing anybody could say, because there's so many newsletters. And you're not the only person to say that, but it's an enormous compliment. Mike Blumenthal: Greg's mother said it too. Greg Sterling: From beyond the grave. Remember the scene in Fiddler on the Roof where the Tevye's dream, that's what it was like. It was exactly like that. Mordy Oberstein: My wife quotes that scene all the time, "What are you talking about?" Greg Sterling: Perhaps we should get your wife on here. We should be having a conversation with her. Mordy Oberstein: That would be an interesting conversation by the way to have and one that would probably not work out well for me. Greg Sterling: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: What will work out well for me is talking about online and offline marketing, something that we touched on when I was on your podcast that got me thinking about it. So let's talk a little bit about, I don't know like a hot topic, but has offline marketing, because you all are very thoughtful thinkers, has it become a lost art? Does it feel like it's become a lost art, at least from the digital folks? Greg Sterling: I would say, to sort of jump in here, I would say yes is the short answer to that. I think that people see online marketing and offline marketing as two completely distinct universes, with offline marketing being sort of dying a slow death, maybe with a couple of exceptions, like out-of-home billboards and maybe direct mail. But people sort of think that digital marketing is the successor to offline marketing, traditional marketing. And traditional marketing has almost no role to play anymore, because everybody's online and everybody does everything online. That's the sort of simple version, I think. Mike, do you have a different view? Mike Blumenthal: Well, at LocalU, we always pitched the idea that offline and online were two sides of the same coin, in that, if you are doing something in the real world, say sponsoring the little league in local or helping the blood drive, then putting that online had the double benefit of appealing to your existing customers, plus appealing to Google. So we always pitched it, and I still do, as sort of a duality. And in the end, when you think about it, really, Google needs that offline stuff, as we learned, particularly with things like Navboost and other sort of links. But Google needs that sort of view to really be able to rank businesses effectively. So from my point of view, they've never been separate. Now, clearly, there's been this decline of traditional offline in local, like the Yellow Pages went south. Greg Sterling: Newspapers. Mike Blumenthal: Newspapers went south to a large extent, although in my community, newspapers still play a role. So it's important, from my point of view, that these businesses, and I think this showed up in the survey you did, Greg, that businesses still do some offline stuff and prioritize it. Greg Sterling: Yeah. It's really different by industry, and you see a lot of variation. And some industries still do traditional media and say it performs pretty well. It outperforms expectations. There's an interesting sort of, people have expectations of how something's going to work out versus something else, and traditional media seems to often outperform expectations. Because people have very low expectations. I want to add one thing to what Mike was saying. Reviews is the area where these two things come together most obviously, right? People are typically having an offline experience of some kind with a service business or a restaurant or a hotel or whatever it is, and then, they write a review online. So that offline experience and activity shows up directly in reviews, and those impact local rankings and general rankings, depending on the website. Mike Blumenthal: I would extend that metaphor though or that idea, because like I said, with the little league, most local businesses at least are already doing donations to the little league or whatever they choose. And the only thing they should be doing, in addition to that contribution, is making sure that it's visible on the little league websites or Google knows about it. Or in the case of joining membership groups, like the Chamber, they're already doing that. The critical issue there is making sure that the Chamber has the right link to your business, so that Google can see it. Or becoming a member of the Better Business Bureau. And the same with media, that, if you have a local newspaper, which we still do, getting in that local paper and making sure that you're visible in their online version, so Google can see it. That sort of, to me, is the ultimate local marketing strategy, where you're doing all the traditional stuff to build your brand, going to business meetings, helping people through the community, asking for testimonials, and getting media, all that stuff should have an online mirror and an offline reality. And if you do that, then Google will naturally rank you higher. Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting, because you're talking about the little league example, which is such a nostalgic example for me. For those who are not from the US, little league is the kids' baseball teams and you would normally have their uniforms and the local grocery store would be a sponsor and they have the logo on the uniform and so forth. Mike Blumenthal: And there'd be a big banner in center field. Mordy Oberstein: Right, right, right. It's funny, because that's a mindset and I feel like that's a mindset that people don't have online sometimes, "I'm going to go interact, I'm going to do community work, I'm going to create partnerships." And that should all translate online. But that way of thinking, I find, sometimes, people don't translate from offline to online. Offline is about partnership, it's about community, it's about whatever, relationships, because there is no click. There's no way to click on the center field banner, on the uniform banner. You have to think a little bit more strategically, because there's nothing immediately in front of you. But on online, I feel we all get distracted though, "I'll get a click, I'll get the traffic, I'll get the ROI, yada, yada, yada," and you don't take those offline ways of thinking and then, translate them, use them online, which I feel like you should be doing. Greg Sterling: One thing I would add to that is that this online marketer mindset, which is about measuring everything, tracking everything, everything has to be accountable. It's this sort of brand performance marketing dichotomy in a certain way. In order to build your brand, you have to be willing to do things that you can't immediately measure and that have a sort of a ripple effect or an intangible effect. And I think there's a lot of bias that digital marketers have toward doing only things that can be tracked, that you can show to your boss, that contribute to your KPIs, that there's a certain kind of mindset and worldview that, I think, results in a bunch of lost opportunities. Rand Fishkin has advocated doing things that can't be measured. You've got to do stuff that isn't necessarily going to be measurable or visible to you in Google Search Console. And I think that that's exactly right. You have to do a bunch of stuff, especially in the offline world that builds goodwill, loyalty, word of mouth. Consistently, if you're a small business owner, consistently what you say, whether or not it's true, what you say and what you often perceive is word of mouth is the number one source of leads for you, right? And that's really about customer experience and brand ultimately. Sometimes, it's about price, but mostly, it's about a holistic kind of idea, "Oh, this person painted my house, they did a great job. I need somebody to do my taxes. I need whatever it is. I need a landscape designer." And it's consistently the most reliable and, very often, the biggest source of leads for these local businesses, not withstanding all the online stuff. And so, that's a lot about the things you do in the world to enhance your reputation, enhance your brand. And they're not really measurable in most cases. A lot of businesses will say, "Well, how'd you find us?" And sometimes that's inaccurate, but that's kind of a crude way to do it in a way that has been done historically. Anyway, I could go on. Mordy Oberstein: No. Oh no, I don't want to stop... Mike Blumenthal: My take on that is that particularly small bricks and mortars, who never really measure that, like you said, should occasionally measure it once a year, once a quarter, should survey their clients. So at least they have this general sense of what is driving traffic, right? If they say word of mouth and that turns out to be 35%, then they know that and they can then focus on the things that matter. But I think that, to some extent, it is at least broadly measurable and small businesses should take the time to occasionally do it. All too often, they're too busy, they don't think of it. But in the businesses I worked with who I recommended it, it was incredibly insightful. Also, when you map that against the analytics, you can get a sense of how many map directions or calls actually convert to sales, so that you can then model what a growth in phone calls might mean, in terms of business. So it's critical component to both understand and plan, but it's also critical component to get the most out of your digital marketing. So I would highly recommend it to a small business, if they have any business, to occasionally be doing that, which is how they found them. Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting, Greg, that you mentioned Rand, because I don't know if you all saw this, he did a, I think it was a video on LinkedIn or something like that, where he showed Google brings whatever amount of traffic, 55%, 60% of all web traffic. But if you're only looking at it directly, "Oh, Google is where I should focus, because that's where the web traffic is coming from," you're really missing how it all works. Because what happened is they saw you at an event, they saw you on social media, they saw you at a conference, they saw you at a little league, whatever it is, and then, they Googled you, found you, and that traffic gets attributed to Google, but it's not really Google's traffic. It's just they're a facilitator in that sense. Greg Sterling: That's totally true. It's kind of a last-click mindset in a certain way. I think, if we all just reflect on our own behavior in the world, you see something, you see an ad, you see a billboard, somebody tells you, recommends somebody, and what you do then is you typically search on that business or that person to look at their reviews or to get more information or get an address. Yesterday, I'm having some car issues, and so, I was at a mechanic and it turned out they couldn't help me. And so, I said, "Could you recommend somebody else?" And they said, "Oh, I recommend this other person." And so, I looked up that other person online, I looked at the reviews, and I called from the GBP page. So what they're not going to see is that whole interaction in the real world. They're going to just see the Google interaction and make some assumptions, as you're saying, about the source of that being Google. But really, the source of it was this guy's recommendation and this other mechanic's recommendation, which would not be visible, but it illustrates the larger point that there's a lot of stuff going on, as Rand says, in the world, that then people follow up with a Google search. Mike Blumenthal: And what Greg left unsaid was he wanted to check this guy's rating to confirm that the person who recommended it was right. Greg Sterling: Exactly. That's exactly right. And that's what people do. What is that called, Mike? What is the term for that? Mike Blumenthal: I'm not sure. Greg Sterling: Word of mouth now usually comes along with some kind of Google search or some kind of lookup online to validate the referral. You can learn a lot about behavior just from reflecting on your own and your immediate family and your friends' behavior, which people don't do that much. It's anecdotal, it's unreliable as a sort of a you can't make a lot of business decisions on the basis of that alone. But it's really helpful information that gives you context that you don't otherwise get just from data. Mordy Oberstein: To bring that into the local space for a second, because I feel like one of the things that I do when I'm looking something up and you're looking at their GBP profile and there's nothing there, they may be a great business, there's no post or products, there's no description, it kind of feels bare bones. That leaves me feeling like maybe they're not so great. And it's kind of like, is that a ranking factor? Some of the things might be, but the fact that you don't have Google posts there, I don't believe is a ranking factor, unless Joy Hawkins has discovered that, somehow, it is a ranking factor, and I completely missed that study. But it does come from that mindset. It's not something that maybe is attributable to any traffic. I can't measure its effectiveness in my bottom line, but if I'm thinking like I'm a real marketer, I'm going to realize that, if I don't have that profile filled out, when people are coming to verify if I'm actually somebody of decent reputation, they're going to be left feeling like, "Ah, this looks a little bare bones. Do they not really care? Are they not really active? Are they not really alive?" And being alive for a business is a very big thing, but it's not a measurable thing that you could tangibly say, "Because of this feeling of vitality, I got X number of more leads." Mike Blumenthal: I would reinforce that, in our research, where we do consumer behavior research, and we've done a number of verticals. But hotels was the most recent one. And people spent a tremendous amount of time looking at the photographs on Google and on, say, Booking.com in Europe, because that's very popular. One woman I had looked at 11 different places to stay, looking for a full-length mirror in the bedroom, because you couldn't tell how well you were dressed if you only had a half-length mirror. And it's like hotel after hotel, but she would look at all the pictures and literally look for the picture of the room with the full-length hotel. So pictures play an incredibly important role, both on Google, on your website, and on whatever directory is important in your industry. We know that from our research, but other attributes do as well. Reviews. We listen to people when they're doing these searches, and 65% of them say, "Reviews are important to us." Now, we don't know about the other 35%, but they just didn't say it, doesn't mean it isn't important to them. BrightLocal indicates it's upwards of 85%, although they're mostly looking at stars and quantity of reviews, and only 25% of the time do they ever actually read them. But I agree with you, having a full profile now, most people don't dig in as deep as posts, but from where I sit, any page on Google you can control, you should. And it makes sense to me to maximize your potential surfaces. And that's Q&A, that's posts, it's all that sort of stuff. Greg Sterling: People are evaluating the credibility of businesses. It's kind of curb appeal. The Google Business Profile, as well as your website, are kind of your brand online. If things are well filled out, well developed, there's a lot of information there. It's going to give people confidence. What people are looking for online very often is confidence to try that business or call that business or include that business in their final consideration set. And so, as