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

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

What makes SEO for capturing leads so unique? What should you consider when using SEO to capture more leads? What challenges come with SEO for lead generation and how can you overcome them? Join Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter as they help you better leverage SEO for lead generation. Plus, content marketer extraordinaire, Kelsey Jones, joins the podcast to share how you can best leverage content marketing for even more lead generation. It’s all things SEO and lead generation on this episode of the SERPs Up SEO Podcast. Back Harnessing SEO for lead generation What makes SEO for capturing leads so unique? What should you consider when using SEO to capture more leads? What challenges come with SEO for lead generation and how can you overcome them? Join Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter as they help you better leverage SEO for lead generation. Plus, content marketer extraordinaire, Kelsey Jones, joins the podcast to share how you can best leverage content marketing for even more lead generation. It’s all things SEO and lead generation on this episode of the SERPs Up SEO Podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 37 | May 10, 2023 | 37 MIN 00:00 / 37:03 This week’s guests Kelsey Jones Kelsey Jones is a content strategist and digital marketing consultant with expertise in driving engagement and traffic through content-driven strategies. She is also the host of the StoryShout podcast, where she discusses the importance of embracing failure and destigmatizing it. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Kelsey has worked with top brands like Yelp, Salesforce, and Microsoft to develop successful marketing and content strategies. She has also taught courses on website optimization, SEO, and content strategy for prestigious institutions such as Digital Marketing Institute and Columbia 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, the head of SEO branding here at Wix. And I'm joined by the astonishing, the astounding, the awe-inspiring, fabulous, fantastic, implausible, improbable, incredible, miraculous, phenomenal, remarkable, singular, spectacular, strange, stunning, unbelievable, unusual, wonderful wondrous head of SEO communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: I just had a micro machines flashback. My goodness there, Mr. Oberstein, that's quite a lot of adjectives. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I don't know what strange is doing in there as a synonym for marvelous. Crystal Carter: I didn't know, is that what ... What did ChatGPT telling you to say? Mordy Oberstein: Well, I'm just looking at thesaurus.com. I put in marvelous, and I just read them off. And strange, did you know it was a synonym for marvelous? I did not know that. Crystal Carter: If something fills you with ... that want to marvel at, it might be strange. It might be good strange, like, "Oh, this is a-" Mordy Oberstein: Like me. Crystal Carter: ... yeah, if I walked into my house and there was a 300 bouquets of roses, that would be strange. It would be good strange, as long as I don't have to clean up the roses when they're all dead. But it would still be strange. Mordy Oberstein: That's marvelous. Crystal Carter: It would be marvelous as well. Mordy Oberstein: Marvelous. Yes, marvelous. You know what else is marvelous? The fact that the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where we have the leads, well we don't have the leads, but we have a tools to help you capture the leads, like all sorts of light box templates and options, chat interfaces, and a heap of analytics to help you see trends about your people such as leads per source analytics support, and much more. Capture, manage your leads with Wix, which leads us to what we're talking about on this episode, which in case you have in guess is leads and SEO. Crystal Carter: Leads. Mordy Oberstein: Not like the place in England. Leeds, Live at Leeds, L-E-A-D-S, leads. Yes. Leads in SEO. How you can capture and bring in those coveted leads with SEO. We're talking things like the challenges of trying to capture leads via SEO. What makes SEO for lead generation different from all other forms of SEO, the mindset that makes for good SEO.In trying to capture leads and more. We're going to then kick it up a notch as content marketer extraordinaire, Kelsey Jones shares how to use content marketing to effectively drive leads. Plus we'll explore a little old SERP feature that drives leads, that has undergone some significant changes. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following for more awesomeness on social. Grab your sheep as we shepherd you and lead you to the Promised Land on episode number 37 of the SERP's Up podcast where we talk about leads. Crystal Carter: We talk about leads and sheeps and- Mordy Oberstein: And sheep. Crystal Carter: ... and sheep. I must give a shout out to Jon Payne who is an SEO at an agency called Noisy Little Monkey, and who before being an SEO was actually a shepherd. Mordy Oberstein: No way. Crystal Carter: That was his actual, literal job was a shepherd. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, I just sitting around thinking it seems like the job for that would be a shepherd. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I feel like the sheep aren't going to give you a lot of back chat. Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: You can just sit and contemplate and ... although I think the weather can be tricky, I looked at some throwback shepherd outfits. They used to have these giant felt coat things that you could sit in and it was kind of like a tent and a coat and things. If you go on Pinterest, they're amazing. Anyway, we have led ourselves astray. We are going to come back to our lead gen conversation. So yes, today we're talking about lead gen SEO, which if anyone has ever worked in B2B SEO, this is very often the general ethos behind what you're doing. This is slightly different from e-commerce SEO where very often, you have someone where you're like, "Hey, we have a product that we sell." They come to the website, they click on the product, they buy the product, they get the product delivered to them. The hey, bang, presto. Fairly straightforward with regards to attribution, with regards to figuring out the ROI of your SEO activity and things like that. Lead gen SEO on the other hand can mean lots and lots of things and it can mean that you're trying to get an email, you're trying to get a signup, you're trying to get a phone call, you're trying to get general engagement. You're trying to get something that gets you to get a relationship with a potential user so that you can follow up with further activity with your SEO and your other marketing information. One of the things that can be tricky about lead gen SEO is that particularly if you're thinking about content marketing, sometimes you need to have the content that works for the top of the funnel. You need to have that informational, engaging sort of content. But some of that stuff can be a little bit undirect, or indirect is the word. So, for instance, if you were trying to market two shepherds when you were trying to think of what shall I do with all this time sat on a mountaintop for instance, you might want some content that's a bit more conversational about the life of a shepherd and what that entails and things like that. But if you are trying to sell them at some point to subscribe to your shepherd fitness thing, or whatever it may be, then ... I've gone off on this train of thought, I'm sorry, I'm just going to keep going… Mordy Oberstein: And they have a staff holding course, like how do you hold this shepherd staff? Crystal Carter: Yes. Let's say you have a staff holding course and let's say you need to convince them that that's something that they need to be into. Then you might not want to lead straight in with a buy this, buy this right now. So, it's more of nurturing a relationship. But sometimes that means you have to invent opportunities for conversion and sometimes they need to be a little bit less direct. So for instance, it might be that your conversion on the page is a softer conversion. So, rather than somebody buying something, maybe it's that they scrolled to a certain part of the page. Maybe it's that they played a video, maybe it's that they used a tool. So, Ross Simmons was saying one thing that's a really good lead gen thing is calculators for instance. So, let's say you want to calculate the maximum time that your sheep should be on a mountain. Let's say you've got a shepherd calculator on your website, that might be a really good tool for that particular audience. And then let's say you've also got a downloadable resource, that might also be a really good tool. We talked about some of that before. And what can happen with that is if it's part of your marketing funnel and your overall marketing strategy, these tools can often lead you to opportunities to have more direct marketing. So, for instance, if they've played a video, then you can take that information and you can advertise to the folks who have played that video maybe in another video space. So that your lead gen tool is part of a wider, wider marketing funnel that includes a less direct marketing, SEO content and also a more focused ad campaign. And the challenges of this can be tricky because if you've got all of these different wheels within wheels, if you have your information on top of the funnel content and then you have your ad strategy that comes in after users have engaged with that content, then that leads to attribution challenges. So, I had a conversation with Kevin Indig about this a while back and he was asking what's the hardest part about B2B SEO? And my response was showing ROI on the deals that can take months. Months. So, people can come to your website once, they can come back two months later, they can download something here, they can click on something there. And the attribution challenges of that can be very, very complex. And these are much more likely to show up in lead type businesses. For instance, like for lawyers, for instance, if somebody thinks they might need a lawyer, they might read a blog on your website, they might read another blog, they might go around and look at a few other things. There might be a few different touchpoints. So, how do you know which part of the funnel was the thing that sealed the deal for that particular client? So, that attribution thing can be really tricky. One of the people that seems to have touched on that significantly is Amy Bishop who covers it really, really well in an article. It's an old article actually, but it's an oldie but a goody. Mordy Oberstein: Oldie but a goody. Crystal Carter: An evergreen, as it were. So Amy Bishop covered this when she was talking about choosing an attribution model on search engine land and she covers lots of different ones there. I think a lot of SEOs will rely on first touch, or last touch, or first conversion, or assisted conversion, but sometimes there can be more touchpoints than that. And it's important to understand the full marketing journey in order to be able to demonstrate ROI, demonstrate the value, and to be able to get maximum value out of your lead gen SEO. Mordy Oberstein: It is so interesting because it demands that as an SEO, you start thinking a little bit like a marketer. We talked about this in a recent pod, last week's podcast. It all comes full circle because you need to start figuring out, okay, what are the assets that are going to drive the leads? How do I do the SEO on those assets? For example, webinars, most people do webinars as a form of lead gen. We at Wix do not, by the way, at least on the SEO side. Not to say that that's a bad thing to do. Let me rephrase that. If you do do that, it's a great way to get leads. But you need to think about what kind of audience is going to be attracted by that, how they're going to use that, and then how they're going to then go further down the funnel because of that one webinar. You really need to think about the challenges of once I have them, I need to make sure that the next asset also performs well. Crystal Carter: And also, you need to make sure that the leads that you're generating add value to the business and are not wasting the lead management team's time. So, for instance, let's say if you are doing a webinar and let's say you're doing a webinar and it's off-topic for your brand, it might be very, very popular to everyone who's showing up, might be very, very popular. But the leads that you get from that might not necessarily be valuable to the team. This happens a lot with competitions. So for instance, if you're doing a partnership and you're saying, "Oh hey, we're going to do a competition, we're going to give away something for free." Sometimes if the thing that you sell is very expensive, then you might get 200 people sign up to the competition, 2,000 people sign up to the competition and your sales team, who are used to closing deals which are worth a few thousand pounds or something, doesn't have time to call back or touch base with 200, 2,000 people who are very unlikely to purchase because they were looking for something free and the thing that you sell is more premium. So, it's very important to understand how that plays into it and double check the value of your leads when you're doing SEO. Super, super useful. Mordy Oberstein: It's almost like the same thing as grabbing irregardless traffic, there's no point in doing that. It's a waste of time. But in this case, you're actually doing harm because you have other teams working on this trying to grab those leads and convert them, when there's never a chance to begin with. And no one knows that except for you because you knew that webinar wasn't really on target. Right, Right. My point, that you always had to be thinking about ... The North compass should be like where the brand is going, what the brand is trying to do. To the point a second ago, just want to double back on that because the funnel is messy. So, you may have done a great job with the SEO and the webinar page and you've got them, and you signed them up and whatever it is, and now have their emails. What's really going to drive them now is now, they went to your webinar, they saw how wonderful a brand you are and the wonderful content you're putting out. They have a vague idea of what you do at this point, very, very vague. And the next time that they see you is they're doing a search for a product related to what you do or service that you do. If you don't rank there, you've missed out because what might grab them is not the fact that you've sent them an email after the webinar trying to sell them something. They may have not even opened that email now. What will grab them is they went to the webinar, they've done a search for the product that you sell and they say, "Hey, wait a second, that's the same ... Those are the same people that did the webinar. I'm going to buy it from them." But if you don't rank there, the second stage of that very messy funnel, what worth was the webinar? Crystal Carter: Right, right. It's very important to understand that it's all part of a full funnel, as well as making sure that you're covering those products. Make sure that you're covering those ideas as well. So, let's say you're inspiring people to do, I don't know, whatever particular idea it is that you're talking about at the webinar, you also need to cover those terms as well. So, think about where you're engaging people so that it makes sense. And I think also, it's worth double checking, in my experience, it's worth double checking with your teams where the leads are going. Mordy Oberstein: You want to make sure that what you're doing is actually working. Follow up with them like, "Are these leads good?" Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. Are these leads good? Because my metrics are showing that everybody went to the webinar, they all went to this blog, they all went to this, they all did this great stuff. My metrics are showing that we had this many signups for this, or this, or this. Is that coming through. Mordy Oberstein: Right, because the data can only take you so far. You don't actually know what you have to qualify the data. The only way to qualify that data is actually talking to the people on the sales team who were actually working with the lead. So, I had a company I used to work with, that was something we did a lot of. There was a lot of conversation between what we were doing with say, our blog and what we were doing on sales and was it actually the people we were targeting? Was it actually working? Let me ask you a totally separate topic question. Well, not totally separate because we're on the same topic of leads, but you're doing something like you're getting the lead, a downloadable asset, a webinar, whatever it is. Often, do you find that the content on those pages are a challenge, or the content strategy from an SEO point of view is a challenge? Because those pages don't tend to be overly rich with content. Crystal Carter: Yeah, a lot of those pages will be CRO optimized for instance. And I think that it's important to make sure that you have consistency of voice across whatever it is you're doing. So, I think that even if the word count is low or whatever, you can still maintain consistency of voice. So, it shouldn't be where you go from a like a, "Hey everyone, let's all just learn and grow and stretch together." Let's say you've that's your webinar vibe. Let's say it's a wellness webinar, I don't know. And let's say you have that and then they get to- Mordy Oberstein: Wellness for shepherds. Crystal Carter: Wellness for shepherds, yes. So, let's say it's a wellness for shepherds, yoginar. Yoginar? Yoginar? Mordy Oberstein: I love that. That's a webinar about yoga. It's a yoginar. Crystal Carter: Oh my gosh, me too, yoga- Mordy Oberstein: Or a Yogi Berra, which could also be a yoginar. Crystal Carter: So, let's say you're doing a webinar, and it's wellness stuff and it's all very friendly and it's all very ... and then they get to the downloadable thing and it's just a completely different vibe. And suddenly, it's like, not only do we want your email address, but we also want your date of birth and your this and your that and we're going to call you. And then the email that they get is another tone of voice or the salespeople, that whole funnel thing, if it's not cohesive, it's going to lose you customers. So, I think from an SEO point of view, I think you need to think about how you manage that. It might not be that you even have those pages indexed necessarily, but think about the user experience and that there's a consistent user voice all the way through your lead gen funnel. Mordy Oberstein: Which goes back to what we were saying before that when you deal with this kind of content, it's the larger picture that's important. Because as you say, you might not have that page indexed. You might have the blog post funnel them through so that the blog post is what ranks and brings them in and then you funnel them to the downloadable, or the whatever it is. And I think that's where, when it comes to these kind of assets, or these kind of pages, it's your larger SEO strategy and how you'll say, for example, the strength of the domain overall as it relates to the topic. Those kind of things come into focus because it's usually not the on-page content for the webinar page that's driving your ranking. It's usually the fact that yeah, you're a super authority on that particular topic, or you have other ... whatever it is that's driving the rankings for that page. Because if it's just a per page basis, pretty much everybody has the same content. "Sign up for our webinar, enjoy webinars about blah blah, blah. You'll get great insights about blah, blah, blah from the webinar." It's like the uniqueness is not from the content on the webinar page. Let's be honest. Crystal Carter: When you're thinking about your lead gen, that's important to consider, is how to differentiate and how to make it clear that you're adding value and what value you're adding. I think that also with lead gen audiences, is absolutely key because you are nurturing ... it's part of a nurturing activity. So, you're expecting, particularly for B2B engagement, you're expecting that this will not be your only touchpoint with this particular user. They are going to see multiple pieces of content across your website, hopefully. They're potentially going to have some emails back and forth from your team, hopefully. They may even have a phone call from your team. So, this is not going to be the only touchpoint. So, it should be good quality and it should give them a feel that this is going to be something that adds value to them overall. So, I think that that's really important to think about as you go forward with lead gen. And so, if you don't have a clear idea of who your audience is, then it's difficult to add that cohesion in order to have a good quality SEO all the way through. And it also makes it very difficult to support it with wider marketing activity. So, for instance, if you have the lead gen activity and let's say the webinar's over and you put the webinar video up on the webpage and now that page is ranking generally. Your lead gen funnel will include people who come to the webpage, so that's an audience. And then people who watch the video, that's another audience. If that audience is very random and difficult to attribute, it's going to be more difficult and more expensive for you to do PPC or paid advertising for that audience. If that audience spends a lot of time on multiple different social media platforms and things like that, it's going to be difficult for you to focus your social media advertising on those particular things. If this audience reads lots of different publications and things, it's going to be difficult for you to target your campaigns and things like that. So, have a clear idea of your audience when you're doing lead gen and who you are trying to get leads from. It also helps your sales team to understand who they're talking to. Mordy Oberstein: Which is what you want. You don't want ... You want the system to have a qualified understanding of what the heck they're dealing with. Crystal Carter: Right, right. And very often to potentially get the audience idea from the sales team. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Now, speaking of your wider marketing efforts and leads, we have content marketer extraordinaire, Kelsey Jones, here to help us understand how you can effectively use content marketing to grab leads. Take it away, Kelsey. Kelsey Jones: Content marketing is really effective for grabbing leads because you're able to meet the audience at the exact moment where they're looking for information and also possibly looking to buy or become a client somewhere. So, my strategy when it comes to content marketing for lead generation is to think about all the angles of content that a potential customer may be looking for, and then also the stages of the sales or conversion funnel that they may be in. So, that really depends on if you're B2B or B2C obviously, but thinking of it as a moral, holistic approach and how you can generate leads at every step of the funnel, instead of just right before they're about to make a purchase, really does make a difference. So, for instance, I've joined email lists and newsletters for brands that maybe I'm not ready to purchase from them yet, but I really like their content and I really like the value they provide. So, by being able to connect with them ongoing when I am ready to make a purchase, then they're the first ones I think of. And so, that's a really holistic approach for content marketing that I think a lot of people forget, especially the execs team and the sales team, they want the leads right now. And as we in SEO and content marketing know, it's not always the case. And that doesn't always come easily, especially if your sales cycle is pretty long. I've worked with companies where their B2B sales cycle is up to 18 months. So, that's a long process and you want to be able to provide content to a potential client or a customer throughout that entire process. So, you're not only thinking of yourself as a potential business engagement for them, or a product they can purchase, but also as a source of education and truth. And so, that's why I always try to think of what content can we create where we're providing value to the customer or our target audience and showing them more about the industry, more about terms or norms in the industry that maybe they didn't know about, or new technology, or processes, and just helping them feel more competent in the industry and more educated. And I think the more often we do that, the more our target audience is able to trust us. So, thank you so much for letting me participate. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Kelsey. You can follow Kelsey @wonderwall7 on Twitter, W-O-N-D-E-R-W-A-L-L seven on Twitter, link that in the show notes. And she's incredibly on target in my opinion. Again, talking about it's a wider strategy, it's not an immediate thing. You have to think three steps before. If you're an SEO for example, who's very much ... and this is fine, that's who you are, who's very much within the exact strict confines of SEO, and you need a more holistic view of how the funnel might work, the pain points of the user, whatever, so speak with your content marketing team. They might be a great resource for you. They might be a great, first off, they'll be a great ally for you in dealing with let's say clients or internal stakeholders, say, "Hey, where are the leads? We them now." That team gets it. So, they will be an ally with you to say, "Hey, yes, we're with you. We're going to get these leads. Here's the process. Here's how long it's going to take. Patience, please. Patience is a virtue." But also, if you are on the more technical side of SEO and you want to get a wider, more holistic understanding of how the user's going to walk through this funnel, then the content marketing thing might be a great resource for you to help you expand out of your comfort zone. Crystal Carter: And I think that it's great to compare notes because if you're doing technical SEO, you're going to have a lot of information from a technical point of view about devices and different technical metrics that you can see from different bots that are being crawled and lots of different ways that people are accessing the site and lots of different things that people ... where people are getting errors, where people having touchpoint issues, things like that. So, I think it's important to compare notes and to build good relationships with the different parts of your team so that you're reducing friction across your funnel, so that you're building that trust that she's talking about. Because if people are coming up against technical impediments, technical challenges across your site, that's going to diminish trust. And some teams will be able to see that, some teams will be able to see other things. So, it's important to have good conversations with everyone all the way along. Mordy Oberstein: Now, speaking of leads, one of the ways that some local service businesses, people like lawyers have been getting leads from the Google SERP are called local service ads. It's a special, high quality ad where Google has screened and vouched for the business and even to a certain extent, can provide financial guarantees designed to make the user feel safe, which is amazing in its own right that Google does that. But okay, leaving that little point of sigh for a moment, there have been some significant changes to these ads in, I'll say the relatively recent past, which leads us ... so sorry for that, leads us to a segment we call, is this new? Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sorry. Speaker 5: Is this new? Mordy Oberstein: No, and most things that we cover on this segment it is not- Crystal Carter: It's not new. Mordy Oberstein: ... it's not going to be new. It's not new. It's new-ish. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's fine. Mordy Oberstein: It's like a used car. It's like five months old. Is it a new car? No. Is it an old car? Also no. Crystal Carter: Yeah, no, I mean, it was owned by this lady. She just drove it back and forth to the supermarket. It's never been on the highway. It's totally fine, you'll love it, it's great. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, turns out the transmission's totally shot. She completely destroyed the car and now you're stuck with a lemon. Crystal Carter: It's totally fine. Mordy Oberstein: Let's just be honest here. So if you were to Google something like lawyer New York City, and if you were in the US, you might see a little sponsored label that says, "Google screened." And it's a series of little cards that show the picture of the lawyer, Mr. Morgan and Morgan, and their ratings. And it says how long they've been in service and you get a phone number and you click on it and you get more information and you call them up and folks pay to be featured there. They have to be screened to be featured there and they pay money for what essentially leads from the Google SERP. Now, Google in the relatively recent past in the early March, expanded the types of businesses that this feature is relevant for. So, now for example, beauty school establishments, or driving instructors, or childcare people, or funeral homes, that's morbid, can now apply for this special Google screening, Google guaranteed local service ad. The problem is at the same time, there's been a lot of fake reviews and spammy practices. Novel. In the local space, there's spam. I'm sorry, I broke the ... is that new? No, that is not new. Crystal Carter: Yeah, there was somebody who was talking about this with garage door lending, that they were saying that there was someone who was abusing this particular system. I think it was- Mordy Oberstein: What often shows up in these kind of spaces, is they're not actual garage door providers per se. They're like call centers that farm you out different garages. I've spent time doing ... I have no life, googling things like New York City plumber and then calling up the phone numbers and then realizing that this is not an actual plumber. What they're doing is, they're a call center that plumbers pay for the leads. So, they farm you out to a plumber who's paying them to get the lead. So, it's like a lead within a lead and it's mind numbingly abusive, and these are the kind of things that plague these kind of spaces in local, which you wouldn't think would be happening because Google's supposedly screening and guaranteeing. Crystal Carter: So, I mean, this is something that the app Liaison has been working to manage and things. And I think that one of the things that's tricky for some of the local stuff is that there's so many players and there's so many players of different, with different tech stacks, and with different tech abilities, and with different marketing things. So, within the local space, you're going to get a lot of new entrepreneurs and new smaller businesses, who maybe aren't as familiar with some of these tactics. So, I think it's a very difficult job to wrangle all of this on behalf of Google. But I think this is also one of the reasons why it's useful to get a little bit of guidance if you're looking to get involved with local search ads, to get a little bit of support if you're looking to get involved with local search ads. I would be remiss if we didn't bring up the local search ranking factors, which was also recently released from the team at White Spark. It's a fantastic report that talks all about different local search things and within it, they have a section that's all about LSA ranking factors. And one of the top ranking factors from the folks who were contributing to the report was a number of reviews, which is very, very interesting. So, I think that we are going to link to a few show notes of some of the examples of some of the local search ads, but you'll see that some of the ones who are on the top have a lot of reviews and it's something that's really valuable. So, the number of reviews is really valuable. The responsiveness to leads is ... also seems to be a ranking factor with regards to local search ads and hours of operation set on listing. And the report gives a total of 14 different factors. And it's worth thinking about that if you're getting involved in local search ads. Which if you are in any of the verticals in which it is, it is allowed, it's worth considering. Mordy Oberstein: They show at the top of the SERP, most visual thing there, if you're again, searching for a lawyer or whatever city, it's going to be the most noticeable thing there. Google gives you this check, a Google guarantee. So, you really feel like, all right. It's not like a regular ad where you have that real commercial transactional intent to click on it. This doesn't apply. Google's renaming or redefining the game with this by saying, "We guarantee this. We've screened these people." Even if you're not way, way, way bottom of the funnel, this is where you want to go. And it's something to keep up with because for example, the point about reviews is a great one because by the way, we've seen reports now from Jason Brown for example, that people are using ChatGPT to fluff up reviews, which didn't see that coming before that on the news, and I believe it was a couple weeks ago. But one of the more recent developments within the local service ads, LSAs, has been that you can now report some of the reviews being left in them. So, now if you see people ... so your competitors are leaving bad reviews on purpose, you can now theoretically flag some of these reviews and do something about it. So, if you are in this space, it's a space that's always changing. It's worthwhile to keep up with what's happening in there. Have a look what your ads ... Go to the SERP, see how your ads are appearing, sitting different ads that are appearing, see what features are now available there because new things are popping up all the time. Again, it's in the last month or so, there's been three or four new developments around local service ads, is why we're covering it here. So again, keep up with it. It's one of those things that it's like ... I don't know, there are things that you can leave and look at once a year and it'll be fine. There are things that you should be looking at, I don't know, once, twice a month, see what's going on. This is one of those. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and I would say that it's worth getting a little bit of guidance on your local SEO, if it's something that's important to you. And whether you engage a consultant or agency, that's one consideration. I know that's not financially feasible for everyone, but we're going to do our follows later on and we'll follow someone who works in this space. But I would also say it's worth following some reliable local SEOs as well. So, Darren Shaw is a fantastic follow in this space. And also- Mordy Oberstein: Roy Hawkins is a great follow. Crystal Carter: Roy Hawkins is a fantastic follow in this space, they both speak about this a lot. Mordy Oberstein: Jason Brown, Greg Gifford, there's endless number of amazing local SEOs. Elizabeth Rule. Crystal Carter: Emily Fuller's also talked about this as well. So yeah, do keep an eye out on this. It's something that's worth looking up. But yeah, if you go to Twitter and type in LSA and SEO, you should get some folks who are worth looking at and we'll be able to point you to some really good resources around this and will help you bulk up some of your local SEO knowledge. And also, we should give a shout out to Crystal Tank from our recent Wix SEO webinar who also knows all of the things about local SEO. Mordy Oberstein: So with that, perhaps there's been some latest developments that we have not covered around local service ads that perhaps are in this week's news. Perhaps not. We don't know because we haven't done the news yet. Crystal Carter: We haven't done the news yet. Are you going to do it now? Mordy Oberstein: We're going to do it right now. Get ready, get set. Here's this week's version of the snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Two in the bag for you today with one from a non-typical source. Sorry Barry, they can't all be your articles. Up first from The Wall Street Journal. Google plans to make search more personal with AI chat and video clips. So, it seems Google will be making some big announcements around its new search engine, Magi, Magi, Magi, I don't know how to pronounce it. M-A-G-I. No, no one knows how to pronounce it at its Google IO event. The Wall Street Journal says a new changes would quote, "Nudge the service further away from a traditional format known in informally as the 10 blue links. Google plans to make its search engine more visual, snackable, personal and human, with a focus on serving young people globally according to the documents." The documents being referred to there, I guess the leaks they got that have spread these rumors to them. I have very strong thoughts on this. I will not share them here, but we do plan on doing a special episode of the SERP's Up Podcast after Google IO, so maybe I'll share them there. After the actual event and the actual announcements. Okay, by the way, hat tip to Glen Gay for finding this article, sharing the article, follow Glen on Twitter. He shares a lot of great articles on Twitter. Okay, it's Barry time, cue MC Hammer music. Per Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land, "Google no longer recommends canonical tags for syndicated content." Oh, my. In a nutshell, he did ... by the way, the oh my was me. Barry did not add that to the title. In a nutshell, Google says, "Hey, don't want folks syndicating your content to outrank you? Well, the canonical tag is not the solution for you. Just have them no-index the content because that's what all people who are paying for this indication want to pay for the content and not to rank." I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, to the point where if I were a dolphin, I wouldn't be Flipper, I'd be flippant. Barry asked at the end of the article, "Can you force them?" Meaning the people syndicating your content, "... to block the content from Google? I doubt it." The answer by the way, is yes, you can. You have it in the contract that they have to no-index the content. Some creators today try to force this with a canonical in the contract, but now that doesn't help anymore. So, all right, whatever. But you theoretically could do the same thing by asking for a no-index in the contract. Good luck to you with that. These complications are why you need to decide if, when you decide to syndicate your content or not to syndicate your content, if you really want to go through with it or not, because you may very well not rank above the syndication itself. It's why some big publishers have actually stopped syndication in the past. People actually do decide to or not to syndicate based upon the traffic implications to their website because of this. So, theoretically, you could ask for the no-index. Good luck asking a big news organization to add a no-index tag to their content. They won't get any of the traffic. They're actually paying for the content and syndicating the content so they get traffic. So, it's complicated. And with that, that is this week's snappy news. So much news, so much help. So much newsieness, it's all news, all the time. Love the news. Crystal Carter: News. Mordy Oberstein: What's new? Crystal Carter: It's what's new in the news. Mordy Oberstein: In the news. You know what would be new in the news? If we didn't cover an article from Barry Schwartz one week? Not that I want that. I love covering Barry Schwartz. Crystal Carter: I mean, he writes so many articles about the SEO things. Yeah, you're right Mordy Oberstein: It's be unfortunate new- Crystal Carter: It would be- Mordy Oberstein: ... bad new. Not all new is good new. Some new is bad new. Crystal Carter: Good strange, bad new. Mordy Oberstein: Marvelous, marvelous. Well, let's just shepherd this all along as we get into who you should be following for more social awesomeness around SEO. And this week's follow is Crystal Horton. Crystal Carter: Yes, Crystal Horton is a fantastic local SEO and she's worked on some of these LSA ads. She works a lot with new businesses, helping them get involved in local SEO. She's also fantastically smart and clever and warm and very engaging online. And she's also very competitive. I did a Twitter space with her and I was like, "So what's your general goal with SEO?" And she was like, "Destroy the competition." I was like, "Okay, all right." Mordy Oberstein: Nice. No mercy, take no prisoners. Crystal Carter: I know. And I think that when you're working on an SEO campaign, are you working with someone who's SEO, if they've got that instinct that's going to work well for you. So, a big follow to you, Crystal Horton, you're fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: Another Crystal, two Crystals for the price of one on this episode. There's so many Crystals in SEO, it's amazing. Crystal Carter: I know. Mordy Oberstein: It's marvelous. So, you can follow Crystal Horton @imcrystal, that's not I am, it's I-M the letter. It's not, I am as in I-A-M. I-M Crystal with a C, H-O-R-T-O-N, I'll link to that in the show notes, so you don't have to rely on my botched spelling. Crystal Carter: It's fine. Mordy Oberstein: It's fine. Crystal Horton on Twitter, you'll find her. Crystal Carter: Woo. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So, I think we've shepherded this episode and we have led it to its natural conclusion. Crystal Carter: Yeah, we found our way back. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that was so bad. Crystal Carter: But you might have some other puns. Mordy Oberstein: There's always room from war puns. Crystal Carter: I think so. Mordy Oberstein: But instead of doing that, we'll spare you. Thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episodes. We dive into building SEO momentum for growth. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts, or on our SEO Learning Hub 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 Glenn Gabe Kelsey Jones Jason Brown Greg Gifford Joy Hawkins Elizabeth Rule Krystal Taing Darren Shaw Amalia Fowler Crystal Horton Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Google Local Service Ads Gains More Service Type Google Local Service Ads Seeing A Lot Of Fake Reviews You Can Now Report Some Reviews On Google Local Service Ads: News: Google Plans to Make Search More ‘Personal’ with AI Chat and Video Clips Google no longer recommends canonical tags for syndicated content Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Glenn Gabe Kelsey Jones Jason Brown Greg Gifford Joy Hawkins Elizabeth Rule Krystal Taing Darren Shaw Amalia Fowler Crystal Horton Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Google Local Service Ads Gains More Service Type Google Local Service Ads Seeing A Lot Of Fake Reviews You Can Now Report Some Reviews On Google Local Service Ads: News: Google Plans to Make Search More ‘Personal’ with AI Chat and Video Clips Google no longer recommends canonical tags for syndicated content 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 the astonishing, the astounding, the awe-inspiring, fabulous, fantastic, implausible, improbable, incredible, miraculous, phenomenal, remarkable, singular, spectacular, strange, stunning, unbelievable, unusual, wonderful wondrous head of SEO communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: I just had a micro machines flashback. My goodness there, Mr. Oberstein, that's quite a lot of adjectives. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I don't know what strange is doing in there as a synonym for marvelous. Crystal Carter: I didn't know, is that what ... What did ChatGPT telling you to say? Mordy Oberstein: Well, I'm just looking at thesaurus.com. I put in marvelous, and I just read them off. And strange, did you know it was a synonym for marvelous? I did not know that. Crystal Carter: If something fills you with ... that want to marvel at, it might be strange. It might be good strange, like, "Oh, this is a-" Mordy Oberstein: Like me. Crystal Carter: ... yeah, if I walked into my house and there was a 300 bouquets of roses, that would be strange. It would be good strange, as long as I don't have to clean up the roses when they're all dead. But it would still be strange. Mordy Oberstein: That's marvelous. Crystal Carter: It would be marvelous as well. Mordy Oberstein: Marvelous. Yes, marvelous. You know what else is marvelous? The fact that the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where we have the leads, well we don't have the leads, but we have a tools to help you capture the leads, like all sorts of light box templates and options, chat interfaces, and a heap of analytics to help you see trends about your people such as leads per source analytics support, and much more. Capture, manage your leads with Wix, which leads us to what we're talking about on this episode, which in case you have in guess is leads and SEO. Crystal Carter: Leads. Mordy Oberstein: Not like the place in England. Leeds, Live at Leeds, L-E-A-D-S, leads. Yes. Leads in SEO. How you can capture and bring in those coveted leads with SEO. We're talking things like the challenges of trying to capture leads via SEO. What makes SEO for lead generation different from all other forms of SEO, the mindset that makes for good SEO.In trying to capture leads and more. We're going to then kick it up a notch as content marketer extraordinaire, Kelsey Jones shares how to use content marketing to effectively drive leads. Plus we'll explore a little old SERP feature that drives leads, that has undergone some significant changes. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following for more awesomeness on social. Grab your sheep as we shepherd you and lead you to the Promised Land on episode number 37 of the SERP's Up podcast where we talk about leads. Crystal Carter: We talk about leads and sheeps and- Mordy Oberstein: And sheep. Crystal Carter: ... and sheep. I must give a shout out to Jon Payne who is an SEO at an agency called Noisy Little Monkey, and who before being an SEO was actually a shepherd. Mordy Oberstein: No way. Crystal Carter: That was his actual, literal job was a shepherd. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, I just sitting around thinking it seems like the job for that would be a shepherd. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I feel like the sheep aren't going to give you a lot of back chat. Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: You can just sit and contemplate and ... although I think the weather can be tricky, I looked at some throwback shepherd outfits. They used to have these giant felt coat things that you could sit in and it was kind of like a tent and a coat and things. If you go on Pinterest, they're amazing. Anyway, we have led ourselves astray. We are going to come back to our lead gen conversation. So yes, today we're talking about lead gen SEO, which if anyone has ever worked in B2B SEO, this is very often the general ethos behind what you're doing. This is slightly different from e-commerce SEO where very often, you have someone where you're like, "Hey, we have a product that we sell." They come to the website, they click on the product, they buy the product, they get the product delivered to them. The hey, bang, presto. Fairly straightforward with regards to attribution, with regards to figuring out the ROI of your SEO activity and things like that. Lead gen SEO on the other hand can mean lots and lots of things and it can mean that you're trying to get an email, you're trying to get a signup, you're trying to get a phone call, you're trying to get general engagement. You're trying to get something that gets you to get a relationship with a potential user so that you can follow up with further activity with your SEO and your other marketing information. One of the things that can be tricky about lead gen SEO is that particularly if you're thinking about content marketing, sometimes you need to have the content that works for the top of the funnel. You need to have that informational, engaging sort of content. But some of that stuff can be a little bit undirect, or indirect is the word. So, for instance, if you were trying to market two shepherds when you were trying to think of what shall I do with all this time sat on a mountaintop for instance, you might want some content that's a bit more conversational about the life of a shepherd and what that entails and things like that. But if you are trying to sell them at some point to subscribe to your shepherd fitness thing, or whatever it may be, then ... I've gone off on this train of thought, I'm sorry, I'm just going to keep going… Mordy Oberstein: And they have a staff holding course, like how do you hold this shepherd staff? Crystal Carter: Yes. Let's say you have a staff holding course and let's say you need to convince them that that's something that they need to be into. Then you might not want to lead straight in with a buy this, buy this right now. So, it's more of nurturing a relationship. But sometimes that means you have to invent opportunities for conversion and sometimes they need to be a little bit less direct. So for instance, it might be that your conversion on the page is a softer conversion. So, rather than somebody buying something, maybe it's that they scrolled to a certain part of the page. Maybe it's that they played a video, maybe it's that they used a tool. So, Ross Simmons was saying one thing that's a really good lead gen thing is calculators for instance. So, let's say you want to calculate the maximum time that your sheep should be on a mountain. Let's say you've got a shepherd calculator on your website, that might be a really good tool for that particular audience. And then let's say you've also got a downloadable resource, that might also be a really good tool. We talked about some of that before. And what can happen with that is if it's part of your marketing funnel and your overall marketing strategy, these tools can often lead you to opportunities to have more direct marketing. So, for instance, if they've played a video, then you can take that information and you can advertise to the folks who have played that video maybe in another video space. So that your lead gen tool is part of a wider, wider marketing funnel that includes a less direct marketing, SEO content and also a more focused ad campaign. And the challenges of this can be tricky because if you've got all of these different wheels within wheels, if you have your information on top of the funnel content and then you have your ad strategy that comes in after users have engaged with that content, then that leads to attribution challenges. So, I had a conversation with Kevin Indig about this a while back and he was asking what's the hardest part about B2B SEO? And my response was showing ROI on the deals that can take months. Months. So, people can come to your website once, they can come back two months later, they can download something here, they can click on something there. And the attribution challenges of that can be very, very complex. And these are much more likely to show up in lead type businesses. For instance, like for lawyers, for instance, if somebody thinks they might need a lawyer, they might read a blog on your website, they might read another blog, they might go around and look at a few other things. There might be a few different touchpoints. So, how do you know which part of the funnel was the thing that sealed the deal for that particular client? So, that attribution thing can be really tricky. One of the people that seems to have touched on that significantly is Amy Bishop who covers it really, really well in an article. It's an old article actually, but it's an oldie but a goody. Mordy Oberstein: Oldie but a goody. Crystal Carter: An evergreen, as it were. So Amy Bishop covered this when she was talking about choosing an attribution model on search engine land and she covers lots of different ones there. I think a lot of SEOs will rely on first touch, or last touch, or first conversion, or assisted conversion, but sometimes there can be more touchpoints than that. And it's important to understand the full marketing journey in order to be able to demonstrate ROI, demonstrate the value, and to be able to get maximum value out of your lead gen SEO. Mordy Oberstein: It is so interesting because it demands that as an SEO, you start thinking a little bit like a marketer. We talked about this in a recent pod, last week's podcast. It all comes full circle because you need to start figuring out, okay, what are the assets that are going to drive the leads? How do I do the SEO on those assets? For example, webinars, most people do webinars as a form of lead gen. We at Wix do not, by the way, at least on the SEO side. Not to say that that's a bad thing to do. Let me rephrase that. If you do do that, it's a great way to get leads. But you need to think about what kind of audience is going to be attracted by that, how they're going to use that, and then how they're going to then go further down the funnel because of that one webinar. You really need to think about the challenges of once I have them, I need to make sure that the next asset also performs well. Crystal Carter: And also, you need to make sure that the leads that you're generating add value to the business and are not wasting the lead management team's time. So, for instance, let's say if you are doing a webinar and let's say you're doing a webinar and it's off-topic for your brand, it might be very, very popular to everyone who's showing up, might be very, very popular. But the leads that you get from that might not necessarily be valuable to the team. This happens a lot with competitions. So for instance, if you're doing a partnership and you're saying, "Oh hey, we're going to do a competition, we're going to give away something for free." Sometimes if the thing that you sell is very expensive, then you might get 200 people sign up to the competition, 2,000 people sign up to the competition and your sales team, who are used to closing deals which are worth a few thousand pounds or something, doesn't have time to call back or touch base with 200, 2,000 people who are very unlikely to purchase because they were looking for something free and the thing that you sell is more premium. So, it's very important to understand how that plays into it and double check the value of your leads when you're doing SEO. Super, super useful. Mordy Oberstein: It's almost like the same thing as grabbing irregardless traffic, there's no point in doing that. It's a waste of time. But in this case, you're actually doing harm because you have other teams working on this trying to grab those leads and convert them, when there's never a chance to begin with. And no one knows that except for you because you knew that webinar wasn't really on target. Right, Right. My point, that you always had to be thinking about ... The North compass should be like where the brand is going, what the brand is trying to do. To the point a second ago, just want to double back on that because the funnel is messy. So, you may have done a great job with the SEO and the webinar page and you've got them, and you signed them up and whatever it is, and now have their emails. What's really going to drive them now is now, they went to your webinar, they saw how wonderful a brand you are and the wonderful content you're putting out. They have a vague idea of what you do at this point, very, very vague. And the next time that they see you is they're doing a search for a product related to what you do or service that you do. If you don't rank there, you've missed out because what might grab them is not the fact that you've sent them an email after the webinar trying to sell them something. They may have not even opened that email now. What will grab them is they went to the webinar, they've done a search for the product that you sell and they say, "Hey, wait a second, that's the same ... Those are the same people that did the webinar. I'm going to buy it from them." But if you don't rank there, the second stage of that very messy funnel, what worth was the webinar? Crystal Carter: Right, right. It's very important to understand that it's all part of a full funnel, as well as making sure that you're covering those products. Make sure that you're covering those ideas as well. So, let's say you're inspiring people to do, I don't know, whatever particular idea it is that you're talking about at the webinar, you also need to cover those terms as well. So, think about where you're engaging people so that it makes sense. And I think also, it's worth double checking, in my experience, it's worth double checking with your teams where the leads are going. Mordy Oberstein: You want to make sure that what you're doing is actually working. Follow up with them like, "Are these leads good?" Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. Are these leads good? Because my metrics are showing that everybody went to the webinar, they all went to this blog, they all went to this, they all did this great stuff. My metrics are showing that we had this many signups for this, or this, or this. Is that coming through. Mordy Oberstein: Right, because the data can only take you so far. You don't actually know what you have to qualify the data. The only way to qualify that data is actually talking to the people on the sales team who were actually working with the lead. So, I had a company I used to work with, that was something we did a lot of. There was a lot of conversation between what we were doing with say, our blog and what we were doing on sales and was it actually the people we were targeting? Was it actually working? Let me ask you a totally separate topic question. Well, not totally separate because we're on the same topic of leads, but you're doing something like you're getting the lead, a downloadable asset, a webinar, whatever it is. Often, do you find that the content on those pages are a challenge, or the content strategy from an SEO point of view is a challenge? Because those pages don't tend to be overly rich with content. Crystal Carter: Yeah, a lot of those pages will be CRO optimized for instance. And I think that it's important to make sure that you have consistency of voice across whatever it is you're doing. So, I think that even if the word count is low or whatever, you can still maintain consistency of voice. So, it shouldn't be where you go from a like a, "Hey everyone, let's all just learn and grow and stretch together." Let's say you've that's your webinar vibe. Let's say it's a wellness webinar, I don't know. And let's say you have that and then they get to- Mordy Oberstein: Wellness for shepherds. Crystal Carter: Wellness for shepherds, yes. So, let's say it's a wellness for shepherds, yoginar. Yoginar? Yoginar? Mordy Oberstein: I love that. That's a webinar about yoga. It's a yoginar. Crystal Carter: Oh my gosh, me too, yoga- Mordy Oberstein: Or a Yogi Berra, which could also be a yoginar. Crystal Carter: So, let's say you're doing a webinar, and it's wellness stuff and it's all very friendly and it's all very ... and then they get to the downloadable thing and it's just a completely different vibe. And suddenly, it's like, not only do we want your email address, but we also want your date of birth and your this and your that and we're going to call you. And then the email that they get is another tone of voice or the salespeople, that whole funnel thing, if it's not cohesive, it's going to lose you customers. So, I think from an SEO point of view, I think you need to think about how you manage that. It might not be that you even have those pages indexed necessarily, but think about the user experience and that there's a consistent user voice all the way through your lead gen funnel. Mordy Oberstein: Which goes back to what we were saying before that when you deal with this kind of content, it's the larger picture that's important. Because as you say, you might not have that page indexed. You might have the blog post funnel them through so that the blog post is what ranks and brings them in and then you funnel them to the downloadable, or the whatever it is. And I think that's where, when it comes to these kind of assets, or these kind of pages, it's your larger SEO strategy and how you'll say, for example, the strength of the domain overall as it relates to the topic. Those kind of things come into focus because it's usually not the on-page content for the webinar page that's driving your ranking. It's usually the fact that yeah, you're a super authority on that particular topic, or you have other ... whatever it is that's driving the rankings for that page. Because if it's just a per page basis, pretty much everybody has the same content. "Sign up for our webinar, enjoy webinars about blah blah, blah. You'll get great insights about blah, blah, blah from the webinar." It's like the uniqueness is not from the content on the webinar page. Let's be honest. Crystal Carter: When you're thinking about your lead gen, that's important to consider, is how to differentiate and how to make it clear that you're adding value and what value you're adding. I think that also with lead gen audiences, is absolutely key because you are nurturing ... it's part of a nurturing activity. So, you're expecting, particularly for B2B engagement, you're expecting that this will not be your only touchpoint with this particular user. They are going to see multiple pieces of content across your website, hopefully. They're potentially going to have some emails back and forth from your team, hopefully. They may even have a phone call from your team. So, this is not going to be the only touchpoint. So, it should be good quality and it should give them a feel that this is going to be something that adds value to them overall. So, I think that that's really important to think about as you go forward with lead gen. And so, if you don't have a clear idea of who your audience is, then it's difficult to add that cohesion in order to have a good quality SEO all the way through. And it also makes it very difficult to support it with wider marketing activity. So, for instance, if you have the lead gen activity and let's say the webinar's over and you put the webinar video up on the webpage and now that page is ranking generally. Your lead gen funnel will include people who come to the webpage, so that's an audience. And then people who watch the video, that's another audience. If that audience is very random and difficult to attribute, it's going to be more difficult and more expensive for you to do PPC or paid advertising for that audience. If that audience spends a lot of time on multiple different social media platforms and things like that, it's going to be difficult for you to focus your social media advertising on those particular things. If this audience reads lots of different publications and things, it's going to be difficult for you to target your campaigns and things like that. So, have a clear idea of your audience when you're doing lead gen and who you are trying to get leads from. It also helps your sales team to understand who they're talking to. Mordy Oberstein: Which is what you want. You don't want ... You want the system to have a qualified understanding of what the heck they're dealing with. Crystal Carter: Right, right. And very often to potentially get the audience idea from the sales team. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Now, speaking of your wider marketing efforts and leads, we have content marketer extraordinaire, Kelsey Jones, here to help us understand how you can effectively use content marketing to grab leads. Take it away, Kelsey. Kelsey Jones: Content marketing is really effective for grabbing leads because you're able to meet the audience at the exact moment where they're looking for information and also possibly looking to buy or become a client somewhere. So, my strategy when it comes to content marketing for lead generation is to think about all the angles of content that a potential customer may be looking for, and then also the stages of the sales or conversion funnel that they may be in. So, that really depends on if you're B2B or B2C obviously, but thinking of it as a moral, holistic approach and how you can generate leads at every step of the funnel, instead of just right before they're about to make a purchase, really does make a difference. So, for instance, I've joined email lists and newsletters for brands that maybe I'm not ready to purchase from them yet, but I really like their content and I really like the value they provide. So, by being able to connect with them ongoing when I am ready to make a purchase, then they're the first ones I think of. And so, that's a really holistic approach for content marketing that I think a lot of people forget, especially the execs team and the sales team, they want the leads right now. And as we in SEO and content marketing know, it's not always the case. And that doesn't always come easily, especially if your sales cycle is pretty long. I've worked with companies where their B2B sales cycle is up to 18 months. So, that's a long process and you want to be able to provide content to a potential client or a customer throughout that entire process. So, you're not only thinking of yourself as a potential business engagement for them, or a product they can purchase, but also as a source of education and truth. And so, that's why I always try to think of what content can we create where we're providing value to the customer or our target audience and showing them more about the industry, more about terms or norms in the industry that maybe they didn't know about, or new technology, or processes, and just helping them feel more competent in the industry and more educated. And I think the more often we do that, the more our target audience is able to trust us. So, thank you so much for letting me participate. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Kelsey. You can follow Kelsey @wonderwall7 on Twitter, W-O-N-D-E-R-W-A-L-L seven on Twitter, link that in the show notes. And she's incredibly on target in my opinion. Again, talking about it's a wider strategy, it's not an immediate thing. You have to think three steps before. If you're an SEO for example, who's very much ... and this is fine, that's who you are, who's very much within the exact strict confines of SEO, and you need a more holistic view of how the funnel might work, the pain points of the user, whatever, so speak with your content marketing team. They might be a great resource for you. They might be a great, first off, they'll be a great ally for you in dealing with let's say clients or internal stakeholders, say, "Hey, where are the leads? We them now." That team gets it. So, they will be an ally with you to say, "Hey, yes, we're with you. We're going to get these leads. Here's the process. Here's how long it's going to take. Patience, please. Patience is a virtue." But also, if you are on the more technical side of SEO and you want to get a wider, more holistic understanding of how the user's going to walk through this funnel, then the content marketing thing might be a great resource for you to help you expand out of your comfort zone. Crystal Carter: And I think that it's great to compare notes because if you're doing technical SEO, you're going to have a lot of information from a technical point of view about devices and different technical metrics that you can see from different bots that are being crawled and lots of different ways that people are accessing the site and lots of different things that people ... where people are getting errors, where people having touchpoint issues, things like that. So, I think it's important to compare notes and to build good relationships with the different parts of your team so that you're reducing friction across your funnel, so that you're building that trust that she's talking about. Because if people are coming up against technical impediments, technical challenges across your site, that's going to diminish trust. And some teams will be able to see that, some teams will be able to see other things. So, it's important to have good conversations with everyone all the way along. Mordy Oberstein: Now, speaking of leads, one of the ways that some local service businesses, people like lawyers have been getting leads from the Google SERP are called local service ads. It's a special, high quality ad where Google has screened and vouched for the business and even to a certain extent, can provide financial guarantees designed to make the user feel safe, which is amazing in its own right that Google does that. But okay, leaving that little point of sigh for a moment, there have been some significant changes to these ads in, I'll say the relatively recent past, which leads us ... so sorry for that, leads us to a segment we call, is this new? Speaker 4: Oh, I'm sorry. Speaker 5: Is this new? Mordy Oberstein: No, and most things that we cover on this segment it is not- Crystal Carter: It's not new. Mordy Oberstein: ... it's not going to be new. It's not new. It's new-ish. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's fine. Mordy Oberstein: It's like a used car. It's like five months old. Is it a new car? No. Is it an old car? Also no. Crystal Carter: Yeah, no, I mean, it was owned by this lady. She just drove it back and forth to the supermarket. It's never been on the highway. It's totally fine, you'll love it, it's great. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, turns out the transmission's totally shot. She completely destroyed the car and now you're stuck with a lemon. Crystal Carter: It's totally fine. Mordy Oberstein: Let's just be honest here. So if you were to Google something like lawyer New York City, and if you were in the US, you might see a little sponsored label that says, "Google screened." And it's a series of little cards that show the picture of the lawyer, Mr. Morgan and Morgan, and their ratings. And it says how long they've been in service and you get a phone number and you click on it and you get more information and you call them up and folks pay to be featured there. They have to be screened to be featured there and they pay money for what essentially leads from the Google SERP. Now, Google in the relatively recent past in the early March, expanded the types of businesses that this feature is relevant for. So, now for example, beauty school establishments, or driving instructors, or childcare people, or funeral homes, that's morbid, can now apply for this special Google screening, Google guaranteed local service ad. The problem is at the same time, there's been a lot of fake reviews and spammy practices. Novel. In the local space, there's spam. I'm sorry, I broke the ... is that new? No, that is not new. Crystal Carter: Yeah, there was somebody who was talking about this with garage door lending, that they were saying that there was someone who was abusing this particular system. I think it was- Mordy Oberstein: What often shows up in these kind of spaces, is they're not actual garage door providers per se. They're like call centers that farm you out different garages. I've spent time doing ... I have no life, googling things like New York City plumber and then calling up the phone numbers and then realizing that this is not an actual plumber. What they're doing is, they're a call center that plumbers pay for the leads. So, they farm you out to a plumber who's paying them to get the lead. So, it's like a lead within a lead and it's mind numbingly abusive, and these are the kind of things that plague these kind of spaces in local, which you wouldn't think would be happening because Google's supposedly screening and guaranteeing. Crystal Carter: So, I mean, this is something that the app Liaison has been working to manage and things. And I think that one of the things that's tricky for some of the local stuff is that there's so many players and there's so many players of different, with different tech stacks, and with different tech abilities, and with different marketing things. So, within the local space, you're going to get a lot of new entrepreneurs and new smaller businesses, who maybe aren't as familiar with some of these tactics. So, I think it's a very difficult job to wrangle all of this on behalf of Google. But I think this is also one of the reasons why it's useful to get a little bit of guidance if you're looking to get involved with local search ads, to get a little bit of support if you're looking to get involved with local search ads. I would be remiss if we didn't bring up the local search ranking factors, which was also recently released from the team at White Spark. It's a fantastic report that talks all about different local search things and within it, they have a section that's all about LSA ranking factors. And one of the top ranking factors from the folks who were contributing to the report was a number of reviews, which is very, very interesting. So, I think that we are going to link to a few show notes of some of the examples of some of the local search ads, but you'll see that some of the ones who are on the top have a lot of reviews and it's something that's really valuable. So, the number of reviews is really valuable. The responsiveness to leads is ... also seems to be a ranking factor with regards to local search ads and hours of operation set on listing. And the report gives a total of 14 different factors. And it's worth thinking about that if you're getting involved in local search ads. Which if you are in any of the verticals in which it is, it is allowed, it's worth considering. Mordy Oberstein: They show at the top of the SERP, most visual thing there, if you're again, searching for a lawyer or whatever city, it's going to be the most noticeable thing there. Google gives you this check, a Google guarantee. So, you really feel like, all right. It's not like a regular ad where you have that real commercial transactional intent to click on it. This doesn't apply. Google's renaming or redefining the game with this by saying, "We guarantee this. We've screened these people." Even if you're not way, way, way bottom of the funnel, this is where you want to go. And it's something to keep up with because for example, the point about reviews is a great one because by the way, we've seen reports now from Jason Brown for example, that people are using ChatGPT to fluff up reviews, which didn't see that coming before that on the news, and I believe it was a couple weeks ago. But one of the more recent developments within the local service ads, LSAs, has been that you can now report some of the reviews being left in them. So, now if you see people ... so your competitors are leaving bad reviews on purpose, you can now theoretically flag some of these reviews and do something about it. So, if you are in this space, it's a space that's always changing. It's worthwhile to keep up with what's happening in there. Have a look what your ads ... Go to the SERP, see how your ads are appearing, sitting different ads that are appearing, see what features are now available there because new things are popping up all the time. Again, it's in the last month or so, there's been three or four new developments around local service ads, is why we're covering it here. So again, keep up with it. It's one of those things that it's like ... I don't know, there are things that you can leave and look at once a year and it'll be fine. There are things that you should be looking at, I don't know, once, twice a month, see what's going on. This is one of those. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and I would say that it's worth getting a little bit of guidance on your local SEO, if it's something that's important to you. And whether you engage a consultant or agency, that's one consideration. I know that's not financially feasible for everyone, but we're going to do our follows later on and we'll follow someone who works in this space. But I would also say it's worth following some reliable local SEOs as well. So, Darren Shaw is a fantastic follow in this space. And also- Mordy Oberstein: Roy Hawkins is a great follow. Crystal Carter: Roy Hawkins is a fantastic follow in this space, they both speak about this a lot. Mordy Oberstein: Jason Brown, Greg Gifford, there's endless number of amazing local SEOs. Elizabeth Rule. Crystal Carter: Emily Fuller's also talked about this as well. So yeah, do keep an eye out on this. It's something that's worth looking up. But yeah, if you go to Twitter and type in LSA and SEO, you should get some folks who are worth looking at and we'll be able to point you to some really good resources around this and will help you bulk up some of your local SEO knowledge. And also, we should give a shout out to Crystal Tank from our recent Wix SEO webinar who also knows all of the things about local SEO. Mordy Oberstein: So with that, perhaps there's been some latest developments that we have not covered around local service ads that perhaps are in this week's news. Perhaps not. We don't know because we haven't done the news yet. Crystal Carter: We haven't done the news yet. Are you going to do it now? Mordy Oberstein: We're going to do it right now. Get ready, get set. Here's this week's version of the snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Two in the bag for you today with one from a non-typical source. Sorry Barry, they can't all be your articles. Up first from The Wall Street Journal. Google plans to make search more personal with AI chat and video clips. So, it seems Google will be making some big announcements around its new search engine, Magi, Magi, Magi, I don't know how to pronounce it. M-A-G-I. No, no one knows how to pronounce it at its Google IO event. The Wall Street Journal says a new changes would quote, "Nudge the service further away from a traditional format known in informally as the 10 blue links. Google plans to make its search engine more visual, snackable, personal and human, with a focus on serving young people globally according to the documents." The documents being referred to there, I guess the leaks they got that have spread these rumors to them. I have very strong thoughts on this. I will not share them here, but we do plan on doing a special episode of the SERP's Up Podcast after Google IO, so maybe I'll share them there. After the actual event and the actual announcements. Okay, by the way, hat tip to Glen Gay for finding this article, sharing the article, follow Glen on Twitter. He shares a lot of great articles on Twitter. Okay, it's Barry time, cue MC Hammer music. Per Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Land, "Google no longer recommends canonical tags for syndicated content." Oh, my. In a nutshell, he did ... by the way, the oh my was me. Barry did not add that to the title. In a nutshell, Google says, "Hey, don't want folks syndicating your content to outrank you? Well, the canonical tag is not the solution for you. Just have them no-index the content because that's what all people who are paying for this indication want to pay for the content and not to rank." I'm being a bit tongue in cheek, to the point where if I were a dolphin, I wouldn't be Flipper, I'd be flippant. Barry asked at the end of the article, "Can you force them?" Meaning the people syndicating your content, "... to block the content from Google? I doubt it." The answer by the way, is yes, you can. You have it in the contract that they have to no-index the content. Some creators today try to force this with a canonical in the contract, but now that doesn't help anymore. So, all right, whatever. But you theoretically could do the same thing by asking for a no-index in the contract. Good luck to you with that. These complications are why you need to decide if, when you decide to syndicate your content or not to syndicate your content, if you really want to go through with it or not, because you may very well not rank above the syndication itself. It's why some big publishers have actually stopped syndication in the past. People actually do decide to or not to syndicate based upon the traffic implications to their website because of this. So, theoretically, you could ask for the no-index. Good luck asking a big news organization to add a no-index tag to their content. They won't get any of the traffic. They're actually paying for the content and syndicating the content so they get traffic. So, it's complicated. And with that, that is this week's snappy news. So much news, so much help. So much newsieness, it's all news, all the time. Love the news. Crystal Carter: News. Mordy Oberstein: What's new? Crystal Carter: It's what's new in the news. Mordy Oberstein: In the news. You know what would be new in the news? If we didn't cover an article from Barry Schwartz one week? Not that I want that. I love covering Barry Schwartz. Crystal Carter: I mean, he writes so many articles about the SEO things. Yeah, you're right Mordy Oberstein: It's be unfortunate new- Crystal Carter: It would be- Mordy Oberstein: ... bad new. Not all new is good new. Some new is bad new. Crystal Carter: Good strange, bad new. Mordy Oberstein: Marvelous, marvelous. Well, let's just shepherd this all along as we get into who you should be following for more social awesomeness around SEO. And this week's follow is Crystal Horton. Crystal Carter: Yes, Crystal Horton is a fantastic local SEO and she's worked on some of these LSA ads. She works a lot with new businesses, helping them get involved in local SEO. She's also fantastically smart and clever and warm and very engaging online. And she's also very competitive. I did a Twitter space with her and I was like, "So what's your general goal with SEO?" And she was like, "Destroy the competition." I was like, "Okay, all right." Mordy Oberstein: Nice. No mercy, take no prisoners. Crystal Carter: I know. And I think that when you're working on an SEO campaign, are you working with someone who's SEO, if they've got that instinct that's going to work well for you. So, a big follow to you, Crystal Horton, you're fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: Another Crystal, two Crystals for the price of one on this episode. There's so many Crystals in SEO, it's amazing. Crystal Carter: I know. Mordy Oberstein: It's marvelous. So, you can follow Crystal Horton @imcrystal, that's not I am, it's I-M the letter. It's not, I am as in I-A-M. I-M Crystal with a C, H-O-R-T-O-N, I'll link to that in the show notes, so you don't have to rely on my botched spelling. Crystal Carter: It's fine. Mordy Oberstein: It's fine. Crystal Horton on Twitter, you'll find her. Crystal Carter: Woo. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So, I think we've shepherded this episode and we have led it to its natural conclusion. Crystal Carter: Yeah, we found our way back. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that was so bad. Crystal Carter: But you might have some other puns. Mordy Oberstein: There's always room from war puns. Crystal Carter: I think so. Mordy Oberstein: But instead of doing that, we'll spare you. Thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episodes. We dive into building SEO momentum for growth. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts, or on our SEO Learning Hub 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 . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Whether they be clients, C-level executives or marketing managers, there’s a slew of both external and internal stakeholders who rely on your SEO information. Good SEO reporting puts them in the game with you. It’s what gets buy-in and what proves the value of your work. After all, it's a lot easier to get a designer, developer, or another stakeholder to align with your SEO recommendations if they know that organic search drives revenue for the business. Reporting can be labor-intensive and cumbersome if you don’t know what to report on, to whom to report, and which datasets are most important to focus on. That’s why Mordy and Crystal discuss the critical nature of SEO reporting in today’s modern marketing and SEO departments. Joe Hall, SEO Consultant & Principal Analyst at Hall Analysis, shares his 3-pillared framework for choosing which SEO KPIs to report on: communication KPIs, strategic KPIs, and business KPIs. He explains that reporting should educate, inform, and align with key business objectives. We’re talking all things SEO reporting today on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Removing the fluff from SEO reporting Whether they be clients, C-level executives or marketing managers, there’s a slew of both external and internal stakeholders who rely on your SEO information. Good SEO reporting puts them in the game with you. It’s what gets buy-in and what proves the value of your work. After all, it's a lot easier to get a designer, developer, or another stakeholder to align with your SEO recommendations if they know that organic search drives revenue for the business. Reporting can be labor-intensive and cumbersome if you don’t know what to report on, to whom to report, and which datasets are most important to focus on. That’s why Mordy and Crystal discuss the critical nature of SEO reporting in today’s modern marketing and SEO departments. Joe Hall, SEO Consultant & Principal Analyst at Hall Analysis, shares his 3-pillared framework for choosing which SEO KPIs to report on: communication KPIs, strategic KPIs, and business KPIs. He explains that reporting should educate, inform, and align with key business objectives. We’re talking all things SEO reporting today on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 14 | November 23, 2022 | 35 MIN 00:00 / 34:32 This week’s guests Joe Hall Joe Hall is an SEO Consultant and web developer at HallAnalysis.com that drinks too much coffee and has a very complicated relationship with JavaScript. He has been working on the web since the late 90s and has a passion for bringing new opportunities for his clients and users. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's a new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I am Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the one, the only, the greatest, the best ever, the head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. I mean Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello Internet friends and welcome to SERP's Up. I'm very pleased to be here with you. Mordy Oberstein: You were just at a recent event and saw some really cool friends of ours at the- Crystal Carter: Yes, I did. Mordy Oberstein: I don't remember the name of the event that you were doing. Crystal Carter: I've been doing loads. I've been doing loads of events this autumn. It was a local event called Building Brands, which I was really pleased to be doing because they're actually on a Wix website. And they rank really well. There was another I did- Mordy Oberstein: How appropriate. Crystal Carter: I know, I know. I did another event for another team, PPC Live UK. They're also on a Wix website Mordy Oberstein: Also on a Wix website. Amazing. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And both of them are ranking really well and both of them sold out their events. So I'm just saying. Mordy Oberstein: ASMX, MozCon, brightonSEO, Pubcon. Just saying. Crystal Carter: This is the kind of fun you could have. Yeah, just throwing that out there. Mordy Oberstein: Which is perfect placement for the SERP's Up Podcast, is brought to you by Wix, where you can rank and get all of your conference people into your conference. Or if you want to earn click from Google Discover, you don't need to change your max image preview robot's meta tag in order to produce that gloriously large image within Google Discovery, you know the big image that drives the clicks, not the little one that doesn't drive the clicks, because we set it to the max image preview by default. You could change it manually by the page or folder level, but why would you? You don't have to. It's one less thing at Wix. Crystal Carter: One less thing. That's what we're trying to do. Trying to save you time so that you can get out there and make money, get leads, do the things you want to do on the internet. Mordy Oberstein: Or at least brag that you were in Google Discover and got clicks. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's what's up. Mordy Oberstein: Bragging rights are a real thing. Crystal Carter: Bragging rights are definitely valuable. I will work for bragging rights. Mordy Oberstein: Basically. Right? So another great episode for you today, actually, a really important topic, SEO reporting. You know the point in time where you show the value of your work to your boss, client or friends, it's kind of a big deal. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's kind of a big deal. Normally happens once a month. Mordy Oberstein: So we're going to get into some of the challenges come with reporting on your SEO effort as well as a mindset that sets up your reporting for success. And we have SEO OG, Joe Hall will join us to share how he decides on which KPIs he reports on. From there, we'll make a stop over at the top of the SERP to see what works and what doesn't work when trying to rank it, including relevant topical matter. And of course, on from there to the snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social for more SEO Awesome. All aboard, episode four 14 of the SERP's Up Podcast. So SEO reporting, everyone's best friend. Crystal Carter: It's really not. I'm pretty sure Aleyda Solis did a Twitter survey on this and they were like, what is the thing that you most dread? And I'm pretty sure that the answer came out being SEO reporting. Mordy Oberstein: Which is why we're doing this episode. SEO reporting is really important. Your SEO efforts don't exist in a vacuum. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: It's all part of the sites and their businesses' overall goals, whatever those may be. And because SEO is part of the site's overall business goals, all sorts of stakeholders are interested in what's happening with the SEO work that you're doing. And then if they're not interested, you need to get the buy-in to make them interested so that they keep the SEO services that you're offering up. You might say they want to know, what's going on. Crystal Carter: I wasn't ready for those delta tones, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I don't have that deep voice to really nail that song, but you know what I'm trying to say. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Kidding aside, folks, whether they be clients, C-level executives and marketing managers, slew of other internal teams who you need help from need good SEO reporting. I'll just say it's a lot easier to get a designer or developer, whoever, to help you out if they know that organic search drives a lot of revenue for the business. So even cross team SEO reporting can be really, really important for getting buy-in. Nothing I'm saying here is novel. It's all pretty intuitive until you get into the weeds and until you start thinking about what to actually report on to whom to report it to and what data sets to use for what data source. Because there are all sorts of pitfalls, all sorts of pitfalls when it comes to SEO reporting, from vanity metrics to overlying on whatever graphs and charts the SEO tools are throwing your way and well beyond, which is why Crystal and I are here to help you with the help of SEO and Joe Hall, to discuss the framework of mindset that you should have behind the reporting that goes into your SEO efforts. And that could be reporting to, again, whatever client, manager or stakeholder, because there's a lot to say about be getting this right. And I've been talking a lot. So Crystal, take it away. What goes into reporting SEO efforts properly? Crystal Carter: I think when you decide what you're going to report on, you need to understand what's most important to the business or the project that you're working on. I've worked on projects before where we were reporting a certain conversion, which was an existing metric on a Google Analytics account. And we got to the end of the month and we were like, "Ugh, we have crushed this. We got way more leads than we've ever seen before. We doubled your leads. They were amazing." And we sat and spoke to the client about this and they're like, "Oh, we didn't notice that." And we were like, "What?" We were like, "Well, it says that all the leads came in and stuff." And they were like, "Oh, well did you get those?" It's like, "No, I didn't because some so and so was on holiday, someone was on vacation, they didn't pick them up, we're not even checking that email anymore."And all of this sort of stuff. So we were reporting on something and thinking we were doing amazing when this was not having any business value because the infrastructure for instance, wasn't set up for that. And so I think that it's very important to understand that whatever you're reporting on actually has some business value to the business. Sometimes people say, "Oh, we increased traffic." But if you increase traffic full stop, that's not necessarily valuable unless it's traffic to the right pages. Sometimes there are websites where they will have lots of tag pages, for instance, or lots of category pages which happen to rank and happen to get lots of traffic and things like that. And cool, awesome. Do you know what I mean? If those don't have actual value to the business, then getting traffic to those pages isn't of any worth. So it's really important that you understand the connection to the business with whatever it is you're reporting on. So I always recommend actually talking to the business owners about what they need to know in order to make actionable decisions across the business and what metrics actually reflect business value to them. With e-commerce, it's fairly straightforward. Sales for instance, is going to be your top metric and then maybe email signups for newsletter or maybe video views or something like that. With lead gen, it can be a little bit trickier. And so you need to understand and make sure that any metrics that you're measuring actually are going somewhere and actually have business value. Talking to the business owners about what they need outside of SEO, outside of the website, is really, really important for them. Mordy Oberstein: And I think for SEO or in SEO, it's really easy to get caught up in vanity metrics because the data is amazing. There's so much data, there's a whole industry of data providers and a lot of it looks pretty linear. Let's say rank. I've always found rank to sometimes lend itself to being a vanity metric. Because as you mentioned, I could rank a website for a million keywords and it's totally irrelevant. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Sometimes you're right, it's a little bit harder with rank or things like that because if it's not, let's say an e-commerce, say it's a blog site and they're bringing, they just have ads sense, they're running ads on the blog and that's how they're bringing... So the traffic's super important. But yeah, so I'm bringing all this traffic or we're ranking for all these keywords and it's bringing in all this traffic, but are those going to be users going to click on those ads or those ads are relevant for? So you sort of always have to qualify what the data is you're showing. And I feel that's a point about data in general that goes well beyond just SEO reporting. Data needs to be qualified because data as a concept is fundamentally, you're taking a quantitative thing, numbers or amounts, and you're often trying to explain qualitative things with them. For example, user behavior. And you need to be able to show or to be able to explain how that quantitative metric, and usually it's because there's so much quantity we use to be able to explain the qualitative behavior. But you still sometimes need to bridge that gap and qualify it. And a lot of that is not just in the data that you're presenting, but how you're presenting it and the notes that you're doing it with. And I think it's super valuable. And a lot of the data reporting tools that are out there will do this. They'll give you a point where you can add on notes. And use the heck out of those things to be able to explain, here's what the data is, here's what it says. Because again, not everybody looking at what you're going to have on that report really understands it right off the bat. So you need to explain it and then show them the value. Here's why this data matters for what you're doing, like you said before. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And also, I think you touched on something really important. So with every tool you have, they'll be like, "Oh, you have this chart and that chart and this chart and this one and these scatter points and these averages and this percentage and all of that sort of stuff." And it can be really easy to over report. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: It can be really, really easy. Mordy Oberstein: And it looks really cool, like, "Oh, look at this really cool thing." I had an SEO tool ask me recently, "Can you take a look at this tool?" Blah, blah blah, "What it'd say? Do you know what it does and how you'd use it?" I'm like, "It looks really cool. I'm not really sure how I'd actually use this, actually." Crystal Carter: If you're working with clients or if you're working with stakeholders who are not in the weeds, like you are on the SEO, sometimes if you just give them a wall of stats, they'll just completely turn off, they'll completely switch off. Whereas, if what they need to know is, we got this ROI, we got this ROAS, we got this many clicks, we have this many impressions, just to give them some signals that it's working. If they need to know five metrics, then give them the five metrics, and have the data available if you need to do a deep dive. But just give them the five metrics and they will trust the rest of your data a lot more than if you just give them a wall of data that they don't understand at all. Mordy Oberstein: I think that's a great point. You said that you want to show them whatever you're doing is working. In other words, don't get lost in the numbers per se. Use the numbers to show that it's working. And sometimes, I think we get lost in, especially as SEOs like, "Oh, here are the numbers." First off, no numbers are exact. Whether it be Google's own data, whether it be third party data numbers. These are not the actual number of links that you have. Even the rankings may not be the actual rankings right now. It could have changed, whatever it is. But the numbers indicate a trend of where things are going. And I think that's more important than anything. Are we headed in the right direction? Crystal Carter: Right. Have you moved the needle? Are there some green chutes in this tactic? Because sometimes you'll have a tactic that you're just rolling out and you want to have some kind of sign that it's working in some way and whether or not, as a sort of test. So we're doing this test on a few blogs before we roll it out to hundreds and hundreds of blogs and you want to be able to see some signals that it's beneficial. So yeah, you want to have those metrics. But as you say, yeah, not exact. And I always say don't rely on a single data source. Make sure that you have a few different data sources. Because sometimes it might be that if you're reporting... Because that's another pitfall, you don't want to report on wrong data. So if you're somebody who is a client and you're looking to get SEO support, your SEO will almost certainly go through analytics and make sure that everything is set up properly in the first place. Because if you're getting information that's incorrect, then you will be making incorrect actions based on incorrect data. So you need to make sure that you're getting good data sets, good information, and make sure that you're cross referencing that data from a number of different points. So third party tools will have one set of information about where you're ranking and Google will have another set of information about where you're ranking. For instance, if you go to the SERP, you might see certain something else to show you where you're ranking. So it's important to think about all of those things when you're thinking about data and when you're thinking about reporting. And that's what makes it really interesting because you want to show you're going in a certain direction with things and you use multiple data sources for multiple providers to do that. And it also means, I think reporting is not marketing, reporting is reporting. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And because you're trying to show directionally where things are going, don't worry, "Oh this one data point, or these two data points are showing not the right results, I won't include them." First off, you are ethically obligated to tell the client or manager, whoever it is, the stakeholders, what's happening, even if it's not good. And also, it's going to hit the fan at a certain point. Mordy Oberstein: Oh yeah. Crystal Carter: So you might as well instill the confidence that you know there's a problem, it's not going where we want it to go or this particular aspect is not going where you want it to go. "I've identified the problem, here's the recommended fixes. I got this." Because again, you want to instill confidence and the only way to do this is not to hide the problem because they're going to find out eventually. Oh, and I always say within marketing, if something doesn't go... We're not magicians. Nobody expects you to be a magician. Nobody expects you to be right 100% of the time, every single time about every single idea that you have. However, in marketing, it's not a problem until you run out of ideas. If you don't know what to do next, if you are like, "Oh, this blog's going to be amazing, it's going to be the best thing since sliced bread," and it hits and it's kind of like straightaway doesn't quite do it. If you just go, "Oh, it wasn't good." If your reporting's like, the report says it was bad and that's it, that's not good. Don't do that. If the report's like, "Oh, our numbers are saying that it didn't work, we should do this next." If you say we should do this next or we should try that, or maybe we should try a different topic or maybe we should try a different content medium, that's beneficial. And the reporting can help you prompt new action, new ideas with regards to SEO. And also, if you're able to come out of that, it can build a lot more trust with your stakeholders when you're working. So if you're like, "Okay, I found this problem, it doesn't work, but we can try this based on the data that we have and we'll get a better result." And if you do, then that's great. They'll know that when you hit a bump in the road, you can get out of it. Mordy Oberstein: And that's fundamentally, I think, what reporting... To me, if you want to break it down to what is it fundamentally, it's trust between the stakeholders, between you and your clients or you and the other stakeholders, whoever they may be. And I think if you look at reporting that way, and I think one of the things you can do with reporting to build that trust is to educate whoever it is you're reporting to. Really taking the time to use it as, I think you called this a one point, a teachable moment where you can be able to explain what's happening, what it means, and dragging someone along with you on that journey and bringing them along with you rather on that journey. Crystal Carter: Dragging. Mordy Oberstein: A bad way to put it. You don't want to drag anybody anywhere. You want to bring them along autonomously. Crystal Carter: Yes, yes. Mordy Oberstein: Creates a deep relationship that's built on trust and mutual work forward to the next goal. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that SEO touches on so many different parts of a business that if you're able to do that, then you're more likely to have more conversations about other parts of the business and about analyzing different elements of things that they can do. So yeah, it's really, really valuable. And I think that there are some great tools that help you to do that. So Looker, formally known as Google Data Studio, allows you to make templates, templates which you can add new data sources to. So for instance, if you make an organic performance template, you can plug in different data sources. So you can make one organic performance template and then with using one set of data, like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, whatever, and then you can build on that. So if you're working on multiple projects, you can also make a copy and input new data. And so, as you're building on this, if you get client questions, you can add notes to them, you can add links to them that can help you to educate your stakeholders. So if they don't know what this metric means, if they don't know how to use the document, you can make a link. And I would link to looms. So I'd make looms that said, if you don't know how to use this report, here's a link to a quick walkthrough of how this report works. And that means that when they're sharing it across the business, anybody can understand it. Because that's the other thing about reports, they should be readable by anyone in the business, not just people who are right in it. They should be readable by anyone. Mordy Oberstein: But first off, there's a lot of great templates that are already out there, which I'll link some in the show notes. But let's run a couple Google searches for SEO reporting templates on Looker, or you can use Data Studio because maybe Google doesn't know what Looker is yet. I don't know, it's very confusing at this point. Crystal Carter: There's also templates in Google Data Studio/Looker. Mordy Oberstein: Again, confusing. Name switch is always confusing. But there's also the idea of, okay, now that you have... And I personally think with these sort of things, the framework and the mindset is more important than anything. But there still is a question of what exactly do you report on? Which is why we ask an absolute legend, Joe Hall, who is again an absolute legend in the SEO community. We asked him, "Hey Joe, how do you decide what KPIs to use in your reporting?" Hey, here's what Joe had to say. Joe Hall: When trying to decide which is the right KPI for a client or project, I like to set it up in three different ways. I like to think about KPIs as either communication KPIs, strategic KPIs or business KPIs. Communication KPIs are measurements that communicate an idea and educate the client every time you talk about them. They are used to educate and inform about bigger ideas and things they need to focus on. I usually find these KPIs by talking to the client and asking them specifically what they're interested in. This is because these are the KPIs that they are already used to talking about and they already are familiar with. So it's easier to have a conversation around those KPIs. The second set of KPIs I like to look at are what I call strategic KPIs. These are metrics that are aligned with strategic objectives. So typically, when you are starting out to do SEO, you have some sort of strategy development. And in that strategy development, you have a specific objective. And so to find these strategic KPIs, we can start backwards by looking at the intended objective for the strategy and deciding what types of metrics that can be counted to ascertain the success of that objective, or not, and these are called strategic KPIs. The last type of KPI that I like to look at are called business KPIs. And these are metrics that are aligned with business goals. And I like these because it helps connect the dots between the SEO process and the business objectives, the bigger business objectives. So basically, we could find these KPIs by trying to understand how does the SEO process impact the business model or the bottom line. So for example, if you are a publisher, then the specific KPI that might be good for you would be organic page views because many publishers sell advertising and the amount of page views can make for more expensive advertising. But whatever method you use to pick out your KPIs, whether it's communication, strategic or business, just know that the intention is to educate, inform, and align with key business objectives. And I think if you follow those three areas, you should not have any trouble picking out the perfect KPI for yourself or your client. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Joe. As a really nuance and layered way of looking at KPIs and to the point you are reporting to your clients or internally to whoever should be multi-perspective, multi-layered and tell the entire story. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Like a fantastic sandwich. It should have many layers and lots of textures and something that- Mordy Oberstein: Something crunchy. Something slightly crunchy. Crystal Carter: Something crunchy, something you can really sink your teeth. Mordy Oberstein: But not lettuce. Lettuce is crunchy but doesn't count. Crystal Carter: Something you can really sink your teeth into. But also something that's really satisfying basically, for everyone. So I think he was talking about lots of different elements of lots of different stakeholders and how he thinks about stakeholders all the way through. So the business KPIs, the strategic KPIs, the SEO KPIs. I think it's a really, really interesting way of thinking about it. And I think it's something that makes sure that everyone feels involved from the beginning because you don't want to have to redo your KPIs further down the line. It's like if you're playing Uno or something and then they start changing the rules. Nobody likes that. You don't want to change- Mordy Oberstein: Wait, there are rules in Uno? Crystal Carter: Yeah, of course there's rules in Uno. Mordy Oberstein: I honestly make those up as you go along. Crystal Carter: No, they got some new ones where you like swap hands or something like that. Mordy Oberstein: You see the double sided UNO cards? Those are awesome. Crystal Carter: I have not. Mordy Oberstein: So we'll talk about that later. Crystal Carter: Other cards are available. But yeah, nobody likes it when you have to change the rules in the middle, it does not build trust at all. So it's really good to think about what he was talking about with regards to the multiple stakeholders and making sure that everyone has a KPI that makes sense to them is super, super valuable. Incredible, great advice. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. And don't forget to give Joe Hall a follow on Twitter, @JoeHall. That's J-O-E H-A-L-L. Joe Hall. It's pretty straightforward, it's Joe Hall. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Thanks, Joe. So speaking of reporting, I was looking at a little nifty reporting dashboard that I have behind the scenes from folks at Semrush. And I was looking at some data about page or pages that we're ranking for a given keyword and I figured I would share what I found with you because we haven't done this little segment in a while. Personally, it's one of my favorites. And we're going to take a little bit of a thematic look at what kind of works for ranking overall from this particular case of what I saw was ranking at the top of the SERP, which is why we call the name of the segment, From the Top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: All the way from the top. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like these used to be some kind of '80s rock song about being on top, coming right after this segment. Know we got the whole surf thing going on? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Rocky. Crystal Carter: (singing) Mordy Oberstein: I'll arm wrestle you to the top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: There'll be like a montage and some power cords. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, a montage things ranking at the top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: So I was looking at ranking after a Google algorithm update and I happened to stumble on something I thought was really interesting. The key word is WHO hand washing. Not like who, as in who are you, but World Health Organization, WHO hand washing. It's confusing. The intent is I think finding what WHO, not the band, but the World Health Organization, recommends as who how to wash your hands. Crystal Carter: What they recommend that you do? Mordy Oberstein: Wash your hands. Who are you? Anyway. Wow, there's a lot of singing in this episode. Crystal Carter: Too much. Mordy Oberstein: Welcome to the musical version of the SERP's Up Podcast. Crystal Carter: We should totally do a musical. Mordy Oberstein: It's the SERP's Up Podcast on ice. Crystal Carter: We should absolutely do that. Mordy Oberstein: We should do a musical version of... Anyway, I was looking at this keyword and I saw that Google was ranking a page from, it's from one of the universities, I think, it was the University of Minnesota or something like that, or it was the Minnesota Department of Health. And what I noticed was Google was ranking one page from their website about washing your hands and their hands, everyone's hands, for a really long time. And then all of a sudden, Google stopped ranking that page and swapped it out for a different page. Like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, why did Google do that? Crystal Carter: On the same domain. So it's a different page on the same domain. Mordy Oberstein: Same domain. Different page for the same website. That's really interesting. So naturally, curiosity got the better of me. I went to the old page and I went to the new page. I'm like, what's the difference between these two pages, that Google would say no more ranking of that page and now let's start ranking this page? And that was really perplexed because the new page I thought wasn't as good. I thought the old page was better. I thought the old page was more... It had better page structure, the information was more digestible, it was a little bit clearer. The UX and the UI of that page was better and the new page was not as good. I'm like, "That's so weird." Okay, what's going on here? But I noticed that topically, the new page included talking about hand sanitizer and washing hands. I'm like, isn't that interesting? And then I dived even deeper, and I noticed that most of the pages ranking on page one all talk about washing their hands with water and with hand sanitizer. And when you go to page two, it gets a little more spotty. Some pages do, some pages don't. I'm like, "Ah, I see what's going on here." Crystal Carter: Right. Google's made a decision that hand sanitizer is something that's important for ranking for this term. Mordy Oberstein: That's right. Topically speaking, hand sanitizer and hand washing, if you want to adequately comprehensively cover hand washing, you must also cover hand sanitizing. Crystal Carter: So I'm interested in this one because Google sometimes curates SERP. So for instance, during peak COVID, if you were to look up something like COVID testing, they'd have a very specific set of websites that would rank for that, for instance. And none of them were commercial. All of them were health organizations, for instance. So I'd be interested in knowing where they added that criteria, whether that was criteria that came from, say like the CDC or something. Maybe the CDC changed their criteria because that's the other thing, sometimes with certain SERPs, they will prioritize content that aligns with official information. So I wondered if that decision came from something like the CDC or if that's something that they saw from consensus that they saw that users were looking more for hand sanitizer when they were looking at hand washing. Because that's probably a question, can I wash my hands with hand sanitizer or- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, totally. Crystal Carter: ... Hand sanitizer instead of washing my hands if I don't have option to wash my hands or something to that effect. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. And in fact, when I looked at, not just this query, but I started looking at a whole bunch of other kinds of hand washing queries, and it's the same pattern. The hand sanitizer pages or the pages that talk about hand sanitizing with the hand washing all started to rank. I think that's what's happening. I think that semantically speaking, Google realized at a certain point, topically speaking, these two things now are very much a part of the same corpus of content. And you sort of have to have both. Not as a hard fast rule. But again, to comprehensively cover the topic, google kind of realize this has to be there. Because yeah, all the time when you're out there and you're like, "I'm not near a sink. Can I wash my hands or can I sanitize my hands with sanitizer?" By the way, I think at a certain point you can't. You need to actually wash it off at a certain point. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I only know that because my wife's a nurse and she told me that. Google didn't tell me that. Crystal Carter: This is true. But I wonder if this changes with different relationships between other entities. So for instance, if you think of famous couples or something, I don't know, Jennifer Lopez recently got remarried to Ben Affleck. Mordy Oberstein: What? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: Last time I checked. You didn't know? Mordy Oberstein: Poor A-Rod. Crystal Carter: It's not new. It's not new. Mordy Oberstein: This is not new? Crystal Carter: Not new. So sometimes when you look up SERPS, for instance, certainly Wikipedia will say the spouse is this person or sometimes when you look up SERPs like that, they'll have an information box that just says who the spouse is, for instance. So I'd be interested to know if Google changes that information, that they'll rank information around content that has the most recent connection, for instance, if it's like a spouse or something. Mordy Oberstein: I know for a fact, because I've tested this out. I've tested it out on sports trades. So a player has traded on one team to the next team. It's so quick. The knowledge panel updates, not the pictures. The pictures obviously don't, takes us a little bit of time or it might not get it all right. But it'll tell you who is this, what team they play for. It'll the new team right within an hour. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: It's super quick. Crystal Carter: Right. So then does that mean that the pages that rank within the sort of core search results, do they adjust the ranking there so that whichever one has the most recent one and ranks better? Mordy Oberstein: That's interesting. That's a really good question. But it also just goes to show you that it's not just what's on your page that it helps you rank, but it's also what's not on your page that helps you not rank. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This is something that people need to think about. And I think it's again, one of the reasons why we do this segment at all the Top of the SERP, because it's worth looking at what's on the SERP as well in order to make sure that you've got the right content for what you need to do. Mordy Oberstein: So From the Top of the SERP, to the top of what's happening in the SEO news, here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, they have arrived. Some of the product updates around Google Shopping and local search now previously at Google's search on event have arrived, or arriving, depending on where you live. Per Search Engine Journal's Matt Southern, Google's new local search features are finally here. So these updates include being able to use serve to find local eateries that serve a certain dish, meaning you could search for General Tso's chicken near me, which I plan on doing immediately following this recording. You could also take a picture of the dish via Google Lens and use that to search for local establishment that serve that particular dish that you a picture of, which is amazing. Also, and this is super cool, in my honest opinion, AR is coming to local search in London, New York, LA, Paris, and Tokyo to start. It's called Search With Live You. And it basically means you can use your phone's camera point in a local shop, and you'll get a layover of visual information as to if the establishment is open, how busy it is and so forth. I was just in Times Square, New York City visiting my father. This would've been super useful. There were a million business around. If I could have simply picked up my phone, pointed it at the various establishments and just kind of did a 360, I could see how busy they were, which ones are open and made a better decision, which one I wanted to frequent instead walking around for a half hour, in and out of various shops, which we actually did. Anyway, can be very, very highly useful, super cool technology and is absolutely amazing, particularly in an area like Times Square, New York where there's a high concentration of businesses. And with that, that is this week's snappiest of Snappy News. Boy, that Snappy News of short tops. Now I'm connecting back the other segment. You see what I'm doing there? Top of the SERP, Top SEO news, so much- Crystal Carter: Flawless- Mordy Oberstein: Flawless. Flawless victory for all you video game folks in the 1990s, not in the 1990s, it's got to be later in the '90s, right? Crystal Carter: Finish him. Mordy Oberstein: Mortal Kombat. And speaking of finishing, let's finish this podcast by ending off with who you should be following for SEO Awesome. And since we're talking about SEO reporting, I think one of the greatest people out there who has done a lot by way of SEO reporting is speaking of Google Data Studio or Google Looker Dashboard, she definitely has one. She is the one, the only, Christina Brodzky LeVasseur. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. She has some fantastic Google Data Studio templates she shares around G4, around other types of reporting. And she's a great person to follow, particularly if you're getting started with SEO. She talks about reporting, she also talks about client relationships, which is why you're reporting it all, is to make sure that you're managing your client relationships. And yeah, she's a great person to follow for lots of different reasons- Mordy Oberstein: And is super helpful. Crystal Carter: Super helpful. Mordy Oberstein: Super accessible. So if you have questions and we'll link to her Google Looker, I'm never going to get this right, template. And if you have questions, just go on Twitter and she'll answer them for you. She's super accessible, so I think she's a great resource for you. So don't just follow Christina, but engage and interact with Christina because she's a wealth of information and super happy to share it. And on Twitter, it's @CBrodzky. That's B-R-O-D-Z-K-Y, over on Twitter. Of course, we'll link to her Twitter profile in the show notes. And that's it. Crystal Carter: That's it, that's all. Is that everything? Mordy Oberstein: I'm here to report that we finished the episode. See what I did there? Crystal Carter: I see. We have a fantastic KPI of having recorded a podcast. Mordy Oberstein: That's right. Crystal Carter: How many recordings? One. Mordy Oberstein: One. One recording. That's our data, one. Crystal Carter: That is our data. Our data says one recording. Well done. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like the Count from Sesame Street right now. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry? We're back next week with an all new episode. We dive into the value of Google Reviews. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes, we're already on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Joe Hall Christina Levasseur Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Hall Analysis SEO Reporting Dashboard Templates News: Google’s New Local Search Features Are Finally Here Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Joe Hall Christina Levasseur Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Hall Analysis SEO Reporting Dashboard Templates News: Google’s New Local Search Features Are Finally Here Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's a new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I am Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the one, the only, the greatest, the best ever, the head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. I mean Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello Internet friends and welcome to SERP's Up. I'm very pleased to be here with you. Mordy Oberstein: You were just at a recent event and saw some really cool friends of ours at the- Crystal Carter: Yes, I did. Mordy Oberstein: I don't remember the name of the event that you were doing. Crystal Carter: I've been doing loads. I've been doing loads of events this autumn. It was a local event called Building Brands, which I was really pleased to be doing because they're actually on a Wix website. And they rank really well. There was another I did- Mordy Oberstein: How appropriate. Crystal Carter: I know, I know. I did another event for another team, PPC Live UK. They're also on a Wix website Mordy Oberstein: Also on a Wix website. Amazing. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And both of them are ranking really well and both of them sold out their events. So I'm just saying. Mordy Oberstein: ASMX, MozCon, brightonSEO, Pubcon. Just saying. Crystal Carter: This is the kind of fun you could have. Yeah, just throwing that out there. Mordy Oberstein: Which is perfect placement for the SERP's Up Podcast, is brought to you by Wix, where you can rank and get all of your conference people into your conference. Or if you want to earn click from Google Discover, you don't need to change your max image preview robot's meta tag in order to produce that gloriously large image within Google Discovery, you know the big image that drives the clicks, not the little one that doesn't drive the clicks, because we set it to the max image preview by default. You could change it manually by the page or folder level, but why would you? You don't have to. It's one less thing at Wix. Crystal Carter: One less thing. That's what we're trying to do. Trying to save you time so that you can get out there and make money, get leads, do the things you want to do on the internet. Mordy Oberstein: Or at least brag that you were in Google Discover and got clicks. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's what's up. Mordy Oberstein: Bragging rights are a real thing. Crystal Carter: Bragging rights are definitely valuable. I will work for bragging rights. Mordy Oberstein: Basically. Right? So another great episode for you today, actually, a really important topic, SEO reporting. You know the point in time where you show the value of your work to your boss, client or friends, it's kind of a big deal. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's kind of a big deal. Normally happens once a month. Mordy Oberstein: So we're going to get into some of the challenges come with reporting on your SEO effort as well as a mindset that sets up your reporting for success. And we have SEO OG, Joe Hall will join us to share how he decides on which KPIs he reports on. From there, we'll make a stop over at the top of the SERP to see what works and what doesn't work when trying to rank it, including relevant topical matter. And of course, on from there to the snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social for more SEO Awesome. All aboard, episode four 14 of the SERP's Up Podcast. So SEO reporting, everyone's best friend. Crystal Carter: It's really not. I'm pretty sure Aleyda Solis did a Twitter survey on this and they were like, what is the thing that you most dread? And I'm pretty sure that the answer came out being SEO reporting. Mordy Oberstein: Which is why we're doing this episode. SEO reporting is really important. Your SEO efforts don't exist in a vacuum. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: It's all part of the sites and their businesses' overall goals, whatever those may be. And because SEO is part of the site's overall business goals, all sorts of stakeholders are interested in what's happening with the SEO work that you're doing. And then if they're not interested, you need to get the buy-in to make them interested so that they keep the SEO services that you're offering up. You might say they want to know, what's going on. Crystal Carter: I wasn't ready for those delta tones, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I don't have that deep voice to really nail that song, but you know what I'm trying to say. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Kidding aside, folks, whether they be clients, C-level executives and marketing managers, slew of other internal teams who you need help from need good SEO reporting. I'll just say it's a lot easier to get a designer or developer, whoever, to help you out if they know that organic search drives a lot of revenue for the business. So even cross team SEO reporting can be really, really important for getting buy-in. Nothing I'm saying here is novel. It's all pretty intuitive until you get into the weeds and until you start thinking about what to actually report on to whom to report it to and what data sets to use for what data source. Because there are all sorts of pitfalls, all sorts of pitfalls when it comes to SEO reporting, from vanity metrics to overlying on whatever graphs and charts the SEO tools are throwing your way and well beyond, which is why Crystal and I are here to help you with the help of SEO and Joe Hall, to discuss the framework of mindset that you should have behind the reporting that goes into your SEO efforts. And that could be reporting to, again, whatever client, manager or stakeholder, because there's a lot to say about be getting this right. And I've been talking a lot. So Crystal, take it away. What goes into reporting SEO efforts properly? Crystal Carter: I think when you decide what you're going to report on, you need to understand what's most important to the business or the project that you're working on. I've worked on projects before where we were reporting a certain conversion, which was an existing metric on a Google Analytics account. And we got to the end of the month and we were like, "Ugh, we have crushed this. We got way more leads than we've ever seen before. We doubled your leads. They were amazing." And we sat and spoke to the client about this and they're like, "Oh, we didn't notice that." And we were like, "What?" We were like, "Well, it says that all the leads came in and stuff." And they were like, "Oh, well did you get those?" It's like, "No, I didn't because some so and so was on holiday, someone was on vacation, they didn't pick them up, we're not even checking that email anymore."And all of this sort of stuff. So we were reporting on something and thinking we were doing amazing when this was not having any business value because the infrastructure for instance, wasn't set up for that. And so I think that it's very important to understand that whatever you're reporting on actually has some business value to the business. Sometimes people say, "Oh, we increased traffic." But if you increase traffic full stop, that's not necessarily valuable unless it's traffic to the right pages. Sometimes there are websites where they will have lots of tag pages, for instance, or lots of category pages which happen to rank and happen to get lots of traffic and things like that. And cool, awesome. Do you know what I mean? If those don't have actual value to the business, then getting traffic to those pages isn't of any worth. So it's really important that you understand the connection to the business with whatever it is you're reporting on. So I always recommend actually talking to the business owners about what they need to know in order to make actionable decisions across the business and what metrics actually reflect business value to them. With e-commerce, it's fairly straightforward. Sales for instance, is going to be your top metric and then maybe email signups for newsletter or maybe video views or something like that. With lead gen, it can be a little bit trickier. And so you need to understand and make sure that any metrics that you're measuring actually are going somewhere and actually have business value. Talking to the business owners about what they need outside of SEO, outside of the website, is really, really important for them. Mordy Oberstein: And I think for SEO or in SEO, it's really easy to get caught up in vanity metrics because the data is amazing. There's so much data, there's a whole industry of data providers and a lot of it looks pretty linear. Let's say rank. I've always found rank to sometimes lend itself to being a vanity metric. Because as you mentioned, I could rank a website for a million keywords and it's totally irrelevant. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Sometimes you're right, it's a little bit harder with rank or things like that because if it's not, let's say an e-commerce, say it's a blog site and they're bringing, they just have ads sense, they're running ads on the blog and that's how they're bringing... So the traffic's super important. But yeah, so I'm bringing all this traffic or we're ranking for all these keywords and it's bringing in all this traffic, but are those going to be users going to click on those ads or those ads are relevant for? So you sort of always have to qualify what the data is you're showing. And I feel that's a point about data in general that goes well beyond just SEO reporting. Data needs to be qualified because data as a concept is fundamentally, you're taking a quantitative thing, numbers or amounts, and you're often trying to explain qualitative things with them. For example, user behavior. And you need to be able to show or to be able to explain how that quantitative metric, and usually it's because there's so much quantity we use to be able to explain the qualitative behavior. But you still sometimes need to bridge that gap and qualify it. And a lot of that is not just in the data that you're presenting, but how you're presenting it and the notes that you're doing it with. And I think it's super valuable. And a lot of the data reporting tools that are out there will do this. They'll give you a point where you can add on notes. And use the heck out of those things to be able to explain, here's what the data is, here's what it says. Because again, not everybody looking at what you're going to have on that report really understands it right off the bat. So you need to explain it and then show them the value. Here's why this data matters for what you're doing, like you said before. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And also, I think you touched on something really important. So with every tool you have, they'll be like, "Oh, you have this chart and that chart and this chart and this one and these scatter points and these averages and this percentage and all of that sort of stuff." And it can be really easy to over report. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: It can be really, really easy. Mordy Oberstein: And it looks really cool, like, "Oh, look at this really cool thing." I had an SEO tool ask me recently, "Can you take a look at this tool?" Blah, blah blah, "What it'd say? Do you know what it does and how you'd use it?" I'm like, "It looks really cool. I'm not really sure how I'd actually use this, actually." Crystal Carter: If you're working with clients or if you're working with stakeholders who are not in the weeds, like you are on the SEO, sometimes if you just give them a wall of stats, they'll just completely turn off, they'll completely switch off. Whereas, if what they need to know is, we got this ROI, we got this ROAS, we got this many clicks, we have this many impressions, just to give them some signals that it's working. If they need to know five metrics, then give them the five metrics, and have the data available if you need to do a deep dive. But just give them the five metrics and they will trust the rest of your data a lot more than if you just give them a wall of data that they don't understand at all. Mordy Oberstein: I think that's a great point. You said that you want to show them whatever you're doing is working. In other words, don't get lost in the numbers per se. Use the numbers to show that it's working. And sometimes, I think we get lost in, especially as SEOs like, "Oh, here are the numbers." First off, no numbers are exact. Whether it be Google's own data, whether it be third party data numbers. These are not the actual number of links that you have. Even the rankings may not be the actual rankings right now. It could have changed, whatever it is. But the numbers indicate a trend of where things are going. And I think that's more important than anything. Are we headed in the right direction? Crystal Carter: Right. Have you moved the needle? Are there some green chutes in this tactic? Because sometimes you'll have a tactic that you're just rolling out and you want to have some kind of sign that it's working in some way and whether or not, as a sort of test. So we're doing this test on a few blogs before we roll it out to hundreds and hundreds of blogs and you want to be able to see some signals that it's beneficial. So yeah, you want to have those metrics. But as you say, yeah, not exact. And I always say don't rely on a single data source. Make sure that you have a few different data sources. Because sometimes it might be that if you're reporting... Because that's another pitfall, you don't want to report on wrong data. So if you're somebody who is a client and you're looking to get SEO support, your SEO will almost certainly go through analytics and make sure that everything is set up properly in the first place. Because if you're getting information that's incorrect, then you will be making incorrect actions based on incorrect data. So you need to make sure that you're getting good data sets, good information, and make sure that you're cross referencing that data from a number of different points. So third party tools will have one set of information about where you're ranking and Google will have another set of information about where you're ranking. For instance, if you go to the SERP, you might see certain something else to show you where you're ranking. So it's important to think about all of those things when you're thinking about data and when you're thinking about reporting. And that's what makes it really interesting because you want to show you're going in a certain direction with things and you use multiple data sources for multiple providers to do that. And it also means, I think reporting is not marketing, reporting is reporting. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And because you're trying to show directionally where things are going, don't worry, "Oh this one data point, or these two data points are showing not the right results, I won't include them." First off, you are ethically obligated to tell the client or manager, whoever it is, the stakeholders, what's happening, even if it's not good. And also, it's going to hit the fan at a certain point. Mordy Oberstein: Oh yeah. Crystal Carter: So you might as well instill the confidence that you know there's a problem, it's not going where we want it to go or this particular aspect is not going where you want it to go. "I've identified the problem, here's the recommended fixes. I got this." Because again, you want to instill confidence and the only way to do this is not to hide the problem because they're going to find out eventually. Oh, and I always say within marketing, if something doesn't go... We're not magicians. Nobody expects you to be a magician. Nobody expects you to be right 100% of the time, every single time about every single idea that you have. However, in marketing, it's not a problem until you run out of ideas. If you don't know what to do next, if you are like, "Oh, this blog's going to be amazing, it's going to be the best thing since sliced bread," and it hits and it's kind of like straightaway doesn't quite do it. If you just go, "Oh, it wasn't good." If your reporting's like, the report says it was bad and that's it, that's not good. Don't do that. If the report's like, "Oh, our numbers are saying that it didn't work, we should do this next." If you say we should do this next or we should try that, or maybe we should try a different topic or maybe we should try a different content medium, that's beneficial. And the reporting can help you prompt new action, new ideas with regards to SEO. And also, if you're able to come out of that, it can build a lot more trust with your stakeholders when you're working. So if you're like, "Okay, I found this problem, it doesn't work, but we can try this based on the data that we have and we'll get a better result." And if you do, then that's great. They'll know that when you hit a bump in the road, you can get out of it. Mordy Oberstein: And that's fundamentally, I think, what reporting... To me, if you want to break it down to what is it fundamentally, it's trust between the stakeholders, between you and your clients or you and the other stakeholders, whoever they may be. And I think if you look at reporting that way, and I think one of the things you can do with reporting to build that trust is to educate whoever it is you're reporting to. Really taking the time to use it as, I think you called this a one point, a teachable moment where you can be able to explain what's happening, what it means, and dragging someone along with you on that journey and bringing them along with you rather on that journey. Crystal Carter: Dragging. Mordy Oberstein: A bad way to put it. You don't want to drag anybody anywhere. You want to bring them along autonomously. Crystal Carter: Yes, yes. Mordy Oberstein: Creates a deep relationship that's built on trust and mutual work forward to the next goal. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that SEO touches on so many different parts of a business that if you're able to do that, then you're more likely to have more conversations about other parts of the business and about analyzing different elements of things that they can do. So yeah, it's really, really valuable. And I think that there are some great tools that help you to do that. So Looker, formally known as Google Data Studio, allows you to make templates, templates which you can add new data sources to. So for instance, if you make an organic performance template, you can plug in different data sources. So you can make one organic performance template and then with using one set of data, like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, whatever, and then you can build on that. So if you're working on multiple projects, you can also make a copy and input new data. And so, as you're building on this, if you get client questions, you can add notes to them, you can add links to them that can help you to educate your stakeholders. So if they don't know what this metric means, if they don't know how to use the document, you can make a link. And I would link to looms. So I'd make looms that said, if you don't know how to use this report, here's a link to a quick walkthrough of how this report works. And that means that when they're sharing it across the business, anybody can understand it. Because that's the other thing about reports, they should be readable by anyone in the business, not just people who are right in it. They should be readable by anyone. Mordy Oberstein: But first off, there's a lot of great templates that are already out there, which I'll link some in the show notes. But let's run a couple Google searches for SEO reporting templates on Looker, or you can use Data Studio because maybe Google doesn't know what Looker is yet. I don't know, it's very confusing at this point. Crystal Carter: There's also templates in Google Data Studio/Looker. Mordy Oberstein: Again, confusing. Name switch is always confusing. But there's also the idea of, okay, now that you have... And I personally think with these sort of things, the framework and the mindset is more important than anything. But there still is a question of what exactly do you report on? Which is why we ask an absolute legend, Joe Hall, who is again an absolute legend in the SEO community. We asked him, "Hey Joe, how do you decide what KPIs to use in your reporting?" Hey, here's what Joe had to say. Joe Hall: When trying to decide which is the right KPI for a client or project, I like to set it up in three different ways. I like to think about KPIs as either communication KPIs, strategic KPIs or business KPIs. Communication KPIs are measurements that communicate an idea and educate the client every time you talk about them. They are used to educate and inform about bigger ideas and things they need to focus on. I usually find these KPIs by talking to the client and asking them specifically what they're interested in. This is because these are the KPIs that they are already used to talking about and they already are familiar with. So it's easier to have a conversation around those KPIs. The second set of KPIs I like to look at are what I call strategic KPIs. These are metrics that are aligned with strategic objectives. So typically, when you are starting out to do SEO, you have some sort of strategy development. And in that strategy development, you have a specific objective. And so to find these strategic KPIs, we can start backwards by looking at the intended objective for the strategy and deciding what types of metrics that can be counted to ascertain the success of that objective, or not, and these are called strategic KPIs. The last type of KPI that I like to look at are called business KPIs. And these are metrics that are aligned with business goals. And I like these because it helps connect the dots between the SEO process and the business objectives, the bigger business objectives. So basically, we could find these KPIs by trying to understand how does the SEO process impact the business model or the bottom line. So for example, if you are a publisher, then the specific KPI that might be good for you would be organic page views because many publishers sell advertising and the amount of page views can make for more expensive advertising. But whatever method you use to pick out your KPIs, whether it's communication, strategic or business, just know that the intention is to educate, inform, and align with key business objectives. And I think if you follow those three areas, you should not have any trouble picking out the perfect KPI for yourself or your client. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Joe. As a really nuance and layered way of looking at KPIs and to the point you are reporting to your clients or internally to whoever should be multi-perspective, multi-layered and tell the entire story. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Like a fantastic sandwich. It should have many layers and lots of textures and something that- Mordy Oberstein: Something crunchy. Something slightly crunchy. Crystal Carter: Something crunchy, something you can really sink your teeth. Mordy Oberstein: But not lettuce. Lettuce is crunchy but doesn't count. Crystal Carter: Something you can really sink your teeth into. But also something that's really satisfying basically, for everyone. So I think he was talking about lots of different elements of lots of different stakeholders and how he thinks about stakeholders all the way through. So the business KPIs, the strategic KPIs, the SEO KPIs. I think it's a really, really interesting way of thinking about it. And I think it's something that makes sure that everyone feels involved from the beginning because you don't want to have to redo your KPIs further down the line. It's like if you're playing Uno or something and then they start changing the rules. Nobody likes that. You don't want to change- Mordy Oberstein: Wait, there are rules in Uno? Crystal Carter: Yeah, of course there's rules in Uno. Mordy Oberstein: I honestly make those up as you go along. Crystal Carter: No, they got some new ones where you like swap hands or something like that. Mordy Oberstein: You see the double sided UNO cards? Those are awesome. Crystal Carter: I have not. Mordy Oberstein: So we'll talk about that later. Crystal Carter: Other cards are available. But yeah, nobody likes it when you have to change the rules in the middle, it does not build trust at all. So it's really good to think about what he was talking about with regards to the multiple stakeholders and making sure that everyone has a KPI that makes sense to them is super, super valuable. Incredible, great advice. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. And don't forget to give Joe Hall a follow on Twitter, @JoeHall. That's J-O-E H-A-L-L. Joe Hall. It's pretty straightforward, it's Joe Hall. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Thanks, Joe. So speaking of reporting, I was looking at a little nifty reporting dashboard that I have behind the scenes from folks at Semrush. And I was looking at some data about page or pages that we're ranking for a given keyword and I figured I would share what I found with you because we haven't done this little segment in a while. Personally, it's one of my favorites. And we're going to take a little bit of a thematic look at what kind of works for ranking overall from this particular case of what I saw was ranking at the top of the SERP, which is why we call the name of the segment, From the Top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: All the way from the top. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like these used to be some kind of '80s rock song about being on top, coming right after this segment. Know we got the whole surf thing going on? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Rocky. Crystal Carter: (singing) Mordy Oberstein: I'll arm wrestle you to the top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: There'll be like a montage and some power cords. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, a montage things ranking at the top of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: So I was looking at ranking after a Google algorithm update and I happened to stumble on something I thought was really interesting. The key word is WHO hand washing. Not like who, as in who are you, but World Health Organization, WHO hand washing. It's confusing. The intent is I think finding what WHO, not the band, but the World Health Organization, recommends as who how to wash your hands. Crystal Carter: What they recommend that you do? Mordy Oberstein: Wash your hands. Who are you? Anyway. Wow, there's a lot of singing in this episode. Crystal Carter: Too much. Mordy Oberstein: Welcome to the musical version of the SERP's Up Podcast. Crystal Carter: We should totally do a musical. Mordy Oberstein: It's the SERP's Up Podcast on ice. Crystal Carter: We should absolutely do that. Mordy Oberstein: We should do a musical version of... Anyway, I was looking at this keyword and I saw that Google was ranking a page from, it's from one of the universities, I think, it was the University of Minnesota or something like that, or it was the Minnesota Department of Health. And what I noticed was Google was ranking one page from their website about washing your hands and their hands, everyone's hands, for a really long time. And then all of a sudden, Google stopped ranking that page and swapped it out for a different page. Like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, why did Google do that? Crystal Carter: On the same domain. So it's a different page on the same domain. Mordy Oberstein: Same domain. Different page for the same website. That's really interesting. So naturally, curiosity got the better of me. I went to the old page and I went to the new page. I'm like, what's the difference between these two pages, that Google would say no more ranking of that page and now let's start ranking this page? And that was really perplexed because the new page I thought wasn't as good. I thought the old page was better. I thought the old page was more... It had better page structure, the information was more digestible, it was a little bit clearer. The UX and the UI of that page was better and the new page was not as good. I'm like, "That's so weird." Okay, what's going on here? But I noticed that topically, the new page included talking about hand sanitizer and washing hands. I'm like, isn't that interesting? And then I dived even deeper, and I noticed that most of the pages ranking on page one all talk about washing their hands with water and with hand sanitizer. And when you go to page two, it gets a little more spotty. Some pages do, some pages don't. I'm like, "Ah, I see what's going on here." Crystal Carter: Right. Google's made a decision that hand sanitizer is something that's important for ranking for this term. Mordy Oberstein: That's right. Topically speaking, hand sanitizer and hand washing, if you want to adequately comprehensively cover hand washing, you must also cover hand sanitizing. Crystal Carter: So I'm interested in this one because Google sometimes curates SERP. So for instance, during peak COVID, if you were to look up something like COVID testing, they'd have a very specific set of websites that would rank for that, for instance. And none of them were commercial. All of them were health organizations, for instance. So I'd be interested in knowing where they added that criteria, whether that was criteria that came from, say like the CDC or something. Maybe the CDC changed their criteria because that's the other thing, sometimes with certain SERPs, they will prioritize content that aligns with official information. So I wondered if that decision came from something like the CDC or if that's something that they saw from consensus that they saw that users were looking more for hand sanitizer when they were looking at hand washing. Because that's probably a question, can I wash my hands with hand sanitizer or- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, totally. Crystal Carter: ... Hand sanitizer instead of washing my hands if I don't have option to wash my hands or something to that effect. Mordy Oberstein: Totally. And in fact, when I looked at, not just this query, but I started looking at a whole bunch of other kinds of hand washing queries, and it's the same pattern. The hand sanitizer pages or the pages that talk about hand sanitizing with the hand washing all started to rank. I think that's what's happening. I think that semantically speaking, Google realized at a certain point, topically speaking, these two things now are very much a part of the same corpus of content. And you sort of have to have both. Not as a hard fast rule. But again, to comprehensively cover the topic, google kind of realize this has to be there. Because yeah, all the time when you're out there and you're like, "I'm not near a sink. Can I wash my hands or can I sanitize my hands with sanitizer?" By the way, I think at a certain point you can't. You need to actually wash it off at a certain point. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I only know that because my wife's a nurse and she told me that. Google didn't tell me that. Crystal Carter: This is true. But I wonder if this changes with different relationships between other entities. So for instance, if you think of famous couples or something, I don't know, Jennifer Lopez recently got remarried to Ben Affleck. Mordy Oberstein: What? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: Last time I checked. You didn't know? Mordy Oberstein: Poor A-Rod. Crystal Carter: It's not new. It's not new. Mordy Oberstein: This is not new? Crystal Carter: Not new. So sometimes when you look up SERPS, for instance, certainly Wikipedia will say the spouse is this person or sometimes when you look up SERPs like that, they'll have an information box that just says who the spouse is, for instance. So I'd be interested to know if Google changes that information, that they'll rank information around content that has the most recent connection, for instance, if it's like a spouse or something. Mordy Oberstein: I know for a fact, because I've tested this out. I've tested it out on sports trades. So a player has traded on one team to the next team. It's so quick. The knowledge panel updates, not the pictures. The pictures obviously don't, takes us a little bit of time or it might not get it all right. But it'll tell you who is this, what team they play for. It'll the new team right within an hour. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: It's super quick. Crystal Carter: Right. So then does that mean that the pages that rank within the sort of core search results, do they adjust the ranking there so that whichever one has the most recent one and ranks better? Mordy Oberstein: That's interesting. That's a really good question. But it also just goes to show you that it's not just what's on your page that it helps you rank, but it's also what's not on your page that helps you not rank. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. This is something that people need to think about. And I think it's again, one of the reasons why we do this segment at all the Top of the SERP, because it's worth looking at what's on the SERP as well in order to make sure that you've got the right content for what you need to do. Mordy Oberstein: So From the Top of the SERP, to the top of what's happening in the SEO news, here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, they have arrived. Some of the product updates around Google Shopping and local search now previously at Google's search on event have arrived, or arriving, depending on where you live. Per Search Engine Journal's Matt Southern, Google's new local search features are finally here. So these updates include being able to use serve to find local eateries that serve a certain dish, meaning you could search for General Tso's chicken near me, which I plan on doing immediately following this recording. You could also take a picture of the dish via Google Lens and use that to search for local establishment that serve that particular dish that you a picture of, which is amazing. Also, and this is super cool, in my honest opinion, AR is coming to local search in London, New York, LA, Paris, and Tokyo to start. It's called Search With Live You. And it basically means you can use your phone's camera point in a local shop, and you'll get a layover of visual information as to if the establishment is open, how busy it is and so forth. I was just in Times Square, New York City visiting my father. This would've been super useful. There were a million business around. If I could have simply picked up my phone, pointed it at the various establishments and just kind of did a 360, I could see how busy they were, which ones are open and made a better decision, which one I wanted to frequent instead walking around for a half hour, in and out of various shops, which we actually did. Anyway, can be very, very highly useful, super cool technology and is absolutely amazing, particularly in an area like Times Square, New York where there's a high concentration of businesses. And with that, that is this week's snappiest of Snappy News. Boy, that Snappy News of short tops. Now I'm connecting back the other segment. You see what I'm doing there? Top of the SERP, Top SEO news, so much- Crystal Carter: Flawless- Mordy Oberstein: Flawless. Flawless victory for all you video game folks in the 1990s, not in the 1990s, it's got to be later in the '90s, right? Crystal Carter: Finish him. Mordy Oberstein: Mortal Kombat. And speaking of finishing, let's finish this podcast by ending off with who you should be following for SEO Awesome. And since we're talking about SEO reporting, I think one of the greatest people out there who has done a lot by way of SEO reporting is speaking of Google Data Studio or Google Looker Dashboard, she definitely has one. She is the one, the only, Christina Brodzky LeVasseur. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. She has some fantastic Google Data Studio templates she shares around G4, around other types of reporting. And she's a great person to follow, particularly if you're getting started with SEO. She talks about reporting, she also talks about client relationships, which is why you're reporting it all, is to make sure that you're managing your client relationships. And yeah, she's a great person to follow for lots of different reasons- Mordy Oberstein: And is super helpful. Crystal Carter: Super helpful. Mordy Oberstein: Super accessible. So if you have questions and we'll link to her Google Looker, I'm never going to get this right, template. And if you have questions, just go on Twitter and she'll answer them for you. She's super accessible, so I think she's a great resource for you. So don't just follow Christina, but engage and interact with Christina because she's a wealth of information and super happy to share it. And on Twitter, it's @CBrodzky. That's B-R-O-D-Z-K-Y, over on Twitter. Of course, we'll link to her Twitter profile in the show notes. And that's it. Crystal Carter: That's it, that's all. Is that everything? Mordy Oberstein: I'm here to report that we finished the episode. See what I did there? Crystal Carter: I see. We have a fantastic KPI of having recorded a podcast. Mordy Oberstein: That's right. Crystal Carter: How many recordings? One. Mordy Oberstein: One. One recording. That's our data, one. Crystal Carter: That is our data. Our data says one recording. Well done. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like the Count from Sesame Street right now. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry? We're back next week with an all new episode. We dive into the value of Google Reviews. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes, we're already on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

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Can your PPC campaigns actually help drive your SEO efforts? Can SEO and PPC share intelligence and data? How does quality content for SEO factor into PPC and how do you manage conflicts between the two disciplines? Join guest host, Greg Finn, Co-founder of Cypress North along Wix’s own, Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter, as they share insights into how your PPC efforts can help drive SEO success on this episode of the SERPs Up SEO podcast. Back SEO & PPC: With our powers combined... Can your PPC campaigns actually help drive your SEO efforts? Can SEO and PPC share intelligence and data? How does quality content for SEO factor into PPC and how do you manage conflicts between the two disciplines? Join guest host, Greg Finn, Co-founder of Cypress North along Wix’s own, Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter, as they share insights into how your PPC efforts can help drive SEO success on this episode of the SERPs Up SEO podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 34 | April 19, 2023 | 38 MIN 00:00 / 37:46 This week’s guests Greg Finn Greg Finn is the Director of Marketing for Cypress North, a company that provides digital marketing and web development. He is a co-host of Marketing O'Clock and has been in the digital marketing industry for nearly 20 years. 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 the amazing, the fantastically, hey, it's SEO, it's PPC, it's all good, head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello everyone. Hi. Thank you for joining us today on the SERP's Up Podcast. It is a perfect day for a podcast. The weather is fine, the water is nice. Welcome. Join us. Mordy Oberstein: Did ChatGPT write that for you? It's a little poem. Like write up poem for the podcast? Crystal Carter: No, not precisely. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, did I insult you then? Crystal Carter: Not quite. ChatGPT definitely has better spelling than I do. Mordy Oberstein: Lily Ray went on on Twitter talking about how she is going to, fashion recommendations from ChatGPT and how it was all messed up. So I replied back, "Which should be more reliable for fashion recommendations, ChatGPT or me?" To which John Mueller replied back, "This is the case for AI." Okay. Well the SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix. Surprised you there, right? Where you can use Wix's AI to help you get the max out of Facebook and Instagram ads. Drive your business forward with Facebook ads. With Wix, boost sales, generate leads and drive traffic to your site with paid Facebook at Instagram campaigns powered by Wix's smart algorithm. By the way, I literally read that from a landing page. I had literally no idea that existed until I was planning this episode out. I am ashamed. There is so much about Wix I don't know about, but I have a problem with PPC that the second you mention it I black out. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of things to think about and it's also changing a lot. So I did a lot of PPC about a year ago. It is almost completely changed in that time. But there's still a lot of things that overlap and they're used, to think about. Mordy Oberstein: Which is what we're going to be talking about today. What a coincidence. We're talking about Facebook ads because, well, not because I don't have any clue about PPC anymore. I used to actually manage PPC campaigns, but believe it or not, back in the day. But as you mentioned, everything's changed and I am out. We're talking about it because we're talking about SEO and PPC campaigns. They can coexist, I think. Can SEO PPC share intelligence and data? How does quality content for SEO factor into PPC? And how do you manage conflicts between the two disciplines? You ignore the PPC, you go with the SEO. Problem solved. Done. Just kidding. And to help us navigate this wild and weird world of PPC, we have a very, very special guest for you. He's the CMO and partner over at Cypress North, the host of one of the best, if not the best digital marketing podcasts out there, an all around sweet fellow, a wearer of flannel, the one the only the only Greg Finn, is going to join us in just a bit. We'll also dive into how different search engines handle ads on their search in different ways. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following on social for more SEO awesomeness. Ready, set, click. Click again and again. Oh my God, we're a click bot. Episode number 34 of the SERP's UP Podcast is bidding for your attention. Crystal Carter: Yes, it is. Yes it is. So yeah, today we're going to be talking about SEO for PPC campaigns. This is something that I've spoken a little bit about at an event called PPC Live, which is a great event if you're looking to learn more about PPC in London. And essentially, one of the reasons why I think it's really interesting is they really often go together for a lot of different websites. It tends to be a sort of go-to add-on if you're doing activity. And one of the reasons why it's useful, from my perspective, is because it can provide you a little bit of control with regards to visibility. So your PPC can sometimes give... The rules of engagement are very, very clear. You put in the money, you get some visibility. With regards to it, with regards to SEO, we can be a little bit more complex. It can be a few more wheels within wheels to move. So it's something that can be useful while you're building up your brand, it can be something to help you shape it. But I'm sure we'll get into it a bit more with Greg, who will talk to us more about how you can add in PPC campaigns and how you can include PPC more and what you do. Mordy Oberstein: So because I again, check out on everything PPC and because he is an all around great guy, Anna, aware of Flannel and C M O and co-founder, you got the co-founder part right, of Cyprus North. Please welcome, put your hands together for the host of the Marketing O'Clock Podcast, one of the best digital your marketing podcasts out there that you should be listening to after you finish this one. Welcome, Greg Finn. Greg Finn : Wow. Thanks for the margarita here. I'm going to be catching a wave here on SERP's Up. Really happy to be here, y'all. Love the podcast. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much. The feeling is absolutely mutual. It's fantastic. Thank you for joining us. Greg Finn : And I'll make sure I don't black out on these margaritas. But I can make Mordy black out. PPC, PPC, PPC. Mordy Oberstein: What would happen? It's like Old School. You ever see that movie with Will Ferrell, the Bass, James Carville, and he said the most intelligent things and then he wakes up, he was like, "What happened?" He has no idea he said anything intelligent. That's how I feel. But it's true. I used to manage PBC campaigns. It was kind of like, I'll throw a word at you, a broad match modifier, huh? Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: See? I know the PPC. Greg Finn : If you have Microsoft advertising campaigns, they just turned it a broad match last week, so be careful. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. This is it. And I'm interested to hear you talking about Bing, jumping straight in with the Bing Microsoft advertising suite because I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be more interested in that, now that we have new Bing, Bing 2.17. Greg Finn : Yeah. And actually, Microsoft advertising is a really great tool obviously for people that do PPC. But it's also got kind of a really unique currently, I guess, elements that you can leverage that Google doesn't at the moment, where you can see all of your search query data. And when you're doing SEO and when you're putting things together, it's great to see those trends and the volume that's out there. But obviously, that is all kind of well and good and Google Trends, Keyword Planner, whatever tool of your choice is great, but Google sort of limits what actually comes through in those keywords. But Microsoft advertising doesn't. So you can see your full suite of keywords that you're showing for what works, not only hypothetically what that volume looks like, but what's actually converting. And then pick and choose some of those good ones for your SEO campaigns. Crystal Carter: And I think that that's one of the greatest things about doing a PPC SEO combo is that you can use lots of different data sets. So if you know more about, if you have good SEO keyword research, good PPC research, you can sort of pick and choose which one would be best for a PPC campaign, which would be best for a more different funnel approach, for instance, that you might take for an SEO. And yeah, you can compare different tools because again, you say you get different data from Microsoft and you get different data from Google. You also get different data from the teams behind the paid campaigns and the teams behind the search campaigns. So the team behind the page campaigns will call you all the time, asking you to get involved, whereas it can be the other way when you're on search for instance. Greg Finn : Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I'm assuming from the search you're talking about like SEO specifically. Absolutely. And there's also quite a bit of insight that you can get from, whether it be Google Ads or Microsoft advertising. And so what even some of the search engines think about your content, whether you have something like a dynamic search ad where you just put out a certain section of your website, an entire website, and you kind of see what Google, in this case, would say, or Microsoft, always got to include them, especially now, what kind of terms they're matching for and what they think your page is about. Sometimes that's just a good temperature check to be like, yep, a search engine really does think that this page is what I thought it was about, or maybe you start pulling on some different model numbers or things like that, that you know might want to work in the copy more and things of that nature. And then even on the shopping side, the feed, that's sort of a gray area sometimes. So where the feed, if you're retail, if that sits under the ads team or an organic team let's say. And there's no better way to see what a search engine thinks about your products than by looking at those search query reports for your product data. You don't have terms that you put in, you just put the feed up and see what happens. And that's again, a great way to see what a search engine thinks about it and how you can modify that to try to drive more of the free listings and the paid. So there's a ton of data in each one of these platforms that can help you in obviously, the platforms themselves and in your SEO. Mordy Oberstein: And you're going to have to work together at some point inevitably because if, for example, I've seen a bunch of cases like this... By the way, parenthetically, I want to just point out historically speaking, the keyword research data we as SEOs have had comes from the ads side of Google. Keyword Planner is a Google Ads tool, it's not a SEO tool. I mean we use it as a SEO tool. Essentially, it's a paid search tool. But anyway, you're going to definitely have to work together. I've seen cases where sites are bidding on their own branded terms and they're killing their organic rankings by pushing the organic URL down the page below the fold in some cases because they're bidding on themselves. You mentioned Google Merchant. You're going to have to figure out where to work together, where either the PPC side is impacting organic or organic isn't going the way you thought it would go and maybe now you need to pay to play. Greg Finn : Yeah, especially now as well with some of the new products that are rolling out. The biggest one is Performance Max, where it's devoid of data. The data exists, you just can't get it and you don't get to tell it where to bid. So there's a new feature where you can stop bidding on your own brand, but at the same time, if you are just putting your website out there and Google thinks that it can make a sale on a competitor's term or a competitor now is showing up for you where they didn't mean to before, you might see a drop in organic traffic because they didn't mean to. They just said, Performance Max, I'm going to fire this up. And then all of a sudden SERP's Up is outranking Marketing O'Clock because you are running ads you didn't even know on that. So I think that's one of the things that really could hinder some organic performance is the fact that you may not have had people showing up for your brand. People might not be meaning to advertise for your brand, but now there they are above their organic results. And as we've seen with Favicons coming through and site names and all that, ads typically don't look less organic results with each one of these changes that Google puts out. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we're going to talk more about that later by the way, because on the Bing side, it's bonkers. But anyway, I think that's where sometimes you run into a problem though. People look at it like, I'm on the SEO team, you're on the PPC team, but I will tell you, your CMO or your growth manager does not look at it like that. They see the website and they see the sales and they see the revenue. And I think sometimes we think there's a conflicting mindset between SEO and PPC. But I think there's a lot of overlap that we don't focus on enough. Wondering what your experience is with that as somebody who's sort of straddling both of these worlds at the same time? Greg Finn : Yeah, I think at the end of the day, the goal is to get business from a search engine and to get it as profitably as you can. That's everybody's goal. And in many cases where you have those good organic rankings, you can use that, have teams work together and bid more conservatively for some of those paid plans that you've got going on. And then the nice thing is that SEOs should love is that if there's a problem or you're struggling with ranking on specific terms, that's where paid can come in and really help each other out. I don't see it as a competitive aspect whatsoever. More so. How can we together get to the goal that we're looking to get to. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I've absolutely seen this before, particularly if there was an algorithm adjustment that maybe caught you by surprise. Sometimes paid can swoop in and help out with that. I've seen that happen before. But also it can be useful to give you intelligence on maybe why a page isn't performing the way you might expect it to. Because sometimes you put it through Google Ads and Google Ads gives you some feedback. They're like, actually this page has a low relevance score, or actually, this page is showing up for searches that aren't relevant. So maybe you should have another look at some of those keywords that it's showing up for when we read it with our machine learning tools. Also, sometimes it's a case where it might pull up certain parts of the page as being more important than other parts of the page, like when it's doing creating ads. So that can be useful as well. I'd be interested to talk to you about machine learning and PPC. One of the things I find interesting is that SEOs seem a little bit surprised sometimes when Google gets more involved with the sort of machine learning and more maybe is changing around title tags and changing around different things like that. And I know that that's something that they've been doing in PPC a lot. I don't know how you feel about the machine learning that's come into PPC. Mordy Oberstein: Get off my lawn. Greg Finn : The machine learning from something like ChatGPT and what we see with some of these auto applied recommendations and recommendation scores are light year's difference. A lot of what is kind of now really baked into the platforms really benefits the ad platforms. If you were just to say like, "We've got these recommendations, we're going to auto apply them," for the most part, those will really tank your performance. I think the big thing is now with APIs for something like ChatGPT, how can that be used to be able to say, let's help build these responsive search ads or let's go out there, can we make some sort of image. If we upload a basic picture, can we turn it into something majestic and turn it into a DSA or something like that? So I think that's really the exciting part. Now that there are more APIs coming out, you're never going to have something do it for you, but just to be able to refresh, hit things and be able to get you 70% of the way there or at least get started is really an exciting thought. Mordy Oberstein: While we still have you, I want to make sure we touch on one more topic a little bit more in depth. We just talked about content algorithms and one of the things that I love focusing on is the quality of a page. Literally, I'm looking at my screen, I'm diving into the product review update and what pages are doing way back, I'm going to the way back machine and saying what were they doing before the update and now during the update and what happened historically with the page and what does it mean for content quality? Does what content quality means for me as an SEO mean the same thing for you as someone on the PPC side? Greg Finn : No, it doesn't. So I would say that on the PPC side- Mordy Oberstein: You're saying you don't need quality content? Greg Finn : No, you do, but it's more important to really be relevant. You need to hit the right person with the right message, sending them to the right place at the right time. So for a lot of times, that might be something where on the SEO side you might build something like a skyscraper type style hub that's got everything going on. Mordy Oberstein: Whoa, whoa. What kind of person do you think I am? Greg Finn : And on the PPC side, you might match those terms up a little bit more because people might not know you. They're looking, you don't want to keep that scent trail high there. So you match whatever query is in the ad and an ad group and you send them to a landing page that talks about that specifically and then you spin up a secondary landing page for a variation of those terms so that you have a good quality score. So I think you still want to have quality, but it's less EEAT, or however many Es y'all have right now, and it's a little bit more about really hitting relevancy on the nose on it. Crystal Carter: And I think a lot of your targeting will affect whether or not you have something that's of quality to the person that clicks on it, so that you said the right person at the right time. The targeting that you set up to make sure that you are sending them to the right information at the right time is going to help you a lot there. Mordy Oberstein: So with that, we talked about this in the previous episode of the podcast, would you recommend having separate pages for your SEO and PPC campaigns? So no indexing for example, the page you're using for your PPC and doing your own, one thing on the SEO side and one thing on the PPC side? Greg Finn : Let me throw my SEO hat on quick. Mordy Oberstein: It depends. Greg Finn : It depends. If you've got a great page, I would just say that the majority of sites out there don't have phenomenal pages for both, right? You really needed to capture that demand on PPC as you're paying for it. And with SEO, you probably want to again, bake in some of those EEAT metrics and really be helpful. And on the PPC side, you can almost push harder to get that conversion, especially if you're in something like a B2B SaaS or something of that nature. So I would say that there are probably 30% of people that have good enough landing pages, but I'd say 70% of people should be testing landing pages, testing calls to action. It's one of those things where, unlike SEO, you can really dictate the spend, the clicks, you can run reports, you could run experiments, you could run tests. And you should be trying that, not just going to your homepage or something of that nature. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. And that's kind of what we said. So let's end this on a high note where you agree with what we said in the previous episode, didn't contradict it because I was a little worried there for a moment. Greg Finn : No, I completely agree with that. Mordy Oberstein: Greg, where can people find you? Greg Finn : People can find me, @GregFinn on Twitter and like you said, we've got a show, Marketing O'Clock, it comes out every Friday. It's just a new show and you can keep up with us there. Mordy Oberstein: Definitely check out the show. It features great people such as yourself and some great knowledge from people like Barry Schwartz and Glen Gabe over on the podcast. I just want to point out that I think I'm pretty sure I beat out Barry for an award. Greg Finn : Yes, we haven't made the awards yet, but there's a physical award that will be coming out. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, there's actual physical? I cannot wait. I'm stoked. I'm going to put it right here next to my little desk here, which you can't see because I have a virtual background right now. But this desk right here. I'm going to put it there. Thank you so much, Greg. Again, don't forget to check out the Marketing O'Clock Podcast. It's a great podcast if you want to keep up with everything that's going on in the digital marketing space, from SEO to PPC, to all the other digital marketing stuff that we don't actually talk about here on this podcast. Greg Finn : Thanks for having me. I had a blast. Hang 10. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much. Mordy Oberstein: Again, thank you, Greg. Now, as I mentioned earlier, or hinted at earlier in the show, different search engines handle different ads in different ways. Some, you might argue are better, some you might argue are worse. But they are most certainly different, and ads by the way, are a huge part of the ecosystem we know as the SERP, or SERPs, because we're talking about multiple search engines, not just- Crystal Carter: Search engine results pages. Mordy Oberstein: Pages. And by the way, I'm just like, for example, in 2021, which is the first set I saw, I should have probably found 2022, but I was being lazy, Microsoft raked in like eight and a half billion dollars. That's Microsoft, not Google. Microsoft. Eight and a half billion dollars from search advertising. So ads are a big deal to the search engine. It's literally why they have a search engine so they can have ads. I'm not saying that's what they're doing on every SERP to get you to an ad, but it is a source of revenue. It's how they exist, how they function. Anyway, right now we're going to go do a little fun segment that we call So Many Search Engines. So here is the PPC version of So Many Search Engines. I was talking to Owain Lloyd-Williams, who does a lot of work with Baidu in China. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, I saw that interview. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. And he was showing me the Baidu SERP. And one of the things that struck me was, you know you go to Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo and the ads are generally on top or on the bottom or on the top and the bottom. But with Baidu, they're everywhere. You get an organic result or get a result, ad, organic result, ad. And it's very, very difficult to realize when it's not separated that way, what's actually an add or not. So my point by the way to that was when I spoke to him, sometimes we as SEOs complain about how the way Google goes about ads, so aggressive with ads, the grass is always greener on the other side because it could be worse. It could be Baidu. Crystal Carter: Sometimes it's useful to have an ad. Sometimes I've definitely been on something and I was like, "I saw that ad for that thing," and I can't remember where it was. I can't remember what it was I was looking for that triggered that ad, but I would like to find that thing again. And I don't know what it's called because it was just this random kitchen gadget or something that I saw. So sometimes it's useful to have ads, if they're appropriate, if they're ads that make sense. But I think that it can be tricky if it's in a situation where people are expecting to see organic results and they're not sure if they're organic results. I think sometimes this happens in Maps. So for instance, you get the sponsored listings in Google Maps and they're not necessarily, it's just whoever was able to spend money that month rather than whoever is the best recommended and things like that. So I think that it kind of brings in the importance of adding in additional rich elements to your website, things like reviews and things like images and good title tags and stuff like that. So that even if there are ads mixed in whatever ecosystem you might be in, that your content still looks good and is able to be considered appropriately, especially when it's a very, yeah, there's some ads. Yeah, there's some mechanic stuff. Yeah, it's all kind of mixed up. Because a lot of times people can't tell. Mordy Oberstein: It's really hard. Back in the day, Google had an ad label, was highlighted in yellow, then went highlighted to green, then it had no highlight. Now it doesn't say ad anymore, it says sponsors. I think it actually makes it stick out a little bit more, between you and me. But I was actually looking at Bing, right? I'm like, let's go to Bing and see how they handle ads. I'm like, where are all the ads? Where are all the ads? I don't see any ads. That is so weird. How are they making money? Till I realized they have a very, very, very, very faint ad label in very light gray that kind of matches, into the meta description. And I didn't even notice that there were ads there. Crystal Carter: And you're somebody who watches the SERP all the time. Mordy Oberstein: I'm good at looking at these things and finding these things and it took a real minute to realize what it was. And I think, by the way, that's problematic because I do want to know when it's an ad as a consumer so I can make a choice. And I always feel like good marketing is bring up the user to the point where you're letting them be autonomous to make a choice. And I feel in this particular case that it goes a little bit too far. But again, you understand why they're doing it because they have to earn the revenue. It's just you want to know when the content is there because it deserves to rank there or when the content is there because somebody paid for it to be there. Crystal Carter: Right. And sometimes that is a signal like that we believe so much in this brand that we put some money behind it. We believe so much in what we're doing that we put some money behind it and we really want to be here for your consideration. And so sometimes that might play into your deciding process. So I think that, yeah, it's absolutely important to think about. I'm looking on Amazon right now and the reason why I bring up Amazon is because e-commerce searches in the US anyway are predominantly starting on Amazon. And I looked up leopard print dress because I'm a big fan of leopard print and I've gone full Carole Baskin in the last few months. I think she was right. Let's just be honest, wearing leopard print all the time, it just makes me happy. So there we go. Anyways, so I was looking up leopard print dress on Amazon and they have a similar sort of thing. So they've got their sponsored ads mixed in with their other ones and it's very subtle. So they have a little thing that says sponsored and a little eye next to it, but they look very much the same as the other content. And they have it mixed in for both the top section. It's like results. And then they have four star styles and it starts with a sponsored ad. And they've got other styles and they've got sponsored ads in with that. So more results and it goes with an organic, an organic and then three sponsored ads for instance. So they're all mixed in with them. And then when you go into it, there's sidebar advertising and there's going to be more advertising underneath as well for you to consider it as part of your process. And I think that for this one, mostly the sponsored ads are relevant, which is good. Although, one of them's a skirt. And I don't want to skirt, I want a dress. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, I'm someone who loves Amazon. I like shopping on Amazon. I don't have to leave my house because I don't like shopping, and I don't leaving my house either. So it's two birds in one stone, I guess. One of the things I do notice about Amazon's ads is that yes, they kind of do blend in, but they are generally super relevant and I do generally like them because they're usually a cheaper version of the same product that I'm looking for. It's like, oh, that's awesome. It's like a T-shirt, instead of $18 I'm looking at, it's $7. You know what? I don't care that's not a brand name. That t-shirt's for my six-year-old kid. You know what he's going to do with that shirt? He's going to rip it, destroy it. I am going to buy the cheaper version. So I do appreciate Amazon's ads in there. I'm not against ads at all. I will tell you a hack that I do on Facebook. I don't like Facebook, but if I'm looking for a product, I will start Googling that product. Inevitably, one of those will show up in my Facebook feed. I will purposely click on it so that my Facebook feed becomes inundated with ads about that product. I don't have to go looking around, the ads are coming right to me. My shopper stuff, I kid you not. Crystal Carter: I find it the other way around. So I treat my Instagram feed a little bit like Vogue magazine. I'm not buying anything in Vogue Magazine, I just like the pretty pictures. I just like the outfits, I think they're cute. I like seeing the outfits and the looks and all of that. But I'm not buying anything. I'm not buying Gucci, I'm not buying Ferragamo, I have no Louis Vuitton. This is not happening for me. But I like looking at the picture. So I go on Instagram and they're like, oh look, Ferragamo has a new collection. And I'm like, "Oh, they do?" And they're advertising at me and I click on it and I look through all of their collection and I buy nothing. And then I go back to my Instagram feed and then they show me some others. So I'm like Louis Vuitton, and I'm not buying any of it, I'm just looking. Mordy Oberstein: Window shopping? What is that called when it's on the internet? Crystal Carter: When I was doing PPC, I called those folks looky-loos. So we had a campaign that we were running, it was around apparel, it was around clothing and we were running around 24 hours a day. But we looked at it and we saw that we had a lot of clicks between midnight and 3:00 AM, and none of them bought anything. This is just the equivalent of digital drunk dialing. And so those people are looky-loos. And I'm like, "We are cutting off those ads. Y'all can look on your own dime." You're not looking on mine. Mordy Oberstein: That's great. Love that. Crystal Carter: And we increased. Our cost per acquisition or whatever improved dramatically because we weren't appealing to those people who aren't actually buying. Mordy Oberstein: They're like me, they're just looking for something. I do eventually buy something, but I buy in a store, but that's a whole different thing. Don't go by me, I'm a weird shopper. Crystal Carter: And here's another example. So I looked up leopard print dress on YouTube and if you're not aware, YouTube is one of the second... It's like generally most ads, put it is the second biggest search engine on earth, in the world. And I looked up leopard print dress and the organic results are how to style a leopard print dress, how to layer a leopard print dress, how to wear leopard print dresses. The ad that I'm getting is from Cisco, which is best class hardware and software to protect your business network. Mordy Oberstein: YouTube is a mess. I will tell you when my kids are watching YouTube on the TV, it's less of a problem on the device, but on the TV, they get most ridiculous ads that are completely inappropriate for them. It's like a problem. It's problematic, which is weird by the way, because I'm about to say coming back to the traditional search engine, Google, one of the ways that I see them differentiating themselves and how they handle ads is one, is they are generally very, very relevant, very, very accurate, which is weird about the whole YouTube thing. But they also do a lot of cross advertising. So you have PLAs and image search, for example. You have map ads, you have local pack ads, you have product listing ads on the SERP for products. There's all different types of dynamic ads in all sorts of places, one of which is YouTube. It's just sometimes the YouTube ones are less accurate I find than other platforms. But Bing doesn't do this the same way. Other search engines don't. Google is very deliberate and very unique in how they place their ads in all parts or all subsections of search. Crystal Carter: Right. And they will create dedicated channels for it. So for instance, on the leopard print dress, the SERPs and around apparel, they've invested a lot around clothing and around shopping. So they've got sponsored ads that show up on the main SERP. Then they have their dedicated channel, their Google shopping channel, which gives you another row of ads, another bit of organic, another opportunity to engage with that content if you have a high intent for purchasing that. Similarly, I mentioned the ones for Google Maps, they also have a dedicated ad feed for that. They also have one for hotels, for instance, and travel and that sort of thing as well. So Google Travel has that as well. Mordy Oberstein: It's really good. Crystal Carter: And they're filtering it by intent. It also allows advertisers to focus by intent. The thing for SEOs to think about is how they interact with those ecosystems. And sometimes, you can work together. So for instance, Google Merchant can give you a lot of good information about how your products are being read online, generally. I was looking at an account the other day and Google Merchant was flagging it for excessive capitalization is what they were being flagged for. Mordy Oberstein: That is problematic right there, all that- Crystal Carter: Right. So that's an accessibility issue that also looks a little bit spammy. And so Google Merchant is flagging them for that. That's going to be something that they should pay attention to, just generally for search and also for their ads as well. So think about how your content fits into those ecosystems and if there's other opportunities for that. Similarly, for Google Merchant, there's also like the Google Merchant API, I think it's content indexing API, that allows you to show up in Google Merchant. And that's something that also helps your content generally perform better. Mordy Oberstein: And look, where Google is placing ads and how they're placing ads, if you're in SEO, for example, the classic example I think of is image search. There's so many PLAs in image search, which goes to tell you that Google knows that when people go to images in image search, they're sometimes have a commercial and transactional intent. That's why they're throwing those images in there. So if you have images for your products or whatever it is that you're doing, you don't have your blog post in image search, have the actual product page image. People are actually looking for actual purchase intent in image search. That's why Google's showing ads there. Now, onto other things, new things, other things I guess, maybe ad related things. Who knows? Because the world of SEO news is just always so changing and there is always so much about ads. Now I feel pigeonholed. We're going to have to discuss an ad related topic in the SEO news. Crystal Carter: Or you could do an advertisement. This is an advertisement for the SEO news, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: You're advertising SEO news. Mordy Oberstein: You’re advertising. When we do the SEO news, it's basically advertising, free advertising for Barry Schwartz. Crystal Carter: We love you Barry. Thank you for all you do. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, Barry. So without further ado, here's this week's version of the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Two in the bag for you today, both from he who was known as Sir Barry, Knight of the SEO Round table. I can't remember if I made that joke before because both these articles are from Barry Schwartz over at SE Round Table. Anyway, number one, Google, April 2023 Reviews Update Rolls Out, Expands To Cover Reviews About Products, Services, and Things. This is super interesting to me because I've long suspected the product review update was never meant to be just for product reviews, but was meant to learn how to profile that genre of content. I have tweeted this out, I don't know, a year and a half ago. So I have the tweet to prove it. Well just call me Elijah because I'm an SEO prophet. The product review update is now the reviews update, which means the acronym has gone from PRU to RU. Fascinating. And as such, it applies to all review content. So blogs that review the best places to travel or the best lawyers a throw your life savings away at, sorry, I can never help making a good lawyer joke, are all included in this update. My prediction in the future, it will expand or elements of this algorithm will be included in the core algorithm. Also, super cool to note how confident Google is in understanding content. Because identifying a website like the Wirecutter, which is all about product reviews, is relatively easy. With the topical expansion, Google has to dig more through the weeds to find applicable pages, which it feels it can. So that's super cool. Also, from Knight of the SEO Roundtable, that is just how I'm going to refer to you from now on, Barry, Google Removes Video Thumbnails In Search Results When Video Is Not Main Content. So Google had two formats for video thumbnails, one with a thumbnail to the left of the title description and so forth, and one to the right. The one the right is no more. And it's because the format where the video thumbnail is, was, to the right is for cases where the video is not the main content of the page. So now, only URLs where the video is the main content will show with a thumbnail, to the left, reiterating what Beyonce has always known to be true, to the left, to the left, everything you own in the box to the left. And with that, that is this week's Snappy News. With the news out of the way, and so much of the news coming from the PPC side, if you go to seroundtable.com or Search Engine Land or Search Engine Journal, so much of the news for search marketers is actually about PPC, for me to the point of annoyance. But for many people, to the point of it being helpful. So we've thought what a great person for the follow of the week than none other than Google's own Ads liaison, one of my favorite people in the wider digital marketing industry, Ginny Marvin. Crystal Carter: Ginny Marvin. Absolutely. She is the Google Ad Liaison. And she is somebody who speaks really, really openly to folks on online, which is really, really useful to help people learn more about what's going on in the ad space. Mordy Oberstein: She's just a sweet person. She used to be the editor over Search Engine Land and the SMX events and all my interactions were incredibly pleasant. So she's a great person to follow, @AdsLiaison on Twitter and her personal account is @GinnyMarvin. Ginny with a G, G-I-N-N-Y-M-A-R-V-I-N. We'll link to both profiles in the show notes. She's an amazing resource, she's incredibly helpful. If you have questions and problems or whatever is related to your PPC, as it pertains to Google, like I wouldn't ask her about Bing. We owe you much thanks Ginny. First off, thanks for managing Barry all those years over at Search Engine Land and now, thank you for helping with the PPC side of the Google Search experience, and that brings us to the end of this show. Crystal Carter: That brings us to the end of the show. Mordy Oberstein: I hope it really paid off for you. Crystal Carter: That was good. I hope had a high return on investment. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh, nice. I'm not going to say it wasn't as good as my pun because I don't want to say that. Crystal Carter: You didn't say it. Mordy Oberstein: But almost there, I think. I'm going to get into some much trouble. Crystal Carter: More optimization. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's all good. Thank you for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with an all new episode as we dive into where SEO meets content marketing. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts or on our SEO Learning Hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn a little more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify or both. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Greg Finn Ginny Marvin Google Ad Liaison Resources : Wix SEO Learning Hub Cypress North Agency Marketing O'Clock Podcast Interview on Baidu SEO The Searchlight Newsletter News: Google April 2023 Reviews Update Rolls Out, Expands To Cover Reviews About Products, Services, and Things Google Removes Video Thumbnails In Search Results When Video Is Not Main Content Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Greg Finn Ginny Marvin Google Ad Liaison Resources : Wix SEO Learning Hub Cypress North Agency Marketing O'Clock Podcast Interview on Baidu SEO The Searchlight Newsletter News: Google April 2023 Reviews Update Rolls Out, Expands To Cover Reviews About Products, Services, and Things Google Removes Video Thumbnails In Search Results When Video Is Not Main Content 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 the amazing, the fantastically, hey, it's SEO, it's PPC, it's all good, head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello everyone. Hi. Thank you for joining us today on the SERP's Up Podcast. It is a perfect day for a podcast. The weather is fine, the water is nice. Welcome. Join us. Mordy Oberstein: Did ChatGPT write that for you? It's a little poem. Like write up poem for the podcast? Crystal Carter: No, not precisely. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, did I insult you then? Crystal Carter: Not quite. ChatGPT definitely has better spelling than I do. Mordy Oberstein: Lily Ray went on on Twitter talking about how she is going to, fashion recommendations from ChatGPT and how it was all messed up. So I replied back, "Which should be more reliable for fashion recommendations, ChatGPT or me?" To which John Mueller replied back, "This is the case for AI." Okay. Well the SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix. Surprised you there, right? Where you can use Wix's AI to help you get the max out of Facebook and Instagram ads. Drive your business forward with Facebook ads. With Wix, boost sales, generate leads and drive traffic to your site with paid Facebook at Instagram campaigns powered by Wix's smart algorithm. By the way, I literally read that from a landing page. I had literally no idea that existed until I was planning this episode out. I am ashamed. There is so much about Wix I don't know about, but I have a problem with PPC that the second you mention it I black out. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of things to think about and it's also changing a lot. So I did a lot of PPC about a year ago. It is almost completely changed in that time. But there's still a lot of things that overlap and they're used, to think about. Mordy Oberstein: Which is what we're going to be talking about today. What a coincidence. We're talking about Facebook ads because, well, not because I don't have any clue about PPC anymore. I used to actually manage PPC campaigns, but believe it or not, back in the day. But as you mentioned, everything's changed and I am out. We're talking about it because we're talking about SEO and PPC campaigns. They can coexist, I think. Can SEO PPC share intelligence and data? How does quality content for SEO factor into PPC? And how do you manage conflicts between the two disciplines? You ignore the PPC, you go with the SEO. Problem solved. Done. Just kidding. And to help us navigate this wild and weird world of PPC, we have a very, very special guest for you. He's the CMO and partner over at Cypress North, the host of one of the best, if not the best digital marketing podcasts out there, an all around sweet fellow, a wearer of flannel, the one the only the only Greg Finn, is going to join us in just a bit. We'll also dive into how different search engines handle ads on their search in different ways. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following on social for more SEO awesomeness. Ready, set, click. Click again and again. Oh my God, we're a click bot. Episode number 34 of the SERP's UP Podcast is bidding for your attention. Crystal Carter: Yes, it is. Yes it is. So yeah, today we're going to be talking about SEO for PPC campaigns. This is something that I've spoken a little bit about at an event called PPC Live, which is a great event if you're looking to learn more about PPC in London. And essentially, one of the reasons why I think it's really interesting is they really often go together for a lot of different websites. It tends to be a sort of go-to add-on if you're doing activity. And one of the reasons why it's useful, from my perspective, is because it can provide you a little bit of control with regards to visibility. So your PPC can sometimes give... The rules of engagement are very, very clear. You put in the money, you get some visibility. With regards to it, with regards to SEO, we can be a little bit more complex. It can be a few more wheels within wheels to move. So it's something that can be useful while you're building up your brand, it can be something to help you shape it. But I'm sure we'll get into it a bit more with Greg, who will talk to us more about how you can add in PPC campaigns and how you can include PPC more and what you do. Mordy Oberstein: So because I again, check out on everything PPC and because he is an all around great guy, Anna, aware of Flannel and C M O and co-founder, you got the co-founder part right, of Cyprus North. Please welcome, put your hands together for the host of the Marketing O'Clock Podcast, one of the best digital your marketing podcasts out there that you should be listening to after you finish this one. Welcome, Greg Finn. Greg Finn : Wow. Thanks for the margarita here. I'm going to be catching a wave here on SERP's Up. Really happy to be here, y'all. Love the podcast. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much. The feeling is absolutely mutual. It's fantastic. Thank you for joining us. Greg Finn : And I'll make sure I don't black out on these margaritas. But I can make Mordy black out. PPC, PPC, PPC. Mordy Oberstein: What would happen? It's like Old School. You ever see that movie with Will Ferrell, the Bass, James Carville, and he said the most intelligent things and then he wakes up, he was like, "What happened?" He has no idea he said anything intelligent. That's how I feel. But it's true. I used to manage PBC campaigns. It was kind of like, I'll throw a word at you, a broad match modifier, huh? Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: See? I know the PPC. Greg Finn : If you have Microsoft advertising campaigns, they just turned it a broad match last week, so be careful. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. This is it. And I'm interested to hear you talking about Bing, jumping straight in with the Bing Microsoft advertising suite because I'm guessing a lot of people are going to be more interested in that, now that we have new Bing, Bing 2.17. Greg Finn : Yeah. And actually, Microsoft advertising is a really great tool obviously for people that do PPC. But it's also got kind of a really unique currently, I guess, elements that you can leverage that Google doesn't at the moment, where you can see all of your search query data. And when you're doing SEO and when you're putting things together, it's great to see those trends and the volume that's out there. But obviously, that is all kind of well and good and Google Trends, Keyword Planner, whatever tool of your choice is great, but Google sort of limits what actually comes through in those keywords. But Microsoft advertising doesn't. So you can see your full suite of keywords that you're showing for what works, not only hypothetically what that volume looks like, but what's actually converting. And then pick and choose some of those good ones for your SEO campaigns. Crystal Carter: And I think that that's one of the greatest things about doing a PPC SEO combo is that you can use lots of different data sets. So if you know more about, if you have good SEO keyword research, good PPC research, you can sort of pick and choose which one would be best for a PPC campaign, which would be best for a more different funnel approach, for instance, that you might take for an SEO. And yeah, you can compare different tools because again, you say you get different data from Microsoft and you get different data from Google. You also get different data from the teams behind the paid campaigns and the teams behind the search campaigns. So the team behind the page campaigns will call you all the time, asking you to get involved, whereas it can be the other way when you're on search for instance. Greg Finn : Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I'm assuming from the search you're talking about like SEO specifically. Absolutely. And there's also quite a bit of insight that you can get from, whether it be Google Ads or Microsoft advertising. And so what even some of the search engines think about your content, whether you have something like a dynamic search ad where you just put out a certain section of your website, an entire website, and you kind of see what Google, in this case, would say, or Microsoft, always got to include them, especially now, what kind of terms they're matching for and what they think your page is about. Sometimes that's just a good temperature check to be like, yep, a search engine really does think that this page is what I thought it was about, or maybe you start pulling on some different model numbers or things like that, that you know might want to work in the copy more and things of that nature. And then even on the shopping side, the feed, that's sort of a gray area sometimes. So where the feed, if you're retail, if that sits under the ads team or an organic team let's say. And there's no better way to see what a search engine thinks about your products than by looking at those search query reports for your product data. You don't have terms that you put in, you just put the feed up and see what happens. And that's again, a great way to see what a search engine thinks about it and how you can modify that to try to drive more of the free listings and the paid. So there's a ton of data in each one of these platforms that can help you in obviously, the platforms themselves and in your SEO. Mordy Oberstein: And you're going to have to work together at some point inevitably because if, for example, I've seen a bunch of cases like this... By the way, parenthetically, I want to just point out historically speaking, the keyword research data we as SEOs have had comes from the ads side of Google. Keyword Planner is a Google Ads tool, it's not a SEO tool. I mean we use it as a SEO tool. Essentially, it's a paid search tool. But anyway, you're going to definitely have to work together. I've seen cases where sites are bidding on their own branded terms and they're killing their organic rankings by pushing the organic URL down the page below the fold in some cases because they're bidding on themselves. You mentioned Google Merchant. You're going to have to figure out where to work together, where either the PPC side is impacting organic or organic isn't going the way you thought it would go and maybe now you need to pay to play. Greg Finn : Yeah, especially now as well with some of the new products that are rolling out. The biggest one is Performance Max, where it's devoid of data. The data exists, you just can't get it and you don't get to tell it where to bid. So there's a new feature where you can stop bidding on your own brand, but at the same time, if you are just putting your website out there and Google thinks that it can make a sale on a competitor's term or a competitor now is showing up for you where they didn't mean to before, you might see a drop in organic traffic because they didn't mean to. They just said, Performance Max, I'm going to fire this up. And then all of a sudden SERP's Up is outranking Marketing O'Clock because you are running ads you didn't even know on that. So I think that's one of the things that really could hinder some organic performance is the fact that you may not have had people showing up for your brand. People might not be meaning to advertise for your brand, but now there they are above their organic results. And as we've seen with Favicons coming through and site names and all that, ads typically don't look less organic results with each one of these changes that Google puts out. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we're going to talk more about that later by the way, because on the Bing side, it's bonkers. But anyway, I think that's where sometimes you run into a problem though. People look at it like, I'm on the SEO team, you're on the PPC team, but I will tell you, your CMO or your growth manager does not look at it like that. They see the website and they see the sales and they see the revenue. And I think sometimes we think there's a conflicting mindset between SEO and PPC. But I think there's a lot of overlap that we don't focus on enough. Wondering what your experience is with that as somebody who's sort of straddling both of these worlds at the same time? Greg Finn : Yeah, I think at the end of the day, the goal is to get business from a search engine and to get it as profitably as you can. That's everybody's goal. And in many cases where you have those good organic rankings, you can use that, have teams work together and bid more conservatively for some of those paid plans that you've got going on. And then the nice thing is that SEOs should love is that if there's a problem or you're struggling with ranking on specific terms, that's where paid can come in and really help each other out. I don't see it as a competitive aspect whatsoever. More so. How can we together get to the goal that we're looking to get to. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I've absolutely seen this before, particularly if there was an algorithm adjustment that maybe caught you by surprise. Sometimes paid can swoop in and help out with that. I've seen that happen before. But also it can be useful to give you intelligence on maybe why a page isn't performing the way you might expect it to. Because sometimes you put it through Google Ads and Google Ads gives you some feedback. They're like, actually this page has a low relevance score, or actually, this page is showing up for searches that aren't relevant. So maybe you should have another look at some of those keywords that it's showing up for when we read it with our machine learning tools. Also, sometimes it's a case where it might pull up certain parts of the page as being more important than other parts of the page, like when it's doing creating ads. So that can be useful as well. I'd be interested to talk to you about machine learning and PPC. One of the things I find interesting is that SEOs seem a little bit surprised sometimes when Google gets more involved with the sort of machine learning and more maybe is changing around title tags and changing around different things like that. And I know that that's something that they've been doing in PPC a lot. I don't know how you feel about the machine learning that's come into PPC. Mordy Oberstein: Get off my lawn. Greg Finn : The machine learning from something like ChatGPT and what we see with some of these auto applied recommendations and recommendation scores are light year's difference. A lot of what is kind of now really baked into the platforms really benefits the ad platforms. If you were just to say like, "We've got these recommendations, we're going to auto apply them," for the most part, those will really tank your performance. I think the big thing is now with APIs for something like ChatGPT, how can that be used to be able to say, let's help build these responsive search ads or let's go out there, can we make some sort of image. If we upload a basic picture, can we turn it into something majestic and turn it into a DSA or something like that? So I think that's really the exciting part. Now that there are more APIs coming out, you're never going to have something do it for you, but just to be able to refresh, hit things and be able to get you 70% of the way there or at least get started is really an exciting thought. Mordy Oberstein: While we still have you, I want to make sure we touch on one more topic a little bit more in depth. We just talked about content algorithms and one of the things that I love focusing on is the quality of a page. Literally, I'm looking at my screen, I'm diving into the product review update and what pages are doing way back, I'm going to the way back machine and saying what were they doing before the update and now during the update and what happened historically with the page and what does it mean for content quality? Does what content quality means for me as an SEO mean the same thing for you as someone on the PPC side? Greg Finn : No, it doesn't. So I would say that on the PPC side- Mordy Oberstein: You're saying you don't need quality content? Greg Finn : No, you do, but it's more important to really be relevant. You need to hit the right person with the right message, sending them to the right place at the right time. So for a lot of times, that might be something where on the SEO side you might build something like a skyscraper type style hub that's got everything going on. Mordy Oberstein: Whoa, whoa. What kind of person do you think I am? Greg Finn : And on the PPC side, you might match those terms up a little bit more because people might not know you. They're looking, you don't want to keep that scent trail high there. So you match whatever query is in the ad and an ad group and you send them to a landing page that talks about that specifically and then you spin up a secondary landing page for a variation of those terms so that you have a good quality score. So I think you still want to have quality, but it's less EEAT, or however many Es y'all have right now, and it's a little bit more about really hitting relevancy on the nose on it. Crystal Carter: And I think a lot of your targeting will affect whether or not you have something that's of quality to the person that clicks on it, so that you said the right person at the right time. The targeting that you set up to make sure that you are sending them to the right information at the right time is going to help you a lot there. Mordy Oberstein: So with that, we talked about this in the previous episode of the podcast, would you recommend having separate pages for your SEO and PPC campaigns? So no indexing for example, the page you're using for your PPC and doing your own, one thing on the SEO side and one thing on the PPC side? Greg Finn : Let me throw my SEO hat on quick. Mordy Oberstein: It depends. Greg Finn : It depends. If you've got a great page, I would just say that the majority of sites out there don't have phenomenal pages for both, right? You really needed to capture that demand on PPC as you're paying for it. And with SEO, you probably want to again, bake in some of those EEAT metrics and really be helpful. And on the PPC side, you can almost push harder to get that conversion, especially if you're in something like a B2B SaaS or something of that nature. So I would say that there are probably 30% of people that have good enough landing pages, but I'd say 70% of people should be testing landing pages, testing calls to action. It's one of those things where, unlike SEO, you can really dictate the spend, the clicks, you can run reports, you could run experiments, you could run tests. And you should be trying that, not just going to your homepage or something of that nature. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. And that's kind of what we said. So let's end this on a high note where you agree with what we said in the previous episode, didn't contradict it because I was a little worried there for a moment. Greg Finn : No, I completely agree with that. Mordy Oberstein: Greg, where can people find you? Greg Finn : People can find me, @GregFinn on Twitter and like you said, we've got a show, Marketing O'Clock, it comes out every Friday. It's just a new show and you can keep up with us there. Mordy Oberstein: Definitely check out the show. It features great people such as yourself and some great knowledge from people like Barry Schwartz and Glen Gabe over on the podcast. I just want to point out that I think I'm pretty sure I beat out Barry for an award. Greg Finn : Yes, we haven't made the awards yet, but there's a physical award that will be coming out. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, there's actual physical? I cannot wait. I'm stoked. I'm going to put it right here next to my little desk here, which you can't see because I have a virtual background right now. But this desk right here. I'm going to put it there. Thank you so much, Greg. Again, don't forget to check out the Marketing O'Clock Podcast. It's a great podcast if you want to keep up with everything that's going on in the digital marketing space, from SEO to PPC, to all the other digital marketing stuff that we don't actually talk about here on this podcast. Greg Finn : Thanks for having me. I had a blast. Hang 10. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much. Mordy Oberstein: Again, thank you, Greg. Now, as I mentioned earlier, or hinted at earlier in the show, different search engines handle different ads in different ways. Some, you might argue are better, some you might argue are worse. But they are most certainly different, and ads by the way, are a huge part of the ecosystem we know as the SERP, or SERPs, because we're talking about multiple search engines, not just- Crystal Carter: Search engine results pages. Mordy Oberstein: Pages. And by the way, I'm just like, for example, in 2021, which is the first set I saw, I should have probably found 2022, but I was being lazy, Microsoft raked in like eight and a half billion dollars. That's Microsoft, not Google. Microsoft. Eight and a half billion dollars from search advertising. So ads are a big deal to the search engine. It's literally why they have a search engine so they can have ads. I'm not saying that's what they're doing on every SERP to get you to an ad, but it is a source of revenue. It's how they exist, how they function. Anyway, right now we're going to go do a little fun segment that we call So Many Search Engines. So here is the PPC version of So Many Search Engines. I was talking to Owain Lloyd-Williams, who does a lot of work with Baidu in China. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, I saw that interview. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. And he was showing me the Baidu SERP. And one of the things that struck me was, you know you go to Google or Bing or DuckDuckGo and the ads are generally on top or on the bottom or on the top and the bottom. But with Baidu, they're everywhere. You get an organic result or get a result, ad, organic result, ad. And it's very, very difficult to realize when it's not separated that way, what's actually an add or not. So my point by the way to that was when I spoke to him, sometimes we as SEOs complain about how the way Google goes about ads, so aggressive with ads, the grass is always greener on the other side because it could be worse. It could be Baidu. Crystal Carter: Sometimes it's useful to have an ad. Sometimes I've definitely been on something and I was like, "I saw that ad for that thing," and I can't remember where it was. I can't remember what it was I was looking for that triggered that ad, but I would like to find that thing again. And I don't know what it's called because it was just this random kitchen gadget or something that I saw. So sometimes it's useful to have ads, if they're appropriate, if they're ads that make sense. But I think that it can be tricky if it's in a situation where people are expecting to see organic results and they're not sure if they're organic results. I think sometimes this happens in Maps. So for instance, you get the sponsored listings in Google Maps and they're not necessarily, it's just whoever was able to spend money that month rather than whoever is the best recommended and things like that. So I think that it kind of brings in the importance of adding in additional rich elements to your website, things like reviews and things like images and good title tags and stuff like that. So that even if there are ads mixed in whatever ecosystem you might be in, that your content still looks good and is able to be considered appropriately, especially when it's a very, yeah, there's some ads. Yeah, there's some mechanic stuff. Yeah, it's all kind of mixed up. Because a lot of times people can't tell. Mordy Oberstein: It's really hard. Back in the day, Google had an ad label, was highlighted in yellow, then went highlighted to green, then it had no highlight. Now it doesn't say ad anymore, it says sponsors. I think it actually makes it stick out a little bit more, between you and me. But I was actually looking at Bing, right? I'm like, let's go to Bing and see how they handle ads. I'm like, where are all the ads? Where are all the ads? I don't see any ads. That is so weird. How are they making money? Till I realized they have a very, very, very, very faint ad label in very light gray that kind of matches, into the meta description. And I didn't even notice that there were ads there. Crystal Carter: And you're somebody who watches the SERP all the time. Mordy Oberstein: I'm good at looking at these things and finding these things and it took a real minute to realize what it was. And I think, by the way, that's problematic because I do want to know when it's an ad as a consumer so I can make a choice. And I always feel like good marketing is bring up the user to the point where you're letting them be autonomous to make a choice. And I feel in this particular case that it goes a little bit too far. But again, you understand why they're doing it because they have to earn the revenue. It's just you want to know when the content is there because it deserves to rank there or when the content is there because somebody paid for it to be there. Crystal Carter: Right. And sometimes that is a signal like that we believe so much in this brand that we put some money behind it. We believe so much in what we're doing that we put some money behind it and we really want to be here for your consideration. And so sometimes that might play into your deciding process. So I think that, yeah, it's absolutely important to think about. I'm looking on Amazon right now and the reason why I bring up Amazon is because e-commerce searches in the US anyway are predominantly starting on Amazon. And I looked up leopard print dress because I'm a big fan of leopard print and I've gone full Carole Baskin in the last few months. I think she was right. Let's just be honest, wearing leopard print all the time, it just makes me happy. So there we go. Anyways, so I was looking up leopard print dress on Amazon and they have a similar sort of thing. So they've got their sponsored ads mixed in with their other ones and it's very subtle. So they have a little thing that says sponsored and a little eye next to it, but they look very much the same as the other content. And they have it mixed in for both the top section. It's like results. And then they have four star styles and it starts with a sponsored ad. And they've got other styles and they've got sponsored ads in with that. So more results and it goes with an organic, an organic and then three sponsored ads for instance. So they're all mixed in with them. And then when you go into it, there's sidebar advertising and there's going to be more advertising underneath as well for you to consider it as part of your process. And I think that for this one, mostly the sponsored ads are relevant, which is good. Although, one of them's a skirt. And I don't want to skirt, I want a dress. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, I'm someone who loves Amazon. I like shopping on Amazon. I don't have to leave my house because I don't like shopping, and I don't leaving my house either. So it's two birds in one stone, I guess. One of the things I do notice about Amazon's ads is that yes, they kind of do blend in, but they are generally super relevant and I do generally like them because they're usually a cheaper version of the same product that I'm looking for. It's like, oh, that's awesome. It's like a T-shirt, instead of $18 I'm looking at, it's $7. You know what? I don't care that's not a brand name. That t-shirt's for my six-year-old kid. You know what he's going to do with that shirt? He's going to rip it, destroy it. I am going to buy the cheaper version. So I do appreciate Amazon's ads in there. I'm not against ads at all. I will tell you a hack that I do on Facebook. I don't like Facebook, but if I'm looking for a product, I will start Googling that product. Inevitably, one of those will show up in my Facebook feed. I will purposely click on it so that my Facebook feed becomes inundated with ads about that product. I don't have to go looking around, the ads are coming right to me. My shopper stuff, I kid you not. Crystal Carter: I find it the other way around. So I treat my Instagram feed a little bit like Vogue magazine. I'm not buying anything in Vogue Magazine, I just like the pretty pictures. I just like the outfits, I think they're cute. I like seeing the outfits and the looks and all of that. But I'm not buying anything. I'm not buying Gucci, I'm not buying Ferragamo, I have no Louis Vuitton. This is not happening for me. But I like looking at the picture. So I go on Instagram and they're like, oh look, Ferragamo has a new collection. And I'm like, "Oh, they do?" And they're advertising at me and I click on it and I look through all of their collection and I buy nothing. And then I go back to my Instagram feed and then they show me some others. So I'm like Louis Vuitton, and I'm not buying any of it, I'm just looking. Mordy Oberstein: Window shopping? What is that called when it's on the internet? Crystal Carter: When I was doing PPC, I called those folks looky-loos. So we had a campaign that we were running, it was around apparel, it was around clothing and we were running around 24 hours a day. But we looked at it and we saw that we had a lot of clicks between midnight and 3:00 AM, and none of them bought anything. This is just the equivalent of digital drunk dialing. And so those people are looky-loos. And I'm like, "We are cutting off those ads. Y'all can look on your own dime." You're not looking on mine. Mordy Oberstein: That's great. Love that. Crystal Carter: And we increased. Our cost per acquisition or whatever improved dramatically because we weren't appealing to those people who aren't actually buying. Mordy Oberstein: They're like me, they're just looking for something. I do eventually buy something, but I buy in a store, but that's a whole different thing. Don't go by me, I'm a weird shopper. Crystal Carter: And here's another example. So I looked up leopard print dress on YouTube and if you're not aware, YouTube is one of the second... It's like generally most ads, put it is the second biggest search engine on earth, in the world. And I looked up leopard print dress and the organic results are how to style a leopard print dress, how to layer a leopard print dress, how to wear leopard print dresses. The ad that I'm getting is from Cisco, which is best class hardware and software to protect your business network. Mordy Oberstein: YouTube is a mess. I will tell you when my kids are watching YouTube on the TV, it's less of a problem on the device, but on the TV, they get most ridiculous ads that are completely inappropriate for them. It's like a problem. It's problematic, which is weird by the way, because I'm about to say coming back to the traditional search engine, Google, one of the ways that I see them differentiating themselves and how they handle ads is one, is they are generally very, very relevant, very, very accurate, which is weird about the whole YouTube thing. But they also do a lot of cross advertising. So you have PLAs and image search, for example. You have map ads, you have local pack ads, you have product listing ads on the SERP for products. There's all different types of dynamic ads in all sorts of places, one of which is YouTube. It's just sometimes the YouTube ones are less accurate I find than other platforms. But Bing doesn't do this the same way. Other search engines don't. Google is very deliberate and very unique in how they place their ads in all parts or all subsections of search. Crystal Carter: Right. And they will create dedicated channels for it. So for instance, on the leopard print dress, the SERPs and around apparel, they've invested a lot around clothing and around shopping. So they've got sponsored ads that show up on the main SERP. Then they have their dedicated channel, their Google shopping channel, which gives you another row of ads, another bit of organic, another opportunity to engage with that content if you have a high intent for purchasing that. Similarly, I mentioned the ones for Google Maps, they also have a dedicated ad feed for that. They also have one for hotels, for instance, and travel and that sort of thing as well. So Google Travel has that as well. Mordy Oberstein: It's really good. Crystal Carter: And they're filtering it by intent. It also allows advertisers to focus by intent. The thing for SEOs to think about is how they interact with those ecosystems. And sometimes, you can work together. So for instance, Google Merchant can give you a lot of good information about how your products are being read online, generally. I was looking at an account the other day and Google Merchant was flagging it for excessive capitalization is what they were being flagged for. Mordy Oberstein: That is problematic right there, all that- Crystal Carter: Right. So that's an accessibility issue that also looks a little bit spammy. And so Google Merchant is flagging them for that. That's going to be something that they should pay attention to, just generally for search and also for their ads as well. So think about how your content fits into those ecosystems and if there's other opportunities for that. Similarly, for Google Merchant, there's also like the Google Merchant API, I think it's content indexing API, that allows you to show up in Google Merchant. And that's something that also helps your content generally perform better. Mordy Oberstein: And look, where Google is placing ads and how they're placing ads, if you're in SEO, for example, the classic example I think of is image search. There's so many PLAs in image search, which goes to tell you that Google knows that when people go to images in image search, they're sometimes have a commercial and transactional intent. That's why they're throwing those images in there. So if you have images for your products or whatever it is that you're doing, you don't have your blog post in image search, have the actual product page image. People are actually looking for actual purchase intent in image search. That's why Google's showing ads there. Now, onto other things, new things, other things I guess, maybe ad related things. Who knows? Because the world of SEO news is just always so changing and there is always so much about ads. Now I feel pigeonholed. We're going to have to discuss an ad related topic in the SEO news. Crystal Carter: Or you could do an advertisement. This is an advertisement for the SEO news, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: You're advertising SEO news. Mordy Oberstein: You’re advertising. When we do the SEO news, it's basically advertising, free advertising for Barry Schwartz. Crystal Carter: We love you Barry. Thank you for all you do. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, Barry. So without further ado, here's this week's version of the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Two in the bag for you today, both from he who was known as Sir Barry, Knight of the SEO Round table. I can't remember if I made that joke before because both these articles are from Barry Schwartz over at SE Round Table. Anyway, number one, Google, April 2023 Reviews Update Rolls Out, Expands To Cover Reviews About Products, Services, and Things. This is super interesting to me because I've long suspected the product review update was never meant to be just for product reviews, but was meant to learn how to profile that genre of content. I have tweeted this out, I don't know, a year and a half ago. So I have the tweet to prove it. Well just call me Elijah because I'm an SEO prophet. The product review update is now the reviews update, which means the acronym has gone from PRU to RU. Fascinating. And as such, it applies to all review content. So blogs that review the best places to travel or the best lawyers a throw your life savings away at, sorry, I can never help making a good lawyer joke, are all included in this update. My prediction in the future, it will expand or elements of this algorithm will be included in the core algorithm. Also, super cool to note how confident Google is in understanding content. Because identifying a website like the Wirecutter, which is all about product reviews, is relatively easy. With the topical expansion, Google has to dig more through the weeds to find applicable pages, which it feels it can. So that's super cool. Also, from Knight of the SEO Roundtable, that is just how I'm going to refer to you from now on, Barry, Google Removes Video Thumbnails In Search Results When Video Is Not Main Content. So Google had two formats for video thumbnails, one with a thumbnail to the left of the title description and so forth, and one to the right. The one the right is no more. And it's because the format where the video thumbnail is, was, to the right is for cases where the video is not the main content of the page. So now, only URLs where the video is the main content will show with a thumbnail, to the left, reiterating what Beyonce has always known to be true, to the left, to the left, everything you own in the box to the left. And with that, that is this week's Snappy News. With the news out of the way, and so much of the news coming from the PPC side, if you go to seroundtable.com or Search Engine Land or Search Engine Journal, so much of the news for search marketers is actually about PPC, for me to the point of annoyance. But for many people, to the point of it being helpful. So we've thought what a great person for the follow of the week than none other than Google's own Ads liaison, one of my favorite people in the wider digital marketing industry, Ginny Marvin. Crystal Carter: Ginny Marvin. Absolutely. She is the Google Ad Liaison. And she is somebody who speaks really, really openly to folks on online, which is really, really useful to help people learn more about what's going on in the ad space. Mordy Oberstein: She's just a sweet person. She used to be the editor over Search Engine Land and the SMX events and all my interactions were incredibly pleasant. So she's a great person to follow, @AdsLiaison on Twitter and her personal account is @GinnyMarvin. Ginny with a G, G-I-N-N-Y-M-A-R-V-I-N. We'll link to both profiles in the show notes. She's an amazing resource, she's incredibly helpful. If you have questions and problems or whatever is related to your PPC, as it pertains to Google, like I wouldn't ask her about Bing. We owe you much thanks Ginny. First off, thanks for managing Barry all those years over at Search Engine Land and now, thank you for helping with the PPC side of the Google Search experience, and that brings us to the end of this show. Crystal Carter: That brings us to the end of the show. Mordy Oberstein: I hope it really paid off for you. Crystal Carter: That was good. I hope had a high return on investment. Mordy Oberstein: Ooh, nice. I'm not going to say it wasn't as good as my pun because I don't want to say that. Crystal Carter: You didn't say it. Mordy Oberstein: But almost there, I think. I'm going to get into some much trouble. Crystal Carter: More optimization. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's all good. Thank you for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with an all new episode as we dive into where SEO meets content marketing. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts or on our SEO Learning Hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn a little more about SEO? Check out all of the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify or both. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

How this SEO successfully optimized 500 sites and counting “Working on Wix is a huge source of competitive advantage for my SEO business. The investment they continue to make in SEO is like being on a winning bet.” 100% Increase in organic traffic for The Geekside 10.2K Keywords ranked for Barbulianno Design 70% Increase in sales for CO2 Radical Every SEO client comes with unique business challenges. Relying on Wix’s SEO tools gives this search marketer more time to solve them. Find out how Tom Nelan helped three very different clients crush their growth goals. The business Originally a lawyer, Tom first became fascinated with SEO when he built his wife a website for her Japanese translator business . In 2017, he went on to formally study SEO at the Digital Marketing Institute of Ireland, where he graduated in the top 1% of his class. Needless to say, he immediately put his newfound skills to work and helped his wife’s website climb to the top of the SERP. Tom officially launched his own business, SEO for Wix , in 2018. In order to connect with potential clients, he joined the Wix Marketplace and was paired up with his own customer success manager. From there, his business has gone from strength to strength. Now a Top 25 Wix Partner globally, Tom has worked on 500 Wix sites and counting. With hundreds of five-star reviews, he has happy clients everywhere from Switzerland to Singapore. Tom Nelan, Founder of SEO for Wix Skyrocketing sci-fi sales exceed The Geekside’s expectations 100% increase in organic traffic over 3 months 6.3K keywords ranked 67% increase in sales over 1 year The SEO challenge Specializing in everything from Harry Potter to Stranger Things, The Geekside is a sci-fi merchandise store based in the UK town of Skipton. They got in touch with Tom because they had a problem: their brick and mortar store was thriving but their online presence was in the doldrums. Their website traffic simply wasn’t living up to expectations, and realistically there were only so many customers they could attract through their shop window. The solution Tom got to work by identifying some site design improvements that could help Google better understand what The Geekside’s website was all about. As it was built on Wix, the business owner was able to make these edits themselves with minimal fuss. With these changes implemented, Tom dove straight into the more technical SEO tasks on his to-do list. As an online store with more than 700 products to optimize, this kind of painstaking work would typically set a project back by several days or even weeks. However, Tom decided to rely on Wix’s best-in-class default settings and then apply his own SEO logic at scale, which cut the project’s timeline by more than 50%. “Take a page title for example,” describes Tom. “You can insert that as a value that goes in for each of the 700 products. So Harry Potter will be one value on the Harry Potter page, but that appears as Star Trek on the Star Trek related page. With Wix, you can do that in bulk and put in the relevant keywords across the board, all with just a couple of clicks.” These time-saving features give Tom—and his clients—an edge in today’s marketplace. “If you can save one day's worth of time, you can pass those savings along to your customers. It just makes being a Wix SEO that bit more competitive in challenging times. You can come back to the client with a quote that's surprisingly decent from their point of view.” The results Within 3 months, Tom’s SEO work paid off with a huge increase in online visibility for The Geekside’s online store. Now ranking for 6.3K keywords, the website experienced a 100% increase in organic traffic which in turn led to a whopping 67% increase in sales. Barbulianno Design brings in unprecedented profits 10.2K keywords ranked 6.9K organic traffic 70% increase in profits over 1 year The SEO challenge Barbulianno Design is a UK-based homeware business that showcases sustainable brands and artisan furniture makers. The website creates revenue through affiliate links, so attracting high levels of traffic is critical in order to turn a profit. When Tom arrived on the scene, Barbulianno Design was a blank slate SEO-wise. The first thing he noticed was the website wasn’t fulfilling the “Expertise” requirement in Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines. Specifically, the site’s About page wasn’t telling a clear story about who the business owner was and what the business offered. The solution Tom advised his client how to tailor the website’s design and content in a way that search engines would understand, before getting to work on the site’s technical SEO. After conducting thorough keyword research, he got the site owner’s buy-in on which keywords to optimize for. As always, Tom advised against a “scatter-gun approach”, as he routinely explains to clients that their site can’t be all things to all people. “We ended up with a nice final list of keywords, and then it was just a matter of putting those in all the little places that you can put keywords in Wix. There's so many if you know where to look,” Tom explains. The final task Tom undertook was backlinking. When explaining to clients how this helps Google understand their site, he uses the metaphor of how neural pathways work in the brain. “When you're talking to business people every day, you have to bring it back to a language that they can understand,” he recommends. The results Following on from Tom’s SEO work, Barbulianno Designs experienced an X% uplift in organic traffic and was named Etsy Affiliate of the Month for its popularity. “I could see serious growth very soon after Tom optimized Barbulianno Design,” shares the business owner, Vanja Barbul. “Google has become our number one traffic source. Profits increased by 70% in the first year and by a further 120% the following year.” Transforming CO₂ Radical from a niche product into a top seller 25% conversion rate $100K traffic value The SEO challenge Founded by two medical professionals in 2021, CO₂ Radical is a groundbreaking product that provides real-time air quality updates to its users via smartphone. The monitor provides a crucial service as it protects against toxic particles that can lead to the spread of infections like COVID-19. Of course, the SEO challenge that comes with marketing highly innovative products is that no one is searching for them—yet. Tom was well aware of this fact when the owners of CO₂ Radical reached out to him. Their website had been getting trace amounts of traffic, but nowhere near what they had hoped for given how much time and resources they invested in getting their new product off the ground. The solution While they had plenty of content on their website, Tom recognized it wasn’t telling their company’s story as clearly as Google needed it to. With his design and content recommendations implemented, Tom put his keyword research into practice and used Wix’s SEO tools to insert high-performing phrases in all the right places. “After you optimize the site, you have to take your hands off the wheel and give Google time to get to grips with your improvements,” Tom notes. “In this case, it happened quickly. They were very, very happy clients.” The results Tom successfully turned an extremely niche product into the highest earner of all the Wix sites he’s ever worked on. CO₂ Radical’s website now boasts a 25% conversion rate which is nearly 9 times higher than the industry benchmark. Learn how smart SEO features on Wix can help you deliver higher KPIs in less time, and explore our SEO Learning Hub for the latest insights from industry experts. Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

What works and what doesn’t work when connecting with your audience and customer base? Are audience expectations changing? Creator of Confidence Live! and founder of Roar Training, Kirsty Hulse joins Wix’s own Mordy Oberstien and Crystal Carter to discuss the optimal strategies for engaging with your customers. Kirsty urges marketers not to showcase yourselves, but to offer customers a mirror to connect your brand to their own experiences. Plus, we go in-depth into how AI can be used to establish a connection with your customers while preserving genuine human emotion. Make meaningful connections with your customers with this month’s SERP’s Up+ Podcast. Back How to connect to your customers What works and what doesn’t work when connecting with your audience and customer base? Are audience expectations changing? Creator of Confidence Live! and founder of Roar Training, Kirsty Hulse joins Wix’s own Mordy Oberstien and Crystal Carter to discuss the optimal strategies for engaging with your customers. Kirsty urges marketers not to showcase yourselves, but to offer customers a mirror to connect your brand to their own experiences. Plus, we go in-depth into how AI can be used to establish a connection with your customers while preserving genuine human emotion. Make meaningful connections with your customers with this month’s SERP’s Up+ Podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode SERP's Up+ 04 | November 6, 2023 | 31 MIN 00:00 / 30:35 This week’s guests Kirsty Hulse Kirsty Hulse is an award winning Confidence Coach and motivational speaker. She founded her first company at 26, a marketing agency with global clients like Virgin Atlantic and IBM, which turned over nearly a million dollars in its first year of trading. She has delivered training programs at the world’s biggest companies, and her work has been described as “game changing”, “life changing” and from the thousands of people she has worked with, 100% of attendees would recommend her work to a colleague. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of marketing podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up Plus. Aloha, Mahalo, for joining the SERP's Up Plus Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in digital marketing. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO Brand here at Wix Central with the fabulously incredible, the amazing, the unparalleled uncompromised Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello? Kidding. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, that's the best response yet. That's the best response yet. So good, Crystal. Hi. Crystal Carter: Hey, guys. Mordy Oberstein: How are you? Crystal Carter: What's up? Really happy to be here. It's my favorite thing about Andy Murray. He's a tennis player in the U.K. and I remember he won Wimbledon or something like that, and he was there giving a reception speech. He was like, "I'm really happy right now. I know I don't sound that happy, but I'm really happy." Mordy Oberstein: It's like Latka from taxi, "Thank you very much." Crystal Carter: People express emotion in different ways. That's fine. It's a rich tapestry of humanity. Mordy Oberstein: We haven't done this podcast in a month, it's a monthly podcast, so I'm excited for this. We have a great guest coming at you. But first, the SERP's Up Plus podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can dive into the connection between you and your audience by using all of the social media tools, templates, and integrations found in both Wix and Wix Studio. Get more details over wix.com/studio. I bring up connections because we are here today to help you connect to your audience and consumers in an ever-changing digital landscape. That was so cliche. We're going to dive into what works, what doesn't work when connecting with your audience and consumer base. How are audience expectations changing? We'll probably get into something around AI, I imagine, about that, and what are consumers actually looking for that perhaps they weren't looking for in the past? To help us dial up the connection, creator of Confidence Live and Founder of Roar, a real world training agency that works, Kirsty Hulse will join us in just a jiffy. So unplug your landline and jimmy the modem as this month's SERP's Up Plus Podcast helps you connect to the web of interest and expectations that is your audience and consumer base. Crystal Carter: That was incredible breath control there, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I even put it in my notes, "Pause for effects." Crystal Carter: I mean, you missed your calling. You could have been an auctioneer or a grime emcee Mordy Oberstein: I'm telling you. Crystal Carter: Have you ever been to a live auction? Mordy Oberstein: No, but that sounds horrible. Crystal Carter: It's incredible. I walked into a cattle market once and it was like, "da, da, da, da, da ,da…]. Sold. And I was like, "What just happened?" Mordy Oberstein: A cattle market? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: They were selling like it it's at Yellowstone? They're selling... Crystal Carter: You love Yellowstone. Mordy Oberstein: I do. Crystal Carter: You love that TV show? Yes, they were literally selling cows. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. Crystal Carter: It was one of the highlights of my life. I find that fantastic. Anyway, so there you go. Mordy Oberstein: I normally find that with our regular weekly series, SERP's Up, which is an SEO focused podcast, that sometimes we really have to dive into some background on whatever the particular topic is, because SEO is weird and technical or niche and that sort of thing. But I find on this podcast there's really no introduction needed. Crystal Carter: I mean, I hope we're going to give Kirsty an introduction. Mordy Oberstein: That was my pivot. That was my pivot. That was my pivot. I was going to say there's no need for introducing the topic. I feel like we all understand the importance of connecting to your audience and your consumer base, but we do need to introduce our guest. I was this close. Crystal Carter: So close, so close. Great lines. I'm so, so pleased that Kirsty Hulse responded to my message of invite because when we were thinking about this, Kirsty was the first person that came to mind because I absolutely have been such a fan of Kirsty's approach to marketing and particularly her approach to, and I'm thinking about Kirsty in the third person as if she's not in the room, the virtual room, but she is, I'm introducing you anyway, Kirsty, but yeah, the incredible way that Kirsty speaks very plainly about marketing like, "It's not that complicated." And I've just always been in such awe of that and so giving. I'm a member of the Women in Tech SEO group and Kirsty has given bespoke training there. Kirsty does her Confidence Life courses and events and things like that, and she's incredibly giving with marketing knowledge and it's always super valuable and always on point. And she also is the patron saint of making sure that people get their window seat when they're owed their window seat. So I think that we're so pleased to have Kirsty here at the podcast, and thank you so much for joining us. Kirsty Hulse: Thank you. Thank you so much. What a wonderful introduction. I will take that I'm the patron saint of window seats. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like I need context. Kirsty Hulse: No. Mordy Oberstein: No? Okay. Kirsty Hulse: No context. Crystal Carter: There was a tweet and I saw the tweet and I was like, "Yes. Absolutely, yes." So that's what I will say about that. Mordy Oberstein: Was there a fight over a window seat? Kirsty Hulse: I basically went low-key viral on Twitter because some dude wasn't giving this woman her window seat, and I stepped in. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Kirsty Hulse: So yeah Crystal Carter: She didn't even go to the details. I remember this very clearly, and the tweet was something like, "I went to go get in my seat. This lady sad in my seat and she was like, "Oh, there's this man sat in my window seat." And Kirsty was like, "Needless to say, he's not sat in that seat anymore." And I was on a plate and somebody else was like, "You're in my seat," and that came to mind and I was like, "I am not in your seat. I am in my seat. Thank you very much. End." Anyway, it was very important to communicate the needs in that situation and Kirsty did so effortlessly for all people who have booked a window seat because they like the window seat. So there we go. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. End of podcast. Kirsty Hulse: Goodbye. Mordy Oberstein: But in all seriousness, let's talk about connecting with your audience and your consumer base and I guess let's start off very, very, very basic. What works, what doesn't work when you're trying to connect to a consumer base and your overall audience? Kirsty Hulse: Lovely, thank you. And so maybe just a bit of context about the lens that I'm going to talk about this through. So my background's marketing, my background's SEO, I run an SEO agency, and then the past few years I've been a speaker predominantly. So I'm really in the connection game. Whether that's in blog content or Instagram captions or on a stage, same rules apply. So a lot of the things that I teach and that I'm actually really passionate about, the format doesn't really matter. I think the most important cardinal rule of connection, it's first and foremost, you have to be a living human being with living human experiences. And you have to give yourself away a little bit so that people can connect to that. Mordy Oberstein: Well, we got to the AI thing so quickly. That was the fastest rocket into AI. Kirsty Hulse: I know. Mordy Oberstein: So I can't put a prompt in to say, "Hey, connect to my audience for me, large language model." Kirsty Hulse: Well, there's a distinction here. AI is incredibly good at informational content, and people respect that kind of content and people will learn from that kind of content. But people attach to emotional content. So actually I use AI. It has huge amounts of value to help structure and organize and somewhat with that informational data-based content. But if you're trying to move someone, so that moving someone could be, are you trying to sell a product, are you trying to get them to change their behavior in any kind of way, then it can be done through AI everything it can, but I think it's more powerful and more meaningful when we do that through our... Kirsty Hulse: It's more powerful and more meaningful when we do that through our own lived human experiences. And that's through things like storytelling and the modeling of emotion, which maybe we'll come onto later. Crystal Carter: And I think it's interesting that, and one of the first points that you made, was that it doesn't matter what platform you're on when you're speaking to people, that you aim for connecting with people. And certainly I'm a follower of yours on multiple platforms, and I've definitely seen that. Like, Kirsty does Kirsty when Kirsty is doing Kirsty. There was that meme that was going around that was like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and it was different pictures of different things, whatever. And I think that one of the things that you're very good at, and one of the things that I would guess you might advocate is having the same picture of them. Do you know what I mean? Having the same sort of tone of voice where your audience knows you wherever you go. Is that something you'd advocate for? Kirsty Hulse: Yes. 100%. I think the main thing that I advocate for generally in life, it's almost this de-masking of ourselves. This kind of like, let's just stop for a hot minute acting or pretending that we don't have warmth or charisma or humor and taking our personalities and zipping them up in some kind of professional straight jacket in the name of being businesslike. I hate that. And I actually think that's something that really gets in the way of our ability to connect. Which, whether we're trying to get that connection from a marketing perspective or just a human perspective, same. That's all we want to do as humans. We just want to see and be seen. Mordy Oberstein: I really think that that point, one, is so profound, so easy to understand, but so completely glossed over. It's literally why we had a podcast interview with Rand fishing about the genuine self and the role in marketing. But I also think it's something we discussed internally a lot when we were building, say, landing pages. I know there's been many discussions about this that when you look at your traditional landing page it's very businesslike and it's slightly over-promising, if not completely over-promising, and highly actionable, get this, do this, ultimate this, the best this, get it now. And I feel like perhaps, and maybe I'm wrong, I don’t know what your thoughts are, that people are sort of starting to see through that and seeing that as a mask and they're looking for something a little bit more emotional, a little bit more genuine, a little bit more conversational. And I think that we as marketers and SEOs and content writers are a little bit behind the curve on that. And we're still creating content like it's 2009 or 2019, rather, and not in a way that's actually connective. And I think we're running the risk of putting a schism between us and our audience. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Kirsty Hulse: Yeah, totally. And the reason that I'm on this podcast is because I have become known and associated with certain topics, that's not an accident. And all of the content pretty much that I create is story-based. But I think sometimes when you are creating content that's a story and a narrative I think the mistake or maybe the incorrect assumption that marketers make is that we just wing it and we just tell stories and just be yourself. It's not that actually, so the process that I go on whenever I'm trying to connect with an audience on a stage, on an email, doesn't matter, the process that I go on is I think about the main point that I'm trying to make. Am I trying to sell some training? Am I trying to position myself as an expert? What is the one thing that I'm trying to do with this piece of content? And then the second question I ask myself is, what experiences have I got from my life that demonstrate that point? And then you tell that story. And then you tell the story, like the research on MRI scans show that we use emotional information when making decisions, that humans are built for stories. So the justification as to why you would do stories is unlimited. The difficult thing we can sometimes find is how. So I have a spreadsheet that has a list of things like what are the main points I'm trying to make in my marketing and what are the stories that relate to that? And I tell those stories. And actually for my audience, they're receiving nourishing content because it's story based, and at the same time it's reinforcing my brand. And it's not an accident, it's an intentional considered process. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that the interesting thing about stories, the interesting thing about experience, we recently had a conversation with Lily Ray about experience, about the E-E-A-T, and I mean to tie this back into SEO, SEOs they've added in that experience element on the EEAT. And I think that one of the things that's interesting about that is something that I think about, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on this podcast but it's certainly something that was a core realization of mine. But I had my kid, I got lots of advice about parenting and that is tiresome. However, hearing other people's experience about what happened with their kid or that kid or whatever, that was useful because you can take whatever nuggets from that experience. So the thing you're talking about, about tying in experience to a point that you're trying to make, there'll be a reason why there'll almost certainly be an experience that prompted you to start that business or prompted you to make that product or prompted you to write that piece of content that is connected to you. So yeah, I think it is worth explaining what that is to people so that people know why you're writing that piece of content. I remember reading someone's thing and it was shocking about gut health stuff, and I'm like, why are you writing this? Is it because you had some problems with your gut and you found some stuff out? Or is it because you're a clinically trained microbiome person? What is it? Explain your connection to the content and people can understand that. Kirsty Hulse: And I think one of the things that I know to be true, I know this will be true, the more specific a story is to the individual the more universal it becomes. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Kirsty Hulse: If I'm doing storytelling training, people will say, well, people don't care about me. And I'm like, you're right, they don't. They don't. But they do care about themselves. The value of stories isn't to show off or tell people about you. The value of stories is to give people a mirror to view their own experiences internally. That's why books are generally better than movies. If you have a favorite movie that's turned into a book, the book is better because it's your imagination. That's the value of storytelling. Mordy Oberstein: That's such a great point. We talked about this internally before at Wix, where we're going, the story of Wix, here's our story. We're running through a couple of brand positioning dialogues. I love brand marketing. One of the things I think brand marketers make a mistake with is that what you're trying to do is to deal with your audience's pain points and to show your audience that you solve those pain points. Whereas I think in reality, what you're really trying to do is to get the audience to see themselves in you. And there's so many different aspects that go into that. And that could be showing that you're an expert in the area. Oh, I'm also an expert in this. You're also an expert in this. Great, now we're on the same page. There's so many layers that go into that. But you're really trying to create a real association between your audience and you in so far as that they see themselves in you. And that's why I think in terms of brand marketing, brand marketing's very, very wide. And if you want to be successful with it and to really resonate with your audience, you have to think holistically. Otherwise, you cannot create that association between yourself and the audience. Kirsty Hulse: Yeah, absolutely. And I think on that kind of brand stories, you get a lot of websites who will do exactly like you said, be like our story. That's not actually storytelling, that's product sharing. What a storytelling would be, would be something like, I was sitting at my computer and my heart was racing in frustration and I threw my mouse on the floor, and that was when I knew it needed to be different. Good stories are specific, specific tiny moments in time. So, if you want to be better at storytelling- Kirsty Hulse: So, if you want to be better at storytelling, just be really specific. Think about a 30-second moment and articulate that tiny moment. That's how you tell good stories, I think. Crystal Carter: So I want to flip that around a little bit. If you'll bear with me. And I know you do a lot of training, so you must have this pop up all the time, what about the risks of this? What are the risks associated with bearing... Not necessarily bearing all, I guess, but with telling some of those stories? When do you hit TMI, or where do you find the challenges around that? Kirsty Hulse: Yes. Thank you, that's a lovely question. One of the things that I always say is, there's a big difference between authenticity and disclosure. And I think sometimes, people think that they need to bear all. The majority of my life is secret from me. I share freely on the internet, but the majority of my experiences are for me. They're to be earned, they're private. So, I think the idea that we all have to share our stuff in order to be considered authentic and to be able to connect just isn't true. I think first, it's kind of like… authenticity doesn't mean you have to tell everything. Authenticity means you can pick moments from your life, illustrate the point you're trying to make. And also, I think maybe we'll come on to this when we talk about connection. Connecting with people isn't about what you say. It's really about the energy that you are bringing into that moment and the intentionality. If someone is dumping, we can feel that if someone is just truthfully sharing from a place of service, we can feel that. As the content creator, as the marketer, whatever we want to use, it's important that we can feel the difference. And we're talking about emotions, and this is emotional resonance that we can feel the difference in our bodies really, like is this coming from a true place of serving and helping others? The answer to that question always has to be, yes. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And that's really the difference between messaging and positioning, the two different things sometimes. There's the message, and then, how you're positioning yourself to deliver that message. And they're not the same always. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Kirsty Hulse: Sure. Crystal Carter: There's a thing where they're like... Is it you sell the... People talk about how do you sell me this pen? And it's like, "Oh, it does this, this, this, this." And it's like write something down. And then, someone's like, "I don't have a pen." It's like, "You want a pen"? Mordy Oberstein: Where's the spoon? Crystal Carter: Right, right. You're selling someone a solution. So, we talked to them about solutions. There we go. But yeah, I don't know if you want to get onto the AI questions there, Mordy, or the other questions. Mordy Oberstein: No, honestly, I'm sick of the AI stuff for a few minutes. Whatever. Use AI, don't use AI, see if I care. No, I don't mean it that way. You should use AI, use it responsibly. Reference our podcast with Kim Garst about how you can use it in your marketing responsibly. What I'm interested in actually is how do you see, what resonates with consumers changing, and how has it changed? Has it changed? Where is it headed? And I'm sure AI factors into that actually. Kirsty Hulse: I think what I'm seeing changing is like we touched upon earlier. There really is, and this has always been true, but I think it's just becoming more the case. There is a deep desire for meaningful connection. And I don't know about you, but I can tell if someone's content is written by an AI. We can just tell. We know. We know your tweets were written by AI. We know. We can feel this stuff. It's subtle, and that subtlety is going to get increasingly subtle, which I think is cool and exciting. But I think what consumers are wanting, and we're all consumers, I wonder if consumers don't want to be thought of as consumers. I wonder if actually what we want is to just really come back to our humanity. And I think the value of using AI is, I don't think AI is going to take people jobs, but I do think people who use AI in alongside of their humanity, that's when it gets really powerful when you connect those two things together. Again, I think just people want to see their lived experiences reflected in whatever you're trying to share with them. Crystal Carter: Do you find that the need to connect across these different spaces becomes more acute as it becomes more and more fractioned, I guess? There's Instagram, there's Twitter, there's WhatsApp, there's Threads, there's TikTok, there's this, and there's that. So, I think that there's a feeling that like, oh, maybe I need to be always on in order to connect. But sometimes, somebody says, "Oh, I sent you a message," and you're like, "Where? Which channel did you send me a message on?" Mordy Oberstein: Hangouts. I put it on on Hangouts. Crystal Carter: I wonder if that's affecting how we connect. What's that? Mordy Oberstein: I sent it on Hangouts just to throw you off. Kirsty Hulse: No, my mind just gone blank. Was it Google Plus? Crystal Carter: Yeah, Google Hangouts. I was on Google Plus. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I hijacked that. Yeah. What do you do then? Kirsty Hulse: So, the question is how do we deal with all of these multiple platforms? Do you know what? I'm probably, I'm maybe a naughty person to ask this question too, because I ran businesses and worked in marketing for a long time, but I've never really done... In fact, no, there's no really, I've never done a marketing content strategy really other than this story mining process I was telling you about. So, I've never thought about how I'm going to be on LinkedIn, versus how I'm going to be on Twitter, versus how I'm going to be on Instagram. I think what I do is I have a person, an individual, not a group of people, not personas, not demographics, one human person that I know deeply that I picture and I communicate to them, that one person, and that one person is on LinkedIn. That one person is on Instagram. And even though these platforms do different things, the person that you might be your ideal customer on LinkedIn is maybe thinking about things slightly differently, but they still have heartache, and grief, and children, and put their socks on in the mornings. So, I think for me, I've never changed my approach by platform. I just rinse and repeat across the different things. And I think that's easier when you have the individual that you are talking to, rather than, I think sometimes, as marketers, we can bucket people into groups. Mordy Oberstein: Personas. Kirsty Hulse: Like we're talking to CMOs of this age. Personas. Exactly. Yeah. And they can be really helpful, especially if you're doing paid stuff, they can be very helpful. And I think for me, coming back to this desire for connection, where's the human within this data? Where's the emotion? Where's the... And so whenever I do something, I'm thinking about one individual, and I know her, and I can see her, and she has a face, and I talk directly to her. Crystal Carter: I remember working on an account that was a golf account, and I've never golfed a day in my life. I don't golf, but I have a good friend who is golf mad who when the sun shines, he's out and he's golfing. And I was working, doing some social media stuff for this golf account. And basically, whenever I wrote anything, I just imagined my golf friend who goes on and on and on about how much he loves golf all the time. And I wrote all of the content with him in mind and things, and we got great responses from it, and checked it with people who were in the community, et cetera, et cetera. And it worked really, really well. So, yeah, absolutely. If you're listening to this podcast, take Kirsty's advice on that because it's a great tip. Kirsty Hulse: One of the things I've observed is we go on three phases when we're communicating with people. And again, that's one person, 10 people, 10,000 people, doesn't make a difference. We start by trying to impress others. We start by being like, "Will people think I'm smart? Will they think I'm cool? Will they think I'm funny? Will they think my product's good?" Whatever. We start with this very, it's about us trying to impress people. And then, eventually maybe that fades, and we get into what I call inform. And inform is when we're good at sharing information. Inform is like, "Here's the information, and I'm going to give you the information." But then, if we're lucky, we get into the third category, which is what I call inspire. And inspire is when you're like what you were just talking about, Crystal... Kirsty Hulse: And inspire is when you are like, what you were just talking about, Crystal, "I'm here to meaningfully inspire action." And I think if we're trying to connect with our consumers, the most important thing is it isn't about you. It's not about you. It's never about you. And when we can remove ourselves from the picture, it's only ever about your audience's joy or your audience's understanding or your audiences. And I think just that little subtle shift can change the way that we start creating. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like we're in such an environment right now where you have all those subtle little shifts happening right now in terms of expectations, in terms of the way content is generated, but not only the way content is generated, but the type of content you're putting out. I think it touches back on something that you were talking about earlier. I guess now I do want to swing back around to the AI thing. I'm sorry, I can't stop myself. But I know we talk about, and you hit on this a little bit, we talk about in general, AI and content writing and AI can produce all this content for you, and that's this huge impact of what AI will do for the web, but what you hit on before was, the fact that you have all this AI content coming out makes people look at content in general a little bit differently. Is this really real? Is this really the content that I want to consume? How do I know it's the content that I want to consume? If it's AI, is it okay if it's AI? I guess it's okay in this context if it's AI. And I feel like the biggest change that AI theoretically can make is not just in the volume of content that's able to be generated, but what it means for the skepticism of people looking at content and what they want out of content and what they're expecting out of the content that you're producing. Do you think that, that changes the way that we need to go about communicating and connecting to our audiences, realizing that perhaps they're a little bit more, I'd say skeptical is a bad word, I don't have a better one on the top of my head, but a little more skeptical or a little bit more thoughtful rather about what they're looking at and what they're expecting to consume? Kirsty Hulse: Yeah. And I think it's skeptical, but I think more than that it's saturated. And so I think AI poses huge amounts of opportunity. We can create so much content. And that's good, actually. I'm not anti-AI at all. And I also think it's going to encourage all of us to be better, because the barrier to entry to market, to write, to connect is now just so much lower that I think in order to be good, everyone now is already good, in order to be absolutely incredible, impactful, amazing, that still remains within the realm of the human. But we can all be good now. We can all create good, solid, decent content in AI. And so if you want to be good, go ahead. If you want to be really powerful, then add in a little bit more. And increasingly I think people are a little bit more skeptical, and I also think that we can somehow intuitively feel when things are generated by AI, which is fine. It's really good in some instances. So I think there's that distinction that it's really possible to be really good with AI generated content, and I think in order to be really exceptional, we still need a big sprinkle of humanity alongside it. Mordy Oberstein: I love that. I think that's so true, such a good point. With that, where can people find you in case they want to connect with you and experience all of your storytelling out there in the ether that is the internet? Kirsty Hulse: Well, we were joking about this before, weren't we? That I'm very fortunate in that my name, there's nobody else with my name. My name is Kirsty Hulse. You Google me and I'm all over the place. I own those SERPs. Crystal Carter: Indeed. You're like Beyonce. There's only one Beyonce. There's only one Kirsty Hulse. There we go. Mordy Oberstein: Like we told Lily Ray the other day, we'll link to your Google search in our show notes. Crystal Carter: To your SERP. Kirsty Hulse: I feel like a a lot of your guests feel like, "Yeah, just Google me." But I got that down. Mordy Oberstein: Honestly, we haven't said that. I feel like it's such a snarky, "Where can we find you?" Whatever. Just Google them. You'll find them there. It makes my life doing the show notes far easier, by the way. Crystal Carter: I would say though it's worth visiting Kirsty's website. Kirsty has talked a lot about storytelling. Your about page is a fantastic about page. It's like an origin story and I think that there's some great stuff in terms of seeing in action how you can shape a story that is connective, that is rich, and that is not oversharing, but is being open at the same time. And I think that, that vulnerability. Because you share some personal stuff on it. Not every single detail, but you share a few personal elements there as well and I think that, that kind of vulnerability also makes people connect more to you as well. So I think that Kirsty's about page is a fantastic page. It's kirstyhulse.com/about. Kirsty Hulse: Well, I actually have, which I think would be genuinely really valuable, because I get asked. I think sometimes people assume that when we tell stories, it happens by accident, and it really, really, really doesn't. Crystal, if you've ever read one of my emails and thought, "Oh, that was emotionally compelling," it doesn't just happen. There's a whole process. The spreadsheets, once a nerd, always a nerd. But there's a spreadsheet. So actually I'll send it to you so you can put it in the show notes. I've got, it's totally free, a template for how to craft more storytelling into your marketing in a way that's really simple. People tend to add it into their content marketing calendars. So if anybody loves a spreadsheet, I got you. Crystal Carter: Oh, that's me. So yeah, if you can just drop that in my inbox, that'd be great. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Thank you so much, Kristy, for coming on and enlightening our audience. We really appreciate it. Kirsty Hulse: Thank you both so much. This was really lovely. I appreciate you chatting to me. Mordy Oberstein: For sure. And dear audience, well, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up Plus Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode of SERP's Up, our regular SEO podcast, and back next month with another SERP's Up Plus for more marketing talk. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO learning over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO and marketing with all sorts of great content and webinars? Then head over to the Wix 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, love, and marketing. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Kirsty Hulse Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Kirsty Hulse Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Kirsty Hulse Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube Kirsty Hulse Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of marketing podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up Plus. Aloha, Mahalo, for joining the SERP's Up Plus Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in digital marketing. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO Brand here at Wix Central with the fabulously incredible, the amazing, the unparalleled uncompromised Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello? Kidding. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, that's the best response yet. That's the best response yet. So good, Crystal. Hi. Crystal Carter: Hey, guys. Mordy Oberstein: How are you? Crystal Carter: What's up? Really happy to be here. It's my favorite thing about Andy Murray. He's a tennis player in the U.K. and I remember he won Wimbledon or something like that, and he was there giving a reception speech. He was like, "I'm really happy right now. I know I don't sound that happy, but I'm really happy." Mordy Oberstein: It's like Latka from taxi, "Thank you very much." Crystal Carter: People express emotion in different ways. That's fine. It's a rich tapestry of humanity. Mordy Oberstein: We haven't done this podcast in a month, it's a monthly podcast, so I'm excited for this. We have a great guest coming at you. But first, the SERP's Up Plus podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can dive into the connection between you and your audience by using all of the social media tools, templates, and integrations found in both Wix and Wix Studio. Get more details over wix.com/studio. I bring up connections because we are here today to help you connect to your audience and consumers in an ever-changing digital landscape. That was so cliche. We're going to dive into what works, what doesn't work when connecting with your audience and consumer base. How are audience expectations changing? We'll probably get into something around AI, I imagine, about that, and what are consumers actually looking for that perhaps they weren't looking for in the past? To help us dial up the connection, creator of Confidence Live and Founder of Roar, a real world training agency that works, Kirsty Hulse will join us in just a jiffy. So unplug your landline and jimmy the modem as this month's SERP's Up Plus Podcast helps you connect to the web of interest and expectations that is your audience and consumer base. Crystal Carter: That was incredible breath control there, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I even put it in my notes, "Pause for effects." Crystal Carter: I mean, you missed your calling. You could have been an auctioneer or a grime emcee Mordy Oberstein: I'm telling you. Crystal Carter: Have you ever been to a live auction? Mordy Oberstein: No, but that sounds horrible. Crystal Carter: It's incredible. I walked into a cattle market once and it was like, "da, da, da, da, da ,da…]. Sold. And I was like, "What just happened?" Mordy Oberstein: A cattle market? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: They were selling like it it's at Yellowstone? They're selling... Crystal Carter: You love Yellowstone. Mordy Oberstein: I do. Crystal Carter: You love that TV show? Yes, they were literally selling cows. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. Crystal Carter: It was one of the highlights of my life. I find that fantastic. Anyway, so there you go. Mordy Oberstein: I normally find that with our regular weekly series, SERP's Up, which is an SEO focused podcast, that sometimes we really have to dive into some background on whatever the particular topic is, because SEO is weird and technical or niche and that sort of thing. But I find on this podcast there's really no introduction needed. Crystal Carter: I mean, I hope we're going to give Kirsty an introduction. Mordy Oberstein: That was my pivot. That was my pivot. That was my pivot. I was going to say there's no need for introducing the topic. I feel like we all understand the importance of connecting to your audience and your consumer base, but we do need to introduce our guest. I was this close. Crystal Carter: So close, so close. Great lines. I'm so, so pleased that Kirsty Hulse responded to my message of invite because when we were thinking about this, Kirsty was the first person that came to mind because I absolutely have been such a fan of Kirsty's approach to marketing and particularly her approach to, and I'm thinking about Kirsty in the third person as if she's not in the room, the virtual room, but she is, I'm introducing you anyway, Kirsty, but yeah, the incredible way that Kirsty speaks very plainly about marketing like, "It's not that complicated." And I've just always been in such awe of that and so giving. I'm a member of the Women in Tech SEO group and Kirsty has given bespoke training there. Kirsty does her Confidence Life courses and events and things like that, and she's incredibly giving with marketing knowledge and it's always super valuable and always on point. And she also is the patron saint of making sure that people get their window seat when they're owed their window seat. So I think that we're so pleased to have Kirsty here at the podcast, and thank you so much for joining us. Kirsty Hulse: Thank you. Thank you so much. What a wonderful introduction. I will take that I'm the patron saint of window seats. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like I need context. Kirsty Hulse: No. Mordy Oberstein: No? Okay. Kirsty Hulse: No context. Crystal Carter: There was a tweet and I saw the tweet and I was like, "Yes. Absolutely, yes." So that's what I will say about that. Mordy Oberstein: Was there a fight over a window seat? Kirsty Hulse: I basically went low-key viral on Twitter because some dude wasn't giving this woman her window seat, and I stepped in. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Kirsty Hulse: So yeah Crystal Carter: She didn't even go to the details. I remember this very clearly, and the tweet was something like, "I went to go get in my seat. This lady sad in my seat and she was like, "Oh, there's this man sat in my window seat." And Kirsty was like, "Needless to say, he's not sat in that seat anymore." And I was on a plate and somebody else was like, "You're in my seat," and that came to mind and I was like, "I am not in your seat. I am in my seat. Thank you very much. End." Anyway, it was very important to communicate the needs in that situation and Kirsty did so effortlessly for all people who have booked a window seat because they like the window seat. So there we go. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. End of podcast. Kirsty Hulse: Goodbye. Mordy Oberstein: But in all seriousness, let's talk about connecting with your audience and your consumer base and I guess let's start off very, very, very basic. What works, what doesn't work when you're trying to connect to a consumer base and your overall audience? Kirsty Hulse: Lovely, thank you. And so maybe just a bit of context about the lens that I'm going to talk about this through. So my background's marketing, my background's SEO, I run an SEO agency, and then the past few years I've been a speaker predominantly. So I'm really in the connection game. Whether that's in blog content or Instagram captions or on a stage, same rules apply. So a lot of the things that I teach and that I'm actually really passionate about, the format doesn't really matter. I think the most important cardinal rule of connection, it's first and foremost, you have to be a living human being with living human experiences. And you have to give yourself away a little bit so that people can connect to that. Mordy Oberstein: Well, we got to the AI thing so quickly. That was the fastest rocket into AI. Kirsty Hulse: I know. Mordy Oberstein: So I can't put a prompt in to say, "Hey, connect to my audience for me, large language model." Kirsty Hulse: Well, there's a distinction here. AI is incredibly good at informational content, and people respect that kind of content and people will learn from that kind of content. But people attach to emotional content. So actually I use AI. It has huge amounts of value to help structure and organize and somewhat with that informational data-based content. But if you're trying to move someone, so that moving someone could be, are you trying to sell a product, are you trying to get them to change their behavior in any kind of way, then it can be done through AI everything it can, but I think it's more powerful and more meaningful when we do that through our... Kirsty Hulse: It's more powerful and more meaningful when we do that through our own lived human experiences. And that's through things like storytelling and the modeling of emotion, which maybe we'll come onto later. Crystal Carter: And I think it's interesting that, and one of the first points that you made, was that it doesn't matter what platform you're on when you're speaking to people, that you aim for connecting with people. And certainly I'm a follower of yours on multiple platforms, and I've definitely seen that. Like, Kirsty does Kirsty when Kirsty is doing Kirsty. There was that meme that was going around that was like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and it was different pictures of different things, whatever. And I think that one of the things that you're very good at, and one of the things that I would guess you might advocate is having the same picture of them. Do you know what I mean? Having the same sort of tone of voice where your audience knows you wherever you go. Is that something you'd advocate for? Kirsty Hulse: Yes. 100%. I think the main thing that I advocate for generally in life, it's almost this de-masking of ourselves. This kind of like, let's just stop for a hot minute acting or pretending that we don't have warmth or charisma or humor and taking our personalities and zipping them up in some kind of professional straight jacket in the name of being businesslike. I hate that. And I actually think that's something that really gets in the way of our ability to connect. Which, whether we're trying to get that connection from a marketing perspective or just a human perspective, same. That's all we want to do as humans. We just want to see and be seen. Mordy Oberstein: I really think that that point, one, is so profound, so easy to understand, but so completely glossed over. It's literally why we had a podcast interview with Rand fishing about the genuine self and the role in marketing. But I also think it's something we discussed internally a lot when we were building, say, landing pages. I know there's been many discussions about this that when you look at your traditional landing page it's very businesslike and it's slightly over-promising, if not completely over-promising, and highly actionable, get this, do this, ultimate this, the best this, get it now. And I feel like perhaps, and maybe I'm wrong, I don’t know what your thoughts are, that people are sort of starting to see through that and seeing that as a mask and they're looking for something a little bit more emotional, a little bit more genuine, a little bit more conversational. And I think that we as marketers and SEOs and content writers are a little bit behind the curve on that. And we're still creating content like it's 2009 or 2019, rather, and not in a way that's actually connective. And I think we're running the risk of putting a schism between us and our audience. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Kirsty Hulse: Yeah, totally. And the reason that I'm on this podcast is because I have become known and associated with certain topics, that's not an accident. And all of the content pretty much that I create is story-based. But I think sometimes when you are creating content that's a story and a narrative I think the mistake or maybe the incorrect assumption that marketers make is that we just wing it and we just tell stories and just be yourself. It's not that actually, so the process that I go on whenever I'm trying to connect with an audience on a stage, on an email, doesn't matter, the process that I go on is I think about the main point that I'm trying to make. Am I trying to sell some training? Am I trying to position myself as an expert? What is the one thing that I'm trying to do with this piece of content? And then the second question I ask myself is, what experiences have I got from my life that demonstrate that point? And then you tell that story. And then you tell the story, like the research on MRI scans show that we use emotional information when making decisions, that humans are built for stories. So the justification as to why you would do stories is unlimited. The difficult thing we can sometimes find is how. So I have a spreadsheet that has a list of things like what are the main points I'm trying to make in my marketing and what are the stories that relate to that? And I tell those stories. And actually for my audience, they're receiving nourishing content because it's story based, and at the same time it's reinforcing my brand. And it's not an accident, it's an intentional considered process. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that the interesting thing about stories, the interesting thing about experience, we recently had a conversation with Lily Ray about experience, about the E-E-A-T, and I mean to tie this back into SEO, SEOs they've added in that experience element on the EEAT. And I think that one of the things that's interesting about that is something that I think about, and I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on this podcast but it's certainly something that was a core realization of mine. But I had my kid, I got lots of advice about parenting and that is tiresome. However, hearing other people's experience about what happened with their kid or that kid or whatever, that was useful because you can take whatever nuggets from that experience. So the thing you're talking about, about tying in experience to a point that you're trying to make, there'll be a reason why there'll almost certainly be an experience that prompted you to start that business or prompted you to make that product or prompted you to write that piece of content that is connected to you. So yeah, I think it is worth explaining what that is to people so that people know why you're writing that piece of content. I remember reading someone's thing and it was shocking about gut health stuff, and I'm like, why are you writing this? Is it because you had some problems with your gut and you found some stuff out? Or is it because you're a clinically trained microbiome person? What is it? Explain your connection to the content and people can understand that. Kirsty Hulse: And I think one of the things that I know to be true, I know this will be true, the more specific a story is to the individual the more universal it becomes. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Kirsty Hulse: If I'm doing storytelling training, people will say, well, people don't care about me. And I'm like, you're right, they don't. They don't. But they do care about themselves. The value of stories isn't to show off or tell people about you. The value of stories is to give people a mirror to view their own experiences internally. That's why books are generally better than movies. If you have a favorite movie that's turned into a book, the book is better because it's your imagination. That's the value of storytelling. Mordy Oberstein: That's such a great point. We talked about this internally before at Wix, where we're going, the story of Wix, here's our story. We're running through a couple of brand positioning dialogues. I love brand marketing. One of the things I think brand marketers make a mistake with is that what you're trying to do is to deal with your audience's pain points and to show your audience that you solve those pain points. Whereas I think in reality, what you're really trying to do is to get the audience to see themselves in you. And there's so many different aspects that go into that. And that could be showing that you're an expert in the area. Oh, I'm also an expert in this. You're also an expert in this. Great, now we're on the same page. There's so many layers that go into that. But you're really trying to create a real association between your audience and you in so far as that they see themselves in you. And that's why I think in terms of brand marketing, brand marketing's very, very wide. And if you want to be successful with it and to really resonate with your audience, you have to think holistically. Otherwise, you cannot create that association between yourself and the audience. Kirsty Hulse: Yeah, absolutely. And I think on that kind of brand stories, you get a lot of websites who will do exactly like you said, be like our story. That's not actually storytelling, that's product sharing. What a storytelling would be, would be something like, I was sitting at my computer and my heart was racing in frustration and I threw my mouse on the floor, and that was when I knew it needed to be different. Good stories are specific, specific tiny moments in time. So, if you want to be better at storytelling- Kirsty Hulse: So, if you want to be better at storytelling, just be really specific. Think about a 30-second moment and articulate that tiny moment. That's how you tell good stories, I think. Crystal Carter: So I want to flip that around a little bit. If you'll bear with me. And I know you do a lot of training, so you must have this pop up all the time, what about the risks of this? What are the risks associated with bearing... Not necessarily bearing all, I guess, but with telling some of those stories? When do you hit TMI, or where do you find the challenges around that? Kirsty Hulse: Yes. Thank you, that's a lovely question. One of the things that I always say is, there's a big difference between authenticity and disclosure. And I think sometimes, people think that they need to bear all. The majority of my life is secret from me. I share freely on the internet, but the majority of my experiences are for me. They're to be earned, they're private. So, I think the idea that we all have to share our stuff in order to be considered authentic and to be able to connect just isn't true. I think first, it's kind of like… authenticity doesn't mean you have to tell everything. Authenticity means you can pick moments from your life, illustrate the point you're trying to make. And also, I think maybe we'll come on to this when we talk about connection. Connecting with people isn't about what you say. It's really about the energy that you are bringing into that moment and the intentionality. If someone is dumping, we can feel that if someone is just truthfully sharing from a place of service, we can feel that. As the content creator, as the marketer, whatever we want to use, it's important that we can feel the difference. And we're talking about emotions, and this is emotional resonance that we can feel the difference in our bodies really, like is this coming from a true place of serving and helping others? The answer to that question always has to be, yes. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And that's really the difference between messaging and positioning, the two different things sometimes. There's the message, and then, how you're positioning yourself to deliver that message. And they're not the same always. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Kirsty Hulse: Sure. Crystal Carter: There's a thing where they're like... Is it you sell the... People talk about how do you sell me this pen? And it's like, "Oh, it does this, this, this, this." And it's like write something down. And then, someone's like, "I don't have a pen." It's like, "You want a pen"? Mordy Oberstein: Where's the spoon? Crystal Carter: Right, right. You're selling someone a solution. So, we talked to them about solutions. There we go. But yeah, I don't know if you want to get onto the AI questions there, Mordy, or the other questions. Mordy Oberstein: No, honestly, I'm sick of the AI stuff for a few minutes. Whatever. Use AI, don't use AI, see if I care. No, I don't mean it that way. You should use AI, use it responsibly. Reference our podcast with Kim Garst about how you can use it in your marketing responsibly. What I'm interested in actually is how do you see, what resonates with consumers changing, and how has it changed? Has it changed? Where is it headed? And I'm sure AI factors into that actually. Kirsty Hulse: I think what I'm seeing changing is like we touched upon earlier. There really is, and this has always been true, but I think it's just becoming more the case. There is a deep desire for meaningful connection. And I don't know about you, but I can tell if someone's content is written by an AI. We can just tell. We know. We know your tweets were written by AI. We know. We can feel this stuff. It's subtle, and that subtlety is going to get increasingly subtle, which I think is cool and exciting. But I think what consumers are wanting, and we're all consumers, I wonder if consumers don't want to be thought of as consumers. I wonder if actually what we want is to just really come back to our humanity. And I think the value of using AI is, I don't think AI is going to take people jobs, but I do think people who use AI in alongside of their humanity, that's when it gets really powerful when you connect those two things together. Again, I think just people want to see their lived experiences reflected in whatever you're trying to share with them. Crystal Carter: Do you find that the need to connect across these different spaces becomes more acute as it becomes more and more fractioned, I guess? There's Instagram, there's Twitter, there's WhatsApp, there's Threads, there's TikTok, there's this, and there's that. So, I think that there's a feeling that like, oh, maybe I need to be always on in order to connect. But sometimes, somebody says, "Oh, I sent you a message," and you're like, "Where? Which channel did you send me a message on?" Mordy Oberstein: Hangouts. I put it on on Hangouts. Crystal Carter: I wonder if that's affecting how we connect. What's that? Mordy Oberstein: I sent it on Hangouts just to throw you off. Kirsty Hulse: No, my mind just gone blank. Was it Google Plus? Crystal Carter: Yeah, Google Hangouts. I was on Google Plus. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Yeah, sorry, I hijacked that. Yeah. What do you do then? Kirsty Hulse: So, the question is how do we deal with all of these multiple platforms? Do you know what? I'm probably, I'm maybe a naughty person to ask this question too, because I ran businesses and worked in marketing for a long time, but I've never really done... In fact, no, there's no really, I've never done a marketing content strategy really other than this story mining process I was telling you about. So, I've never thought about how I'm going to be on LinkedIn, versus how I'm going to be on Twitter, versus how I'm going to be on Instagram. I think what I do is I have a person, an individual, not a group of people, not personas, not demographics, one human person that I know deeply that I picture and I communicate to them, that one person, and that one person is on LinkedIn. That one person is on Instagram. And even though these platforms do different things, the person that you might be your ideal customer on LinkedIn is maybe thinking about things slightly differently, but they still have heartache, and grief, and children, and put their socks on in the mornings. So, I think for me, I've never changed my approach by platform. I just rinse and repeat across the different things. And I think that's easier when you have the individual that you are talking to, rather than, I think sometimes, as marketers, we can bucket people into groups. Mordy Oberstein: Personas. Kirsty Hulse: Like we're talking to CMOs of this age. Personas. Exactly. Yeah. And they can be really helpful, especially if you're doing paid stuff, they can be very helpful. And I think for me, coming back to this desire for connection, where's the human within this data? Where's the emotion? Where's the... And so whenever I do something, I'm thinking about one individual, and I know her, and I can see her, and she has a face, and I talk directly to her. Crystal Carter: I remember working on an account that was a golf account, and I've never golfed a day in my life. I don't golf, but I have a good friend who is golf mad who when the sun shines, he's out and he's golfing. And I was working, doing some social media stuff for this golf account. And basically, whenever I wrote anything, I just imagined my golf friend who goes on and on and on about how much he loves golf all the time. And I wrote all of the content with him in mind and things, and we got great responses from it, and checked it with people who were in the community, et cetera, et cetera. And it worked really, really well. So, yeah, absolutely. If you're listening to this podcast, take Kirsty's advice on that because it's a great tip. Kirsty Hulse: One of the things I've observed is we go on three phases when we're communicating with people. And again, that's one person, 10 people, 10,000 people, doesn't make a difference. We start by trying to impress others. We start by being like, "Will people think I'm smart? Will they think I'm cool? Will they think I'm funny? Will they think my product's good?" Whatever. We start with this very, it's about us trying to impress people. And then, eventually maybe that fades, and we get into what I call inform. And inform is when we're good at sharing information. Inform is like, "Here's the information, and I'm going to give you the information." But then, if we're lucky, we get into the third category, which is what I call inspire. And inspire is when you're like what you were just talking about, Crystal... Kirsty Hulse: And inspire is when you are like, what you were just talking about, Crystal, "I'm here to meaningfully inspire action." And I think if we're trying to connect with our consumers, the most important thing is it isn't about you. It's not about you. It's never about you. And when we can remove ourselves from the picture, it's only ever about your audience's joy or your audience's understanding or your audiences. And I think just that little subtle shift can change the way that we start creating. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like we're in such an environment right now where you have all those subtle little shifts happening right now in terms of expectations, in terms of the way content is generated, but not only the way content is generated, but the type of content you're putting out. I think it touches back on something that you were talking about earlier. I guess now I do want to swing back around to the AI thing. I'm sorry, I can't stop myself. But I know we talk about, and you hit on this a little bit, we talk about in general, AI and content writing and AI can produce all this content for you, and that's this huge impact of what AI will do for the web, but what you hit on before was, the fact that you have all this AI content coming out makes people look at content in general a little bit differently. Is this really real? Is this really the content that I want to consume? How do I know it's the content that I want to consume? If it's AI, is it okay if it's AI? I guess it's okay in this context if it's AI. And I feel like the biggest change that AI theoretically can make is not just in the volume of content that's able to be generated, but what it means for the skepticism of people looking at content and what they want out of content and what they're expecting out of the content that you're producing. Do you think that, that changes the way that we need to go about communicating and connecting to our audiences, realizing that perhaps they're a little bit more, I'd say skeptical is a bad word, I don't have a better one on the top of my head, but a little more skeptical or a little bit more thoughtful rather about what they're looking at and what they're expecting to consume? Kirsty Hulse: Yeah. And I think it's skeptical, but I think more than that it's saturated. And so I think AI poses huge amounts of opportunity. We can create so much content. And that's good, actually. I'm not anti-AI at all. And I also think it's going to encourage all of us to be better, because the barrier to entry to market, to write, to connect is now just so much lower that I think in order to be good, everyone now is already good, in order to be absolutely incredible, impactful, amazing, that still remains within the realm of the human. But we can all be good now. We can all create good, solid, decent content in AI. And so if you want to be good, go ahead. If you want to be really powerful, then add in a little bit more. And increasingly I think people are a little bit more skeptical, and I also think that we can somehow intuitively feel when things are generated by AI, which is fine. It's really good in some instances. So I think there's that distinction that it's really possible to be really good with AI generated content, and I think in order to be really exceptional, we still need a big sprinkle of humanity alongside it. Mordy Oberstein: I love that. I think that's so true, such a good point. With that, where can people find you in case they want to connect with you and experience all of your storytelling out there in the ether that is the internet? Kirsty Hulse: Well, we were joking about this before, weren't we? That I'm very fortunate in that my name, there's nobody else with my name. My name is Kirsty Hulse. You Google me and I'm all over the place. I own those SERPs. Crystal Carter: Indeed. You're like Beyonce. There's only one Beyonce. There's only one Kirsty Hulse. There we go. Mordy Oberstein: Like we told Lily Ray the other day, we'll link to your Google search in our show notes. Crystal Carter: To your SERP. Kirsty Hulse: I feel like a a lot of your guests feel like, "Yeah, just Google me." But I got that down. Mordy Oberstein: Honestly, we haven't said that. I feel like it's such a snarky, "Where can we find you?" Whatever. Just Google them. You'll find them there. It makes my life doing the show notes far easier, by the way. Crystal Carter: I would say though it's worth visiting Kirsty's website. Kirsty has talked a lot about storytelling. Your about page is a fantastic about page. It's like an origin story and I think that there's some great stuff in terms of seeing in action how you can shape a story that is connective, that is rich, and that is not oversharing, but is being open at the same time. And I think that, that vulnerability. Because you share some personal stuff on it. Not every single detail, but you share a few personal elements there as well and I think that, that kind of vulnerability also makes people connect more to you as well. So I think that Kirsty's about page is a fantastic page. It's kirstyhulse.com/about. Kirsty Hulse: Well, I actually have, which I think would be genuinely really valuable, because I get asked. I think sometimes people assume that when we tell stories, it happens by accident, and it really, really, really doesn't. Crystal, if you've ever read one of my emails and thought, "Oh, that was emotionally compelling," it doesn't just happen. There's a whole process. The spreadsheets, once a nerd, always a nerd. But there's a spreadsheet. So actually I'll send it to you so you can put it in the show notes. I've got, it's totally free, a template for how to craft more storytelling into your marketing in a way that's really simple. People tend to add it into their content marketing calendars. So if anybody loves a spreadsheet, I got you. Crystal Carter: Oh, that's me. So yeah, if you can just drop that in my inbox, that'd be great. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing. Thank you so much, Kristy, for coming on and enlightening our audience. We really appreciate it. Kirsty Hulse: Thank you both so much. This was really lovely. I appreciate you chatting to me. Mordy Oberstein: For sure. And dear audience, well, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up Plus Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode of SERP's Up, our regular SEO podcast, and back next month with another SERP's Up Plus for more marketing talk. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO learning over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO and marketing with all sorts of great content and webinars? Then head over to the Wix 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, love, and marketing. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Should you drop the facade and present your true self to your customer base and audience? Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro joins Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter to share the power that authenticity brings to your marketing efforts. Understand the power of authenticity to the brand and what it means to your consumers. Dive into how authenticity in storytelling and product value resonates and sparks something different than the noise of competitors. Find your true voice in this episode of the SERP’s Up+ Podcast! Back The power of authenticity for marketing Should you drop the facade and present your true self to your customer base and audience? Rand Fishkin of Sparktoro joins Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter to share the power that authenticity brings to your marketing efforts. Understand the power of authenticity to the brand and what it means to your consumers. Dive into how authenticity in storytelling and product value resonates and sparks something different than the noise of competitors. Find your true voice in this episode of the SERP’s Up+ Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode SERP's Up+ 02 | September 7, 2023 | 52 MIN 00:00 / 51:35 This week’s guests Rand Fishkin Rand Fishkin is the cofounder and CEO of SparkToro, makers of fine audience research software. He’s dedicated his professional life to helping people do better marketing through his writing, videos, speaking, and his book, Lost and Founder. When Rand’s not working, he’s usually cooking a fancy meal for the love of his life, author Geraldine DeRuiter. If you bribe him with great pasta or fancy cocktails, he’ll pull back the curtain on big tech’s dark secrets. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of marketing podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up+! Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up+ Podcast, where we give you guys some groovy new insights around what's happening in digital marketing. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the authentic,, the actual, the original, the bonafide Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello internet, SEO and marketing, and PPC, and social media, and PR, and all of the other people. Mordy Oberstein: Name all the verticals. Crystal Carter: Every single vertical. There's also going to be AI people as well now, doing things or something. Mordy Oberstein: Is there prompt optimization? Is that a thing now? Prompt optimization. Crystal Carter: AI management, content people, stuff as well. I don't know. There's lots of things, they're all of the people. The people, the people everywhere, welcome. You're all welcome here on our brand new version of our podcast. Mordy Oberstein: That's right, because normally we have our SERPs Up Podcast, our weekly SEO podcast. But this is our monthly bonus series, where we talk about all sorts of digital marketing topics. Which brings us to the SERPs Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can use the app we built together with Trustpilot, to help build credibility with your audience, and do things like automatically trigger service review invitations to customers, using the Trustpilot app in the Wix app marketplace. Which ties into our topic of the day. I mean, what are the chances of that happening? I'm genuinely surprised. Okay, the truth is, I plan that out every time. I shall not lie. Because today we're talking about the power of authenticity in marketing. We're looking at why you should forget the phony baloney, and be real with your audience and true to yourself, both for business success, and so that you can tolerate yourself at night. And to do that, one of the greatest marketers of our lifetime, the founder of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin will be by in just a few moments to share why being and how being one's true self, is the epitome of marketing Zen. So close your eyes, meditate, say a few ohms. And if that's not your thing, crank up the tunes, have a cup of chai or kick back a glass of single malt. That is, do whatever it is that is the voodoo that you do, as the SERP's Up+ Podcast helps you find your true marketing self. I'm out of breath. Crystal Carter: You could have just said, be like Jenny from the block. She was like, I'm real. Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got. These are the things that you have to remember. Mordy Oberstein: She's so real, she dropped A-rod like it was hot. Crystal Carter: Oh, we're coming in, we're just straight off the bat. Mordy Oberstein: When you say real, I don't think A-rod... as a salty, salty Yankee fan, that man cheated. He got suspended for... we're going on another rant. I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: I was talking about JLo. I don't know what you're talking about. She had her and Ja Rule or something. I don't know, everyone, it's all good. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. One of, I think, the greatest things that is us, is the inner depth of our personality, and our persona and who we are. So to share a bit of my personal philosophy on life, I'm somebody who thinks that philosophy and marketing are really connected. I don't want to get too mushy gushy with it, but I think there's something very deep and very powerful, almost like buried within the recesses of who we are that's entirely unique, and that's special, and that if we can tap into that part of who we are, you can do some pretty cool special marketing things. I know I'm getting a little bit sappy. However, it's rare in a world that's filled with marketing fluff and cliches, to feel that connection. But someone I always thought who did that really, really well, someone for years, when you listened to him talk, you felt there was something real emanating from his core, and you could really grab onto it. And that has been Rand Fishkin. So who better to help us talk about the value of being authentic in your marketing, than the founder of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin. Welcome. Rand Fishkin: Thanks for having me, Mordy. Thanks for having me, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much for joining us. It's an absolute pleasure, honor, delight. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I hope you caught my pithy commentary in our meeting chat about specifically, A-rod. Mordy Oberstein: A-rod, yes. Rand Fishkin: Many negative thoughts about him. Mordy Oberstein: I can't stand that he's part of the pre-game coverage on some of the games. It's terrible. So inauthentic, by the way. Rand Fishkin: I think one of the problems functionally speaking in, I'm going to say modern capitalist culture, is you were good at your job, therefore we should pay attention to you about other things. And that's just not true, right? Crystal Carter: Right, right. Rand Fishkin: Fundamentally, this is one of the values of authenticity, is that you don't listen to someone just because of what they could do for you. We were talking before the official podcast kicked off, about how you might have opinions on businesses of various sizes. And I was telling you guys that I love small businesses, and I'm not a big fan of helping big businesses. And very frequently, I get this, "But they have so much money, they could do so much." For whatever, for your career, or your company or what about M and A? And I was always like, well, sorry. If you're valued at over a billion, I'm kind of the inverse of a VC. I kind of hate unicorns. Okay, well, your valuation's too high. I don't like you anymore. You used to be cool, now you're not cool anymore. I think it's because I grew up with Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, and Nirvana, and it's like the pre-sellout culture stuck. Mordy Oberstein: So not a Stone Temple Pilot fan, because they were considered to be like a fake grunge band. They weren't really a grunge band, in my honest opinion, but whatever. Rand Fishkin: Honestly, I'm okay with it. I'm fine. I think they were talented musicians, and not despicably evil people. And so if a studio whatever wants to form a... I'm like this with the Monkees too. I don't completely hate it. Whatever. You want to put together an NSYNC, you want to put together a... fine, it's none of my business. Mordy Oberstein: But Billy Joel? Because I saw, I saw the thread. Billy Joel, no. No Billy Joel. Rand Fishkin: He's not talented. Mordy Oberstein: Oh my goodness. Crystal Carter: Oh man, we're dropping bombs everywhere. Mordy Oberstein: Before we get into marketing, for a second, I'm literally from the border of Queens on Long Island. You cross the street and you're on Long Island. And there's three fundamental truths about Long Island: Bagel Boss, Adventureland and Billy Joel. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, Long Island has problems. Crystal Carter: They have great iced tea though. The iced tea is delicious. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, all right. I'll have to check that out. Mordy Oberstein: That's it. I'm moving out. Crystal Carter: I think it's really interesting though, that you referenced some folks from the nineties and nineties music culture. Because when we're talking about authenticity, I was also thinking in the nineties there was a lot of stuff in hip hop culture about keeping it real, keep it real here, and people being called out for not keeping it real, for being fake and being that sort of thing. And I feel like that sentiment seems to have dissipated from the general popular culture, that people are doing it for the gram and that's fine. And that people don't... there's a lot of people who, like you were saying, have terrible opinions based on nothing to do with the topic necessarily, and they spread them across everywhere. Why do you think that that shift has happened, and how do you think we can try to rectify it? Or do you think we should? Rand Fishkin: Yeah, let's see. I'm torn. I have the half of me that is the things that I value are authenticity, and transparency, and whatever you want to call it. Not selling out, keeping it real. But at the same time, it is impossible for me to begrudge, whatever, younger generations who are doing things that might not be true to themselves or their personality, but they're doing it for, whatever, social media attention and awareness, or they're doing it for their career. Because fundamentally, I think that one of the biggest shifts that's happened in our lifetimes, especially in the United States, is we've gone from a world where you could work a part-time job, and put yourself through college, and pay your rent, to a world where that is impossible. And so when I was born, there's this classic concept of the American dream. You come from nothing, you have nothing, but economic mobility is so high in this country that over the course of even just one generation, a family can transform themselves through not even that hard work, a little bit of work and attention, into a middle class or a totally getting by family. And now that's completely not true. Almost all the wealth gain, obviously in the last 50 years, has gone to the top 10th of a percent of Americans, leaving everyone else behind. Obviously, inflation and affordability of everything has gone down. And so now I'm kind of like, God, you know what? Maybe keeping it real is selling out. To keep it real, you have to sell out. I'm not sure that these cultural ideas that we attribute to, whatever, hip hop artists, or grunge artists, or popular music, or television, or film or whatever it is, I'm not sure that that's where it comes from. I think it comes from economics, and I think it comes from the reality of where people are. So hey, you're doing it for the Gram. Maybe you're doing it for your career. Maybe you're doing it so you can afford Goddamn healthcare. So, who am I to judge? Mordy Oberstein: On the opposite side though, you have the big companies, or bigger brands, or not even bigger brands, just your established companies. And I was doing some research for a landing page I was writing, and I went through a couple of hundred different landing pages. And after a while I'm like, wow, I don't think I've read anything real for the last five hours. It's all like ultimate power, unlimited, whatever. And I walked away feeling, in five years from now, I hope and I think it's going to sound like a used car sales ad, like, "Come on down to Bob's." There's nothing real there. I get people feel maybe that they have to put on that front of really driving the sale, because they're nervous they're not going to get the sale. But I think in the end you come off, just in my personal opinion, as not really connecting in a real way. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I think what's going on is the difference between judging people harshly for their willingness to compromise the creative, artistic, human side of who they are in order to make money, versus hey, when you do that, why don't you do marketing, and sales, and copywriting, and content creation in ways that resonate with real people? And those are two different things. One is at the macro level, and one is at the micro level. And at the micro level, I think this is where authenticity still works wonders. You can feel brands that resonate with people, even if they are... I think one of my favorite examples that I bring up regularly, is the Mars Corporation's Snickers campaign of the last 15 years. Snickers sort of had this, I think they worked with an agency, but I can't remember the agency's name, this is back in the early 2000s. They worked with an agency who uncovers through audience research, they talk to a bunch of people who buy Snickers, people who don't buy Snickers, people who eat it regular... the candy bar, for anyone who's not familiar. And they talked to a lot of people, and found that they were using Snickers as a tastier alternative to a meal replacement. Essentially it was, Snickers was almost competing more with Power Bars in people's minds, or Luna Bars, which at the time, early 2000s Power Bar was sort of, if you're a dude, you have to eat this. Luna Bar was, if you're a woman, you have to eat this. And so, of course my pantry is stacked with Luna Bars, because F the gender paradigm. The reality was, they discovered lots of people are essentially eating Snickers in lieu of a meal or whatever. So therefore, we should position Snickers as the one candy bar that's a solution to hunger, as opposed to a reward or a treat. And the campaign was ludicrously successful. You can see even to this day, they haven't gone away from it. It's been 17 years, 18 years or something that they've been running with this. You're not you when you're hungry. Let's keep playing on that for forever. I'm not sure they should ever give it up. Because I think that that positioning is incredibly valuable. It's also authentic. For better or worse, I can't explain exactly why the combination of Snickers ingredients, which is no healthier- Rand Fishkin: The combination of Snickers ingredients, which is no healthier for you than anything else. Crystal Carter: No. Rand Fishkin: Right? Absolutely not. But if I eat a, I don't know, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or a bag of M&M's, I do not feel like, okay, I've had my calories. I'm okay. I can go on with my day. But I do feel that way with the Snickers. Crystal Carter: I mean, yeah, that's totally true. I mean, another similar campaign that I've seen is Marmite, which folks who've been to the UK will know about that, and Marmite is like, some people love us, some people hate us. That's just how it is. And they run with that throughout their campaigns, and they run with that for years. And in fact, it's to the point where it's like it's idiomatic. People are like, "Oh yeah, it's a bit of a Marmite kind of thing." It's a saying that people say and they know what that means, and that is extremely ingrained, authentic branding, but they're just sort of like, "That's who we are." Like, "Pick one." Rand Fishkin: What's tough is, and this goes back to Mordy's original point, translating the success that campaigns like this have had in plenty of consumer sectors to B2B where it's so hard, so hard in B2B to find examples of campaigns that resonate. I think part of it is how B2B is perceived, how it's bought and sold. I think part of it is the long marketing and sales cycle of B2B. Part of it is the expected professionalism. And so a lot of these companies feel like they can't play toward their brand positioning. And many of them, most of them also don't make incredibly obvious products. So you have to explain what you do and the features. Snickers does not have to be like, "What you hold in your hands is what's called a candy bar." They can dispense with all that BS. Everybody knows exactly what it is. And the same thing is true if you, whatever, go to a waterpark or buy Marmite at the store or see a bottle of wine. Consumer products are just a known variable, known quantity. Whereas B2B, there's so much. Wix, right? Okay, Wix has to explain, "Hey, we are a CMS, but we're this kind of CMS for this kind of person. These are the features, these are the reasons you would choose us." All that kind of stuff. If you could see CMSs, whatever, at the drugstore on the counter, the way you see candy bars, Wix would probably do a very different kind of branding campaign and positioning. And so I think this goes, Mordy, to the challenge around authenticity and sales language that you're finding. Mordy Oberstein: If Wix were a candy bar, by the way, we would have caramel and peanuts on this for the record. Rand Fishkin: Caramel and peanuts. Is that a PAYDAY? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's like a PAYDAY, right? It's like a Snickers, but there's no nougat. It just... Right, yeah. Rand Fishkin: PAYDAY is a peanut caramel bar and yet somehow when I'm hungry, I don't want a PAYDAY. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think that it's the nougat that does it. It's definitely that. But I think also, I think sometimes with authenticity, particularly with products, I think if I see a product and they're like, "We don't do this. We do do this really, really well, but we don't do that," that there's a certain amount of confidence to that. One of the classics examples, and I know this is a consumer product, but for instance, Domino's Pizza says, "We will get you a pizza in 30 minutes or less." That's one of the things that they say they're able to do. They don't say, "We will get you the best pizza you've ever had in your life in 30 minutes or less." They don't say that it will have everything you ever wanted in a pizza. No. They say, "This is what we can do for you, and if you would like this, we have that. That's what we can promise you. We can promise you that." And the stuff in between, you make your choices. Sometimes you want a pizza that takes longer than that. Sometimes you want to go to this artisanal place around the corner and get something that, what's the Long Island pizza place there, Mordy? Mordy Oberstein: There are so many. Crystal Carter: So many. It's like, I don't even know where to start. Mordy Oberstein: Well, a famous one. It’s a whole different story Crystal Carter: Right, precisely. But I think you mentioned value propositions, and I think it's really important to understand what is your genuine actual USP for why you started your business. There must've been some point where you thought to yourself, "You know what? Lots of people are making pizza or doing whatever it is they're doing or making whatever SaaS products they are, but it's missing something and it's missing this, and I think that I can fill that gap, and I think that being able to understand your USP is really, really important. Rand Fishkin: We had on the SparkToro homepage a video that was relatively expensive to make, and we worked with a professional video company and we went to a wedding venue that has sort of a hedge maze up north of Seattle. Mordy Oberstein: I remember that. I remember that video. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. So Casey and I went up there with a video crew and we filmed this whole thing. Took 10 hours of filming, nine hours of filming, something like that, and then lots of editing work to get it down to, I think it was about a 40-second, 45-second video, and we put it on our homepage. We were very proud of it. It was quite authentic. It even started off, Crystal, with a, I think the line was like, "I'm Rand Fishkin and I spent my career trying to return data that big tech steals and hides away to marketers who deserve to have it," which is fundamentally like, that's why we created SparkToro. I was like, pre 2016, Facebook would tell you all this data about your audience, and pre Elon Twitter would show you all this interesting information in Audience Insights. I think they actually took it away even before he bought it, but then it started this world of like, whoa, whoa, walled gardens, let's keep people in. Don't let people out. Google hiding keyword data, all this stuff. And I was like, "That sucks." That sucks and it's dumb, and screw big tech, hate those guys. Let's return this data to people. We have a big free version that a 100,000 people use and we've got our paid version. But telling that story interestingly, I think made us resonate a little bit better with a very small group, but it hurt our conversion rate, it didn't help it. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, so I think it was one of those interesting experiences. We kept the video there for a year because we were like, "Well, let's keep trying. Maybe we put it below the call to action. Maybe we keep it over here." But no, it really was, it was a detractor because it was a second call to action on the homepage from just try the product, put in your keywords or your search terms or whatever. And yeah, we finally pulled it recently, and I don't think we're going to bring it back for the V2 that we're building. So it's a tough thing, and maybe the video didn't do what it was supposed to do, maybe it wasn't resonating the way we hoped it would, but certainly I think it's a hard thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think a lot of businesses struggle with this. So one of the classic cases where people do all these beauty shots of their products and they do all these amazing, amazing, beautiful shots of the crème brulée in the restaurant and the hotel room all sorted out like that. If I'm somebody who's looking in the business, I'm going to TripAdvisor, I'm going to TripAdvisor, and I'm going to go and have a look at what the people who went in and took a picture on their terrible old iPhone that's got a crack on the screen, what they took a picture of and what the room actually looks like. If their holiday snaps still look okay, then I'm like, "Cool." If the restaurant still looks all right, then cool. If the reviews similarly of your fantastic, amazing SaaS product or whatever kind of product still say roughly the same kinds of things that you're promising on your website, then that's going to resonate with me. So I think that companies invest a lot of time in making all these beauty shots and making all this beautiful copy and all of that sort of stuff, but making sure that people have something that connects with how they are interacting with it and how they are experiencing the product is really important. Like you were saying that it was distracting from actually being able to try the tool. Like with a tool like an online thing, being able to try the tool is really the bread and butter. That's the proof in the pudding as it were, to name many other food metaphors. I don't know. I could talk about pies or something or... Mordy Oberstein: I love pies. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, I mean, the hotels thing is really interesting. I've talked to a few hoteliers about this and the website, the photography, all of this kind of stuff. There's two fascinating things that I learned that were sort of going on there. One is pure positioning. So when you get to a website that looks and feels like small luxury hotels of the world, you get in the mindset of what you expect the price to be, what you expect the service to be like, blah, blah, blah. You probably will go to TripAdvisor and look at the reviews and dah, dah, dah, dah. But if you're visiting that area and you're that kind of consumer, the difference between a 4.1 and a 4.5 and a 4.9 out of five doesn't mean that much to you. You're probably going to choose that location anyway if it's your kind of hotel and your kind of place. And then the second one was apparently, interestingly enough, a huge part of the visual aesthetic, design, all the website stuff is like a local ecosystem contribution. For example, I was talking to a hotelier in Puglia in Italy, the south, the heel of the boot of Italy, and the hotelier was explaining that, "Oh, well, when we make our website, of course we want to hire the best local photographers, and then they also will want to work with us when someone has a wedding here, they also work with us when someone had their engagement and they're coming here for their trip or their honeymoon or something like that. And we work with those people. We work with the florist for the flowers for the photo shoot, and then that promotes their business, which... " Like it's all this, I don't know what you want to call it, relationship building, relationship building through craft, creation of these kinds of things, versus the Holiday Inn where it is, boom, this is exactly... Like you know exactly what you're going to get the same thing over and over again. Hilton is the same way and Marriott and Radisson and all the big brands. They have their system, but for these small local ones, again, it's that we want to show to the consumer and the potential buyer who we are and we're also trying to create relationships inside our local community with the people who, if you're a wedding photographer, we want you to recommend to your event planner that all the couples that you work with should come to our hotel, so we hire you. Mordy Oberstein: That's something that's interesting to me because something that you do so well, I feel like, and you're a SaaS platform, is that you come across, SparkToro comes across, all the things you guys are doing over there, Amanda, it comes across very boutique, it comes across very genuine, it comes across very connective, and it's so interesting because it's so peculiar for a SaaS platform to be able to pull that off and I'm wondering how you do that. Rand Fishkin: So I think that it sort of goes back to what are you allowed to do based on the design of your business. So from the building blocks level, I think this is the wonderful and terrible thing about entrepreneurship and whatever, the funding ecosystem and how capitalism has sort of evolved for entrepreneurship, especially in tech. And that is we get to be very peculiar. And peculiar is a beautiful world because to me, it has this connotation of weird, for the sake of being weird. You are doing this different thing because not just you want to stand out from the crowd in a way that gets you money, but you want to stand out from the crowd in a way that's like a Wes Anderson movie. You're sort of being particular for the sake of being particular because this is just who you are. And one of my favorite facts about Wes Anderson movies, apparently everybody gets paid like a thousand bucks a day to work on the movie. It doesn't matter if you're Scarlett Johansson. You make the lowest rate and the same rate as all the background actors. There's no, I can't remember what they call it, scale. They call it scale in the industry. So everybody makes that money because you want to work on a Wes Anderson movie and it's super weird and the project's going to be weird, and the movie's going to look beautiful, and the plot's going to make no sense and all those kinds of things. And clearly he's built this reputation, and I think that's great. And SparkToro, we have this like, our funding structure lets us, so long as we're alive and profitable, we can really do what we want. We do not have to grow. I mean, I'd like to grow, Casey wants to grow, Amanda wants to grow, but we don't have to. We're doing a nice amount of revenue, a very nice amount of revenue per person. There's only three of us. So we're super different from other SaaS platforms in that we just don't have the same motivation and incentive to, okay, how do we maximize revenue? We better build a sales team, we better get people on board. Like, no, we don't build the sales team not because it wouldn't be good for the business, we don't build the sales team because I don't like managing salespeople. And a ton of what you feel from SparkToro and a lot of boutiques and indie brands and indie startups is, oh, they're doing this because they like doing this and they're not doing this because they don't like doing this. And I don't think you can build competitive advantage fundamentally with something that isn't your strength and something that's not your passion. So- Rand Fishkin: ... fundamentally with something that isn't your strength and something that's not your passion. So I'm trying to build a life, not a business that maximizes the amount of revenue it takes from customers, and that's already real. That's already a real thing. You're talking about how I decide to live my life because your work life, your business life is part of your life. The biggest reason that I hope SparkToro is successful on a bigger scale than it is now and that I hope in 10 years, it's like a company that lots of people point to and talk about is so that this fundamental idea will trickle down into the broader world of tech and entrepreneurship, that maybe you should not optimize for maximizing revenue growth and investor returns, but instead you should build something that gives you and your employees and team and customers the life that they want and the solutions that they want. And I think frankly, that's a very un-American way to live, but a really beautiful one. Mordy Oberstein: It's a very existential way to live. It's the meaningful life versus the life. Rand Fishkin: I want to be clear: I also do stuff for the brand. I'm not trying to paint myself as like everything Rand does is authentic... Behind me, I have this whiteboard, I film these weekly whiteboard videos, the five-minute whiteboards for SparkToro now, and part of that is like a, "Gosh, well, I tried coming up with some other video formats and trying some other things," but you know what? I saw that the old classic resonated with people: my 17 years of doing Whiteboard Friday at Moz really stuck with folks: they missed that, they wanted it again. When I do them, they get high engagement. Okay, I'm going to give the people what they want. And also, a five-minute whiteboard is not a terrible challenge or anything, and I enjoy the experience, so it's not completely inauthentic. But I absolutely will do things for whatever personal and professional gain. I am not against that, right? I'm not Kurt Cobain, and, "Oh my God, I'm making money. It's the end," but I have a little bit more of that in me than most venture-backed entrepreneurs. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that comes back to the confidence of having the confidence to say, "We are going to grow in ways that are valuable to us and in ways that enrich us," because you say haven't got a sales team that's going and getting more sales, doing all of that, I think that it does give you an opportunity to be more creative, and more flexible, and to try new things. And certainly one of the things that's fundamental and to the core of Wix, and one of the things I love about our team here at Wix is that people try new things. People try new things and people will be like, "Hey, I tried a thing," and they go, "Oh, you did what?", and, "Oh, that's cool. I like that. Hey, check out this thing that this person made." We have hackathons, we have markathon with marketing things where everybody just gets together and has ideas. Mordy Oberstein: And it goes into the product. We can see it at least on the inside like, "Oh, that's, from that," that's from hackathon. Crystal Carter: Right. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I think at a larger... How many people is Wix now? Mordy Oberstein: 5,000, something like that. I should know that. It's around 5,000. Rand Fishkin: I think in an environment like that, one of the biggest things I hear from folks who work in larger companies, and when I say larger, I mean 200 plus, nevermind 2,000 plus, but is, "I do work and I don't know how it contributes to the business." To the end of the day, "Customers get more value," or whatever, "Our investors make more money and my stock price goes up," or whatever, "This is valued and recognized by people in leadership," that visibility goes away really early in a company's growth cycle. I think people felt that way at Moz at 210 people when I was there, and that sucks. Fundamentally, it is terrible, I think to do work and not know how that work contributes or to feel like it doesn't contribute. When I look at people who are, I saw an old friend of Geraldine's yesterday posting on LinkedIn that it was their last day at Google. They were leaving Google after 13, 14 years. And it was subtly written, but one of the things in there was, "For the last few years I've been working on a project that never went live, but now I'm going to a smaller company where I...", And I had this, yeah, I get it. I get that, "I'm well paid, I have a cushy job, things are going really great in my professional career, I've been promoted, whatever, but I just spent years working on a project that no one will ever know about. I'm going somewhere where my work actually contributes to society." Mordy Oberstein: I think it's almost divine: you want to feel like you're having an impact on something, somehow. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I think it can be purely capitalist, purely financial, but if it's nothing, that's just brutal. So, I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense, I'm very proud to hear, glad to hear that Wix is investing in a, "Hey, do this stuff," and then that stuff will be in the live version of the product that customers are using, and you'll be able to see how many people used it and you'll hear, "Oh man, that thing I contributed to, it turned into something real." Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Rand Fishkin: And beautiful. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, if you're listening to this podcast, you're a marketer and you're working with a product team, I feel like it's your role as a marketer to tell the product team, "Hey, so-and-so was talking about this product that you made and they loved it." We had that today in our WhatsApp group like, "Hey, yo, some SEO was saying that they love what you all are doing." And the product people were like, "Awesome. We're having an impact. They just made our day, legit." Crystal Carter: It's such a big deal working as a tech SEO, tell the devs that if you asked the devs for this ticket and that ticket and that ticket and this ticket, and you saw your SEO go off the charts, tell them. Tell them that, "That work that you did helped us get 15% ROI uplift," or whatever it may be, because that will make getting the dev tickets actioned quicker the next time because they'll want to get that feedback from you. Similarly, if you're working on a campaign and you asked for a favor from somebody in a different team to do the thing, you asked for somebody to be in this video that you were going to put on the whatever, tell them that it had an impact. It makes such a big difference and costs you nothing. Sending an email, sending a Slack message costs you nothing and can make such a big difference to the cohesion of your team, and to how these enthusiastic people are going forward as well. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, absolutely. I think a huge part of this for folks who do consulting and agency work, one of the biggest frustrations that I hear over and over again is, "We did this big deep dive on the client's website and we looked at all the problems that they need to solve, we did this audit, we presented all these findings, we tried to get approval to go make the changes and improve things, and they were like, okay, thanks for the audit, and it's two years later, nothing's happened." It's mind-blowing from an agency perspective to be like, "Gosh, but when this other client we worked with actually did the things we said, they got way more business and money, so why are you doing nothing?" Crystal Carter: And you sometimes never find out. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, but the answer is complicated. When you dig in, it's almost never the case that there's some, I don't know, evil mid-level manager- Crystal Carter: Mu-ah-ha. Rand Fishkin: ... who's like, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to hire an agency, going to pay them money, and then I'm going to do none of the work they recommend. Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha." That cartoon villain just doesn't exist, right? Crystal Carter: "I'm going to wait until they do the PowerPoint. I'm going to ask lots of questions. Lots of them,". Rand Fishkin: Yeah, but I do think it pays as an agency, as a marketer who's contributing even in-house on a team, when you have that conversation about like, "Okay, well these findings, they're going to translate into these actions," and those actions are going to translate directly into, whatever, financial gain, or improvements in conversion rate, or improvements in whatever this metric is. And if that thing is not fundamentally tied to the incentives, the directives, and the goals that leadership has defined for whatever the second tier or the third tier of management that you're working with, well probably it's not going to get done. And even if is, even if it is beautifully and perfectly aligned, if they don't have the resources or if those resources have projects that are sitting with even higher priorities or those resources have capability and competence problems, many times these things won't happen. Crystal Carter: To bring it back to the realness, to the depths of the real, I think that this is incredibly important. We talk about realness in your marketing, authenticity in your marketing, as we're thinking about outbound communications and things like that. When you are talking to your teams and when you are talking to your stakeholders in your campaigns, being able to be a straight-shooter, being able to actually answer the questions in plain English without jargon, and to be able to address, like you said, the actual concerns that they have, the actual goals that they have, not, "I'm so smart. Look at my beautiful pie charts. I'm so clever. This is a fantastic pie chart," and it is hitting all of the best practices for all of the things that you are expected to do. It's like, "That's great: we have two people in our team and we can't do any of that." So when you're thinking about your authenticity, when you're talking to clients about your marketing campaign, your SEO campaign, your audience research, whatever, being authentic with them, of being like, "Hey guys, what can you actually achieve? What can you actually do?", before you start the audit, "What can you actually do? How many hours do you have to do this? What kind of resources do you have to actually achieve this?", can make such a difference, and also can mean that they're more likely to tell you and be honest with you and be clear with you when they need help. When they're like, "We don't know how to do this. Can you help us?", and then maybe you get more billable hours or whatever it may be. Rand Fishkin: I also highly recommend to folks that before you start your audit or your deep dive, find out what the resourcing is: like, "Oh, do we have capability to do this, to do this, do this? What if I come up with suggestions that need this or this or this?", and then if the client or the team or the person, whatever, tells you, "Oh yeah, we can definitely do this. We can't do this. These things are kind in the middle," you can structure your findings that way. You can be like, "All right, I found a lot of opportunities. Many of them sit in the, we can't fix it bucket, but I'm presenting them anyway in the hopes that someday we will be able to fix them. These sit in the maybe bucket. And these are the ones we said we could fix right away, and I prioritize them by importance," and then it's like, all right, now we're talking about action. Crystal Carter: Right, because you're real and they were real. You're speaking like a real human person. Rand Fishkin: The transparency inside organizations and the alignment between people in teams is hugely important. I fundamentally believe to my core that Elon Musk is a piece of shit, but I say that in all sincerity and in every way. But he does have this concept of people as vectors in an organization, and if you point them all in the same direction along the same lines, you get the full power of their impact. And so, simply aligning people all to go in the same direction, even in very large organizations, if the leader of that organization, the CEO themselves says, "We are all working on this. Everyone is going to get us to here. You tell me what you need to do to get there," I think there's one of the reasons, probably one of the biggest reasons why several of his companies have been very successful. And then obviously Twitter, he's chosen very poorly which things to do, no surprise. And also, his awfulness bleeds into the attractiveness of the platform generally. But I think there's lessons to be learned even from terrible people, and this is a great one where that alignment allows SpaceX and Tesla to do things well and fast that are very hard for more complex, less transparently, "Everyone's on the same page, moving toward the same goals," organizations in the engineering and tech field. Mordy Oberstein: I generally pride in myself on my pivots, but I don't have one here... And I do have a slight pivot actually because I guess we were talking about tech and not being seen in the greatest light. Something I've been meaning to ask you this entire podcast is these big tech companies end up front of Congress for whatever particular reason, whether it's Google, whether it's Facebook, whatever it is, TikTok most recently, I guess, and we as digital marketers sometimes sit back and laugh like, "Oh, the Congress asks the most ridiculous question to that person. They know clearly know nothing about Google or TikTok or whatever, or technology. They've never used a computer in their life. It's quite obvious," but- Mordy Oberstein: They've never used a computer in their life. It's quite obvious. But my dad, who also has hardly used a computer in his life, will look at that and be like, wait a second. Should I be trusting this stuff that's on my phone? You're telling me to go to the Google, to go to the Facebook. Do I trust this stuff now? Because now I saw the CEO of Facebook sitting in front of Congress. It must mean he's not trustworthy. And I wonder, going back to our previous conversation, I know we're running out of time, and so you don't have to get too deep into it, but I really just wanted to ask it. Do you think that that has an impact of when we as marketers talk to consumers or to other businesses and try to sell a product or a service? If people are looking at the web more skeptically, does it mean that we're going to end up moving to a more conversational model? Because when they look and see that landing page, where you're writing that marketing schlock, are people going to start to see through that because they're starting to think of the webinar in a more skeptical kind of way? Rand Fishkin: I think on the whole, I completely disagree. I think people are more trusting today of things that they see on the web than they ever have been. And a huge part of that is because these big tech companies have made the web such a relatively safe place to go. The late nineties, the early two thousands, you could get malware, spam, stuff that would just destroy your computer and then trying to fix it in whatever early versions of Windows or like Windows 98, I remember debugging my grandfather's computer in Windows 98, Jesus Christ, oh my God, he visited the wrong internet website and clicked the wrong thing. But today, that experience is so curated. It's so relatively safe that I actually fundamentally would say no. I think people trust the web like never before they believe it's safe to put in their credit card. They'll give you their social security number over the internet, they'll digitally sign things over to the internet, they'll sell their house on the internet. It has gotten to a really different place. Where I would say you drag Zuckerberg in front of Congress or you bring Sundar Pichai in front of Congress. And what surprises me the most is that Congress has no teeth. So Sundar Pichai, for example, when in front of Congress, I believe this was 2019, and talked about Google sending more and more traffic to the open web. Maybe it was 2020. And it was an obvious lie, provable with data. You just go out there and get it. So I remember I wrote an article, I think on SparkToro that was like, Hey, I don't know why Congress is unwilling to hold Google CEO's feet to the fire, but I'll do it. Here you go. And I think I had a call with Lina Khan who now Biden is appointed as the head of the FTC, and she was like, okay, can you walk me through this? I'm trying to understand exactly what's going on here, but basically no action from Congress. I had a call with David Cicilline, who's the congressman in charge of the committee looking into Google, and they were like their hands are tied. There's not a lot that they can do. And so I'm going to say this also Mordy to defend, no American has ever defended Congress to my knowledge. But I will say I talk to a lot of people in government, even during the Trump administration, which you can probably tell, I obviously disliked and disagreed with most of that. But I talked to people inside the administration. I think these are mostly appointees who were appointed for their knowledge and skills rather than political appointees. But they seemed good-natured and good-hearted doing the best that they could. They seemed smart and talented and capable. I will say one of the things that frustrates me about media is that the most ridiculous, silly, you know nothing and it's obvious, those are the quotes that make it to the top of Reddit. The ones where it's like Congress is an idiot, they know nothing about technology. And then if you listen to the hearings, you're like, oh, got it. Four hours of good questions and then 15 minutes from this one idiot. Like, all right, I see how sort of media is shaped. If you watch the whole C-SPAN thing, you're like, huh, these people are pretty savvy. Crystal Carter: Then one person's like, what is Finsta? And they're like, it's not a thing. No, but what is Finsta? It's fake Instagram. But how do I get to it? Rand Fishkin: Yeah, and those are the quotes, right? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had an hour of super spectacularly, good question, but it got no attention. It was kind of like a, okay, yeah, she's knowledgeable, she knows her stuff and she's asking good questions, and these are all smart things and all right, good, good, good. Fine. Ignore it. Don't air it. But how do I get to my cousin's Finsta? Like, oh, geez. Look at this, Congress are a bunch of idiots. Okay. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That conversation did not go where I thought it was. That's really interesting. To quote Bob Dylan, the Hour is getting late. It's actually not a Jimi Hendrix quote because Dylan wrote it. Hendrix covered it, but Dylan said he wrote it for Hendrix, metaphorically obviously. Crystal Carter: Find some way out of here. Rand Fishkin: I saw Bob Dylan perform maybe 20 years ago. Mordy Oberstein: I walked out. Rand Fishkin: Oh, man. I mean obviously phenomenal songwriter, singer, but geez, that guy, he can barely hold a tune. Mordy Oberstein: All I can say is thank God Tom Petty went on first and not Dylan. Rand Fishkin: I did just see Bruce Springsteen when we were in Italy in April, and holy crap, let me tell you, the E Street Band, there was not a note out of tune. There was not a beat missed. He didn't take a sip of water in a four-hour show. It was just song, song, song, song, song. No breaks, nothing. It's the most professional performance I've ever seen, and my mind was blown. I was like, oh, I guess I like Springsteen. It was great. Mordy Oberstein: What a thunk. I actually saw Springsteen at Giant Stadium like, this is boring. I'd rather be at Billy Joel. Crystal Carter: I'm a Beyonce fan. I saw her in the Renaissance tour. It was amazing. So on that note, thank you very much. Rand Fishkin: Beyonce is a performer, right? She's almost less a musician and more of an artist, right? She does so much. Crystal Carter: She's everything. She's all of it. Rand Fishkin: She's everything. Yeah. That's an incomparable thing. I think Springsteen and Dylan and Jelly Bowl or whoever, those people are singer-songwriter bands, right? They're a band that's going to get up and do a set and Beyonce is like Uh-huh. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of music and hitting the notes on this podcast and what we do, who might be some other marketers, thought leaders, folks out there, that our audience can check out across social media to expand their minds a little bit? Rand Fishkin: What a great, great question. This used to be easy. I would go to look at who I followed on Twitter. I used to follow a very small subset of people on Twitter, and of course that platform is now nearly useless. But I do follow some great folks on Mastodon. I suspect in a year I'm going to be telling you about Threads. That's probably where I'd tell you to follow people. But for right now, yeah, Mastodon is great. LinkedIn is also good too. A couple of people that I have found their work to be extraordinary, they don't post all that often, but one is Asia Orangio from DemandMaven. Crystal Carter: Yeah, she's got a great podcast. Rand Fishkin: Asia's so good, so smart, so talented that we actually hired her at SparkToro. She's helping us build V 2. She's doing our audience research and helping us with wire framing and prototyping this new version that's launching soon. So obviously I think the world of her and I would recommend you follow her anywhere. She's just terrific. Let's see. I have also gotten a lot of value from following, well, okay, this is an obvious one, but I hired Amanda because I was going to say her social media presence. She's on every platform, and she's fantastic on all of them. Crystal Carter: She's amazing. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, she's incomparable, right? I think if you want to see what social media marketing done right looks like, you just follow her. Crystal Carter: She shared this great piece about her exterminator's newsletter and how her exterminator sends a newsletter and is always super valuable and how he's just like, Hey, it's mosquito time. You should get all of the water out of your back garden so that the mosquitoes don't lay eggs in the standing water in your back garden. I was like, what? So I did that this summer based on her tweets about her exterminator, and guess what? It worked. So it's fantastic. She's amazing. I met her last year and she's just as warm and wonderful and clever in person as she is online. So yeah. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, yeah. She's an incredible human being. I'm so lucky to work with her. Do you know she pitched us? Crystal Carter: What? Rand Fishkin: So Geraldine and I, we were traveling through Southern California. This is 2021, and Amanda DMed me and said, oh, well, when you come to California, let me know and we'll go out to lunch. Great. Sure. Sounds fun. It'd be fun to meet up in person. Usually people on Twitter who DM and are like, Hey, let's have lunch, I was a little bit skeptical, but you can just tell from Amanda's thing. She's so authentic. She's so a hundred percent real. So we had lunch and at the end of lunch she's like, let me tell you why I think I should be SparkToro's first employee. Crystal Carter: Wow, love it. Rand Fishkin: And it was so, so good. Her pitch was outstanding. I called Casey later that day and was like, Hey man, I think we should hire this woman. He's like, no, we're not hiring anybody. I want to keep costs slow. I'm like, okay, just take a phone call with her. And then two weeks later he calls me up, okay, let's hire her. Mordy Oberstein: That's awesome. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, just great. So those two folks, if you are in SaaS and you're scaling, I think Chris Savage and what he posts about Wistia's growth, internal dynamics, all that kind of stuff, Chris Savage, fantastic follow. He's almost exclusively on LinkedIn. In Agency world, I think what Wil Reynolds is doing with Seer Interactive is an absolute must follow. He's quite active on Mastodon and LinkedIn, and maybe he'll make it over to Threads at some point a little bit. We'll see. He and I are both like maybe we'll go over there. And then I was going to say, if you're looking for Startup World follows, so there's a guy, I like him so much that even though Geraldine and I do very little investing, we invested in this company. His name's Francisco Baptista. He is the founder of TeamSportz in the UK, and their journey has been incredibly rocky and hard and tough, but they've built an incredible product and now it's finally getting adoption and it's so cool to see this human being's will. He was born during the Angola Civil War and moved to the UK with his dad, and he'll talk about it occasionally, be like, oh yeah, when I grew up, it was like a Tarantino movie every day. And now he has this business that is beautiful. It brings so many wonderful things to all these communities in the UK where he is participating. It's for a lot of basketball teams, soccer teams, intramural and amateur leagues. Anyway, phenomenal follow. He's almost exclusively active on LinkedIn. It sucks that we have to use the platforms now. Remember, it is just follow at so-and-so. Follow at so-and-so. Mordy Oberstein: You're helping me out because we're get a link to all these profiles in the show notes. Now I know where to go find them. Half of them already follow, so we're good. But thank you so much for joining us, Rand. Rand Fishkin: Crystal, Mordy, thank you so much for having me. Please, when you're in Seattle, drop a line. We'll see if my cocktail and cooking game is on point. Crystal Carter: I'll take you up on that. Rand Fishkin: All right, take care of yourselves friends. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. Well, thanks for joining us on the SERPs Up plus podcast. Make sure to come back next week with a new episode of SERPs Up, a regular SEO podcast and back next month with a new SERPs up plus for more marketing talk. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our Wix SEO Learning at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO and marketing? 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 your review on iTunes or rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love and marketing. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Rand Fishkin Amanda Natvidad Asia Orangio Chris Savage Wil Reynolds Francisco Baptista Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Sparktoro Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Rand Fishkin Amanda Natvidad Asia Orangio Chris Savage Wil Reynolds Francisco Baptista Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Sparktoro Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of marketing podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up+! Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up+ Podcast, where we give you guys some groovy new insights around what's happening in digital marketing. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the authentic,, the actual, the original, the bonafide Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello internet, SEO and marketing, and PPC, and social media, and PR, and all of the other people. Mordy Oberstein: Name all the verticals. Crystal Carter: Every single vertical. There's also going to be AI people as well now, doing things or something. Mordy Oberstein: Is there prompt optimization? Is that a thing now? Prompt optimization. Crystal Carter: AI management, content people, stuff as well. I don't know. There's lots of things, they're all of the people. The people, the people everywhere, welcome. You're all welcome here on our brand new version of our podcast. Mordy Oberstein: That's right, because normally we have our SERPs Up Podcast, our weekly SEO podcast. But this is our monthly bonus series, where we talk about all sorts of digital marketing topics. Which brings us to the SERPs Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can use the app we built together with Trustpilot, to help build credibility with your audience, and do things like automatically trigger service review invitations to customers, using the Trustpilot app in the Wix app marketplace. Which ties into our topic of the day. I mean, what are the chances of that happening? I'm genuinely surprised. Okay, the truth is, I plan that out every time. I shall not lie. Because today we're talking about the power of authenticity in marketing. We're looking at why you should forget the phony baloney, and be real with your audience and true to yourself, both for business success, and so that you can tolerate yourself at night. And to do that, one of the greatest marketers of our lifetime, the founder of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin will be by in just a few moments to share why being and how being one's true self, is the epitome of marketing Zen. So close your eyes, meditate, say a few ohms. And if that's not your thing, crank up the tunes, have a cup of chai or kick back a glass of single malt. That is, do whatever it is that is the voodoo that you do, as the SERP's Up+ Podcast helps you find your true marketing self. I'm out of breath. Crystal Carter: You could have just said, be like Jenny from the block. She was like, I'm real. Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got. These are the things that you have to remember. Mordy Oberstein: She's so real, she dropped A-rod like it was hot. Crystal Carter: Oh, we're coming in, we're just straight off the bat. Mordy Oberstein: When you say real, I don't think A-rod... as a salty, salty Yankee fan, that man cheated. He got suspended for... we're going on another rant. I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: I was talking about JLo. I don't know what you're talking about. She had her and Ja Rule or something. I don't know, everyone, it's all good. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. One of, I think, the greatest things that is us, is the inner depth of our personality, and our persona and who we are. So to share a bit of my personal philosophy on life, I'm somebody who thinks that philosophy and marketing are really connected. I don't want to get too mushy gushy with it, but I think there's something very deep and very powerful, almost like buried within the recesses of who we are that's entirely unique, and that's special, and that if we can tap into that part of who we are, you can do some pretty cool special marketing things. I know I'm getting a little bit sappy. However, it's rare in a world that's filled with marketing fluff and cliches, to feel that connection. But someone I always thought who did that really, really well, someone for years, when you listened to him talk, you felt there was something real emanating from his core, and you could really grab onto it. And that has been Rand Fishkin. So who better to help us talk about the value of being authentic in your marketing, than the founder of SparkToro, Rand Fishkin. Welcome. Rand Fishkin: Thanks for having me, Mordy. Thanks for having me, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much for joining us. It's an absolute pleasure, honor, delight. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I hope you caught my pithy commentary in our meeting chat about specifically, A-rod. Mordy Oberstein: A-rod, yes. Rand Fishkin: Many negative thoughts about him. Mordy Oberstein: I can't stand that he's part of the pre-game coverage on some of the games. It's terrible. So inauthentic, by the way. Rand Fishkin: I think one of the problems functionally speaking in, I'm going to say modern capitalist culture, is you were good at your job, therefore we should pay attention to you about other things. And that's just not true, right? Crystal Carter: Right, right. Rand Fishkin: Fundamentally, this is one of the values of authenticity, is that you don't listen to someone just because of what they could do for you. We were talking before the official podcast kicked off, about how you might have opinions on businesses of various sizes. And I was telling you guys that I love small businesses, and I'm not a big fan of helping big businesses. And very frequently, I get this, "But they have so much money, they could do so much." For whatever, for your career, or your company or what about M and A? And I was always like, well, sorry. If you're valued at over a billion, I'm kind of the inverse of a VC. I kind of hate unicorns. Okay, well, your valuation's too high. I don't like you anymore. You used to be cool, now you're not cool anymore. I think it's because I grew up with Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, and Nirvana, and it's like the pre-sellout culture stuck. Mordy Oberstein: So not a Stone Temple Pilot fan, because they were considered to be like a fake grunge band. They weren't really a grunge band, in my honest opinion, but whatever. Rand Fishkin: Honestly, I'm okay with it. I'm fine. I think they were talented musicians, and not despicably evil people. And so if a studio whatever wants to form a... I'm like this with the Monkees too. I don't completely hate it. Whatever. You want to put together an NSYNC, you want to put together a... fine, it's none of my business. Mordy Oberstein: But Billy Joel? Because I saw, I saw the thread. Billy Joel, no. No Billy Joel. Rand Fishkin: He's not talented. Mordy Oberstein: Oh my goodness. Crystal Carter: Oh man, we're dropping bombs everywhere. Mordy Oberstein: Before we get into marketing, for a second, I'm literally from the border of Queens on Long Island. You cross the street and you're on Long Island. And there's three fundamental truths about Long Island: Bagel Boss, Adventureland and Billy Joel. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, Long Island has problems. Crystal Carter: They have great iced tea though. The iced tea is delicious. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, all right. I'll have to check that out. Mordy Oberstein: That's it. I'm moving out. Crystal Carter: I think it's really interesting though, that you referenced some folks from the nineties and nineties music culture. Because when we're talking about authenticity, I was also thinking in the nineties there was a lot of stuff in hip hop culture about keeping it real, keep it real here, and people being called out for not keeping it real, for being fake and being that sort of thing. And I feel like that sentiment seems to have dissipated from the general popular culture, that people are doing it for the gram and that's fine. And that people don't... there's a lot of people who, like you were saying, have terrible opinions based on nothing to do with the topic necessarily, and they spread them across everywhere. Why do you think that that shift has happened, and how do you think we can try to rectify it? Or do you think we should? Rand Fishkin: Yeah, let's see. I'm torn. I have the half of me that is the things that I value are authenticity, and transparency, and whatever you want to call it. Not selling out, keeping it real. But at the same time, it is impossible for me to begrudge, whatever, younger generations who are doing things that might not be true to themselves or their personality, but they're doing it for, whatever, social media attention and awareness, or they're doing it for their career. Because fundamentally, I think that one of the biggest shifts that's happened in our lifetimes, especially in the United States, is we've gone from a world where you could work a part-time job, and put yourself through college, and pay your rent, to a world where that is impossible. And so when I was born, there's this classic concept of the American dream. You come from nothing, you have nothing, but economic mobility is so high in this country that over the course of even just one generation, a family can transform themselves through not even that hard work, a little bit of work and attention, into a middle class or a totally getting by family. And now that's completely not true. Almost all the wealth gain, obviously in the last 50 years, has gone to the top 10th of a percent of Americans, leaving everyone else behind. Obviously, inflation and affordability of everything has gone down. And so now I'm kind of like, God, you know what? Maybe keeping it real is selling out. To keep it real, you have to sell out. I'm not sure that these cultural ideas that we attribute to, whatever, hip hop artists, or grunge artists, or popular music, or television, or film or whatever it is, I'm not sure that that's where it comes from. I think it comes from economics, and I think it comes from the reality of where people are. So hey, you're doing it for the Gram. Maybe you're doing it for your career. Maybe you're doing it so you can afford Goddamn healthcare. So, who am I to judge? Mordy Oberstein: On the opposite side though, you have the big companies, or bigger brands, or not even bigger brands, just your established companies. And I was doing some research for a landing page I was writing, and I went through a couple of hundred different landing pages. And after a while I'm like, wow, I don't think I've read anything real for the last five hours. It's all like ultimate power, unlimited, whatever. And I walked away feeling, in five years from now, I hope and I think it's going to sound like a used car sales ad, like, "Come on down to Bob's." There's nothing real there. I get people feel maybe that they have to put on that front of really driving the sale, because they're nervous they're not going to get the sale. But I think in the end you come off, just in my personal opinion, as not really connecting in a real way. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I think what's going on is the difference between judging people harshly for their willingness to compromise the creative, artistic, human side of who they are in order to make money, versus hey, when you do that, why don't you do marketing, and sales, and copywriting, and content creation in ways that resonate with real people? And those are two different things. One is at the macro level, and one is at the micro level. And at the micro level, I think this is where authenticity still works wonders. You can feel brands that resonate with people, even if they are... I think one of my favorite examples that I bring up regularly, is the Mars Corporation's Snickers campaign of the last 15 years. Snickers sort of had this, I think they worked with an agency, but I can't remember the agency's name, this is back in the early 2000s. They worked with an agency who uncovers through audience research, they talk to a bunch of people who buy Snickers, people who don't buy Snickers, people who eat it regular... the candy bar, for anyone who's not familiar. And they talked to a lot of people, and found that they were using Snickers as a tastier alternative to a meal replacement. Essentially it was, Snickers was almost competing more with Power Bars in people's minds, or Luna Bars, which at the time, early 2000s Power Bar was sort of, if you're a dude, you have to eat this. Luna Bar was, if you're a woman, you have to eat this. And so, of course my pantry is stacked with Luna Bars, because F the gender paradigm. The reality was, they discovered lots of people are essentially eating Snickers in lieu of a meal or whatever. So therefore, we should position Snickers as the one candy bar that's a solution to hunger, as opposed to a reward or a treat. And the campaign was ludicrously successful. You can see even to this day, they haven't gone away from it. It's been 17 years, 18 years or something that they've been running with this. You're not you when you're hungry. Let's keep playing on that for forever. I'm not sure they should ever give it up. Because I think that that positioning is incredibly valuable. It's also authentic. For better or worse, I can't explain exactly why the combination of Snickers ingredients, which is no healthier- Rand Fishkin: The combination of Snickers ingredients, which is no healthier for you than anything else. Crystal Carter: No. Rand Fishkin: Right? Absolutely not. But if I eat a, I don't know, a Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or a bag of M&M's, I do not feel like, okay, I've had my calories. I'm okay. I can go on with my day. But I do feel that way with the Snickers. Crystal Carter: I mean, yeah, that's totally true. I mean, another similar campaign that I've seen is Marmite, which folks who've been to the UK will know about that, and Marmite is like, some people love us, some people hate us. That's just how it is. And they run with that throughout their campaigns, and they run with that for years. And in fact, it's to the point where it's like it's idiomatic. People are like, "Oh yeah, it's a bit of a Marmite kind of thing." It's a saying that people say and they know what that means, and that is extremely ingrained, authentic branding, but they're just sort of like, "That's who we are." Like, "Pick one." Rand Fishkin: What's tough is, and this goes back to Mordy's original point, translating the success that campaigns like this have had in plenty of consumer sectors to B2B where it's so hard, so hard in B2B to find examples of campaigns that resonate. I think part of it is how B2B is perceived, how it's bought and sold. I think part of it is the long marketing and sales cycle of B2B. Part of it is the expected professionalism. And so a lot of these companies feel like they can't play toward their brand positioning. And many of them, most of them also don't make incredibly obvious products. So you have to explain what you do and the features. Snickers does not have to be like, "What you hold in your hands is what's called a candy bar." They can dispense with all that BS. Everybody knows exactly what it is. And the same thing is true if you, whatever, go to a waterpark or buy Marmite at the store or see a bottle of wine. Consumer products are just a known variable, known quantity. Whereas B2B, there's so much. Wix, right? Okay, Wix has to explain, "Hey, we are a CMS, but we're this kind of CMS for this kind of person. These are the features, these are the reasons you would choose us." All that kind of stuff. If you could see CMSs, whatever, at the drugstore on the counter, the way you see candy bars, Wix would probably do a very different kind of branding campaign and positioning. And so I think this goes, Mordy, to the challenge around authenticity and sales language that you're finding. Mordy Oberstein: If Wix were a candy bar, by the way, we would have caramel and peanuts on this for the record. Rand Fishkin: Caramel and peanuts. Is that a PAYDAY? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's like a PAYDAY, right? It's like a Snickers, but there's no nougat. It just... Right, yeah. Rand Fishkin: PAYDAY is a peanut caramel bar and yet somehow when I'm hungry, I don't want a PAYDAY. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think that it's the nougat that does it. It's definitely that. But I think also, I think sometimes with authenticity, particularly with products, I think if I see a product and they're like, "We don't do this. We do do this really, really well, but we don't do that," that there's a certain amount of confidence to that. One of the classics examples, and I know this is a consumer product, but for instance, Domino's Pizza says, "We will get you a pizza in 30 minutes or less." That's one of the things that they say they're able to do. They don't say, "We will get you the best pizza you've ever had in your life in 30 minutes or less." They don't say that it will have everything you ever wanted in a pizza. No. They say, "This is what we can do for you, and if you would like this, we have that. That's what we can promise you. We can promise you that." And the stuff in between, you make your choices. Sometimes you want a pizza that takes longer than that. Sometimes you want to go to this artisanal place around the corner and get something that, what's the Long Island pizza place there, Mordy? Mordy Oberstein: There are so many. Crystal Carter: So many. It's like, I don't even know where to start. Mordy Oberstein: Well, a famous one. It’s a whole different story Crystal Carter: Right, precisely. But I think you mentioned value propositions, and I think it's really important to understand what is your genuine actual USP for why you started your business. There must've been some point where you thought to yourself, "You know what? Lots of people are making pizza or doing whatever it is they're doing or making whatever SaaS products they are, but it's missing something and it's missing this, and I think that I can fill that gap, and I think that being able to understand your USP is really, really important. Rand Fishkin: We had on the SparkToro homepage a video that was relatively expensive to make, and we worked with a professional video company and we went to a wedding venue that has sort of a hedge maze up north of Seattle. Mordy Oberstein: I remember that. I remember that video. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. So Casey and I went up there with a video crew and we filmed this whole thing. Took 10 hours of filming, nine hours of filming, something like that, and then lots of editing work to get it down to, I think it was about a 40-second, 45-second video, and we put it on our homepage. We were very proud of it. It was quite authentic. It even started off, Crystal, with a, I think the line was like, "I'm Rand Fishkin and I spent my career trying to return data that big tech steals and hides away to marketers who deserve to have it," which is fundamentally like, that's why we created SparkToro. I was like, pre 2016, Facebook would tell you all this data about your audience, and pre Elon Twitter would show you all this interesting information in Audience Insights. I think they actually took it away even before he bought it, but then it started this world of like, whoa, whoa, walled gardens, let's keep people in. Don't let people out. Google hiding keyword data, all this stuff. And I was like, "That sucks." That sucks and it's dumb, and screw big tech, hate those guys. Let's return this data to people. We have a big free version that a 100,000 people use and we've got our paid version. But telling that story interestingly, I think made us resonate a little bit better with a very small group, but it hurt our conversion rate, it didn't help it. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, so I think it was one of those interesting experiences. We kept the video there for a year because we were like, "Well, let's keep trying. Maybe we put it below the call to action. Maybe we keep it over here." But no, it really was, it was a detractor because it was a second call to action on the homepage from just try the product, put in your keywords or your search terms or whatever. And yeah, we finally pulled it recently, and I don't think we're going to bring it back for the V2 that we're building. So it's a tough thing, and maybe the video didn't do what it was supposed to do, maybe it wasn't resonating the way we hoped it would, but certainly I think it's a hard thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think a lot of businesses struggle with this. So one of the classic cases where people do all these beauty shots of their products and they do all these amazing, amazing, beautiful shots of the crème brulée in the restaurant and the hotel room all sorted out like that. If I'm somebody who's looking in the business, I'm going to TripAdvisor, I'm going to TripAdvisor, and I'm going to go and have a look at what the people who went in and took a picture on their terrible old iPhone that's got a crack on the screen, what they took a picture of and what the room actually looks like. If their holiday snaps still look okay, then I'm like, "Cool." If the restaurant still looks all right, then cool. If the reviews similarly of your fantastic, amazing SaaS product or whatever kind of product still say roughly the same kinds of things that you're promising on your website, then that's going to resonate with me. So I think that companies invest a lot of time in making all these beauty shots and making all this beautiful copy and all of that sort of stuff, but making sure that people have something that connects with how they are interacting with it and how they are experiencing the product is really important. Like you were saying that it was distracting from actually being able to try the tool. Like with a tool like an online thing, being able to try the tool is really the bread and butter. That's the proof in the pudding as it were, to name many other food metaphors. I don't know. I could talk about pies or something or... Mordy Oberstein: I love pies. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, I mean, the hotels thing is really interesting. I've talked to a few hoteliers about this and the website, the photography, all of this kind of stuff. There's two fascinating things that I learned that were sort of going on there. One is pure positioning. So when you get to a website that looks and feels like small luxury hotels of the world, you get in the mindset of what you expect the price to be, what you expect the service to be like, blah, blah, blah. You probably will go to TripAdvisor and look at the reviews and dah, dah, dah, dah. But if you're visiting that area and you're that kind of consumer, the difference between a 4.1 and a 4.5 and a 4.9 out of five doesn't mean that much to you. You're probably going to choose that location anyway if it's your kind of hotel and your kind of place. And then the second one was apparently, interestingly enough, a huge part of the visual aesthetic, design, all the website stuff is like a local ecosystem contribution. For example, I was talking to a hotelier in Puglia in Italy, the south, the heel of the boot of Italy, and the hotelier was explaining that, "Oh, well, when we make our website, of course we want to hire the best local photographers, and then they also will want to work with us when someone has a wedding here, they also work with us when someone had their engagement and they're coming here for their trip or their honeymoon or something like that. And we work with those people. We work with the florist for the flowers for the photo shoot, and then that promotes their business, which... " Like it's all this, I don't know what you want to call it, relationship building, relationship building through craft, creation of these kinds of things, versus the Holiday Inn where it is, boom, this is exactly... Like you know exactly what you're going to get the same thing over and over again. Hilton is the same way and Marriott and Radisson and all the big brands. They have their system, but for these small local ones, again, it's that we want to show to the consumer and the potential buyer who we are and we're also trying to create relationships inside our local community with the people who, if you're a wedding photographer, we want you to recommend to your event planner that all the couples that you work with should come to our hotel, so we hire you. Mordy Oberstein: That's something that's interesting to me because something that you do so well, I feel like, and you're a SaaS platform, is that you come across, SparkToro comes across, all the things you guys are doing over there, Amanda, it comes across very boutique, it comes across very genuine, it comes across very connective, and it's so interesting because it's so peculiar for a SaaS platform to be able to pull that off and I'm wondering how you do that. Rand Fishkin: So I think that it sort of goes back to what are you allowed to do based on the design of your business. So from the building blocks level, I think this is the wonderful and terrible thing about entrepreneurship and whatever, the funding ecosystem and how capitalism has sort of evolved for entrepreneurship, especially in tech. And that is we get to be very peculiar. And peculiar is a beautiful world because to me, it has this connotation of weird, for the sake of being weird. You are doing this different thing because not just you want to stand out from the crowd in a way that gets you money, but you want to stand out from the crowd in a way that's like a Wes Anderson movie. You're sort of being particular for the sake of being particular because this is just who you are. And one of my favorite facts about Wes Anderson movies, apparently everybody gets paid like a thousand bucks a day to work on the movie. It doesn't matter if you're Scarlett Johansson. You make the lowest rate and the same rate as all the background actors. There's no, I can't remember what they call it, scale. They call it scale in the industry. So everybody makes that money because you want to work on a Wes Anderson movie and it's super weird and the project's going to be weird, and the movie's going to look beautiful, and the plot's going to make no sense and all those kinds of things. And clearly he's built this reputation, and I think that's great. And SparkToro, we have this like, our funding structure lets us, so long as we're alive and profitable, we can really do what we want. We do not have to grow. I mean, I'd like to grow, Casey wants to grow, Amanda wants to grow, but we don't have to. We're doing a nice amount of revenue, a very nice amount of revenue per person. There's only three of us. So we're super different from other SaaS platforms in that we just don't have the same motivation and incentive to, okay, how do we maximize revenue? We better build a sales team, we better get people on board. Like, no, we don't build the sales team not because it wouldn't be good for the business, we don't build the sales team because I don't like managing salespeople. And a ton of what you feel from SparkToro and a lot of boutiques and indie brands and indie startups is, oh, they're doing this because they like doing this and they're not doing this because they don't like doing this. And I don't think you can build competitive advantage fundamentally with something that isn't your strength and something that's not your passion. So- Rand Fishkin: ... fundamentally with something that isn't your strength and something that's not your passion. So I'm trying to build a life, not a business that maximizes the amount of revenue it takes from customers, and that's already real. That's already a real thing. You're talking about how I decide to live my life because your work life, your business life is part of your life. The biggest reason that I hope SparkToro is successful on a bigger scale than it is now and that I hope in 10 years, it's like a company that lots of people point to and talk about is so that this fundamental idea will trickle down into the broader world of tech and entrepreneurship, that maybe you should not optimize for maximizing revenue growth and investor returns, but instead you should build something that gives you and your employees and team and customers the life that they want and the solutions that they want. And I think frankly, that's a very un-American way to live, but a really beautiful one. Mordy Oberstein: It's a very existential way to live. It's the meaningful life versus the life. Rand Fishkin: I want to be clear: I also do stuff for the brand. I'm not trying to paint myself as like everything Rand does is authentic... Behind me, I have this whiteboard, I film these weekly whiteboard videos, the five-minute whiteboards for SparkToro now, and part of that is like a, "Gosh, well, I tried coming up with some other video formats and trying some other things," but you know what? I saw that the old classic resonated with people: my 17 years of doing Whiteboard Friday at Moz really stuck with folks: they missed that, they wanted it again. When I do them, they get high engagement. Okay, I'm going to give the people what they want. And also, a five-minute whiteboard is not a terrible challenge or anything, and I enjoy the experience, so it's not completely inauthentic. But I absolutely will do things for whatever personal and professional gain. I am not against that, right? I'm not Kurt Cobain, and, "Oh my God, I'm making money. It's the end," but I have a little bit more of that in me than most venture-backed entrepreneurs. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that comes back to the confidence of having the confidence to say, "We are going to grow in ways that are valuable to us and in ways that enrich us," because you say haven't got a sales team that's going and getting more sales, doing all of that, I think that it does give you an opportunity to be more creative, and more flexible, and to try new things. And certainly one of the things that's fundamental and to the core of Wix, and one of the things I love about our team here at Wix is that people try new things. People try new things and people will be like, "Hey, I tried a thing," and they go, "Oh, you did what?", and, "Oh, that's cool. I like that. Hey, check out this thing that this person made." We have hackathons, we have markathon with marketing things where everybody just gets together and has ideas. Mordy Oberstein: And it goes into the product. We can see it at least on the inside like, "Oh, that's, from that," that's from hackathon. Crystal Carter: Right. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I think at a larger... How many people is Wix now? Mordy Oberstein: 5,000, something like that. I should know that. It's around 5,000. Rand Fishkin: I think in an environment like that, one of the biggest things I hear from folks who work in larger companies, and when I say larger, I mean 200 plus, nevermind 2,000 plus, but is, "I do work and I don't know how it contributes to the business." To the end of the day, "Customers get more value," or whatever, "Our investors make more money and my stock price goes up," or whatever, "This is valued and recognized by people in leadership," that visibility goes away really early in a company's growth cycle. I think people felt that way at Moz at 210 people when I was there, and that sucks. Fundamentally, it is terrible, I think to do work and not know how that work contributes or to feel like it doesn't contribute. When I look at people who are, I saw an old friend of Geraldine's yesterday posting on LinkedIn that it was their last day at Google. They were leaving Google after 13, 14 years. And it was subtly written, but one of the things in there was, "For the last few years I've been working on a project that never went live, but now I'm going to a smaller company where I...", And I had this, yeah, I get it. I get that, "I'm well paid, I have a cushy job, things are going really great in my professional career, I've been promoted, whatever, but I just spent years working on a project that no one will ever know about. I'm going somewhere where my work actually contributes to society." Mordy Oberstein: I think it's almost divine: you want to feel like you're having an impact on something, somehow. Rand Fishkin: Yeah. I think it can be purely capitalist, purely financial, but if it's nothing, that's just brutal. So, I think it makes a tremendous amount of sense, I'm very proud to hear, glad to hear that Wix is investing in a, "Hey, do this stuff," and then that stuff will be in the live version of the product that customers are using, and you'll be able to see how many people used it and you'll hear, "Oh man, that thing I contributed to, it turned into something real." Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Rand Fishkin: And beautiful. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, if you're listening to this podcast, you're a marketer and you're working with a product team, I feel like it's your role as a marketer to tell the product team, "Hey, so-and-so was talking about this product that you made and they loved it." We had that today in our WhatsApp group like, "Hey, yo, some SEO was saying that they love what you all are doing." And the product people were like, "Awesome. We're having an impact. They just made our day, legit." Crystal Carter: It's such a big deal working as a tech SEO, tell the devs that if you asked the devs for this ticket and that ticket and that ticket and this ticket, and you saw your SEO go off the charts, tell them. Tell them that, "That work that you did helped us get 15% ROI uplift," or whatever it may be, because that will make getting the dev tickets actioned quicker the next time because they'll want to get that feedback from you. Similarly, if you're working on a campaign and you asked for a favor from somebody in a different team to do the thing, you asked for somebody to be in this video that you were going to put on the whatever, tell them that it had an impact. It makes such a big difference and costs you nothing. Sending an email, sending a Slack message costs you nothing and can make such a big difference to the cohesion of your team, and to how these enthusiastic people are going forward as well. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, absolutely. I think a huge part of this for folks who do consulting and agency work, one of the biggest frustrations that I hear over and over again is, "We did this big deep dive on the client's website and we looked at all the problems that they need to solve, we did this audit, we presented all these findings, we tried to get approval to go make the changes and improve things, and they were like, okay, thanks for the audit, and it's two years later, nothing's happened." It's mind-blowing from an agency perspective to be like, "Gosh, but when this other client we worked with actually did the things we said, they got way more business and money, so why are you doing nothing?" Crystal Carter: And you sometimes never find out. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, but the answer is complicated. When you dig in, it's almost never the case that there's some, I don't know, evil mid-level manager- Crystal Carter: Mu-ah-ha. Rand Fishkin: ... who's like, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to hire an agency, going to pay them money, and then I'm going to do none of the work they recommend. Mu-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha." That cartoon villain just doesn't exist, right? Crystal Carter: "I'm going to wait until they do the PowerPoint. I'm going to ask lots of questions. Lots of them,". Rand Fishkin: Yeah, but I do think it pays as an agency, as a marketer who's contributing even in-house on a team, when you have that conversation about like, "Okay, well these findings, they're going to translate into these actions," and those actions are going to translate directly into, whatever, financial gain, or improvements in conversion rate, or improvements in whatever this metric is. And if that thing is not fundamentally tied to the incentives, the directives, and the goals that leadership has defined for whatever the second tier or the third tier of management that you're working with, well probably it's not going to get done. And even if is, even if it is beautifully and perfectly aligned, if they don't have the resources or if those resources have projects that are sitting with even higher priorities or those resources have capability and competence problems, many times these things won't happen. Crystal Carter: To bring it back to the realness, to the depths of the real, I think that this is incredibly important. We talk about realness in your marketing, authenticity in your marketing, as we're thinking about outbound communications and things like that. When you are talking to your teams and when you are talking to your stakeholders in your campaigns, being able to be a straight-shooter, being able to actually answer the questions in plain English without jargon, and to be able to address, like you said, the actual concerns that they have, the actual goals that they have, not, "I'm so smart. Look at my beautiful pie charts. I'm so clever. This is a fantastic pie chart," and it is hitting all of the best practices for all of the things that you are expected to do. It's like, "That's great: we have two people in our team and we can't do any of that." So when you're thinking about your authenticity, when you're talking to clients about your marketing campaign, your SEO campaign, your audience research, whatever, being authentic with them, of being like, "Hey guys, what can you actually achieve? What can you actually do?", before you start the audit, "What can you actually do? How many hours do you have to do this? What kind of resources do you have to actually achieve this?", can make such a difference, and also can mean that they're more likely to tell you and be honest with you and be clear with you when they need help. When they're like, "We don't know how to do this. Can you help us?", and then maybe you get more billable hours or whatever it may be. Rand Fishkin: I also highly recommend to folks that before you start your audit or your deep dive, find out what the resourcing is: like, "Oh, do we have capability to do this, to do this, do this? What if I come up with suggestions that need this or this or this?", and then if the client or the team or the person, whatever, tells you, "Oh yeah, we can definitely do this. We can't do this. These things are kind in the middle," you can structure your findings that way. You can be like, "All right, I found a lot of opportunities. Many of them sit in the, we can't fix it bucket, but I'm presenting them anyway in the hopes that someday we will be able to fix them. These sit in the maybe bucket. And these are the ones we said we could fix right away, and I prioritize them by importance," and then it's like, all right, now we're talking about action. Crystal Carter: Right, because you're real and they were real. You're speaking like a real human person. Rand Fishkin: The transparency inside organizations and the alignment between people in teams is hugely important. I fundamentally believe to my core that Elon Musk is a piece of shit, but I say that in all sincerity and in every way. But he does have this concept of people as vectors in an organization, and if you point them all in the same direction along the same lines, you get the full power of their impact. And so, simply aligning people all to go in the same direction, even in very large organizations, if the leader of that organization, the CEO themselves says, "We are all working on this. Everyone is going to get us to here. You tell me what you need to do to get there," I think there's one of the reasons, probably one of the biggest reasons why several of his companies have been very successful. And then obviously Twitter, he's chosen very poorly which things to do, no surprise. And also, his awfulness bleeds into the attractiveness of the platform generally. But I think there's lessons to be learned even from terrible people, and this is a great one where that alignment allows SpaceX and Tesla to do things well and fast that are very hard for more complex, less transparently, "Everyone's on the same page, moving toward the same goals," organizations in the engineering and tech field. Mordy Oberstein: I generally pride in myself on my pivots, but I don't have one here... And I do have a slight pivot actually because I guess we were talking about tech and not being seen in the greatest light. Something I've been meaning to ask you this entire podcast is these big tech companies end up front of Congress for whatever particular reason, whether it's Google, whether it's Facebook, whatever it is, TikTok most recently, I guess, and we as digital marketers sometimes sit back and laugh like, "Oh, the Congress asks the most ridiculous question to that person. They know clearly know nothing about Google or TikTok or whatever, or technology. They've never used a computer in their life. It's quite obvious," but- Mordy Oberstein: They've never used a computer in their life. It's quite obvious. But my dad, who also has hardly used a computer in his life, will look at that and be like, wait a second. Should I be trusting this stuff that's on my phone? You're telling me to go to the Google, to go to the Facebook. Do I trust this stuff now? Because now I saw the CEO of Facebook sitting in front of Congress. It must mean he's not trustworthy. And I wonder, going back to our previous conversation, I know we're running out of time, and so you don't have to get too deep into it, but I really just wanted to ask it. Do you think that that has an impact of when we as marketers talk to consumers or to other businesses and try to sell a product or a service? If people are looking at the web more skeptically, does it mean that we're going to end up moving to a more conversational model? Because when they look and see that landing page, where you're writing that marketing schlock, are people going to start to see through that because they're starting to think of the webinar in a more skeptical kind of way? Rand Fishkin: I think on the whole, I completely disagree. I think people are more trusting today of things that they see on the web than they ever have been. And a huge part of that is because these big tech companies have made the web such a relatively safe place to go. The late nineties, the early two thousands, you could get malware, spam, stuff that would just destroy your computer and then trying to fix it in whatever early versions of Windows or like Windows 98, I remember debugging my grandfather's computer in Windows 98, Jesus Christ, oh my God, he visited the wrong internet website and clicked the wrong thing. But today, that experience is so curated. It's so relatively safe that I actually fundamentally would say no. I think people trust the web like never before they believe it's safe to put in their credit card. They'll give you their social security number over the internet, they'll digitally sign things over to the internet, they'll sell their house on the internet. It has gotten to a really different place. Where I would say you drag Zuckerberg in front of Congress or you bring Sundar Pichai in front of Congress. And what surprises me the most is that Congress has no teeth. So Sundar Pichai, for example, when in front of Congress, I believe this was 2019, and talked about Google sending more and more traffic to the open web. Maybe it was 2020. And it was an obvious lie, provable with data. You just go out there and get it. So I remember I wrote an article, I think on SparkToro that was like, Hey, I don't know why Congress is unwilling to hold Google CEO's feet to the fire, but I'll do it. Here you go. And I think I had a call with Lina Khan who now Biden is appointed as the head of the FTC, and she was like, okay, can you walk me through this? I'm trying to understand exactly what's going on here, but basically no action from Congress. I had a call with David Cicilline, who's the congressman in charge of the committee looking into Google, and they were like their hands are tied. There's not a lot that they can do. And so I'm going to say this also Mordy to defend, no American has ever defended Congress to my knowledge. But I will say I talk to a lot of people in government, even during the Trump administration, which you can probably tell, I obviously disliked and disagreed with most of that. But I talked to people inside the administration. I think these are mostly appointees who were appointed for their knowledge and skills rather than political appointees. But they seemed good-natured and good-hearted doing the best that they could. They seemed smart and talented and capable. I will say one of the things that frustrates me about media is that the most ridiculous, silly, you know nothing and it's obvious, those are the quotes that make it to the top of Reddit. The ones where it's like Congress is an idiot, they know nothing about technology. And then if you listen to the hearings, you're like, oh, got it. Four hours of good questions and then 15 minutes from this one idiot. Like, all right, I see how sort of media is shaped. If you watch the whole C-SPAN thing, you're like, huh, these people are pretty savvy. Crystal Carter: Then one person's like, what is Finsta? And they're like, it's not a thing. No, but what is Finsta? It's fake Instagram. But how do I get to it? Rand Fishkin: Yeah, and those are the quotes, right? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had an hour of super spectacularly, good question, but it got no attention. It was kind of like a, okay, yeah, she's knowledgeable, she knows her stuff and she's asking good questions, and these are all smart things and all right, good, good, good. Fine. Ignore it. Don't air it. But how do I get to my cousin's Finsta? Like, oh, geez. Look at this, Congress are a bunch of idiots. Okay. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That conversation did not go where I thought it was. That's really interesting. To quote Bob Dylan, the Hour is getting late. It's actually not a Jimi Hendrix quote because Dylan wrote it. Hendrix covered it, but Dylan said he wrote it for Hendrix, metaphorically obviously. Crystal Carter: Find some way out of here. Rand Fishkin: I saw Bob Dylan perform maybe 20 years ago. Mordy Oberstein: I walked out. Rand Fishkin: Oh, man. I mean obviously phenomenal songwriter, singer, but geez, that guy, he can barely hold a tune. Mordy Oberstein: All I can say is thank God Tom Petty went on first and not Dylan. Rand Fishkin: I did just see Bruce Springsteen when we were in Italy in April, and holy crap, let me tell you, the E Street Band, there was not a note out of tune. There was not a beat missed. He didn't take a sip of water in a four-hour show. It was just song, song, song, song, song. No breaks, nothing. It's the most professional performance I've ever seen, and my mind was blown. I was like, oh, I guess I like Springsteen. It was great. Mordy Oberstein: What a thunk. I actually saw Springsteen at Giant Stadium like, this is boring. I'd rather be at Billy Joel. Crystal Carter: I'm a Beyonce fan. I saw her in the Renaissance tour. It was amazing. So on that note, thank you very much. Rand Fishkin: Beyonce is a performer, right? She's almost less a musician and more of an artist, right? She does so much. Crystal Carter: She's everything. She's all of it. Rand Fishkin: She's everything. Yeah. That's an incomparable thing. I think Springsteen and Dylan and Jelly Bowl or whoever, those people are singer-songwriter bands, right? They're a band that's going to get up and do a set and Beyonce is like Uh-huh. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of music and hitting the notes on this podcast and what we do, who might be some other marketers, thought leaders, folks out there, that our audience can check out across social media to expand their minds a little bit? Rand Fishkin: What a great, great question. This used to be easy. I would go to look at who I followed on Twitter. I used to follow a very small subset of people on Twitter, and of course that platform is now nearly useless. But I do follow some great folks on Mastodon. I suspect in a year I'm going to be telling you about Threads. That's probably where I'd tell you to follow people. But for right now, yeah, Mastodon is great. LinkedIn is also good too. A couple of people that I have found their work to be extraordinary, they don't post all that often, but one is Asia Orangio from DemandMaven. Crystal Carter: Yeah, she's got a great podcast. Rand Fishkin: Asia's so good, so smart, so talented that we actually hired her at SparkToro. She's helping us build V 2. She's doing our audience research and helping us with wire framing and prototyping this new version that's launching soon. So obviously I think the world of her and I would recommend you follow her anywhere. She's just terrific. Let's see. I have also gotten a lot of value from following, well, okay, this is an obvious one, but I hired Amanda because I was going to say her social media presence. She's on every platform, and she's fantastic on all of them. Crystal Carter: She's amazing. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, she's incomparable, right? I think if you want to see what social media marketing done right looks like, you just follow her. Crystal Carter: She shared this great piece about her exterminator's newsletter and how her exterminator sends a newsletter and is always super valuable and how he's just like, Hey, it's mosquito time. You should get all of the water out of your back garden so that the mosquitoes don't lay eggs in the standing water in your back garden. I was like, what? So I did that this summer based on her tweets about her exterminator, and guess what? It worked. So it's fantastic. She's amazing. I met her last year and she's just as warm and wonderful and clever in person as she is online. So yeah. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, yeah. She's an incredible human being. I'm so lucky to work with her. Do you know she pitched us? Crystal Carter: What? Rand Fishkin: So Geraldine and I, we were traveling through Southern California. This is 2021, and Amanda DMed me and said, oh, well, when you come to California, let me know and we'll go out to lunch. Great. Sure. Sounds fun. It'd be fun to meet up in person. Usually people on Twitter who DM and are like, Hey, let's have lunch, I was a little bit skeptical, but you can just tell from Amanda's thing. She's so authentic. She's so a hundred percent real. So we had lunch and at the end of lunch she's like, let me tell you why I think I should be SparkToro's first employee. Crystal Carter: Wow, love it. Rand Fishkin: And it was so, so good. Her pitch was outstanding. I called Casey later that day and was like, Hey man, I think we should hire this woman. He's like, no, we're not hiring anybody. I want to keep costs slow. I'm like, okay, just take a phone call with her. And then two weeks later he calls me up, okay, let's hire her. Mordy Oberstein: That's awesome. Rand Fishkin: Yeah, just great. So those two folks, if you are in SaaS and you're scaling, I think Chris Savage and what he posts about Wistia's growth, internal dynamics, all that kind of stuff, Chris Savage, fantastic follow. He's almost exclusively on LinkedIn. In Agency world, I think what Wil Reynolds is doing with Seer Interactive is an absolute must follow. He's quite active on Mastodon and LinkedIn, and maybe he'll make it over to Threads at some point a little bit. We'll see. He and I are both like maybe we'll go over there. And then I was going to say, if you're looking for Startup World follows, so there's a guy, I like him so much that even though Geraldine and I do very little investing, we invested in this company. His name's Francisco Baptista. He is the founder of TeamSportz in the UK, and their journey has been incredibly rocky and hard and tough, but they've built an incredible product and now it's finally getting adoption and it's so cool to see this human being's will. He was born during the Angola Civil War and moved to the UK with his dad, and he'll talk about it occasionally, be like, oh yeah, when I grew up, it was like a Tarantino movie every day. And now he has this business that is beautiful. It brings so many wonderful things to all these communities in the UK where he is participating. It's for a lot of basketball teams, soccer teams, intramural and amateur leagues. Anyway, phenomenal follow. He's almost exclusively active on LinkedIn. It sucks that we have to use the platforms now. Remember, it is just follow at so-and-so. Follow at so-and-so. Mordy Oberstein: You're helping me out because we're get a link to all these profiles in the show notes. Now I know where to go find them. Half of them already follow, so we're good. But thank you so much for joining us, Rand. Rand Fishkin: Crystal, Mordy, thank you so much for having me. Please, when you're in Seattle, drop a line. We'll see if my cocktail and cooking game is on point. Crystal Carter: I'll take you up on that. Rand Fishkin: All right, take care of yourselves friends. Mordy Oberstein: Bye. Well, thanks for joining us on the SERPs Up plus podcast. Make sure to come back next week with a new episode of SERPs Up, a regular SEO podcast and back next month with a new SERPs up plus for more marketing talk. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on our Wix SEO Learning at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO and marketing? 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 your review on iTunes or rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love and marketing. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Ashley Segura is a content marketing strategist, speaker, and operator with 15+ years of experience turning messy, disconnected marketing efforts into systems that actually work. Ashley Segura Director of Marketing, SearchLab Ashley Segura is a content marketing strategist, speaker, and operator with 15+ years of experience turning messy, disconnected marketing efforts into systems that actually work. As Director of Marketing at SearchLab Digital, she leads campaigns that connect with humans (not just algorithms) for brands across the globe. Invited to speak at industry-leading events like SMX Munich, BrightonSEO, Pubcon, Engage, and Semrush Spotlight, Ashley has also been named a Top 100 Content Marketing Influencer and featured in SEOFOMO’s Inspiring Women in SEO. Articles & Resources 6 Mar 2025 How to optimize content after Google’s Helpful Content Update 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

Barry Schwartz is the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and has covered search for over 20 years. He is also a news editor at Search Engine Land and is a speaker, moderator, and coordinator at many industry conferences, including SMX, PubCon, and many other marketing and technology events. Barry Schwartz CEO, RustyBrick Barry Schwartz is the founder of the Search Engine Roundtable and has covered search for over 20 years. He is also a news editor at Search Engine Land and is a speaker, moderator, and coordinator at many industry conferences, including SMX, PubCon, and many other marketing and technology events. Articles & Resources 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

SEO shouldn’t be siloed. Mordy and Crystal discuss how SEOs should think about social media teams, branding, and other marketing channels. Organic search is just one channel to bring traffic and revenue to a website. What works for one channel may or may not work on another, but you’ll never know if you don’t communicate with the rest of the marketing team. Your website should be considered the HQ for all digital activities, and its user experience should be consistent no matter the channel a user arrives from. As a result, SEO, social media, PPC, etc., should align with consistent messaging, content, and imagery. Depending on the size of your organization and how many hats you have to wear as a marketer, prioritization can be critical, according to iPullRank’s Garrett Sussman, featured guest on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. SEO may take six to 12 months to move the revenue needle, while PPC or social may be doing it today. Prioritize based on what’s driving revenue now while making time investments in other tactics for the future. Knowing your audience is crucial when it comes to an omnichannel approach to marketing. A good way to understand who your audience is online is by using tools like SparkToro. With it, you can not only identify your audience but discover where they’re at and what they like. We’ll dive into how you can use the tool to fuel all of your marketing efforts from SEO to social! Back The need for an all-channels approach to SEO SEO shouldn’t be siloed. Mordy and Crystal discuss how SEOs should think about social media teams, branding, and other marketing channels. Organic search is just one channel to bring traffic and revenue to a website. What works for one channel may or may not work on another, but you’ll never know if you don’t communicate with the rest of the marketing team. Your website should be considered the HQ for all digital activities, and its user experience should be consistent no matter the channel a user arrives from. As a result, SEO, social media, PPC, etc., should align with consistent messaging, content, and imagery. Depending on the size of your organization and how many hats you have to wear as a marketer, prioritization can be critical, according to iPullRank’s Garrett Sussman, featured guest on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. SEO may take six to 12 months to move the revenue needle, while PPC or social may be doing it today. Prioritize based on what’s driving revenue now while making time investments in other tactics for the future. Knowing your audience is crucial when it comes to an omnichannel approach to marketing. A good way to understand who your audience is online is by using tools like SparkToro. With it, you can not only identify your audience but discover where they’re at and what they like. We’ll dive into how you can use the tool to fuel all of your marketing efforts from SEO to social! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 16 | December 7, 2022 | 29 MIN 00:00 / 29:14 This week’s guests Garrett Sussman Garrett Sussman is the Demand Generation Manager at SEO Agency iPullRank. He’s been in the content marketing and SEO game for the past 10+ years. He's the host of The SEO Weekly and the Rankable Podcast. Iced coffee, comic book movies, and Philly sports fuel his soul. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to Surfs Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the Surfs 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 amazing, the wonderful, the fabulous, the incredible Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter: Hello, internet people. It is I. I am here. I am awake, even though I had one hour of sleep last night. That's okay. Mordy Oberstein: I'm totally jet lagged. I have no idea what's going on right now. Crystal Carter: This is going to be a completely manic episode, people. Strap in. It's about to get crazy because we're both pretty much delirious. Mordy Oberstein: Either that or I'm going to fall asleep in the middle of recording. Crystal Carter: It's fine, it's fine. Some people are really into that. They call it ASMR and people, they'll just find something and they'll crinkle it. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, crinkly noises. My kids are like books and they're babies, like the crinkle noise. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and it's a thing. People really like it. Or it's when people eat ice or something. Mordy Oberstein: I always found that annoying to be around people eating the ice because they're chewing on it and it's so loud. Crystal Carter: Oh. Oh man, oh. Mordy Oberstein: That wasn't going where you thought it was going. Crystal Carter: That's incredibly annoying. Mordy Oberstein: It's so annoying, right? Crystal Carter: I find it annoying, other people making noises. However, I do sometimes post on my Instagram, I just post pictures of waves going back and forth, for my own personal ASMR. So, yeah. I also have one of jellyfish just floating around. Mordy Oberstein: They are just very relaxing. It's like- Crystal Carter: It's very relaxing. So sometimes I just look at it. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Well on that note, the Surf's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can manage so much of your entire digital marketing presence under one roof with Ascend by Wix, create videos for social, curate newsletters, set up social banners and schedule posts, plus a whole slew of marketing integrations. It's omni channel marketing with Ascend by Wix, which is very appropriate for today's show because we're talking about multiple channels and SEO. Crystal Carter: So all the channels- Mordy Oberstein: See what I did there. Crystal Carter: The plug, I see it. Mordy Oberstein: And this show's topic. Bringing you together- Crystal Carter: Look at that. It's almost as if you knew we would do it. Mordy Oberstein: Right there. Crystal Carter: What? What? Mordy Oberstein: Next level. That's right. Today's show we're talking about the vital need for an all channel approach to SEO. Why you should think about your site as your HQ for all digital activity. How to be consistent across all channels. How to align your SEO work with your other digital marketing activities and the need to consider other channels. What? Yes, to support your SEO efforts. Plus I pull ranks Garrett Sussman stops by to share how he prioritizes all of these cross channel activities and his SEO all at the same time because there's so much prioritization to do. Legit. Also, we'll share a tool that can help you maximize your wider digital efforts. And of course we have your snappy news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO, nay more marketing awesomeness. Let's cross the channel together as episode 16 of the Surf's Up podcast has arrived. Each week I feel like adding that last little line there, let's cross the channel together. I'm getting better and better. Crystal Carter: I feel like that crossing the channel, because living in England, I'm like, oh yeah, people swim across the channel and they're like, yay. Mordy Oberstein: That's what I was literally thinking about the English channel when I wrote that. And I'm not from England. Crystal Carter: Right. That's what I'm thinking. It's like, yeah, I feel like, I don't know. It was the best of search. It was the worst of search. We're getting literary people. This is high brow podcasting. Mordy Oberstein: My association to all this is back in, I don't know, 1920s or thirties or forties or fifties, whatever it was, people swimming across the- Crystal Carter: Just sometime in the 20th century. Mordy Oberstein: Sometime when they had black and white images and people, the people are about to jump into swim across the channel. This is my association. Crystal Carter: Oh yeah. And they've all got the long swimming suits and the caps. Mordy Oberstein: The caps. Crystal Carter: And they're like, oh, here I go into the sea. Mordy Oberstein: And here we go into cross channel SEO. SEO is amazing. We're all here for SEO. SEO is stable, long lasting organic growth, and it provides, it is good. SEO is good. However, it's really important to have a larger digital strategy that works cohesively. I think, possibly. Your sites or the sites that you work with, they all have goals and they, all those goals go well beyond Google, for example. Every site has an intended audience. And as such, you need to think about how you present yourself to them. Whether it be the tone you take on the site, how your site is constructed, the design of the website, whether it be you speak to them on social media, whether you speak to them, organic search, you have to consider all this. We know this by the way, is brand marketing and your SEO needs to align. Check this out to how the brand thinks about itself and presents itself overall. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: Crazy thought, right? Yes. So there's no sense in wasting time focusing on keyword opportunity if it's completely off brand or whatnot for that site. Crystal Carter: Indeed. And also I think that with the keywords, think about how your keywords apply to other channels as well. So people are going to be searching for those keywords. So some of the keywords that people are searching for on certain different social media platforms or other platforms might also apply to what you have on your website. If there's a hashtag that you're doing really well on TikTok or Twitter or wherever, then you might want to have a section that says, what is the hashtag about? Or include it somewhere in your copy so that people know what it is and so that people can connect it. Mordy Oberstein: Which is exactly the point. There's so much you need to consider for your online visibility and it all needs to work hand in hand together, SEO included. And I think it all starts with the idea or the mindset that you site is a hub or a headquarters for all of your digital activity. It's not just a place that's send traffic to Google to or from, but it's a core of everything you do with your online presence. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I mean, your symbol on the mountain in terms of SEO, everything the light touches is SEO. You should be thinking about all of it as part of it, and it might seem overwhelming or something, but the way that users use the internet, it comes across from lots of different channels. So users might find you in other places, but you need to make sure that whether they find you on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or Reddit or Twitch or wherever, or even the Amazon Marketplace for instance, that they have a place to land on that is your website. And there's lots of different ways that you can do that. So when you think about your website, one of the things that I thinks really useful, for instance, that if you think about it particularly is at HQ, is your data feeds. So a lot of times when people think about data feeds, they think about eCommerce sites because an eCommerce site will have a feed of their products. And that's one of the ways that you can distribute it to lots of different channels. So you can distribute it to Instagram, to Facebook, you can distribute it to Amazon, wherever, where you're selling products, Google Merchant, et cetera. But there's also other content that also uses feeds. And if you organize the content on your website in that way, you can spread your net far and wide but consistently. So for instance, an RSS is a kind of data feed. It's old school, but it's a kind of data feed. Mordy Oberstein: I used to use it all the time. People rely on it all the time. Crystal Carter: All the time for podcasts. This podcast is distributed via an RSS feed. There's also Java feeds, Java sports will use a Java feed for instance, anything for other content, there's also things like that as well. So don't just think about, and you'll also, your YouTube videos. Those will also be distributed via an RSS feed. So there's lots of different things there. So that's one that's really important. But also I think it's important to think about, if you Google now how search works, you'll actually get a little bar at the top that breaks it down and they say, what do you mean how search works on Google? Or how it works on Bing or how it works on Amazon or how it works on Meta or how it works on Yahoo because they know that users are searching in lots of different ways. And depending on which vertical you're in, it might not just be Google. That's their first port of call. I think for eCommerce in America, Amazon is actually the first place that people look for content or people look for shopping information. So if you're thinking about your brand as only being one channel, you're going to be missing a lot of opportunities Mordy Oberstein: For sure and it goes both ways. It goes in distributing out and pulling in. So the tldr, when you think of your website, not just as a way, okay, they're going from Google to my website, I need a place for them to land. I need something for Google to rank. But when you think of it a little more holistically, you're thinking about, this is the epicenter of all my digital marketing activity. So as you mentioned, right when it goes out, you need to have a place, you need to be able to distribute it out. But also when they come back in from the various channels, let's say you've done your distribution, now people are coming in from Instagram, they're coming in from YouTube, they're coming from the RSS feed, making sure that your website is constructed in a way that it speaks to those audiences the right way. For example, if you're pulling in tons of people from Instagram and they get to your website and it's essentially text based- Crystal Carter: Right, or not mobile first. Mordy Oberstein: Right, it's a complete disconnect. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's complete disconnect. It's a complete waste of your efforts. Mordy Oberstein: But it happens all the time because people just think of their websites. Okay, my website is my website and I'm getting people from Google and social media is social media. It's not. Social media should connect back to your website and the audience that you're pulling in from searchall, from social. So I said, I just said search all that's amazing. Crystal Carter: You just invented that. Mordy Oberstein: But from social, not from searchall, but from social, it could be very different. The audience you're pulling in from search and you need to make sure that the website speaks to both at the same time, which goes back to a previous episode. You will link to the show notes of dealing with multiple intents on the same page and the same website. Crystal Carter: But it also goes back to the idea of thinking about the user journey. So I think that if you're planning to do multiple channels, make sure that you've explored what the journey is like for the customer coming from those different channels. We talked about Google Search Console recently. It's worth looking at your back links in Google Search Console. They aggregate them into different groups. So for instance, they'll say their top linking sites. And I looked on a site that wasn't commercial and for instance they had a bunch from Amazon and I was like, why do they have a bunch from Amazon? Well actually because their podcast was on Amazon Prime and it was being distributed that way. And also because other people were talking about their content or talking about their product on Amazon in different ways. So look into your back links and Google Search Console, you can see a trend and you might see that there's a lot of people coming from channels that you weren't expecting them to be coming from. And if that's the case, then you can follow that journey, see where they're coming from and see whether they're letting on to something that's appropriate, whether they're landing on something that makes sense for them, makes sense for you, helps you build your brand. Mordy Oberstein: And that is consistent across the board. I think the second point we'll call that to consider where you're doing all of this, which you should be doing, is that whatever your messaging is, whatever your design is, where all the language that you're putting out, whether it be latent or manifest content, not to get too Freudian there needs to be consistent across all channels. So if you're posting on something on YouTube or on Instagram and it looks completely or sounds completely different once they get to the website, that's an enormous disconnect. And I think it's a problem when you are so focused just on SEO, just on search, where you're writing in a certain way, which again, you shouldn't be doing it all together, but it kind of sometimes does happen where you're kind of writing for the search engine. One of the problems outside the fact that's not what gets you to rank well. My opinion is that when people are coming from other channels and other mediums, it sounds off. Not only is it a negative and it sounds off, but it doesn't let you do a positive, which is to build an identity, to build a brand, to build up branding. So you have to be consistent and you have to think about how whatever from whatever channel and all channels, you should be consistent across the board in how you speak and how you present yourself, whether it be on social, whether it be on YouTube, or whether it be on the site itself through Google search, Crystal Carter: Even on Google, when people search for your brand, they are going to get lots of the content from these different channels pulling through at the same time. So if you are inconsistent, people will see it straight away. If you look up a restaurant review on Google for instance, you'll get content from the restaurant. You'll get content from Google business profile. You'll get content from TripAdvisor. You'll get content from other restaurant thing, Yelp. Things like that. You'll also get content from your Instagram, from your Facebook from that sort of thing. So if you have consistent brand positioning that will help you to be consistent across those things. And also help ensure that customers are having a consistent experience with you across both your digital and your IRL spaces. And it can be difficult to do, but it's almost like when I talk about visual search, for instance, I say consistency is key. If somebody says, oh, let's change up the logo, don't. Is this the same with your branding? Pick something, stick with it, go with it for a while. If you think about Coca-Cola, they haven't changed your branding in years. If you think about Apple, I mean they changed their logo, but their vibe has been pretty much the same for, I don't know, 20 years. Mordy Oberstein: And it's not that you can't do it, but it's very much an uphill battle, which is really the point before you do SEO, before you do social media marketing, what you really fundamentally need to do is decide who you are, what you do, and how you go about doing it so that now you can just do all the things automatically. I've seen it so many times where on social, the brand position itself is one way. They're rather fun, they're vibrant and whatever. And then you get to the website and it looks very almost too professional for what they're trying to do and how they're trying to speak. And there's an enormous disconnect there. And I think that comes about because you have a social strategy, you have an SEO strategy, but you don't have an overall brand strategy. And that the brand strategy should be the other thing that should feed what you talk about and how you talk about it in a lot of ways. And there's tremendous amount of overlap between SEO, social, whatever it is, and what you're doing in the brand side. Crystal Carter: And I don't necessarily think that this means that SEO should take over social media from the social media managers. Social media managers have a very complicated job. But not all heroes wear capes. But social media managers really do the business. And I don't think we should necessarily take over, but we should be in conversation. The people who set the brand guidelines, who are doing the branding, designing, that sort of thing, who are putting together your brand kit, whatever, that sort of thing, they should be having a conversation. We shouldn't be siloed. These channels shouldn't be siloed. We should be working together. Mordy Oberstein: It should all be together. It all be about who you're targeting, how you're targeting them. So everybody needs to be on that from the get go, the SEO, the social media manager, the branding marketing manager, brand marketing manager, whatever, making it up as I go along here. Doesn't matter. That's how we roll. Crystal Carter: Is that your title? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Which I guess, actually, anyway. But it should all work together. And especially because, and this goes back to I guess how SEO works. It's a slow burn, especially when you're starting off. So you may get more traction initially on social media, on paid advertising on whatever platform it is. And then SEO only comes into in terms of earning into the picture six months to a year later. So you want to make sure you're consistent across the board because the social might be your main channel of income while you're waiting to start putting out more content and be able to start actually ranking. Crystal Carter: You can use one to support the other. If you see something that works well on your SEO, then you can put it on your social. If you see something that works well on your social, you can put it on your SEO, like on your content stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Everything. Crystal Carter: Yeah, bring it. Mordy Oberstein: But if you can't do it if it's not consistent, by the way, right, if it's not consistent. You can't repurpose it. Crystal Carter: Exactly, exactly. So I think there's lots of opportunities and Google's giving users a much more holistic, much more multimedia, much richer content experience all the time. So the more you are connected to multiple channels and that you are managing and actively involved in those multiple channels, the better you'll be positioned in this multimodal world that we're going into. Mordy Oberstein: Totally true. So if you're in SEO and you're listening to this, it's all one song. There's a famous story with Neil Young who's a singer back from the seventies, and there's a story where he was at a concert it was his concert, and someone yells out all your songs sound the same and he yells back, it's all one song. It's all one song. So you as an SEO need to be involved with what's happening on social. You need to be how it's happening on the brand side. You need to be involved in what's happening on the content side. It should be obvious at this point because it's all one song. You need to understand how it's all working. What the messaging is going out is so that you can incorporate, repurpose, and deal with what you do the right way. Which brings us to prioritization because that's a lot. Crystal Carter: That's a lot. Mordy Oberstein: Now all of a sudden you started some little SEO corner over here and do my little SEO thing, but you're telling me, wait wait, it's more than that? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Do everything. Mordy Oberstein: Now do everything. All of a sudden now how do you prioritize it to help you? I pull ranks on one of my own personal SEO faves, Garrett Sussman. Garrett's going to answer for us, how do you prioritize your digital activity when working with multiple channels? Because he can't do it all at once. Take it away, Garrett. Garrett Sussman: Okay, so prioritizing your digital marketing activity is like this herculean task. I mean like SEO, it depends, right? You really have to understand because there's so many different types of businesses out there in terms of what your priority should be for an eCommerce site versus a news publisher versus a financial services or healthcare, your money, your life type of site. And then you have to take into consideration the size. We're talking like enterprise, where you have so many moving parts or if you have a one-person marketing team where you're doing everything, then you have to think about your integrated strategy. How are you working with the other channels? Where does SEO fit in your organization when it comes to ppc, social media, email marketing, you name it. Then working with your budget and your resources. Well, when you're talking about prioritization, it all comes back to revenue, right? What is first going to require the least amount of work and resources and drive the biggest revenue or the biggest needle movers or the biggest KPI? The other thing to consider is long term strategy. You have to be flexible and agile. You can put a strategy in place and you want to knock it out piece by piece, but you also need to be able to move and flex and do whatever it takes. If market conditions change, like say, I don't know, a pandemic or I don't know a recession. Ultimately it's all tied back to your buyer's journey. Hitting all those different pieces of the funnel where it comes to awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase, and ultimately retention. Well, purchase and retention. So when it comes to how do you prioritize, because you can't do it all, think about what's going to move the needle, right? Think about your specific organization and your specific business metrics. Where is the revenue, and how can you impact it both in the short term and the long term? Because you're going to be making the business case and you're going to have to think about what's going to help your business the most. It's not easy and it depends. Context, planning, flexibility, move the needle revenue. Boom. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, Garrett. And that's a really good point by the way. We also want to think about not just getting the people in but also retaining them and what all goes into that in terms of messaging and SEO and beyond SEO. So definitely consider not just bringing people in the leads, but also what you need to do across channel to retain them and maintain. Crystal Carter: He's absolutely talking on the money about money. I think time is money and money is money. So to do all of the omnichannel stuff, it can take a lot of time. And he talked about businesses on different sites. He talked about marketers who wear many, many hats and who might have to do lots of the channels themselves, who might be building it themselves or might be managing the marketing themselves. And that situation, yeah time is absolutely money, even if it doesn't cost you necessarily to work on the content and move all of the things around. It's time that you could be spending doing other things. So think about what's going to get you in front of customers that matter. What's going to get you the reach that you need to do. If you're starting from nowhere, just go. If you've got nothing, then just go get things out. Like test, try again, try again, try again. His focus on commercial priorities is really, really important I think. Mordy Oberstein: And sometimes when you're starting out, just real quick point, you have the least resistance in getting some momentum and cadence might be the best way to go sometimes where you might think, okay, I need to do a ton of work to get a big thing out and then I'll eventually maybe earn some money from it. Whatever it is. That's one way to think about it. But thinking back, I need to get some momentum, I need to get rolling, I need to get started here. Let me take a smaller task and then a smaller, maybe slightly bigger then slightly bigger just to get momentum just to get going. There's something to consider also, not just what's the immediate value in terms of monetary income anyway. Okay, speaking of prioritizing, one of the best ways to help you prioritize is to better understand your audience, which in today's day and age, it's quite complicated. Well, to me it does start with empathizing and understanding intuitively who your audience is and what they're all about. You almost always want to have something there to help you just a little bit. One of the best tools out there around helping you better understand your audience is called SparkToro. So here's a little tool time around Spark Toro for your audience insights. So SparkToro was founded by Rand Fishkin. Rand Fishkin, you may know him from Moz. He's the founder of Moz, which is one of the predominant SEO tools out there. So you'll start a tool called SparkToro which is an absolutely fabulous tool. They have a bunch of free tools and they have a paid subscription, obviously. And what they'll basically do is they'll give you insights to what is your audience talking about? Who a podcast of your audience listening to, what hashtags are they following, the people who follow the hashtags that are important to your audience, what are some of the things that are in their top words or in their bios on social media? All sorts of ways of go in and segment out who are the people that are interested in your product and what are they talking about and what are they interested in so you can better target them. And they have some really cool free things. For example, they have a cool Twitter tool which is totally free, that helps you better understand someone. So if you're doing influencer marketing, you want to better understand who that person is in terms of are people engaging with them? They might have a million followers, but are they actually engaging with anybody? Is anybody engaging with them? So they have a great tool there that'll help you better understand who those people are for your influencer marketing, which is one of the gazillion data insights that they have there. Crystal Carter: They're a great place to start if you're looking to do some outreach across different channels. Because I think that one of the other things that's particularly when we're talking about omnichannel marketing, when you think about social media, influencers are a big, big part of that. So if you are looking for influencers or even looking to see which channels are most important. So for instance, I've been working on a little project about women in space for instance, and if I wanted to find out where people are talking about that, which social accounts they're talking about, that I could type in that keyword and I can find hashtags that people are using hashtag Women history month for instance, and I could find different podcasts that they're looking at. I could find accounts that they follow. There's something called Huff Post Women. There's also Forbes Women. I didn't know that Forbes had a whole thing that. They've got Reddit accounts, they've got podcasts, they've got YouTube channels for instance, that people are talking about. And they have a sort of freemium version where you can use their tool to see a few bits of insights. You can pay for more, but you can definitely get into it and get some really good insights for it. And actually there were tools that preceded this that I used previously whilst working agency side for building personas and things like that. But honestly, SparkToro is the tool to roll them all. It's much more holistic and it gives you lots of audience insights, for instance, very quickly. So you can see whether it's a big audience or whether it's very niche, you can also see some things about demographics around age and region for instance as well. Mordy Oberstein: I'll run it through for you so you get a better idea of what's actually in this. So let's say you search for drones, so you'll get top words and bios. So you'll have actual words that are in the bios of the people who are engine and drones. For example, 2.8% of these people and their bios have aerial photography. Which hashtags are used around drones? Hashtag drone photography 12% of the time you can see people are being engaged with. So for example, wish people have high engagement rates around drones or wish people have the most followers around drones. What websites are these people visiting? So you can really get a sort of 360 degree understanding of who your audience is and what they're interested in, which I think is the most important part, what this tool does differently than a lot of the other tools that have been out there in the past. So definitely check out SparkToro at SparkToro.com. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Hey, if SparkToro is news to you. Here's some actual SEO news as we get into Snappy News. Snappy News, snappy News, Snappy News. Google Discover is amazing. If you don't know what Google Discover is, well Google it and check it out. But now the reporting inside of Google's search console on Discover is getting more amazing as well per Barry Schwartz seoroundtable.com. Google improved the search console, discover Performance Reports. This goes back to November 28th. As of November 28th, your data inside of Google's search console on Google Discover is more accurate. So if you saw a spike with regards to Discover performance around November 28th, it might not be because you're showing up more often in the Discover Feed, but because the data is simply better. Which by the way just goes to show you no data source is, as I always say, 100% accurate. Data is a trend first and foremost. By the way, discovery is a great source of clicks if you get in and did a whole study on what shows up inside of Discover on so much a while back. So I'll link to that has shown us as well, definitely dive into Discover if you haven't, and it's a very cool option for you. Okay, next up, local SEO legend, Joy Hawkins over at Sterling Sky did a little study asking, does the length of a Google Review matter? Turns out there is a strong correlation between how long the review is and how long Google shows it at the top of the business profile. So try to encourage longer reviews from your audience because the longer reviews tend to be the negative reviews. Because when we're angry, we write a lot. But when we're happy, we don't write a lot. So someone's happy with your business, try to find a way to incentivize them to leave as long of a review as possible. And with that, that is the snappiest of Snappy News. Before we wrap up and to go kind of full circle, not really full circle, well I guess kind of full circle, the whole episode is full circle. We talked about multiple channels and SEO considering multiple channels and how to prioritize and a tool to help you find your audiences and what they're dealing with for multiple channels. And here's a great person- Crystal Carter: To bring us full circle in this holistic experience- Mordy Oberstein: Who is also part of SparkToro, amazingly enough. Right? Crystal Carter: It's amazing. Mordy Oberstein: This week's follow of the week, is the one of the only Amanda Natuda over at Twitter on A M A N D A N A T over on Twitter? So Amanda, Nat. Crystal Carter: Yes. You should absolutely follow her. She is fantastic. She's super smart, shares some incredibly smart insights. She's also really nice. I met her at MozCon in the summer and she's incredibly nice and just also very down to earth and amazing. And she's great because she talks a lot about how to grow your following on Twitter, for instance. So she's very strategic about it and she also makes sure that she shares lots of great insights. So she shares really good threads about content management. Yeah, about content management, about thinking about your audience, about that sort of thing. She's also really funny. So she talks about, I remember there was something she tweeted about things I knew or things I've mastered since growing older, and one of them was like, how to eat a chicken bone without leaving any meat on it or something like that. They're really, really good conversation starters. She's not doing this for no reason. Like it's good, but it's, they're also really good conversation starters, and it's a way to keep connecting with your audience and to make sure that there's that human element to your branding and to the conversations that you have. And she's great. Mordy Oberstein: And that's all we're going to say about that for today, because what other way to end off with than she's great. Crystal Carter: She's Great. Great. Mordy Oberstein: So thank you for joining us on the Surf's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly of duplicate content. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO learning about wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at you guessed 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 Crystal Carter: SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Garrett Sussman iPullRank Amanda Natvidad Joy Hawkins Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Blog Distribution Strategies for Growth More intents more problems: SEO for multiple user intents Sparktoro What Kind of Content Appears in Google Discover [Case Study] News: Google Improved The Search Console Discover Performance Report Does the Length of a Google Review Matter? Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Garrett Sussman iPullRank Amanda Natvidad Joy Hawkins Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Blog Distribution Strategies for Growth More intents more problems: SEO for multiple user intents Sparktoro What Kind of Content Appears in Google Discover [Case Study] News: Google Improved The Search Console Discover Performance Report Does the Length of a Google Review Matter? Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to Surfs Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the Surfs 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 amazing, the wonderful, the fabulous, the incredible Crystal Carter, head of SEO communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter: Hello, internet people. It is I. I am here. I am awake, even though I had one hour of sleep last night. That's okay. Mordy Oberstein: I'm totally jet lagged. I have no idea what's going on right now. Crystal Carter: This is going to be a completely manic episode, people. Strap in. It's about to get crazy because we're both pretty much delirious. Mordy Oberstein: Either that or I'm going to fall asleep in the middle of recording. Crystal Carter: It's fine, it's fine. Some people are really into that. They call it ASMR and people, they'll just find something and they'll crinkle it. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, crinkly noises. My kids are like books and they're babies, like the crinkle noise. Crystal Carter: Yeah, and it's a thing. People really like it. Or it's when people eat ice or something. Mordy Oberstein: I always found that annoying to be around people eating the ice because they're chewing on it and it's so loud. Crystal Carter: Oh. Oh man, oh. Mordy Oberstein: That wasn't going where you thought it was going. Crystal Carter: That's incredibly annoying. Mordy Oberstein: It's so annoying, right? Crystal Carter: I find it annoying, other people making noises. However, I do sometimes post on my Instagram, I just post pictures of waves going back and forth, for my own personal ASMR. So, yeah. I also have one of jellyfish just floating around. Mordy Oberstein: They are just very relaxing. It's like- Crystal Carter: It's very relaxing. So sometimes I just look at it. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Well on that note, the Surf's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can manage so much of your entire digital marketing presence under one roof with Ascend by Wix, create videos for social, curate newsletters, set up social banners and schedule posts, plus a whole slew of marketing integrations. It's omni channel marketing with Ascend by Wix, which is very appropriate for today's show because we're talking about multiple channels and SEO. Crystal Carter: So all the channels- Mordy Oberstein: See what I did there. Crystal Carter: The plug, I see it. Mordy Oberstein: And this show's topic. Bringing you together- Crystal Carter: Look at that. It's almost as if you knew we would do it. Mordy Oberstein: Right there. Crystal Carter: What? What? Mordy Oberstein: Next level. That's right. Today's show we're talking about the vital need for an all channel approach to SEO. Why you should think about your site as your HQ for all digital activity. How to be consistent across all channels. How to align your SEO work with your other digital marketing activities and the need to consider other channels. What? Yes, to support your SEO efforts. Plus I pull ranks Garrett Sussman stops by to share how he prioritizes all of these cross channel activities and his SEO all at the same time because there's so much prioritization to do. Legit. Also, we'll share a tool that can help you maximize your wider digital efforts. And of course we have your snappy news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO, nay more marketing awesomeness. Let's cross the channel together as episode 16 of the Surf's Up podcast has arrived. Each week I feel like adding that last little line there, let's cross the channel together. I'm getting better and better. Crystal Carter: I feel like that crossing the channel, because living in England, I'm like, oh yeah, people swim across the channel and they're like, yay. Mordy Oberstein: That's what I was literally thinking about the English channel when I wrote that. And I'm not from England. Crystal Carter: Right. That's what I'm thinking. It's like, yeah, I feel like, I don't know. It was the best of search. It was the worst of search. We're getting literary people. This is high brow podcasting. Mordy Oberstein: My association to all this is back in, I don't know, 1920s or thirties or forties or fifties, whatever it was, people swimming across the- Crystal Carter: Just sometime in the 20th century. Mordy Oberstein: Sometime when they had black and white images and people, the people are about to jump into swim across the channel. This is my association. Crystal Carter: Oh yeah. And they've all got the long swimming suits and the caps. Mordy Oberstein: The caps. Crystal Carter: And they're like, oh, here I go into the sea. Mordy Oberstein: And here we go into cross channel SEO. SEO is amazing. We're all here for SEO. SEO is stable, long lasting organic growth, and it provides, it is good. SEO is good. However, it's really important to have a larger digital strategy that works cohesively. I think, possibly. Your sites or the sites that you work with, they all have goals and they, all those goals go well beyond Google, for example. Every site has an intended audience. And as such, you need to think about how you present yourself to them. Whether it be the tone you take on the site, how your site is constructed, the design of the website, whether it be you speak to them on social media, whether you speak to them, organic search, you have to consider all this. We know this by the way, is brand marketing and your SEO needs to align. Check this out to how the brand thinks about itself and presents itself overall. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: Crazy thought, right? Yes. So there's no sense in wasting time focusing on keyword opportunity if it's completely off brand or whatnot for that site. Crystal Carter: Indeed. And also I think that with the keywords, think about how your keywords apply to other channels as well. So people are going to be searching for those keywords. So some of the keywords that people are searching for on certain different social media platforms or other platforms might also apply to what you have on your website. If there's a hashtag that you're doing really well on TikTok or Twitter or wherever, then you might want to have a section that says, what is the hashtag about? Or include it somewhere in your copy so that people know what it is and so that people can connect it. Mordy Oberstein: Which is exactly the point. There's so much you need to consider for your online visibility and it all needs to work hand in hand together, SEO included. And I think it all starts with the idea or the mindset that you site is a hub or a headquarters for all of your digital activity. It's not just a place that's send traffic to Google to or from, but it's a core of everything you do with your online presence. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I mean, your symbol on the mountain in terms of SEO, everything the light touches is SEO. You should be thinking about all of it as part of it, and it might seem overwhelming or something, but the way that users use the internet, it comes across from lots of different channels. So users might find you in other places, but you need to make sure that whether they find you on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok or Reddit or Twitch or wherever, or even the Amazon Marketplace for instance, that they have a place to land on that is your website. And there's lots of different ways that you can do that. So when you think about your website, one of the things that I thinks really useful, for instance, that if you think about it particularly is at HQ, is your data feeds. So a lot of times when people think about data feeds, they think about eCommerce sites because an eCommerce site will have a feed of their products. And that's one of the ways that you can distribute it to lots of different channels. So you can distribute it to Instagram, to Facebook, you can distribute it to Amazon, wherever, where you're selling products, Google Merchant, et cetera. But there's also other content that also uses feeds. And if you organize the content on your website in that way, you can spread your net far and wide but consistently. So for instance, an RSS is a kind of data feed. It's old school, but it's a kind of data feed. Mordy Oberstein: I used to use it all the time. People rely on it all the time. Crystal Carter: All the time for podcasts. This podcast is distributed via an RSS feed. There's also Java feeds, Java sports will use a Java feed for instance, anything for other content, there's also things like that as well. So don't just think about, and you'll also, your YouTube videos. Those will also be distributed via an RSS feed. So there's lots of different things there. So that's one that's really important. But also I think it's important to think about, if you Google now how search works, you'll actually get a little bar at the top that breaks it down and they say, what do you mean how search works on Google? Or how it works on Bing or how it works on Amazon or how it works on Meta or how it works on Yahoo because they know that users are searching in lots of different ways. And depending on which vertical you're in, it might not just be Google. That's their first port of call. I think for eCommerce in America, Amazon is actually the first place that people look for content or people look for shopping information. So if you're thinking about your brand as only being one channel, you're going to be missing a lot of opportunities Mordy Oberstein: For sure and it goes both ways. It goes in distributing out and pulling in. So the tldr, when you think of your website, not just as a way, okay, they're going from Google to my website, I need a place for them to land. I need something for Google to rank. But when you think of it a little more holistically, you're thinking about, this is the epicenter of all my digital marketing activity. So as you mentioned, right when it goes out, you need to have a place, you need to be able to distribute it out. But also when they come back in from the various channels, let's say you've done your distribution, now people are coming in from Instagram, they're coming in from YouTube, they're coming from the RSS feed, making sure that your website is constructed in a way that it speaks to those audiences the right way. For example, if you're pulling in tons of people from Instagram and they get to your website and it's essentially text based- Crystal Carter: Right, or not mobile first. Mordy Oberstein: Right, it's a complete disconnect. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's complete disconnect. It's a complete waste of your efforts. Mordy Oberstein: But it happens all the time because people just think of their websites. Okay, my website is my website and I'm getting people from Google and social media is social media. It's not. Social media should connect back to your website and the audience that you're pulling in from searchall, from social. So I said, I just said search all that's amazing. Crystal Carter: You just invented that. Mordy Oberstein: But from social, not from searchall, but from social, it could be very different. The audience you're pulling in from search and you need to make sure that the website speaks to both at the same time, which goes back to a previous episode. You will link to the show notes of dealing with multiple intents on the same page and the same website. Crystal Carter: But it also goes back to the idea of thinking about the user journey. So I think that if you're planning to do multiple channels, make sure that you've explored what the journey is like for the customer coming from those different channels. We talked about Google Search Console recently. It's worth looking at your back links in Google Search Console. They aggregate them into different groups. So for instance, they'll say their top linking sites. And I looked on a site that wasn't commercial and for instance they had a bunch from Amazon and I was like, why do they have a bunch from Amazon? Well actually because their podcast was on Amazon Prime and it was being distributed that way. And also because other people were talking about their content or talking about their product on Amazon in different ways. So look into your back links and Google Search Console, you can see a trend and you might see that there's a lot of people coming from channels that you weren't expecting them to be coming from. And if that's the case, then you can follow that journey, see where they're coming from and see whether they're letting on to something that's appropriate, whether they're landing on something that makes sense for them, makes sense for you, helps you build your brand. Mordy Oberstein: And that is consistent across the board. I think the second point we'll call that to consider where you're doing all of this, which you should be doing, is that whatever your messaging is, whatever your design is, where all the language that you're putting out, whether it be latent or manifest content, not to get too Freudian there needs to be consistent across all channels. So if you're posting on something on YouTube or on Instagram and it looks completely or sounds completely different once they get to the website, that's an enormous disconnect. And I think it's a problem when you are so focused just on SEO, just on search, where you're writing in a certain way, which again, you shouldn't be doing it all together, but it kind of sometimes does happen where you're kind of writing for the search engine. One of the problems outside the fact that's not what gets you to rank well. My opinion is that when people are coming from other channels and other mediums, it sounds off. Not only is it a negative and it sounds off, but it doesn't let you do a positive, which is to build an identity, to build a brand, to build up branding. So you have to be consistent and you have to think about how whatever from whatever channel and all channels, you should be consistent across the board in how you speak and how you present yourself, whether it be on social, whether it be on YouTube, or whether it be on the site itself through Google search, Crystal Carter: Even on Google, when people search for your brand, they are going to get lots of the content from these different channels pulling through at the same time. So if you are inconsistent, people will see it straight away. If you look up a restaurant review on Google for instance, you'll get content from the restaurant. You'll get content from Google business profile. You'll get content from TripAdvisor. You'll get content from other restaurant thing, Yelp. Things like that. You'll also get content from your Instagram, from your Facebook from that sort of thing. So if you have consistent brand positioning that will help you to be consistent across those things. And also help ensure that customers are having a consistent experience with you across both your digital and your IRL spaces. And it can be difficult to do, but it's almost like when I talk about visual search, for instance, I say consistency is key. If somebody says, oh, let's change up the logo, don't. Is this the same with your branding? Pick something, stick with it, go with it for a while. If you think about Coca-Cola, they haven't changed your branding in years. If you think about Apple, I mean they changed their logo, but their vibe has been pretty much the same for, I don't know, 20 years. Mordy Oberstein: And it's not that you can't do it, but it's very much an uphill battle, which is really the point before you do SEO, before you do social media marketing, what you really fundamentally need to do is decide who you are, what you do, and how you go about doing it so that now you can just do all the things automatically. I've seen it so many times where on social, the brand position itself is one way. They're rather fun, they're vibrant and whatever. And then you get to the website and it looks very almost too professional for what they're trying to do and how they're trying to speak. And there's an enormous disconnect there. And I think that comes about because you have a social strategy, you have an SEO strategy, but you don't have an overall brand strategy. And that the brand strategy should be the other thing that should feed what you talk about and how you talk about it in a lot of ways. And there's tremendous amount of overlap between SEO, social, whatever it is, and what you're doing in the brand side. Crystal Carter: And I don't necessarily think that this means that SEO should take over social media from the social media managers. Social media managers have a very complicated job. But not all heroes wear capes. But social media managers really do the business. And I don't think we should necessarily take over, but we should be in conversation. The people who set the brand guidelines, who are doing the branding, designing, that sort of thing, who are putting together your brand kit, whatever, that sort of thing, they should be having a conversation. We shouldn't be siloed. These channels shouldn't be siloed. We should be working together. Mordy Oberstein: It should all be together. It all be about who you're targeting, how you're targeting them. So everybody needs to be on that from the get go, the SEO, the social media manager, the branding marketing manager, brand marketing manager, whatever, making it up as I go along here. Doesn't matter. That's how we roll. Crystal Carter: Is that your title? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Which I guess, actually, anyway. But it should all work together. And especially because, and this goes back to I guess how SEO works. It's a slow burn, especially when you're starting off. So you may get more traction initially on social media, on paid advertising on whatever platform it is. And then SEO only comes into in terms of earning into the picture six months to a year later. So you want to make sure you're consistent across the board because the social might be your main channel of income while you're waiting to start putting out more content and be able to start actually ranking. Crystal Carter: You can use one to support the other. If you see something that works well on your SEO, then you can put it on your social. If you see something that works well on your social, you can put it on your SEO, like on your content stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Everything. Crystal Carter: Yeah, bring it. Mordy Oberstein: But if you can't do it if it's not consistent, by the way, right, if it's not consistent. You can't repurpose it. Crystal Carter: Exactly, exactly. So I think there's lots of opportunities and Google's giving users a much more holistic, much more multimedia, much richer content experience all the time. So the more you are connected to multiple channels and that you are managing and actively involved in those multiple channels, the better you'll be positioned in this multimodal world that we're going into. Mordy Oberstein: Totally true. So if you're in SEO and you're listening to this, it's all one song. There's a famous story with Neil Young who's a singer back from the seventies, and there's a story where he was at a concert it was his concert, and someone yells out all your songs sound the same and he yells back, it's all one song. It's all one song. So you as an SEO need to be involved with what's happening on social. You need to be how it's happening on the brand side. You need to be involved in what's happening on the content side. It should be obvious at this point because it's all one song. You need to understand how it's all working. What the messaging is going out is so that you can incorporate, repurpose, and deal with what you do the right way. Which brings us to prioritization because that's a lot. Crystal Carter: That's a lot. Mordy Oberstein: Now all of a sudden you started some little SEO corner over here and do my little SEO thing, but you're telling me, wait wait, it's more than that? Crystal Carter: Yeah. Do everything. Mordy Oberstein: Now do everything. All of a sudden now how do you prioritize it to help you? I pull ranks on one of my own personal SEO faves, Garrett Sussman. Garrett's going to answer for us, how do you prioritize your digital activity when working with multiple channels? Because he can't do it all at once. Take it away, Garrett. Garrett Sussman: Okay, so prioritizing your digital marketing activity is like this herculean task. I mean like SEO, it depends, right? You really have to understand because there's so many different types of businesses out there in terms of what your priority should be for an eCommerce site versus a news publisher versus a financial services or healthcare, your money, your life type of site. And then you have to take into consideration the size. We're talking like enterprise, where you have so many moving parts or if you have a one-person marketing team where you're doing everything, then you have to think about your integrated strategy. How are you working with the other channels? Where does SEO fit in your organization when it comes to ppc, social media, email marketing, you name it. Then working with your budget and your resources. Well, when you're talking about prioritization, it all comes back to revenue, right? What is first going to require the least amount of work and resources and drive the biggest revenue or the biggest needle movers or the biggest KPI? The other thing to consider is long term strategy. You have to be flexible and agile. You can put a strategy in place and you want to knock it out piece by piece, but you also need to be able to move and flex and do whatever it takes. If market conditions change, like say, I don't know, a pandemic or I don't know a recession. Ultimately it's all tied back to your buyer's journey. Hitting all those different pieces of the funnel where it comes to awareness, familiarity, consideration, purchase, and ultimately retention. Well, purchase and retention. So when it comes to how do you prioritize, because you can't do it all, think about what's going to move the needle, right? Think about your specific organization and your specific business metrics. Where is the revenue, and how can you impact it both in the short term and the long term? Because you're going to be making the business case and you're going to have to think about what's going to help your business the most. It's not easy and it depends. Context, planning, flexibility, move the needle revenue. Boom. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, Garrett. And that's a really good point by the way. We also want to think about not just getting the people in but also retaining them and what all goes into that in terms of messaging and SEO and beyond SEO. So definitely consider not just bringing people in the leads, but also what you need to do across channel to retain them and maintain. Crystal Carter: He's absolutely talking on the money about money. I think time is money and money is money. So to do all of the omnichannel stuff, it can take a lot of time. And he talked about businesses on different sites. He talked about marketers who wear many, many hats and who might have to do lots of the channels themselves, who might be building it themselves or might be managing the marketing themselves. And that situation, yeah time is absolutely money, even if it doesn't cost you necessarily to work on the content and move all of the things around. It's time that you could be spending doing other things. So think about what's going to get you in front of customers that matter. What's going to get you the reach that you need to do. If you're starting from nowhere, just go. If you've got nothing, then just go get things out. Like test, try again, try again, try again. His focus on commercial priorities is really, really important I think. Mordy Oberstein: And sometimes when you're starting out, just real quick point, you have the least resistance in getting some momentum and cadence might be the best way to go sometimes where you might think, okay, I need to do a ton of work to get a big thing out and then I'll eventually maybe earn some money from it. Whatever it is. That's one way to think about it. But thinking back, I need to get some momentum, I need to get rolling, I need to get started here. Let me take a smaller task and then a smaller, maybe slightly bigger then slightly bigger just to get momentum just to get going. There's something to consider also, not just what's the immediate value in terms of monetary income anyway. Okay, speaking of prioritizing, one of the best ways to help you prioritize is to better understand your audience, which in today's day and age, it's quite complicated. Well, to me it does start with empathizing and understanding intuitively who your audience is and what they're all about. You almost always want to have something there to help you just a little bit. One of the best tools out there around helping you better understand your audience is called SparkToro. So here's a little tool time around Spark Toro for your audience insights. So SparkToro was founded by Rand Fishkin. Rand Fishkin, you may know him from Moz. He's the founder of Moz, which is one of the predominant SEO tools out there. So you'll start a tool called SparkToro which is an absolutely fabulous tool. They have a bunch of free tools and they have a paid subscription, obviously. And what they'll basically do is they'll give you insights to what is your audience talking about? Who a podcast of your audience listening to, what hashtags are they following, the people who follow the hashtags that are important to your audience, what are some of the things that are in their top words or in their bios on social media? All sorts of ways of go in and segment out who are the people that are interested in your product and what are they talking about and what are they interested in so you can better target them. And they have some really cool free things. For example, they have a cool Twitter tool which is totally free, that helps you better understand someone. So if you're doing influencer marketing, you want to better understand who that person is in terms of are people engaging with them? They might have a million followers, but are they actually engaging with anybody? Is anybody engaging with them? So they have a great tool there that'll help you better understand who those people are for your influencer marketing, which is one of the gazillion data insights that they have there. Crystal Carter: They're a great place to start if you're looking to do some outreach across different channels. Because I think that one of the other things that's particularly when we're talking about omnichannel marketing, when you think about social media, influencers are a big, big part of that. So if you are looking for influencers or even looking to see which channels are most important. So for instance, I've been working on a little project about women in space for instance, and if I wanted to find out where people are talking about that, which social accounts they're talking about, that I could type in that keyword and I can find hashtags that people are using hashtag Women history month for instance, and I could find different podcasts that they're looking at. I could find accounts that they follow. There's something called Huff Post Women. There's also Forbes Women. I didn't know that Forbes had a whole thing that. They've got Reddit accounts, they've got podcasts, they've got YouTube channels for instance, that people are talking about. And they have a sort of freemium version where you can use their tool to see a few bits of insights. You can pay for more, but you can definitely get into it and get some really good insights for it. And actually there were tools that preceded this that I used previously whilst working agency side for building personas and things like that. But honestly, SparkToro is the tool to roll them all. It's much more holistic and it gives you lots of audience insights, for instance, very quickly. So you can see whether it's a big audience or whether it's very niche, you can also see some things about demographics around age and region for instance as well. Mordy Oberstein: I'll run it through for you so you get a better idea of what's actually in this. So let's say you search for drones, so you'll get top words and bios. So you'll have actual words that are in the bios of the people who are engine and drones. For example, 2.8% of these people and their bios have aerial photography. Which hashtags are used around drones? Hashtag drone photography 12% of the time you can see people are being engaged with. So for example, wish people have high engagement rates around drones or wish people have the most followers around drones. What websites are these people visiting? So you can really get a sort of 360 degree understanding of who your audience is and what they're interested in, which I think is the most important part, what this tool does differently than a lot of the other tools that have been out there in the past. So definitely check out SparkToro at SparkToro.com. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Hey, if SparkToro is news to you. Here's some actual SEO news as we get into Snappy News. Snappy News, snappy News, Snappy News. Google Discover is amazing. If you don't know what Google Discover is, well Google it and check it out. But now the reporting inside of Google's search console on Discover is getting more amazing as well per Barry Schwartz seoroundtable.com. Google improved the search console, discover Performance Reports. This goes back to November 28th. As of November 28th, your data inside of Google's search console on Google Discover is more accurate. So if you saw a spike with regards to Discover performance around November 28th, it might not be because you're showing up more often in the Discover Feed, but because the data is simply better. Which by the way just goes to show you no data source is, as I always say, 100% accurate. Data is a trend first and foremost. By the way, discovery is a great source of clicks if you get in and did a whole study on what shows up inside of Discover on so much a while back. So I'll link to that has shown us as well, definitely dive into Discover if you haven't, and it's a very cool option for you. Okay, next up, local SEO legend, Joy Hawkins over at Sterling Sky did a little study asking, does the length of a Google Review matter? Turns out there is a strong correlation between how long the review is and how long Google shows it at the top of the business profile. So try to encourage longer reviews from your audience because the longer reviews tend to be the negative reviews. Because when we're angry, we write a lot. But when we're happy, we don't write a lot. So someone's happy with your business, try to find a way to incentivize them to leave as long of a review as possible. And with that, that is the snappiest of Snappy News. Before we wrap up and to go kind of full circle, not really full circle, well I guess kind of full circle, the whole episode is full circle. We talked about multiple channels and SEO considering multiple channels and how to prioritize and a tool to help you find your audiences and what they're dealing with for multiple channels. And here's a great person- Crystal Carter: To bring us full circle in this holistic experience- Mordy Oberstein: Who is also part of SparkToro, amazingly enough. Right? Crystal Carter: It's amazing. Mordy Oberstein: This week's follow of the week, is the one of the only Amanda Natuda over at Twitter on A M A N D A N A T over on Twitter? So Amanda, Nat. Crystal Carter: Yes. You should absolutely follow her. She is fantastic. She's super smart, shares some incredibly smart insights. She's also really nice. I met her at MozCon in the summer and she's incredibly nice and just also very down to earth and amazing. And she's great because she talks a lot about how to grow your following on Twitter, for instance. So she's very strategic about it and she also makes sure that she shares lots of great insights. So she shares really good threads about content management. Yeah, about content management, about thinking about your audience, about that sort of thing. She's also really funny. So she talks about, I remember there was something she tweeted about things I knew or things I've mastered since growing older, and one of them was like, how to eat a chicken bone without leaving any meat on it or something like that. They're really, really good conversation starters. She's not doing this for no reason. Like it's good, but it's, they're also really good conversation starters, and it's a way to keep connecting with your audience and to make sure that there's that human element to your branding and to the conversations that you have. And she's great. Mordy Oberstein: And that's all we're going to say about that for today, because what other way to end off with than she's great. Crystal Carter: She's Great. Great. Mordy Oberstein: So thank you for joining us on the Surf's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into the good, the bad, and the ugly of duplicate content. Look for it wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO learning about wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at you guessed 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 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