you sort of point out, even though somebody's heard that this is a good business, they might be skeptical if they see something that looks very thin or is unclaimed or doesn't have a lot of information. And there are tons and tons of businesses that fall into that category, that may be doing a great job, but they just haven't taken the time to claim their profile or do anything with it. Mike Blumenthal: An example where we saw this very explicitly in consumer research was in physician search. People would come in looking for an OBGYN or a general practitioner and they'd say, "I want the best." They'd go into the Local Finder, which I thought people never went into. They'd scroll 20 deep and pick three or four that had the best reviews, and it was a case where they would skip over people that didn't have pictures or reviews. And they'd go to the ones that did, and it was clear they were willing to scroll. And so, you saw a very long tail in the Local Finder in that industry, in that vertical, because people did take the time to look for more complete profiles. Mordy Oberstein: That totally aligns. It's what I do. It totally aligns with my actual experience. Do you find, because you both are so heavily in local, and there's such a natural tendency to see the connection... Mike Blumenthal: "All local all the time," that's our radio show's motto. Mordy Oberstein: There's a natural bridge between offline and online, I think, is unique to local. Do you find that the local businesses realize that connection more so than, say, like a SaaS platform, that kind of thing? Greg Sterling: Go ahead, Mike. Mike Blumenthal: Well, I was going to say it's very vertically dependent, right? In storage. Most of them get it. In doctors, two-thirds of them didn't get it. It's very vertically dependent, whether they're engaging with Google. Greg Sterling: I think, for the longest time, since the beginning of the internet, the consumer behavior really has been search online, buy offline, and then, that's changed with the rise of e-commerce, but it's still relatively small, 15, 20% of total retail, and at least in the United States. Elsewhere, it may be different. And so, consumers, for 20-plus years, have been using the internet as a tool to do research and get information about often local businesses or things to do in their area or where to buy something or where to find something. And I think business owners do this themselves, but they often don't, this comes back to what I was saying earlier, they often don't generalize and think, "My customers are doing this too." I think they tend to focus on channels as independent of one another. It's like, "This is Google, this is social, this is email, this is my website." And they're not thinking kind of holistically about the relationships of all these things together. I think that that's an unusual small business, a more savvy marketer that is thinking holistically, thinking about the relationship of online to offline, even though these business owners themselves and marketers, however sophisticated, are doing this very thing, they are using the internet, they're interacting with businesses in the world, they're seeing stuff that's happening. I think marketers on TV maybe get it more than others, where they try and connect TV to... Well, TV now is part of online, because it's often streaming, but connect to TV. But things like QR codes and using search volume to measure certain kinds of TV advertising. There are certain pockets where people do really get it and ticket integrated approach, but most small businesses, I don't think do. They don't have that overall view of how these channels work together. Mordy Oberstein: You're basically, in a way, describing Nike. I know Nike doubled down on digital, said, "We're going to go direct to consumer and we're going to bypass the store." And people were like, "I love looking for your shoes online, but I'm going to go try them out in the store before I actually go ahead and buy them." And you can see Nike had major, major problems. They actually opened the door for a bunch of other brands, On, to come in, because they weren't filling... Mike Blumenthal: Hokas. Mordy Oberstein: Hoka, yeah. Mike Blumenthal: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Because Nike wasn't filling the stores up and there was shelf space, so foot Locker was putting Hoka up on the shelf and not Nike. And the rankings aren't Nike's problem. Looking at Semrush right now, since 2020, their traffic's been up like crazy. Traffic is great, but the conversions were the issue. Because, "I don't want to buy it online. I want to go to the store," that gap and not realizing the consumers germinating offline and online killed them. Greg Sterling: Yeah, there's also a brand impact there. Ultimately, people are concerned about sales and revenue, but not seeing Nike in the store, not seeing Nike featured prominently does have a kind of degrading impact on the brand. Degrading meaning erosion, as opposed to humiliation, as the case may be. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point. Mike, last word? Mike Blumenthal: At one of these rare occasions in life, don't have one. Mordy Oberstein: No, really? Do you want me to throw another question out there, so you can have the last word over Greg? Mike Blumenthal: Not necessary. Like I said, I meet with Greg every week, because I like to hear his pearls of wisdom. Mordy Oberstein: Greg does have pearls of wisdom. Greg Sterling: Such as they are. Such as they are. Mike Blumenthal: I don't always agree with them, but... Mordy Oberstein: Oh, there's the last word right there. Mike Blumenthal: There you go. Mordy Oberstein: Where can people find you online? Mike Blumenthal: I'm on Twitter still, unfortunately, mblumenthal Twitter, I'm trying to increase my presence on LinkedIn and at Near Media, where I do the weekly podcast and try to do two or three analysis pieces a month around tactics and strategy in local marketing. Mordy Oberstein: And Greg? Greg Sterling: I'm at gsterling on Twitter, I refuse to call it X, and I don't know what my LinkedIn handle is, but you can find me on LinkedIn and Near Media. And my email, for people that want to harass me or give me death threats, is Greg.Sterling.gmail. Mike Blumenthal: And mine is MBlumenthal@NearMedia.co . Mordy Oberstein: So for the death threats, not on Twitter and not on LinkedIn, specifically email? Greg Sterling: Yeah, it's more effective, I think, if you do it directly in email, because otherwise, it'll be sort of diffused and people may comment and may turn it into something humorous. But if you're really serious, you want to go straight to the email, I think. Mordy Oberstein: All right, great. So link to the show notes, case you want to follow these fine gentlemen. And remember, I won't put their emails in the show notes, but if you want to send them a death threat, just play back the episode and you'll hear their emails again and you can send them a death threat. Thank you both so much for coming on the show. It's a lot of fun. Make sure you check out Near Media and the podcast and the newsletter. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for coming on the show. Greg Sterling: Thank you. Mike Blumenthal: Thanks for having us. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Greg and Mike, for coming on the show. Make sure you give them a follow. Check out their newsletter, again. I love their newsletters. Again, I told you during the interview, it's one of the only ones I actually open and actually read, which is a rarity, right? Come on, you know what I'm talking about, which is why you don't put too much emphasis on open rates in newsletters. Because I open them so my inbox will be less. Crystal Carter: I always open and read the Searchlight newsletter. That's my favorite newsletter. Mordy Oberstein: Oh yeah, don't do it to Searchlight. No, no, no. Crystal Carter: Of course. Mordy Oberstein: No, no. Crystal Carter: That's my favorite one to open. Mordy Oberstein: It’s about all the other newsletters, other than the ones that we also like, like SEOFOMO, Core Updates by Mike Williams-Cook, #SEOForLunch, Nick LeRoy, those ones you should read. It's the other ones. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's very tricky. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm just trying to talk truth. Anyway. Anyway, your offline marketing impacts what happens on the digital side of things. We've seen this, we've discussed that. We're at a lot of conferences, and if we do a good job, like you mentioned before, engaging with folks, you see it on social very easily. So here's a little dive into a tool that can help you see it on social, as we go tool time on the SERP's Up podcast. So here's a cool tool for you that I came across and we both came across, that looks like it's like, there's a lot of tools that do this kind of thing, but it looks pretty prolific. It's called Brand24. And what it helps you do is basically monitor your mentions across social and beyond social, because a lot of these tools monitor social, but they don't go beyond social. But it helps you see the impact of an offline event and the communications impact of that. It can help you see how you're comparing with your competitors. It can help you track sentiment, which is super helpful, and it has all sorts of topic analysis tools as well. So Brand24 for you. Crystal Carter: Yeah, definitely. And I think it's something that seems to be useful for agencies. It's also something that offers things for information on how to measure your share of voice. So they've got a lot of really great resources for helping you to understand that. I've seen marketers who are working across the social space significantly, and this can be really, really important. I think that, if there's a particular product or particular product vertical where it's quite competitive, that share of voice element is so critical in order to cut through. So being able to see that and be able to have some metrics for that, to be able to illustrate the value of that in-person sponsorship, the value of that influencer engagement, the value of that brand activation can be really, really important. Mordy Oberstein: So people always ask, "Oh, well, brand, you can't measure brand, you can't measure offline activity." And it's not true, by the way. It's completely not true. It's just a little bit different than what we're used to on the performance side. You can absolutely track and measure. It's just a little bit correlative. You know correlations equal causation? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. But sometimes, a good correlation ain't nothing like a good correlation. And what this allows you to do is, for example, if you're looking at your trend of negative mentions in the tool, you can kind of correlate, "Oh, wait a second. We launched a new campaign." I will say, North Face launched a new campaign and I did not like it. So if I'm North Face, and all of a sudden, you have these yo-yos like Mordy Oberstein going out there on X and LinkedIn, saying, "I didn't like that campaign," and you start seeing those negative mentions, if it correlates to when you started that campaign, that'll give you a good, "Hey, wait a second. That might be a good indicator of how we measure the success of this new campaign or not." Now, obviously, you need to go deeper and see what are people saying and who is saying it, because maybe I'm not your customer, so who cares that I'm crapping all over it. But having a tool like this helps you better measure brand, because it helps you find those correlative activities and the data that correlates to them. So that you can dive in a little bit deeper. Crystal Carter: And I think that it helps you to sign off, helps you get more funding for the things that you want to do, helps you get more conversions, helps you just move forward with your campaigns. So yeah, it's never bad to have more data. Mordy Oberstein: No, and it's also never bad to have more SEO news from Barry Schwartz, whether it's a small change to a line of a SERP feature that's completely inconsequential or an actual thing like, oh my gosh, search console data has an enormous gap or there's an issue with indexing. Barry Schwartz is your go-to source for the SEO news, and we are your go-to source for covering Barry, even snappier than Barry already writes, which is pretty snappy to be honest with you. Crystal Carter: That's snappy. Mordy Oberstein: So it's like snappy snappiness with our snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news, big news this week, as per Search Engine Journal and everybody else covering the story, which is everybody else, SearchGPT launches as ChatGPT's, real-time search feature. So there is a search engine-ish version of ChatGPT, which is called now called SearchGPT, and you can ask it to search for stuff and it'll give you citations and whatnot and whatnot. This is not live, as of this recording, everyone everyone yet for OpenAI. It said all ChatGPT Plus and Team users, as well as SearchGPT waitlist use, will have access today, today being the day they launched this, which was on October 31st. It's interesting. I will say this, it's interesting. On the mobile version, what happens is there's an icon for search, right? You type in your query like, I don't know, like, "Who is Aaron Judge?" or whatever, and you have a little option to search. And on the search, what happens is there's a little button at the end of the summary, you know your typical ChatGPT summary for sources, and you click on sources and up comes a whole list of the URLs. You can pull that panel up, and then, you can see the full list of URLs and click on whatever URL you want to. And of course, there's questions of like, will this replace Google and blah, blah, blah, yada, yada yada, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Kind of talked this about this, I think, two weeks ago on the episode. It's interesting. Leaving that question aside for a minute, it's interesting. I don't find yet that the URLs are accessible in the way I like them to be accessible, particularly on the mobile side. And I think it's a problem, not just because of SearchGPT. I think it's a problem because there's multiple things happening at one time. For example, social media is kind of a mess right now. A lot of these things create a disincentive to create new content. If I can't get my URLs out there the same way, if I can't get engagement on social, which will drive content to the links that I'm sharing on social, do I still have that same incentive to create content? And I think, it might be a little bit of a hot take, I think the web is in a place right now where that's going to become problematic down the line, unless something changes. The path forward would indicate that there'll be a problem down the line of some sort, and I think it's really problematic for the web ecosystem overall and things like SearchGPT could contribute to that problem. That's my take. That's my personal take. Anyway, onto more AI and search information. This from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable. I've always wanted to see this roundtable, by the way, Barry. Where's the roundtable? Do you have a roundtable? If not, I feel like false advertising. There's no roundtable. There is no actual SEO Roundtable. Anyway, Barry writes, "Google AI Answers in Google Maps: Things To Do, Review Summaries, & About This Place." To translate, Google added a bunch of AI stuff to local stuff. One of the things, for example, is, in Google Maps, you can now say like, "Hey, show me things to do with a friend at night in Lower Manhattan," and Gemini will curate a list for you of little cards, carousel of cards, a typical format you've seen for all sorts of carousels on Google with a bunch of places. And they'll categorize them like things to do with live music, I don't know, comedy clubs, whatever it is. I think that's great. I think that's a great way to get your listings in front of people. I think it's a great way to get people to the Google Business Profile, eventually to your website, and to your business like that. To my previous point, this would be using AI to send traffic to an actual business. At the same time, Google has also announced that they're doing review summaries based on AI. So they'll go through your reviews and they'll pull out a summary and it will say, "Summarized with Gemini," basically summarizing all the things in the reviews, so you don't have to look through all the reviews. You just get a, "People say this is a great place for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." Obviously, my apprehension here is, if you have negative reviewers or you have negative review spammers or whatever it is, that can influence the AI answer. Also, I like to think of the Google Business Profile as a place where there's more control for the business, not less, and this would seemingly be less control in a way. Okay. At the same time, there's also a feature about ask about this place. So let's say you have a listing, I don't know, like Bob's Comedy Club, and you want to know, does Bob's Comedy Club Serve cocktails? And you can now ask Maps about that place, and Maps will tell you, "Oh yes, they serve wonderful cocktails, yada, yada, yada." Again, great. Could be really, really helpful, but it's because you're directly impacting what someone might do with their money at a particular business or might not do with their money at a particular business, like, "Oh, there's no cocktails here. I'm not going to this comedy club now," but maybe they do offer cocktails. I think it's really, really important for something like this to make sure that the AI answers are as accurate as possible, because you are actually impacting people's livelihoods directly with something like this. Check out the full write up that Barry has over here on SERoundtable.com. Again, is there a roundtable? I would like to know. And that is this week's version of the Snappy News. There are the occasions where I drone on with the Snappy News, and it's not so snappy. Barry actually called one of those instances out on social media. He's like, "You went on too long." Crystal Carter: Barry is the king of efficiency. He's like, "How can we get this done?" Mordy Oberstein: If you watch, It's New, which is our Monday through Thursday new show with Barry and Greg Finn. I'm repeating myself here, but Barry says that he wears his cell phone in his nerd pocket. Crystal Carter: Yeah, front pocket. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, your front pocket, the nerd pocket. Because I'm thinking back of when you have pocket protectors. Crystal Carter: Revenge of the Nerds. Mordy Oberstein: Revenge of the Nerds, exactly. That movie didn't age well, and he puts his phone in there, so that it takes less time to pull out when he has to use it, that fraction of a second. Crystal Carter: Yes. It reminded me of stock changing things. When people buy stuff, there are machines that buy stocks and shares and they make them closer to the server, because they save a fraction of a second and get the share faster or something like that. And that works if you're like, I don't know, some giant stock company or something, but I didn't realize that Barry was working in those milliseconds. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot of SEO news to cover. Every fraction of a second counts. Crystal Carter: I think you might be right. But your hands are closer to your pockets, to your hip pockets, right? Mordy Oberstein: Not when you're sitting on a keyboard writing SEO news all day long. Then your hands is actually closer to your front pocket, nerd pocket. Crystal Carter: I suppose so. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, Barry thinks of these things. Don't worry. I trust Barry. Crystal Carter: Sure, I'm sure. Mordy Oberstein: In Barry, we trust. Speaking of great personalities out there across the internet, our follow of the week is somebody who does a great job pulling his offline activities and pulling them online for his personal branding. It's Terry Rice, who is actually a part of our meetup in New York City, the digital marketing meetup with Search Engine Journal. So look at Terry's LinkedIn profile, and you will see a ton of personal things about exercise and fitness. And he leverages it in and pulls it into his profile to create something that has an amazing personal brand for himself. It has so much value, and it has so much personality. And it's a great way of seeing that, if you do great things offline, you can pull those things into online to add value that way. Crystal Carter: Nice. Nice. Mordy Oberstein: It's good stuff. Crystal Carter: I'll check it out. Mordy Oberstein: Please check them out. So Crystal, you going to be offline anywhere? People should come look for you soon. Crystal Carter: I'm offline all the time. I'm offline all the time, probably at a conference near you. Mordy Oberstein: Look for Crystal at a conference near you. By the way, I'm surprised that there's not an SEO conference out there called Conference Near You. Crystal Carter: They totally should do that. Mordy Oberstein: They should totally do that. Crystal Carter: We just did a conference with the team at LocalU and the team at Sterling Sky. They were fantastic. Guys, Joy Hawkins and co, Conference Near You. Mordy Oberstein: Conference Near You, maybe not a rebrand, because I know LocalU's got a whole brand, but maybe a special event. Conference Near You. Crystal Carter: Local SEOs, y'all need to bring this together. It's just waiting for it. It's like this open goal. Mordy Oberstein: I can't believe it hasn't happened already. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Or, okay, either that or if they do, let's say they did a conference in Boston, but name the conference Boston SEO Conference Near You, Boston Conference, SEO Conference Near You, SEO Conference Boston. Crystal Carter: Greater Metropolitan Boston Area. Mordy Oberstein: Right, Near You. Crystal Carter: Massachusetts. Mordy Oberstein: Massachusetts. So that's a lot of letters. Yeah, it's too much. Crystal Carter: Cannot spell that. I can't spell that. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, no, not a clue. Crystal Carter: I can spell Mississippi, but that's because it's like... Mordy Oberstein: Is there a thing like a song like M-I-S-S letter? Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Sorry, Massachusetts. Well, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we'll be next week with a new episode, as we dive into doing SEO for a sub-brand. Look for wherever you consume your podcasts or on the Wix Studio SEO learning over at Wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars and whatnot on the Wix Studio SEO Learning over 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 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

Back SEO site audit template Carry out site audits for your clients with this SEO template from Wix and Semrush. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this SEO template to: Ensure you focus on the most important metrics for your client Highlight the best-performing areas of the site Assess the site’s current rankings Identify relevant opportunities for optimization Outline solutions to improve current search performance Semrush Marketing SaaS platform LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Semrush is a leading online visibility management SaaS platform that has been used by 10,000,000 digital marketers worldwide. Back in 2008, Semrush started as a small group of SEO and IT specialists united by one mission—to make online competition fair and transparent with equal opportunities for everyone. More about this topic Read this post on how to get started with an SEO site audit for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Where is the line between good and bad link-building practices? In what scenarios can links make the difference in a site’s rankings? Understand the pivotal role that links have in your overall SEO scheme this week, as we uncover what links look like in the eyes of Google and how you should be incorporating them into your website. Ashwin Balakrishnan joins hosts Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein the show to share his experience in curating and managing links. Plus, Alexandra Tachalova joins to explore situations where links are a real difference maker in optimizing results on the SERP. We’re not golfing, but we’re definitely hitting the links today, as we clear up all the confusion related to link building on this episode of The SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back I would do anything for links, but I won't do that Where is the line between good and bad link-building practices? In what scenarios can links make the difference in a site’s rankings? Understand the pivotal role that links have in your overall SEO scheme this week, as we uncover what links look like in the eyes of Google and how you should be incorporating them into your website. Ashwin Balakrishnan joins hosts Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein the show to share his experience in curating and managing links. Plus, Alexandra Tachalova joins to explore situations where links are a real difference maker in optimizing results on the SERP. We’re not golfing, but we’re definitely hitting the links today, as we clear up all the confusion related to link building on this episode of The SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 64 | November 29, 2023 | 39 MIN 00:00 / 38:31 This week’s guests Alexandra Tachalova Alex Tachalova is the founder and CEO of Digital Olympus, a link building agency that delivers links the clients are proud of. She is a frequent speaker who has presented at conferences such as BrightonSEO, Ungagged, SMX, and many others. Her insights and ideas also find their way into her writing, featured on well-known blogs such as HubSpot, SEMrush, Moz, SEJ, and more. Ashwin Balakrishnan Ashwin Balakrishnan is a B2B SaaS marketer specializing in organic growth, backlinks, and content SEO. He leads the marketing team at Optmyzr, where he hosts the Search Marketing Academy podcast. His personal backlink profile includes gaming, Lego, and electronic music. 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, where you get some groovy insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand here at Wix, and I'm joined with the fabulously, amazing, incredible, the always annotative, Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter: Hello, you content goblins. Mordy Oberstein: And gators. Crystal Carter: And gators. Welcome to the gator party of the internet. Hello everyone. Hi. Mordy Oberstein: For context, this is coming out like six weeks, five weeks after that article from The Verge, which said basically that SEO folks are goblins and gators. Crystal Carter: Spend all our time at gator parties and I have never been to a gator party. Mordy Oberstein: I've never been... Is that like a Miami football thing? Like Miami Gators? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I feel like people have all kinds of fun and I've never had that kind of fun. I did go to a turtle race though. Mordy Oberstein: I've been been to turtle race as a kid. I do remember. That's fun. Crystal Carter: I went to a turtle race. Mordy Oberstein: I wonder if- Crystal Carter: I'm sure that the turtles were treated humanely, so I'm sure that that's true. Mordy Oberstein: They seem to be having a great time. They actually got some ooze on them and turned into the giant ninjas afterwards, but that seemed kind of traumatic on- Crystal Carter: I'm sure they're treated humanely. Anyway. Anyway, anyway, people have all sorts of fun. I've never been to a gator party, so I will keep my eye out for the- Mordy Oberstein: I'm not sure I want to be. Crystal Carter: I know, honestly, Mordy Oberstein: Steve Irwin went to that one, and you see what happened to him. This SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/SEO/newsletter, but where you can also utilize our integrations with the likes of Content Contact, Klaviyo and beyond to get your content out there to more people via some solid email marketing, because email marketing is a fabulous way to spread your content so it can get links. So go ahead, email your entire list asking for links. That's how it works. No, don't do that by the way. Don't do that. I'm being facetious. Don't do that. Crystal Carter: No, please don't. Don't. Don't. It's not... Don't. Please don't. Mordy Oberstein: That's a bad idea. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: I'm saying that, I'm making that joke because this week we're covering, "I Would Do Anything for Links, but I Won't Do That." Sing with me Crystal. (Singing). By the way, that baritone they're chiming in is Ashwin Balakrishnan, who is going to join us in just a Jiffy as we are going to explore the fine line between energetic link building and full on spamming as we get into guest posting for links, how and when to ask for links, where are the line between good and bad link practices is. As I mentioned, to help make the right connection, Optimizer's own Ashwin Balakrishnan is going to join us in just a few minutes. We'll also hear from Digital Olympus's Alexandra Tachalova about when links can make all the difference. And of course, we have your snappy SEO news, who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So buckle up as objects in the link view mirror may appear closer than they are, as episode number 64 of the SERP's Up podcast comes at you like a Bat Out of Hell to tell you we would do anything for links, but we won't do that. No, we won't do that. Crystal Carter: Shout out to Meatloaf. Shout out to Meatloaf. Mordy Oberstein: Objects in the Rear View Mirror. I remember that came on VH1. By the way, wait, wait before we get going, welcome to the show, Ashwin. Ashwin Balakrishnan: It's a show, for sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Ashwin Balakrishnan: And for the record, I am Team Crocodile all the way. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Crocodiles over alligators. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, crocodile party. Crystal Carter: If people don't don't know the difference, you can remember it because an A is pointy and actually alligators have round noses and crocodiles have pointy noses, which is the opposite of a C. There we go. Fun facts. Mordy Oberstein: My life is so much better now. Crystal Carter: I read National Geographic Kids, what can I say? Mordy Oberstein: Back to what's important, Meatloaf. Objects in the Rear View Mirror, when that came on VH1, I remember the video so clearly. Crystal Carter: I can see it in my brain right now. Mordy Oberstein: I could see it in my brain. I'm thinking, who is this dude and why is he singing about what it says on the car mirror thing? Crystal Carter: Yeah, but fully committed. Fully committed. He's 100% committed to all of his overdramatic things. To be honest, if I can just pivot, I think that's how people have to approach link building. You have to be fully committed to what you're doing and fully confident in what you're doing when you get into that. Ashwin, what's your thoughts on that? Ashwin Balakrishnan: I actually discovered Meatloaf through, I guess you could call it, a referral. You remember Pizza Hut back in the 90s had those jukeboxes? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I would flip through that. There was this album of a motorcycle and dude riding a motorcycle and it's like flying through the sky. It's called Meatloaf. I'm like, who the hell names their band Meatloaf? Mordy Oberstein: Right. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I never listened to it throughout my entire childhood. I guess that's a good thing. But then when I hit my teens, I was like, all right, let's check out what this Meatloaf music is about. And yeah, it never caught on for me. Mordy Oberstein: But it's a great name, Meatloaf. So wait, before we get into it, let me catch everybody up. Links have been this sort of linchpin of SEO since God knows when, and we do know when, but for dramatic effect, since God knows when, and there's all sorts of theories about how important links are and are they central, are they losing their... I don't want to get into any of that right now. Links are a part of doing SEO. They are a part of ranking, they are a part of the SEO picture. Okay, we can split hairs about how and when. What I want to focus on, what you want to focus on in this episode is when you start trying to get links, when you have one website linking to your own website and the content and the pages on your own website, things get spammy faster than you can say "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." There's all sorts of confusion, even if you're a pro SEO, about what is and what is not a good idea or against Google's guidelines. That's why we're talking about, again, I would do anything for links, but it won't do that. It's really what works, what doesn't work, and what's legal, what's barely legal and what's completely illegal when it comes to Google's guidelines in garnering links. Hi, Ashwin. Let's have you weigh in on that. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Let me begin by telling you what I would never do. What I would never do for links is the same thing that I would never do for love, which is beg. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay, come through action. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Most of my emails these days are people begging, lying, trying to scam me into putting links to their content on Optimizer's website. I've had people email me saying, "Oh, we've worked together before, or I emailed you back in the day for a link when I was managing another domain." I'm like, "No, you didn't." Why just lie about it? I've got people flooding me with requests for links that have nothing to do with digital marketing, let alone PPC. I have people who keep asking me for links like 10 follow-ups in eight days, stuff like that. It's just immediate spam. I just put you in my spam folder and you're done. I never want to hear from you again. That's one thing that I would never do is beg. Don't beg. It's not illegal to beg, but man, it makes you look really, really bad. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Right. I think that I admire the gumption. I admire the energy that goes behind that, but I think that people could potentially put that energy somewhere else because like you, if I get somebody in my inbox giving me that information, immediately block. Somebody on LinkedIn because you get them on LinkedIn as well, if somebody on LinkedIn's like, "Hi, do you want-" I'm like, block, unfollow, done. No, thank you. We're done. I think that I would agree begging doesn't... I mean, there's a theory that says don't ask, don't get, but there's a difference I think. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, yeah. There's a pretty big difference and I have no admiration for it. I think it's just the worst type of energy. Mordy Oberstein: It's bad for your brand too. Ashwin Balakrishnan: It is. Mordy Oberstein: People get those emails. This happens, by the way, even outside of links where you have a, "Hey there, we want to sell you some ad space on our website," and it's a cold outreach and it's really just templatized. You're like, I don't really want to, because that doesn't come across well for your brand. Links to the same thing. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: You don't want to come across and put your brand in a negative light to people who aren't maybe actually important to you, what your brand does. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Don't beg and don't lie. Don't tell me you worked with me when I know for sure that we haven't. If I can search your name in my email and it's not going to pop up, I know we haven't worked together. Don't say you signed up for my product or my newsletter when you haven't. I can check that quite easily as well. Just be honest. If you don't have anything helpful or worthwhile, maybe that's something you need to fix before you go asking for links. It's not even maybe. You absolutely should fix that first. Crystal Carter: Right, absolutely. I think that comes down to sometimes, I think John Mueller said this before and it's certainly something I've observed, sometimes SEO is not the answer. Sometimes it's that you need to do better, you need to have a better product, or you need to make better content, or you need to do... I guess that's kind of an SEO thing, but sometimes it has to do with other things that aren't specific to SEO or specific to links. Sometimes there's a reason why people aren't linking to your content and maybe because it's not overly unique or maybe because the right people don't know about it or there might be other reasons why, but it's not just because you didn't ask them. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah. If your site is poorly structured, if your architecture's all over the place, you've got errors riddled throughout your website, your content isn't useful, or if it's outdated, fix all of that stuff first before you go out and asking for links. Do the internal linking first as well. Crystal Carter: I think the other thing about that sort of stuff is that kind of thing can improve your performance and improve your natural likeability. For instance, if you had an article that was talking about something like let's say you were an early mover on a particular topic. Let's say you were in an early article on, I don't know, ChatGPT or something like when it ChatGPT had first sort of splashed on the scene. Let's say you go back six months later and you update it because obviously things have changed exponentially in the six months and you go back and you update it to the latest information on that and you add new links or you add new content and things like that. If you tell people on your socials, you tell people on your email newsletters, you tell people in various different things, "Hey guys, I've updated this article that you remember I was one of the first people to write about this. I've updated it now and it's got this new information about this, this and this," then you are more likely to get some natural backlinks from that piece of content than if you just let it sit around and just ask for links to this thing that you're not even looking after. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, yeah. Fully agree with that. Then the other thing I would say is you should be trying to create the type of content that does earn passive patents with no outreach, no effort. If you've got a product that has data that nobody else has, if you're collecting surveys and doing research that nobody else is doing, all of that is excellent content that people will naturally want to cite and link to without you even asking for it. Mordy Oberstein: Let's dive into what you do. You mentioned before, hey, let's get into some of the things that you're doing at your company for building links. What are some of the things that you do and what are some of the things that you don't do? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yes. Like I mentioned, I've been there about three and a half years now, just a little over three and a half years. For the first year, we did absolutely no backlinking outside of the website. We focused on improving the content, improving site architecture, redesigning layouts, all of that stuff. When we did start the backlink program, we started by publishing studies, research from our product data that nobody else had, and then we started using the community to distribute that. We published a study around a new type of ad campaign that Google had put out a few years ago. That took off. A lot of people started linking into it. Really high quality sites, really high quality authors started citing it without us even asking for it. So we said, "All right, there's something in here that's really good." Then over the next six months, what we started to do is we started to blend our guest log program and our rapid program. We still do the guest posts approach, which is where we write for other sites, and we insert our links over there. What we also do is we have PPC experts write for us on our blog, and once they publish that, then there's incentive for them when they write for a search engine lab, a search engine journal or another blog post, there's an incentive for them to link to the content being published on our site. We also then have a massive arsenal of content that we can say, "Look, it's published on our site, but it's published by experts who are renowned and respected in their particular domains." And so we can then go out and ask for links and it might be benefiting us, but the content itself is really deep-rooted in expertise, very rich, very unique insights, a lot of business angle to it. There's no way that people can turn down that kind of richness. We have a really good success rate with outreach, but also passing a backlink by doing this. Mordy Oberstein: It's almost like guest posting is one of these major backlink strategies. I say to you, "Hey, I'll write a post on your website and it'll link back to my website. You write a post on my website and it'll link back to your website." That's a little bit like maybe I wouldn't do that for links. What you're saying is there's ways to get that very similar result by just working with people on content naturally. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Like Crystal said, if you go back and you update an older piece of content and you tell people about it, you're more likely to get that support and get those backlinks. It's just one step further from that to where you say, "I'm going to involve these other people in the creation process and not just the distribution process, and because they have-" We're a pretty solid team in terms of our marketing team understands how PPC works, but we're not PPC marketers, so we can't speak on these topics with the kind of nuance and depth that the experts in themselves can. We figured, why not allow them the real estate to put their information and their learning across? We're just a platform where that happens, so we benefit from the SEO, they get a place to publish their ideas, which is high profile, high visibility, high authority, and then everybody wins at the end of the day. They have another thing that they get into in terms of, "Hey, here's another showcase of my expertise." And we are able to go out and use that content to showcase how valuable we are, get backlinks for it, and of course, something that they can use in future content that they published last spring. Crystal Carter: This is something that you discussed in your fantastic primer on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, if I could just shout that out. The Backlinks 101 article, which goes into lots of the different... For anybody who's new to the idea of backlinks, it's a great place to start. It covers all of this sort of terminology that you need to know, how backlinks work, how you can use them, how they benefit you, all of that sort of stuff. It also gets into some of these tactics. In the section where you talk about this precisely around nurturing relationships with top industry creators and brands, you cover also a few things when you're talking to people not pitching for things that are irrelevant or pitching for people to write about content that's irrelevant. Are you able to talk a little bit about that? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, I mean, when you do want to ask for a backlink or ask for an opportunity to write a guest post so that we can insert backlinks, we make sure that... I mean, if you're trying to work with another company, they need to get some kind of benefit out it. If you're writing about gardening, for example, if that's your area of expertise you're going to want to go to maybe related, not necessarily that it has to be an exchange with another gardening site, you could go into a home care or do-it-yourself kind of niche. There's a lot of adjacent options where there's some synergy, but if you're a gardening expert, you don't want to go to a blog that's about, I don't know for example, baseball and write about that. Mordy Oberstein: You did it on purpose, by the way. Ashwin Balakrishnan: No, I really didn't. It was very subconscious. I saw you and I thought baseball. I was just thinking of sports and I was like all right. Mordy Oberstein: I'm letting it slide. Get it? I'm letting it slide. Crystal Carter: How do you think they keep the grass so green at Wrigley Field? I feel like- Ashwin Balakrishnan: Bad example. Bowling. Crystal Carter: Bowling, okay, all right. Okay. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I mean, there's no gardening in bowling, so you don't want to create a complete clash. For example, this week alone, I've had link requests from one site that publishes niche content on how to find discarded furniture and refurbish it, which has nothing to do with digital marketing. I got another request from- Mordy Oberstein: Just like you refurbish your old furniture, you should refurbish your digital presence. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I mean, at least you're drawing a connection there. Then the way they portrayed it was, "You can write something for our site." I was like, "What am I going to write about refurbishing discarded sofas and chairs and stuff like that?" Crystal Carter: I think that this is one of the things that people... Google talks about unnatural links and being able to identify unnatural links, and I think that that's one of the ways that they're able to see that is that sort of thing. That's not a natural place for you to be. It would be natural, for you Ashwin, to have a link on Wix SEO, because you write for us, you are in the same industry. That makes sense. However, it wouldn't make sense. I don't know what your hobbies are, but it wouldn't make sense for you to be on an ice skating website, for instance. That wouldn't make sense. Or refurbishing furniture, for instance, that wouldn't make sense. That's an unnatural link regardless as to how good the content is necessarily. When they crawl it, they understand what the page is about and those two things are connected. That's not going to benefit you. Ashwin Balakrishnan: That's probably the one place that I would actually recommend still disallowing links is you get a lot of those really buggy, spammy sites that have nothing to do with your domain linking to. You just want to make sure Google knows that, "Hey, I did not ask for this. I have nothing to do with it. I don't want anything to do with it." If you're getting a bunch of work in digital marketing, or if you work in finance and there's a bunch of spammy sites in the same domain that are linking to you, you can safely ignore those because it's purely about the quality of the site. But yeah, domains that have nothing to do with your website, we should absolutely put distance between them, whether it's through you or without your knowledge. You just want to put that distance between you and them. The other area which is slightly controversial, which I've been hearing a lot about lately, is buying links. A bit of a gray area. Like Google, officially their position is don't buy links, but realistically it happens a lot more than we care to admit. I think the thing there again is if you're going to buy links, make sure A, you are willing to accept the risk, and if you are willing to accept the risk, at least play it smart and don't go out. If you've only got three links in the last six months, don't go out and buy a thousand links in the next six months. Make it look natural, if that's what you're going to do. Otherwise, all you're going to do is just attract attention that you put up. Mordy Oberstein: We generally advise, if you're listening, don't buy links. I was going to ask you, what are some practices that are kind of on the borderline for you? You answered my question. I'll be honest. I think there are cases where if you bought links, it would have an impact. Big companies do this. I know for a fact there's a lot of companies out there who do this, who you would be surprised do this. Whether or not it worked... But for the average SEO and for the average site owner for sure, I very much recommend you stay away from that as much as possible. Crystal Carter: I think also having come at it from a backlink audit point of view, like when you're an SEO and you go to a site and you're like, "Oh, I'm just going to audit your backlinks," you can tell if somebody's bought links. Because there's a lot of business owners... Again, if business owners are listening or people who are maybe in charge of marketing, but not necessarily SEO experts, for instance, if you're working with someone and they say, "Oh yeah, we'll do some SEO. We'll just do link building," pay attention to what they're doing for you and pay attention to which links they're talking about getting you because at Bias an SEO can look at your backlink profile and go, "Oh yeah, you bought all those links. Those are all just trash links." Google can too. So be aware of that. I think some of the things with the affiliate, the affiliate updates that they're doing, the spam updates and things like that, and previously they've had previous Google updates, like big ones that were particularly focused on backlink profiles for people, it's something that you have to pay attention to. Make sure. Again, you have in the article about monitoring your backlinks, paying attention to your backlinks. That's an important thing to do. Mordy Oberstein: It's just entirely possible that you pay a lot of money for links and Google might not penalize you, but they do with Penguin, which is completely ignore them, and you've wasted all that money for nothing. I wanted to ask you a few questions. Listen, we titled all this episode, "I Would Do Anything for Links, but I Won't Do That," so I was wondering if you could get a million relevant links from high quality websites, follow links, would you donate a kidney? Would you give away a kidney? Would you sell a kidney? Because you have two. Ashwin Balakrishnan: No, no, Mordy Oberstein: No. Okay, so you wouldn't do that for links. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Okay, so clarify. I wouldn't do it for a website belonging to an organization that employs me. I would consider it for my own website. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, good distinction. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I would consider it. Mordy Oberstein: I should have clarified that. Okay. For your own website, again, lots of links, high quality websites, yada, yada, yada, would you eat spoiled cheese? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: A lot of it? Ashwin Balakrishnan: All cheese is spoiled, Mordy. Crystal Carter: How old is this cheese though? Mordy Oberstein: It's like six months, but it's like cream cheese, six months cream cheese. It's all molding and everything. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Can I scrape the top layer off? Mordy Oberstein: No, you can't even put it on bread. You have to just spoon it out and eat it. Ashwin Balakrishnan: All right. If I can put it on a double garlic bagel, yeah, I would. Mordy Oberstein: All right, that's a level. Okay, so you would do that for links. Would you listen to Abba straight? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Oh yeah, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: For two minutes? Ashwin Balakrishnan: I love Abba. I love Abba. Mordy Oberstein: But you don't like Meatloaf? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, it's a weird thing. Mordy Oberstein: That's a weird one. All right. Crystal Carter: Here we go again. Ashwin Balakrishnan: When I was a kid, they had this Abba cover group, The Eighteens. I went from The Eighteens to Abba. So, I kind of like it. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. All right. My last one, would you stick your fingers into an outlet that you're not sure is on or off? It could be that it's off, but it could also be that it's on. Ashwin Balakrishnan: No, I hate the feeling of electricity. Absolutely hate it. Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting. So you would donate the kidney possibly. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Possibly. Mordy Oberstein: But theoretically, not even do anything to yourself because the outlet's disconnected. It doesn't work. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, I'm not taking conventions. I hate static shock to begin with. Crystal Carter: I'm guessing you've never been on one of those plastic slides. They've got those plastic slides all over the park now. Your kid…. They're just like, and you're like, "What is going on? I don't-" Ashwin Balakrishnan: It's like sensory overlord, just thinking about it. Crystal Carter: Their hair's all sticking out. Mordy Oberstein: It's the worst. Crystal Carter: And there's literal... They come out like an action hero or something. It's like, ah, the power electricity, and you're like, "What's going on here?" Mordy Oberstein: My kid asked me to go down the slide and my only apprehension is static electricity. I'm like, "Ah, I can't. I'm too big." Crystal Carter: I'm wearing polyester. Ashwin Balakrishnan: When I was a kid, they took us on a field trip to the Science Center and they had that big electric metal ball. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Ashwin Balakrishnan: They had me put my hand on it and your hair stands up and everything. Then the dude just grabbed my hand and all of this electricity started crackling around me. Ever since then, I've hated the feeling of electricity. Crystal Carter: I'm sorry, we didn't mean to … Ashwin Balakrishnan: It's not like a trauma thing or anything, but yeah, I would absolutely not do it. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, so there you have it, folks. Don't stick your fingers into electric sockets for links. You heard it here first. So now that you know that, Ashwin, where can people find you? Ashwin Balakrishnan: I'm on Twitter, I say this all the time when people ask me where you can find me. You can find me on Twitter until that product dies. It explodes, sinks, whatever you want to call it. Mordy Oberstein: I'm currently @shadowman, so don't get me started. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, yeah. But yeah, look up the copy trail on Twitter. You can also look me on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's where you'll find me and always happy to talk about marketing SEO stuff, but you'll have to pry that out in me. Crystal Carter: You can also find him on the Wix SEO Learning Hub as one of our expert contributors, contributing lots of expertise. Yeah, do check them out. The article, the backlink article, it's one of our favorite articles on the hub. We love them all, but we also love this one particularly. Do check it out. It covers it in so many different levels and it's useful for whether you're a pro, whether you're a beginner, whether you need a refresher. Do check it out. Mordy Oberstein: All right, well thanks Ashwin, and talk to you soon. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Happy to be on. Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking about links and what we discussed with Ashwin, so Google said a lot about links lately, more recently, not like lately, lately, but over the past few months, maybe even a year. They've kind of said links are not as important as you think they are, which I think that makes a lot of sense because links are a secondary signal. So Google's getting better at understanding primary signals than why we're relying on a secondary signal, but that doesn't mean that they're not important. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. The way I kind of think about it is like this, and I try to explain this to folks, a link is like somebody vouching for you. It's like if you stood in the line trying to get into Club Page One and you can hear the music is bumping and you stood in the line with all the other schmos, if somebody who is in the VIP lounge goes, "Hey, they're with me," sometimes that can get you into the VIP lounge, but you still have to actually- Mordy Oberstein: Be cool. Crystal Carter: ... represent yourself. You still have to be cool. You still have to show up and, I don't know, have some decent dance moves or whatever it is that makes you stay in that space. If you don't, then you might not stay. You know what I mean? Just having somebody vouch for you doesn't necessarily mean... That's not the end all be all. It might get you in the door, but it's not going to necessarily keep you there. I think that it's part of the mix. It's not the only thing. It's super useful and it's also useful for discoverability and for- Mordy Oberstein: Traffic. Crystal Carter: ... traffic. Mordy Oberstein: Traffic. Crystal Carter: And also for showing the company that you keep. People say you know somebody by who their friends are. If you're hanging out with those folks, it does say something about you. If you're getting a link from a high profile, high authority site that does say something about you. Mordy Oberstein: What we're trying to say basically is links are still important and we don't want you to think that they're not important. And because of that, we wanted to take a look at the Top of the SERP to see cases or situations or thinking where links actually can be a difference maker. Here's a very special Top of the SERP all about link building. To help us out, we asked famed link builder and founder of Digital Olympus Alexandra Tachalova if she can help describe some cases where links made all the difference and what happened and how did it play out. Here's Alex on what actually worked at the Top of the SERP. \nAlexandra Tachalova: \n Hello everyone. My name is Alex and I am the founder of Digital Olympus. Links still play a significant role in shaping Google service. You can't expect to outrun brand that have been in the market for ages accommodating thousands of links from reputable sites with better content, site structure on page, SO elements and so on. In well-established niches, niches links are a long-term investment. In contrast, we've noted that in recently emerging niches, links become a solid rhythm that results in a rapid boost in organic traffic. Today you acquire link, and tomorrow you see changes in organic traffic. We have a client in the LinkedIn sales niche representing a tool that helps marketers and sales professionals automate certain actions on LinkedIn. This niche is very new, obviously, and the overall level of brand awareness across all the competitor power climates is relatively low. With fewer than 50 links back to the client's main page, we've been able to double their organic traffic from 100,000 to 200,000 in less than six months. We've rarely seen anything like this in other niches we've ever worked with. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Alex, for that. It's a great point, by the way. It kind of speaks to what we just said before. If you're talking about an emerging situation or an emerging topic, so Google doesn't understand the topic the same way that it understands something that's been around for a while. I've seen this myself a gazillion times when I've worked with some semi-news related topics. You really, in order to crack the results, especially when you're competing with, in this case I was talking about a news case where you have other really established websites and Google on top of that is still trying to figure out what the heck this topic actually is, links do play a major role for the reason that we said before that Google doesn't have a grasp on the primary signal, which is the content itself and the topic itself. So it's going to inevitably rely on things like links. It makes a great deal of sense to focus on links, especially like Alex said, where the content or the topic is an emerging area on the web. Crystal Carter: I think that it's something that can help users to give you more clout when they're connecting with your new content. If you're a new brand, it's also something that's super important to make sure that people know who you are based on the links that you have. I think people forget people are crawling from link to link to link. That's how web crawlers work. They crawl from one to the other and they take information from the original place to provide context for the new place that they find themselves at. It's super valuable and you can see some good impact from link building. It's not the end all be all, of course, but it's certainly very, very, very important. Mordy Oberstein: Would you like to buy some of my links? I have high DA. Crystal Carter: The most high DA. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, the most high. Crystal Carter: 300 high DA. Mordy Oberstein: You only have 300? I have have 4 million and fire electric power. It's like a Pokemon card. Crystal Carter: I posted that and someone was like, "You can only get 100. Where are you getting 300?" I was like, "Dude, it's not. Dude, honestly." Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah, no, I know people. I know Dr. Pete. I get a high DA. Crystal Carter: Right? Precisely. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's the inside scoop. Now speaking of inside scoops, why don't we get into the scoop on this week's news with some Snappy SEO News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Oh no, we're losing another tool in Google Search Console, except it doesn't matter. From the great Barry Schwartz in the sky, Googlebot Crawl Rate Tool in Search Console is going away, that coming from Search Engine Land. For the record, the tool didn't help you increase crawling, only decrease crawling, which basically, I don't know if you was having a technical issue, you wanted to slow down crawling until it got fixed, you might use this. Basically for 99.9% of the internet, it doesn't matter. So, thank you Barry. Also, again from Barry Schwarz, but this time from Search Engine Round Table, follower count, fully live in Google search result snippets. So now you can see the number of followers listed within the actual organic result when that organic result of the social media account. So if you're googling Barry Schwartz and you see a Twitter account there, it'll show all the number of followers there. But I don't see this, so maybe either it's not live globally, although I did try to check it in the US, or Barry's wrong. Who knows? Thanks again, Barry. Article number three from, you guessed it, also from Barry Schwartz, who by the way, at some point, the DOJ, you're going to hit their radar for your monopoly over to the SEO News, Barry. This coming from Search Engine Round Table, Google Bard can now understand YouTube videos. Basically Bard can understand the visual and audio in a YouTube video and then use it to serve up answers to your questions within Bard. I don't know, I personally really don't care, but it does reflect Google investing and understanding audio, and I think there's a lot more that Google can do with leveraging audio onto the SERP, which I think we plan on taking up on this very podcast down the line in a few weeks or so. Other than that, meh, whatever. Thanks again, Barry. That's this week's Snappy News. I just want to say that I could have stopped and said, "Well, that was a great pivot," but I didn't, but now I am, but it's after the fact so it's kind of like my compromise. I didn't want to ruin the pivot by talking about the pivot, but now I'm talking about the pivot we did before. Crystal Carter: Well done. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Crystal Carter: Good job. Mordy Oberstein: Yep, this is the one thing I'm good at. Crystal Carter: You can get a gold star. I feel like we should get patches or something. Mordy Oberstein: I don't want a gold star. I want high DA links. Crystal Carter: Fair enough. Fair enough. That's what everyone dreams of. That's what all little SEOs dream of… Mordy Oberstein: On my tombstone, I want my DA score. Crystal Carter: He had high authority. Mordy Oberstein: He had a DA score of 78. Anyway, we were talking about links and there's plenty of link builders out there who do things like sell high DA links, whatever that even means. I don't even know what that means, but there are people who talk about links and offer some really great SEO advice, which brings us to our Follow of the Week, which is this week BiBi the Link Builder, BiBi Raven @BibiBuzzcom, over on the old Twitter/X/X/Twitter. She's hilarious. She's spunky and she knows what she's talking about, about links. It's like all the things you want in one from a follow on social media. Crystal Carter: She's fantastic. She shares a lot of great insights and you can also find her speaking at different events as well. Do keep an eye out for Bibi. Mordy Oberstein: All right, well I have no link to our ending. Crystal Carter: Like Bat Out of Hell. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. We're so far off the beginning of the show, I totally forgot about the Meatloaf thing. Crystal Carter: I mean, you hit it really hard at the beginning. Mordy Oberstein: I know. I should have hit it on the back end. Crystal Carter: To be fair though, the Meatloaf songs that I know I really appreciate, but my Meatloaf playlist is pretty short. Mordy Oberstein: There's only two songs, right? Crystal Carter: Yeah. I mean pretty much. But then... There's three. There's the Objects and there's the... Oh, I'm falling really short. The other one. Mordy Oberstein: I Would Do Anything for Love, and then that's basically it. Crystal Carter: Yes, and Bat Out of Hell. Mordy Oberstein: There was the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Crystal Carter: He was very good in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Janet. Janet. Mordy Oberstein: There's no more Meatloaf leftover, basically. Crystal Carter: That's so dark. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? We're back next week with a new episode as we get into SEO testing. It's going to get a little testy with the SEO testing next week, huh? Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO alerting of it, you guessed it, at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking at a little 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, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Ashwin Balakrishnan Alexandra Tachalova Bibi Raven Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Digital Olympus Backlinks 101: What they are and why they matter News: Googlebot crawl rate tool in Search Console is going away Follower Count Fully Live In Google Search Result Snippets Google Bard Can Now Understand YouTube Videos Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Ashwin Balakrishnan Alexandra Tachalova Bibi Raven Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Digital Olympus Backlinks 101: What they are and why they matter News: Googlebot crawl rate tool in Search Console is going away Follower Count Fully Live In Google Search Result Snippets Google Bard Can Now Understand YouTube Videos 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, where you get some groovy insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand here at Wix, and I'm joined with the fabulously, amazing, incredible, the always annotative, Crystal Carter, Head of SEO Communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter: Hello, you content goblins. Mordy Oberstein: And gators. Crystal Carter: And gators. Welcome to the gator party of the internet. Hello everyone. Hi. Mordy Oberstein: For context, this is coming out like six weeks, five weeks after that article from The Verge, which said basically that SEO folks are goblins and gators. Crystal Carter: Spend all our time at gator parties and I have never been to a gator party. Mordy Oberstein: I've never been... Is that like a Miami football thing? Like Miami Gators? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I feel like people have all kinds of fun and I've never had that kind of fun. I did go to a turtle race though. Mordy Oberstein: I've been been to turtle race as a kid. I do remember. That's fun. Crystal Carter: I went to a turtle race. Mordy Oberstein: I wonder if- Crystal Carter: I'm sure that the turtles were treated humanely, so I'm sure that that's true. Mordy Oberstein: They seem to be having a great time. They actually got some ooze on them and turned into the giant ninjas afterwards, but that seemed kind of traumatic on- Crystal Carter: I'm sure they're treated humanely. Anyway. Anyway, anyway, people have all sorts of fun. I've never been to a gator party, so I will keep my eye out for the- Mordy Oberstein: I'm not sure I want to be. Crystal Carter: I know, honestly, Mordy Oberstein: Steve Irwin went to that one, and you see what happened to him. This SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/SEO/newsletter, but where you can also utilize our integrations with the likes of Content Contact, Klaviyo and beyond to get your content out there to more people via some solid email marketing, because email marketing is a fabulous way to spread your content so it can get links. So go ahead, email your entire list asking for links. That's how it works. No, don't do that by the way. Don't do that. I'm being facetious. Don't do that. Crystal Carter: No, please don't. Don't. Don't. It's not... Don't. Please don't. Mordy Oberstein: That's a bad idea. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: I'm saying that, I'm making that joke because this week we're covering, "I Would Do Anything for Links, but I Won't Do That." Sing with me Crystal. (Singing). By the way, that baritone they're chiming in is Ashwin Balakrishnan, who is going to join us in just a Jiffy as we are going to explore the fine line between energetic link building and full on spamming as we get into guest posting for links, how and when to ask for links, where are the line between good and bad link practices is. As I mentioned, to help make the right connection, Optimizer's own Ashwin Balakrishnan is going to join us in just a few minutes. We'll also hear from Digital Olympus's Alexandra Tachalova about when links can make all the difference. And of course, we have your snappy SEO news, who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So buckle up as objects in the link view mirror may appear closer than they are, as episode number 64 of the SERP's Up podcast comes at you like a Bat Out of Hell to tell you we would do anything for links, but we won't do that. No, we won't do that. Crystal Carter: Shout out to Meatloaf. Shout out to Meatloaf. Mordy Oberstein: Objects in the Rear View Mirror. I remember that came on VH1. By the way, wait, wait before we get going, welcome to the show, Ashwin. Ashwin Balakrishnan: It's a show, for sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Ashwin Balakrishnan: And for the record, I am Team Crocodile all the way. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Crocodiles over alligators. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, crocodile party. Crystal Carter: If people don't don't know the difference, you can remember it because an A is pointy and actually alligators have round noses and crocodiles have pointy noses, which is the opposite of a C. There we go. Fun facts. Mordy Oberstein: My life is so much better now. Crystal Carter: I read National Geographic Kids, what can I say? Mordy Oberstein: Back to what's important, Meatloaf. Objects in the Rear View Mirror, when that came on VH1, I remember the video so clearly. Crystal Carter: I can see it in my brain right now. Mordy Oberstein: I could see it in my brain. I'm thinking, who is this dude and why is he singing about what it says on the car mirror thing? Crystal Carter: Yeah, but fully committed. Fully committed. He's 100% committed to all of his overdramatic things. To be honest, if I can just pivot, I think that's how people have to approach link building. You have to be fully committed to what you're doing and fully confident in what you're doing when you get into that. Ashwin, what's your thoughts on that? Ashwin Balakrishnan: I actually discovered Meatloaf through, I guess you could call it, a referral. You remember Pizza Hut back in the 90s had those jukeboxes? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I would flip through that. There was this album of a motorcycle and dude riding a motorcycle and it's like flying through the sky. It's called Meatloaf. I'm like, who the hell names their band Meatloaf? Mordy Oberstein: Right. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I never listened to it throughout my entire childhood. I guess that's a good thing. But then when I hit my teens, I was like, all right, let's check out what this Meatloaf music is about. And yeah, it never caught on for me. Mordy Oberstein: But it's a great name, Meatloaf. So wait, before we get into it, let me catch everybody up. Links have been this sort of linchpin of SEO since God knows when, and we do know when, but for dramatic effect, since God knows when, and there's all sorts of theories about how important links are and are they central, are they losing their... I don't want to get into any of that right now. Links are a part of doing SEO. They are a part of ranking, they are a part of the SEO picture. Okay, we can split hairs about how and when. What I want to focus on, what you want to focus on in this episode is when you start trying to get links, when you have one website linking to your own website and the content and the pages on your own website, things get spammy faster than you can say "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are." There's all sorts of confusion, even if you're a pro SEO, about what is and what is not a good idea or against Google's guidelines. That's why we're talking about, again, I would do anything for links, but it won't do that. It's really what works, what doesn't work, and what's legal, what's barely legal and what's completely illegal when it comes to Google's guidelines in garnering links. Hi, Ashwin. Let's have you weigh in on that. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Let me begin by telling you what I would never do. What I would never do for links is the same thing that I would never do for love, which is beg. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay, come through action. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Most of my emails these days are people begging, lying, trying to scam me into putting links to their content on Optimizer's website. I've had people email me saying, "Oh, we've worked together before, or I emailed you back in the day for a link when I was managing another domain." I'm like, "No, you didn't." Why just lie about it? I've got people flooding me with requests for links that have nothing to do with digital marketing, let alone PPC. I have people who keep asking me for links like 10 follow-ups in eight days, stuff like that. It's just immediate spam. I just put you in my spam folder and you're done. I never want to hear from you again. That's one thing that I would never do is beg. Don't beg. It's not illegal to beg, but man, it makes you look really, really bad. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Right. I think that I admire the gumption. I admire the energy that goes behind that, but I think that people could potentially put that energy somewhere else because like you, if I get somebody in my inbox giving me that information, immediately block. Somebody on LinkedIn because you get them on LinkedIn as well, if somebody on LinkedIn's like, "Hi, do you want-" I'm like, block, unfollow, done. No, thank you. We're done. I think that I would agree begging doesn't... I mean, there's a theory that says don't ask, don't get, but there's a difference I think. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, yeah. There's a pretty big difference and I have no admiration for it. I think it's just the worst type of energy. Mordy Oberstein: It's bad for your brand too. Ashwin Balakrishnan: It is. Mordy Oberstein: People get those emails. This happens, by the way, even outside of links where you have a, "Hey there, we want to sell you some ad space on our website," and it's a cold outreach and it's really just templatized. You're like, I don't really want to, because that doesn't come across well for your brand. Links to the same thing. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: You don't want to come across and put your brand in a negative light to people who aren't maybe actually important to you, what your brand does. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Don't beg and don't lie. Don't tell me you worked with me when I know for sure that we haven't. If I can search your name in my email and it's not going to pop up, I know we haven't worked together. Don't say you signed up for my product or my newsletter when you haven't. I can check that quite easily as well. Just be honest. If you don't have anything helpful or worthwhile, maybe that's something you need to fix before you go asking for links. It's not even maybe. You absolutely should fix that first. Crystal Carter: Right, absolutely. I think that comes down to sometimes, I think John Mueller said this before and it's certainly something I've observed, sometimes SEO is not the answer. Sometimes it's that you need to do better, you need to have a better product, or you need to make better content, or you need to do... I guess that's kind of an SEO thing, but sometimes it has to do with other things that aren't specific to SEO or specific to links. Sometimes there's a reason why people aren't linking to your content and maybe because it's not overly unique or maybe because the right people don't know about it or there might be other reasons why, but it's not just because you didn't ask them. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah. If your site is poorly structured, if your architecture's all over the place, you've got errors riddled throughout your website, your content isn't useful, or if it's outdated, fix all of that stuff first before you go out and asking for links. Do the internal linking first as well. Crystal Carter: I think the other thing about that sort of stuff is that kind of thing can improve your performance and improve your natural likeability. For instance, if you had an article that was talking about something like let's say you were an early mover on a particular topic. Let's say you were in an early article on, I don't know, ChatGPT or something like when it ChatGPT had first sort of splashed on the scene. Let's say you go back six months later and you update it because obviously things have changed exponentially in the six months and you go back and you update it to the latest information on that and you add new links or you add new content and things like that. If you tell people on your socials, you tell people on your email newsletters, you tell people in various different things, "Hey guys, I've updated this article that you remember I was one of the first people to write about this. I've updated it now and it's got this new information about this, this and this," then you are more likely to get some natural backlinks from that piece of content than if you just let it sit around and just ask for links to this thing that you're not even looking after. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, yeah. Fully agree with that. Then the other thing I would say is you should be trying to create the type of content that does earn passive patents with no outreach, no effort. If you've got a product that has data that nobody else has, if you're collecting surveys and doing research that nobody else is doing, all of that is excellent content that people will naturally want to cite and link to without you even asking for it. Mordy Oberstein: Let's dive into what you do. You mentioned before, hey, let's get into some of the things that you're doing at your company for building links. What are some of the things that you do and what are some of the things that you don't do? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yes. Like I mentioned, I've been there about three and a half years now, just a little over three and a half years. For the first year, we did absolutely no backlinking outside of the website. We focused on improving the content, improving site architecture, redesigning layouts, all of that stuff. When we did start the backlink program, we started by publishing studies, research from our product data that nobody else had, and then we started using the community to distribute that. We published a study around a new type of ad campaign that Google had put out a few years ago. That took off. A lot of people started linking into it. Really high quality sites, really high quality authors started citing it without us even asking for it. So we said, "All right, there's something in here that's really good." Then over the next six months, what we started to do is we started to blend our guest log program and our rapid program. We still do the guest posts approach, which is where we write for other sites, and we insert our links over there. What we also do is we have PPC experts write for us on our blog, and once they publish that, then there's incentive for them when they write for a search engine lab, a search engine journal or another blog post, there's an incentive for them to link to the content being published on our site. We also then have a massive arsenal of content that we can say, "Look, it's published on our site, but it's published by experts who are renowned and respected in their particular domains." And so we can then go out and ask for links and it might be benefiting us, but the content itself is really deep-rooted in expertise, very rich, very unique insights, a lot of business angle to it. There's no way that people can turn down that kind of richness. We have a really good success rate with outreach, but also passing a backlink by doing this. Mordy Oberstein: It's almost like guest posting is one of these major backlink strategies. I say to you, "Hey, I'll write a post on your website and it'll link back to my website. You write a post on my website and it'll link back to your website." That's a little bit like maybe I wouldn't do that for links. What you're saying is there's ways to get that very similar result by just working with people on content naturally. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Like Crystal said, if you go back and you update an older piece of content and you tell people about it, you're more likely to get that support and get those backlinks. It's just one step further from that to where you say, "I'm going to involve these other people in the creation process and not just the distribution process, and because they have-" We're a pretty solid team in terms of our marketing team understands how PPC works, but we're not PPC marketers, so we can't speak on these topics with the kind of nuance and depth that the experts in themselves can. We figured, why not allow them the real estate to put their information and their learning across? We're just a platform where that happens, so we benefit from the SEO, they get a place to publish their ideas, which is high profile, high visibility, high authority, and then everybody wins at the end of the day. They have another thing that they get into in terms of, "Hey, here's another showcase of my expertise." And we are able to go out and use that content to showcase how valuable we are, get backlinks for it, and of course, something that they can use in future content that they published last spring. Crystal Carter: This is something that you discussed in your fantastic primer on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, if I could just shout that out. The Backlinks 101 article, which goes into lots of the different... For anybody who's new to the idea of backlinks, it's a great place to start. It covers all of this sort of terminology that you need to know, how backlinks work, how you can use them, how they benefit you, all of that sort of stuff. It also gets into some of these tactics. In the section where you talk about this precisely around nurturing relationships with top industry creators and brands, you cover also a few things when you're talking to people not pitching for things that are irrelevant or pitching for people to write about content that's irrelevant. Are you able to talk a little bit about that? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, I mean, when you do want to ask for a backlink or ask for an opportunity to write a guest post so that we can insert backlinks, we make sure that... I mean, if you're trying to work with another company, they need to get some kind of benefit out it. If you're writing about gardening, for example, if that's your area of expertise you're going to want to go to maybe related, not necessarily that it has to be an exchange with another gardening site, you could go into a home care or do-it-yourself kind of niche. There's a lot of adjacent options where there's some synergy, but if you're a gardening expert, you don't want to go to a blog that's about, I don't know for example, baseball and write about that. Mordy Oberstein: You did it on purpose, by the way. Ashwin Balakrishnan: No, I really didn't. It was very subconscious. I saw you and I thought baseball. I was just thinking of sports and I was like all right. Mordy Oberstein: I'm letting it slide. Get it? I'm letting it slide. Crystal Carter: How do you think they keep the grass so green at Wrigley Field? I feel like- Ashwin Balakrishnan: Bad example. Bowling. Crystal Carter: Bowling, okay, all right. Okay. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I mean, there's no gardening in bowling, so you don't want to create a complete clash. For example, this week alone, I've had link requests from one site that publishes niche content on how to find discarded furniture and refurbish it, which has nothing to do with digital marketing. I got another request from- Mordy Oberstein: Just like you refurbish your old furniture, you should refurbish your digital presence. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I mean, at least you're drawing a connection there. Then the way they portrayed it was, "You can write something for our site." I was like, "What am I going to write about refurbishing discarded sofas and chairs and stuff like that?" Crystal Carter: I think that this is one of the things that people... Google talks about unnatural links and being able to identify unnatural links, and I think that that's one of the ways that they're able to see that is that sort of thing. That's not a natural place for you to be. It would be natural, for you Ashwin, to have a link on Wix SEO, because you write for us, you are in the same industry. That makes sense. However, it wouldn't make sense. I don't know what your hobbies are, but it wouldn't make sense for you to be on an ice skating website, for instance. That wouldn't make sense. Or refurbishing furniture, for instance, that wouldn't make sense. That's an unnatural link regardless as to how good the content is necessarily. When they crawl it, they understand what the page is about and those two things are connected. That's not going to benefit you. Ashwin Balakrishnan: That's probably the one place that I would actually recommend still disallowing links is you get a lot of those really buggy, spammy sites that have nothing to do with your domain linking to. You just want to make sure Google knows that, "Hey, I did not ask for this. I have nothing to do with it. I don't want anything to do with it." If you're getting a bunch of work in digital marketing, or if you work in finance and there's a bunch of spammy sites in the same domain that are linking to you, you can safely ignore those because it's purely about the quality of the site. But yeah, domains that have nothing to do with your website, we should absolutely put distance between them, whether it's through you or without your knowledge. You just want to put that distance between you and them. The other area which is slightly controversial, which I've been hearing a lot about lately, is buying links. A bit of a gray area. Like Google, officially their position is don't buy links, but realistically it happens a lot more than we care to admit. I think the thing there again is if you're going to buy links, make sure A, you are willing to accept the risk, and if you are willing to accept the risk, at least play it smart and don't go out. If you've only got three links in the last six months, don't go out and buy a thousand links in the next six months. Make it look natural, if that's what you're going to do. Otherwise, all you're going to do is just attract attention that you put up. Mordy Oberstein: We generally advise, if you're listening, don't buy links. I was going to ask you, what are some practices that are kind of on the borderline for you? You answered my question. I'll be honest. I think there are cases where if you bought links, it would have an impact. Big companies do this. I know for a fact there's a lot of companies out there who do this, who you would be surprised do this. Whether or not it worked... But for the average SEO and for the average site owner for sure, I very much recommend you stay away from that as much as possible. Crystal Carter: I think also having come at it from a backlink audit point of view, like when you're an SEO and you go to a site and you're like, "Oh, I'm just going to audit your backlinks," you can tell if somebody's bought links. Because there's a lot of business owners... Again, if business owners are listening or people who are maybe in charge of marketing, but not necessarily SEO experts, for instance, if you're working with someone and they say, "Oh yeah, we'll do some SEO. We'll just do link building," pay attention to what they're doing for you and pay attention to which links they're talking about getting you because at Bias an SEO can look at your backlink profile and go, "Oh yeah, you bought all those links. Those are all just trash links." Google can too. So be aware of that. I think some of the things with the affiliate, the affiliate updates that they're doing, the spam updates and things like that, and previously they've had previous Google updates, like big ones that were particularly focused on backlink profiles for people, it's something that you have to pay attention to. Make sure. Again, you have in the article about monitoring your backlinks, paying attention to your backlinks. That's an important thing to do. Mordy Oberstein: It's just entirely possible that you pay a lot of money for links and Google might not penalize you, but they do with Penguin, which is completely ignore them, and you've wasted all that money for nothing. I wanted to ask you a few questions. Listen, we titled all this episode, "I Would Do Anything for Links, but I Won't Do That," so I was wondering if you could get a million relevant links from high quality websites, follow links, would you donate a kidney? Would you give away a kidney? Would you sell a kidney? Because you have two. Ashwin Balakrishnan: No, no, Mordy Oberstein: No. Okay, so you wouldn't do that for links. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Okay, so clarify. I wouldn't do it for a website belonging to an organization that employs me. I would consider it for my own website. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, good distinction. Ashwin Balakrishnan: I would consider it. Mordy Oberstein: I should have clarified that. Okay. For your own website, again, lots of links, high quality websites, yada, yada, yada, would you eat spoiled cheese? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: A lot of it? Ashwin Balakrishnan: All cheese is spoiled, Mordy. Crystal Carter: How old is this cheese though? Mordy Oberstein: It's like six months, but it's like cream cheese, six months cream cheese. It's all molding and everything. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Can I scrape the top layer off? Mordy Oberstein: No, you can't even put it on bread. You have to just spoon it out and eat it. Ashwin Balakrishnan: All right. If I can put it on a double garlic bagel, yeah, I would. Mordy Oberstein: All right, that's a level. Okay, so you would do that for links. Would you listen to Abba straight? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Oh yeah, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: For two minutes? Ashwin Balakrishnan: I love Abba. I love Abba. Mordy Oberstein: But you don't like Meatloaf? Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, it's a weird thing. Mordy Oberstein: That's a weird one. All right. Crystal Carter: Here we go again. Ashwin Balakrishnan: When I was a kid, they had this Abba cover group, The Eighteens. I went from The Eighteens to Abba. So, I kind of like it. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. All right. My last one, would you stick your fingers into an outlet that you're not sure is on or off? It could be that it's off, but it could also be that it's on. Ashwin Balakrishnan: No, I hate the feeling of electricity. Absolutely hate it. Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting. So you would donate the kidney possibly. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Possibly. Mordy Oberstein: But theoretically, not even do anything to yourself because the outlet's disconnected. It doesn't work. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, I'm not taking conventions. I hate static shock to begin with. Crystal Carter: I'm guessing you've never been on one of those plastic slides. They've got those plastic slides all over the park now. Your kid…. They're just like, and you're like, "What is going on? I don't-" Ashwin Balakrishnan: It's like sensory overlord, just thinking about it. Crystal Carter: Their hair's all sticking out. Mordy Oberstein: It's the worst. Crystal Carter: And there's literal... They come out like an action hero or something. It's like, ah, the power electricity, and you're like, "What's going on here?" Mordy Oberstein: My kid asked me to go down the slide and my only apprehension is static electricity. I'm like, "Ah, I can't. I'm too big." Crystal Carter: I'm wearing polyester. Ashwin Balakrishnan: When I was a kid, they took us on a field trip to the Science Center and they had that big electric metal ball. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Ashwin Balakrishnan: They had me put my hand on it and your hair stands up and everything. Then the dude just grabbed my hand and all of this electricity started crackling around me. Ever since then, I've hated the feeling of electricity. Crystal Carter: I'm sorry, we didn't mean to … Ashwin Balakrishnan: It's not like a trauma thing or anything, but yeah, I would absolutely not do it. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, so there you have it, folks. Don't stick your fingers into electric sockets for links. You heard it here first. So now that you know that, Ashwin, where can people find you? Ashwin Balakrishnan: I'm on Twitter, I say this all the time when people ask me where you can find me. You can find me on Twitter until that product dies. It explodes, sinks, whatever you want to call it. Mordy Oberstein: I'm currently @shadowman, so don't get me started. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Yeah, yeah. But yeah, look up the copy trail on Twitter. You can also look me on LinkedIn. Yeah, that's where you'll find me and always happy to talk about marketing SEO stuff, but you'll have to pry that out in me. Crystal Carter: You can also find him on the Wix SEO Learning Hub as one of our expert contributors, contributing lots of expertise. Yeah, do check them out. The article, the backlink article, it's one of our favorite articles on the hub. We love them all, but we also love this one particularly. Do check it out. It covers it in so many different levels and it's useful for whether you're a pro, whether you're a beginner, whether you need a refresher. Do check it out. Mordy Oberstein: All right, well thanks Ashwin, and talk to you soon. Ashwin Balakrishnan: Happy to be on. Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking about links and what we discussed with Ashwin, so Google said a lot about links lately, more recently, not like lately, lately, but over the past few months, maybe even a year. They've kind of said links are not as important as you think they are, which I think that makes a lot of sense because links are a secondary signal. So Google's getting better at understanding primary signals than why we're relying on a secondary signal, but that doesn't mean that they're not important. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. The way I kind of think about it is like this, and I try to explain this to folks, a link is like somebody vouching for you. It's like if you stood in the line trying to get into Club Page One and you can hear the music is bumping and you stood in the line with all the other schmos, if somebody who is in the VIP lounge goes, "Hey, they're with me," sometimes that can get you into the VIP lounge, but you still have to actually- Mordy Oberstein: Be cool. Crystal Carter: ... represent yourself. You still have to be cool. You still have to show up and, I don't know, have some decent dance moves or whatever it is that makes you stay in that space. If you don't, then you might not stay. You know what I mean? Just having somebody vouch for you doesn't necessarily mean... That's not the end all be all. It might get you in the door, but it's not going to necessarily keep you there. I think that it's part of the mix. It's not the only thing. It's super useful and it's also useful for discoverability and for- Mordy Oberstein: Traffic. Crystal Carter: ... traffic. Mordy Oberstein: Traffic. Crystal Carter: And also for showing the company that you keep. People say you know somebody by who their friends are. If you're hanging out with those folks, it does say something about you. If you're getting a link from a high profile, high authority site that does say something about you. Mordy Oberstein: What we're trying to say basically is links are still important and we don't want you to think that they're not important. And because of that, we wanted to take a look at the Top of the SERP to see cases or situations or thinking where links actually can be a difference maker. Here's a very special Top of the SERP all about link building. To help us out, we asked famed link builder and founder of Digital Olympus Alexandra Tachalova if she can help describe some cases where links made all the difference and what happened and how did it play out. Here's Alex on what actually worked at the Top of the SERP. \nAlexandra Tachalova: \n Hello everyone. My name is Alex and I am the founder of Digital Olympus. Links still play a significant role in shaping Google service. You can't expect to outrun brand that have been in the market for ages accommodating thousands of links from reputable sites with better content, site structure on page, SO elements and so on. In well-established niches, niches links are a long-term investment. In contrast, we've noted that in recently emerging niches, links become a solid rhythm that results in a rapid boost in organic traffic. Today you acquire link, and tomorrow you see changes in organic traffic. We have a client in the LinkedIn sales niche representing a tool that helps marketers and sales professionals automate certain actions on LinkedIn. This niche is very new, obviously, and the overall level of brand awareness across all the competitor power climates is relatively low. With fewer than 50 links back to the client's main page, we've been able to double their organic traffic from 100,000 to 200,000 in less than six months. We've rarely seen anything like this in other niches we've ever worked with. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Alex, for that. It's a great point, by the way. It kind of speaks to what we just said before. If you're talking about an emerging situation or an emerging topic, so Google doesn't understand the topic the same way that it understands something that's been around for a while. I've seen this myself a gazillion times when I've worked with some semi-news related topics. You really, in order to crack the results, especially when you're competing with, in this case I was talking about a news case where you have other really established websites and Google on top of that is still trying to figure out what the heck this topic actually is, links do play a major role for the reason that we said before that Google doesn't have a grasp on the primary signal, which is the content itself and the topic itself. So it's going to inevitably rely on things like links. It makes a great deal of sense to focus on links, especially like Alex said, where the content or the topic is an emerging area on the web. Crystal Carter: I think that it's something that can help users to give you more clout when they're connecting with your new content. If you're a new brand, it's also something that's super important to make sure that people know who you are based on the links that you have. I think people forget people are crawling from link to link to link. That's how web crawlers work. They crawl from one to the other and they take information from the original place to provide context for the new place that they find themselves at. It's super valuable and you can see some good impact from link building. It's not the end all be all, of course, but it's certainly very, very, very important. Mordy Oberstein: Would you like to buy some of my links? I have high DA. Crystal Carter: The most high DA. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, the most high. Crystal Carter: 300 high DA. Mordy Oberstein: You only have 300? I have have 4 million and fire electric power. It's like a Pokemon card. Crystal Carter: I posted that and someone was like, "You can only get 100. Where are you getting 300?" I was like, "Dude, it's not. Dude, honestly." Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah, no, I know people. I know Dr. Pete. I get a high DA. Crystal Carter: Right? Precisely. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's the inside scoop. Now speaking of inside scoops, why don't we get into the scoop on this week's news with some Snappy SEO News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Oh no, we're losing another tool in Google Search Console, except it doesn't matter. From the great Barry Schwartz in the sky, Googlebot Crawl Rate Tool in Search Console is going away, that coming from Search Engine Land. For the record, the tool didn't help you increase crawling, only decrease crawling, which basically, I don't know if you was having a technical issue, you wanted to slow down crawling until it got fixed, you might use this. Basically for 99.9% of the internet, it doesn't matter. So, thank you Barry. Also, again from Barry Schwarz, but this time from Search Engine Round Table, follower count, fully live in Google search result snippets. So now you can see the number of followers listed within the actual organic result when that organic result of the social media account. So if you're googling Barry Schwartz and you see a Twitter account there, it'll show all the number of followers there. But I don't see this, so maybe either it's not live globally, although I did try to check it in the US, or Barry's wrong. Who knows? Thanks again, Barry. Article number three from, you guessed it, also from Barry Schwartz, who by the way, at some point, the DOJ, you're going to hit their radar for your monopoly over to the SEO News, Barry. This coming from Search Engine Round Table, Google Bard can now understand YouTube videos. Basically Bard can understand the visual and audio in a YouTube video and then use it to serve up answers to your questions within Bard. I don't know, I personally really don't care, but it does reflect Google investing and understanding audio, and I think there's a lot more that Google can do with leveraging audio onto the SERP, which I think we plan on taking up on this very podcast down the line in a few weeks or so. Other than that, meh, whatever. Thanks again, Barry. That's this week's Snappy News. I just want to say that I could have stopped and said, "Well, that was a great pivot," but I didn't, but now I am, but it's after the fact so it's kind of like my compromise. I didn't want to ruin the pivot by talking about the pivot, but now I'm talking about the pivot we did before. Crystal Carter: Well done. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Crystal Carter: Good job. Mordy Oberstein: Yep, this is the one thing I'm good at. Crystal Carter: You can get a gold star. I feel like we should get patches or something. Mordy Oberstein: I don't want a gold star. I want high DA links. Crystal Carter: Fair enough. Fair enough. That's what everyone dreams of. That's what all little SEOs dream of… Mordy Oberstein: On my tombstone, I want my DA score. Crystal Carter: He had high authority. Mordy Oberstein: He had a DA score of 78. Anyway, we were talking about links and there's plenty of link builders out there who do things like sell high DA links, whatever that even means. I don't even know what that means, but there are people who talk about links and offer some really great SEO advice, which brings us to our Follow of the Week, which is this week BiBi the Link Builder, BiBi Raven @BibiBuzzcom, over on the old Twitter/X/X/Twitter. She's hilarious. She's spunky and she knows what she's talking about, about links. It's like all the things you want in one from a follow on social media. Crystal Carter: She's fantastic. She shares a lot of great insights and you can also find her speaking at different events as well. Do keep an eye out for Bibi. Mordy Oberstein: All right, well I have no link to our ending. Crystal Carter: Like Bat Out of Hell. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. We're so far off the beginning of the show, I totally forgot about the Meatloaf thing. Crystal Carter: I mean, you hit it really hard at the beginning. Mordy Oberstein: I know. I should have hit it on the back end. Crystal Carter: To be fair though, the Meatloaf songs that I know I really appreciate, but my Meatloaf playlist is pretty short. Mordy Oberstein: There's only two songs, right? Crystal Carter: Yeah. I mean pretty much. But then... There's three. There's the Objects and there's the... Oh, I'm falling really short. The other one. Mordy Oberstein: I Would Do Anything for Love, and then that's basically it. Crystal Carter: Yes, and Bat Out of Hell. Mordy Oberstein: There was the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Crystal Carter: He was very good in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Janet. Janet. Mordy Oberstein: There's no more Meatloaf leftover, basically. Crystal Carter: That's so dark. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? We're back next week with a new episode as we get into SEO testing. It's going to get a little testy with the SEO testing next week, huh? Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO alerting of it, you guessed it, at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking at a little 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, 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

Maeva is the founder and CEO of Flying Cat Marketing, an SEO and content agency driving growth with a holistic, revenue-based SEO approach for B2B SaaS companies in HR tech, martech, and salestech. Maeva is also a fractional CMO, marketing advisor, and certified confidence coach. Maeva Cifuentes CEO & Founder, Flying Cat Maeva is the founder and CEO of Flying Cat Marketing , an SEO and content agency driving growth with a holistic, revenue-based SEO approach for B2B SaaS companies in HR tech, martech, and salestech. Maeva is also a fractional CMO, marketing advisor, and certified confidence coach. Articles & Resources 11 Feb 2025 SEO forecasting for agencies: Close deals and get buy-in 25 Jul 2024 Topical authority 101: When it’s important and who needs it for better SEO Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Back LLM brand visibility tracker Interpret your brand's LLM presence in AI-powered search results and provide actionable strategies to optimize for the future of generative search. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this prompt library to: Source prompts to fit your specific needs and preferences Organise data in a clear and easy-to-read format for better decision-making Include personalized insights and recommendations with free-fill sections for unique content Access all these features completely free of charge Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Crystal Carter is an SEO & digital marketing professional whose previous clients include Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. She hosts SEO webinars and podcasts and her work has been featured at Google Search Central, BrightonSEO, Moz, Lumar (DeepCrawl), Semrush, and more. More about this topic Read this post on SEO for brand visibility in LLMs , on the Wix SEO Hub blog, for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO