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Back Podcast planning template From guest scheduling to SEO, keep everything that goes into publishing a podcast on track with this template. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this template to: Organize everything that goes into publishing a podcast episode Keep track of guest scheduling Keep track of creative asset creation Organize your episode distribution process Mordy Oberstein Head of SEO Brand, Wix LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram In addition to leading SEO branding at Wix, Mordy Oberstein serves as a communications advisor for Semrush. Dedicated to SEO education, Mordy authored the Wix SEO Guide , and is a well-known industry speaker and webinar host . Catch him chatting all things SEO on Wix’s podcast SERP’s Up , as well as Edge of the Web. More about this topic Read this post on podcast optimization from the Wix SEO Hub blog for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

When building your digital marketing team, how do you know who to hire, when to hire them, and what skills you should value? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter discuss team-building challenges with Menachem Ani, founder of JXT Group. There’s a fine line between balancing who your team needs right now and who can help grow your business in the future. How do you know who is the right fit? Will you need them a year from now as the digital marketing model changes over time? Plus, Menachem Ani explains how he goes about hiring PPC specialists: attention to detail, excellent communication & analytical skills are a must. Tune in to this week’s episode of the SERPs Up SEO Podcast and take your SEO and digital marketing team to “higher” heights! Back Who to hire for your SEO team (and beyond) & when When building your digital marketing team, how do you know who to hire, when to hire them, and what skills you should value? Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter discuss team-building challenges with Menachem Ani, founder of JXT Group. There’s a fine line between balancing who your team needs right now and who can help grow your business in the future. How do you know who is the right fit? Will you need them a year from now as the digital marketing model changes over time? Plus, Menachem Ani explains how he goes about hiring PPC specialists: attention to detail, excellent communication & analytical skills are a must. Tune in to this week’s episode of the SERPs Up SEO Podcast and take your SEO and digital marketing team to “higher” heights! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 113 | December 4, 2024 | 34 MIN 00:00 / 34:18 This week’s guests Menachem Ani 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 focusing on some groovy insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already overseeing the SEO brand here at Wix. I'm joined by the ever insightful, the ever sharing the ever joyful, the ever present, the ever lasting. The ever lasting gobstopper. Crystal Carter, head of communications, SEO Communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter: Bless you for trying to come up with a list for 104, 100 and whatever, how many? Mordy Oberstein: 113. 113. Crystal Carter: A 113 episodes. Mordy Oberstein: We should do a top list. Top list, top ways I describe Crystal Carter. It could be a list- Crystal Carter: A supercut of all of them. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And it would be like 10 minutes long. I appreciate you. Thank you. It's very kind of you, be very kind and generous and descriptive, Mordy Oberstein. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, keep going. Don't stop. This SERP'S Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you can only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Search Light, over at wix.com/SEO/newsletter and take our SEO courses. Or you can also expand your revenue possibilities or revenue sharing program by selling custom templates or by adding custom apps to our app markets. So expand your revenue possibilities with Wix Studio. This, so you can expand your revenue possibilities so that you can grow your team, as today we're covering how digital marketing teams of all kinds can know who to hire and when. How industry changes factor into the hiring process. New hires and getting ahead of the demand curve. And how to know what skills to value in a new hire. We sit down with Menachem Ani to discuss how the hiring process differs from one type of marketing team to another. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So get ready to nod and say, "Mm-hmm, aha." And ask questions like what's your biggest weakness? As we help you navigate the hiring process on the 113th episode of the SERP'S Up podcast. My biggest weakness is that I have none. Crystal Carter: One time in an interview they were like, "What's your biggest weakness?" And I hate that question. Why would I tell you that? Mordy Oberstein: It's candy, carbs. Crystal Carter: No. I said, my biggest weakness is that I'm too awesome. And Lily's like, "What?" I was like, "I'm just too awesome. People really struggle with how awesome I am, and it's a lot to bear." And I did not get hired. But I did finally get to say that, which I'd always wanted to say. Mordy Oberstein: That would be amazing if you just list your actual bigness weaknesses. Crystal Carter: Oh my God. Mordy Oberstein: That'd be like a therapy session. Crystal Carter: It's like, "Well, I have a tendency to be attracted to unavailable people. It's something I really struggle... Struggle with that. And one time when I was seven years old, I had a jellyfish, and the jellyfish met a really tragic end and I find that that trauma has stayed with me- Mordy Oberstein: A jellyfish? Crystal Carter: No, I don't know. I'm just saying things. Mordy Oberstein: It was a jellyfish. Crystal Carter: I would love to have a jellyfish. It's very relaxing to watch them swim. Mordy Oberstein: No, it is. I just don't know if anyone's had a jellyfish. Crystal Carter: Listeners of SERP'S Up podcast, if you have a jellyfish or have ever been the caretaker of a jellyfish, please, please share your stories. Mordy Oberstein: Before we get into more about jellyfish, which I'm sure we'll come back to the end of this podcast somehow, some way. And before we get to Menachem Ani, who's going to talk about how the hiring process and what you should be looking for and what you should be doing, differs from one kind of marketing team to another kind of marketing team. Let's talk about the general things that all digital marketing teams should be thinking about when trying to hire new employees. I'll start with budget. Yeah, budget's going to be a big one. I'm not sure how yet, but I speculate that somehow budget is going to factor into your hiring process. Crystal Carter: And it also varies between teams. So agency teams will have different budget considerations from people who are working in-house. People who are working in-house at a private company will have different considerations from people who are working for, say, an NGO or a charity or a local authority or a government organization, and things like that. And I think also the risk that you can take and the cost of that will change as well. So some teams have a really, really long hiring processes and that can be a challenge for people that are looking to get hired. They're like, "I don't have six months to give you. I don't know that it should take six months, but I don't have six, seven meetings to give you in order to potentially get hired in this role." That's something that people sometimes struggle with. But for big teams, that can be the process. It can take weeks and weeks and lots of rounds of interviews. And part of that is because the cost of hiring will include a recruiter, will include the time of going through all of those CVs and all of that sort of stuff. And people want to hire well so they don't have to do it again because the cost of hiring can be very, very high. And that's even before you get to paying someone. So these things will definitely come into consideration when people are thinking about hiring. And it's certainly something that if you're trying to get a new person on your team, you have to include that in the business case, that it's worth it and that it will yield this ROI and all of that sort of stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And it could be a little bit tricky, you're not just dealing with current performance and current ROI, you're trying to hire somebody because you're trying to facilitate potential growth and potential budget. So what your growth is now, what the numbers are now, what would that be if you actually hired that person? I'll give you a horrible example of what I mean by this, but if you want to say a free agent in sports, so how are we going to spend all that money hiring this big name? But yeah, when you think about how many butts are they going to put in the seats, I'll have so much more money. Crystal Carter: Right. And how many jerseys are we going to sell? Mordy Oberstein: All that kind of stuff, yeah, exactly. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that when you're thinking about that growth and you're trying to figure out is this person, is this role valuable? Will it be able to yield the value? You have to think about for an individual person, you can look at their previous track record. If you had a sports person, you say, "Well, they've won this many championships. They'll probably do a good job for us." If you got somebody more in a corporate space, business space, then you can look at their track record, look at people who have worked with them and the kinds of things that they're able to do. And also I think it's important to think about the gaps in your business. So if you look at your team and you do maybe a skills matrix and you say, "In our team, we don't have a PPC person. If we hired a PPC person, we could offer PPC. Currently we cannot. And we keep trying to, and it's hit-and-miss, but if we hired a dedicated PPC expert, then we would be able to offer this PPC service," for instance. And that growth, you can prospect that. You can say, "We would be able to see a 10% lift in profitability, we'd be able to offer this to this many clients," that sort of thing as well. So that's really important. And I think that when you're thinking about if you're in-house and you're looking to hire in SEO support via an agency or a freelancer, you can also do the same sort of maths where you look at, "Our business doesn't have PPC, for instance, and if we did PPC for this cost, then we'd be able to make this profit." And that's something to think about. Mordy Oberstein: Right. And that's where you really have to think about what the problem is you're trying to solve. And really, really understand the problem you're trying to solve. Because then you can go a million different directions. We can make more money by offering PPC. We don't have a PPC person. Great, we'll hire a PPC person. But you might have a situation where you have multiple problems that you need to fill and you need somebody who's able to handle multiple problems. So you might need someone who, I don't know, who can do SEO and create content, or could do PPC and also knows how to do social media, whatever it might be. Sometimes you need more of a generalist, sometimes you need more of a specialist. And you need to better understand what your problems are in order to understand what direction you need to go with the hire. One thing I do see teams try to do, and I think it's a point of caution, is the generalist seems more cost-effective because they can do multiple things, so I'll hire a generalist. But you're not really thinking long-term like, yes, they might be able to do more things, but can they do better? And can they create better growth? And that one person who is really good at that one thing might be able to fill your problem in such a great way, that they're able to better grow your business. Even though it seems counterintuitive, but it's not. Crystal Carter: Whenever I think about furniture or things like that, sometimes they're like, "Oh, this chair also converts into a bed and also converts into a this. And also just- Mordy Oberstein: It's uncomfortable. All of them are uncomfortable. Crystal Carter: All of them are uncomfortable. Mordy Oberstein: All of them are uncomfortable. I know exactly where you're going with that. Crystal Carter: You know what I'm talking about? Mordy Oberstein: Yes, I had that chair. Crystal Carter: Or one of them will break. Mordy Oberstein: It's like when you buy a futon, don't do it. It's not usable for either. Crystal Carter: It's not usable. And then one of the bits will break, and then you have neither a sofa nor- Mordy Oberstein: You have a futon mattress on the floor. Crystal Carter: Right. You have nothing. And I'm not saying the generalists do this. I'm not saying that at all. However, sometimes you will have a generalist... Generalist people, particularly generalist marketers are very good at trying new things. That's how they became generalists. They're really interested in lots of new things. So they're a great place if you're like, "Hey, let's see if we can do AI stuff. Let's see what can we do to do AI content creation or something like that." Your generalist is a great person to start and get you going on whether or not this is something that fits into lots of things, will work. And then they're used to using lots of tools and they'll be able to see lots of opportunities there. Once they get you going, then you can make a business case for getting a specialist. And your generalist will obviously keep an eye and that sort of thing. But then it's a good time for you to be thinking about getting a specialist. And a specialist will help you to be really laser focused on getting that value. And when you're thinking about hiring, that's a great thing. When we think about new projects, when we think about getting new support, we very often will do a POC. So we will do a proof of concept, so you're not just flying blind, you're not just making it up as you go. And sometimes with hiring people will get a temp for a little while. And I've had full-time roles where I started as a temp. And I started as a temp, and then they were like, "Oh, this works great. Having this person here to do this works really great." Then you come on full time. Similarly, you could maybe get, and people think about this for agency stuff as well, so for instance, if you get an agency support, you might have that person come on or that team come on and do a project for you, a small project to see if that's a viable channel for you. Maybe you've never done a link billing campaign before, and so maybe they come on and do a little project for you. And then you're like, "Okay, this is great. We could roll this out across multiple channels or multiple parts of the business." And then you can get into a more long-term situation. But yeah, proof of concept is really valuable. Mordy Oberstein: It's great because then you can also really see what kind of person are they. On the CV or when you interview them, you can see like, "I know their skills. I know that they're competent, I know that maybe they're friendly," whatever, you can get some general. But you really want to understand, do they fit into what you actually need, the way that they work and how they operate and how they think, that's very hard, very, very hard to do. I want to hit one more point before we get to Menachem, and that's understand what skills to value. And that can change based upon, you see this right now in the market, what's emerging, what's upcoming, what's happening? If the ecosystem is shifting one way, while you might need that person now, will you still need that person in a year from now or that skill in a year from now? You see that with AI. And what makes it hard, by the way, is A, predicting, and also not getting caught up, like in the AI. It's hard to predict where it's going to go. And at the same time, it's hard not to get caught up in it. So you might hire, "Oh, we're going to hire a prompt engineer," but maybe you won't need that in a year from now, maybe you're overestimating where AI is going to be at in a year. I don't know, I'm making that up. But it's easy to see that as an example. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that the market changes you need to think about aren't just from the wider market, but also from your team. So I've definitely known folks who were great, brilliant marketers, and they got settled in with a team that maybe was moving at a different pace than they were used to. And so, if you're in a fast-moving consumer goods, if you're in a B2C apparel sort of business, that e-comm timeline, those timelines are quick. Those are quick turnarounds. Whereas if somebody's in more of a lead gen space, then if somebody's used to e-comm pace, they'll be very surprised at the lead gen stuff where it might take three, four or five months to close a deal, for instance, and they'll need different things from marketing. So I think that it's important to get that bit. I know somebody who recently hired somebody who was great, they were a great AI person, and they were going to help them with their AI things. And in the end, the skills were there, but it wasn't a great fit for the team. And that's something to think about as well, where your team is at in your maturity in terms of having this person there. Do you have the setup to help that person thrive? Mordy Oberstein: That's a brilliant point. Yeah. Crystal Carter: For instance, if we had... My softball team got, I don't know, name a baseball player, Aaron Jed, is that a baseball player? Mordy Oberstein: Aaron Jed's, a baseball player. That's right. Crystal Carter: Okay. Yes. Good. So my softball- Mordy Oberstein: Doesn't know how to catch well lately, but yeah. Crystal Carter: Okay. So this is what I've learned from listening to Mordy for all these months and years. So if my softball team were like, "Hey, let's get a new player." And Aaron Jed was available and somehow he joined my team. Aaron Jed And would be bored and we wouldn't have the facilities, we wouldn't have the trainers, we wouldn't have the things to help this person to thrive and to help us. And so, it's important to make sure that you're set up for both things and that you're set up to be able to grow with this person, with this team, with this resource that you've got as well. So thinking about your maturity and what's the best fit for you right now and how that person might grow with you is super important. Mordy Oberstein: Could not answer that better myself. As we alluded to, who you hire and when, depends on the task at hand, but the nature of the task at hand depends at times upon the area of marketing that you're in. So let's compare and contrast who to hire or when to hire for a PPC team versus maybe an SEO team and beyond, as we invite Menachem Ani, founder of JXT Group to join us on a voyage into the funnel frontier. Welcome to the show, Menachem. How are you? Menachem Ani: I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Always fun to chat. Crystal Carter: It's always a pleasure to see you. I think the last time I saw you was in San Diego, I think, but we've done work across on the internet since then. But always great to see you and see what you're up to. Menachem Ani: Yeah, as you. Mordy Oberstein: I have one question for you. How does it feel to be on a podcast where they can pronounce your first name? Menachem Ani: It is unusual, I'll tell you that. Most people can't pronounce my first name. I use that as a spam filter on the phone. When the phone rings, if they can't pronounce my name right, I know it's spam. Mordy Oberstein: Or the IRS. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Either/or. Crystal Carter: I used to work with someone and his first name... He went by Thomas, not Tom. So if anybody called and they were like, "Is Tom there?" I was like, "No, he's not. You don't know him clearly, so no." Menachem Ani: What are you trying to tell me? Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. I love it when they're like, "Have you got five minutes?" I'm like, "Have you got a PO? Where can I send this invoice for this five minutes? I'm at work." Mordy Oberstein: That's good. I don't answer my phone anymore, so I don't get this problem. I just don't answer. Crystal Carter: You don't get calls from spam likely they call me. Mordy Oberstein: No, I do, but if I don't know the number. I just don't answer. Usually my kids' teachers, which also works when I don't answer. Anyhoo, enough about that. So hiring PPC versus SEO, or SEO versus content marketing, or PPC versus social media marketing. Is it all the same? What's the difference? Does it matter? Menachem Ani: Our focus is paid media, so that's where my experience comes from. I think that for me, a lot of it comes down to attention to detail, personality, things of that nature. Probably lines up well with some of the content stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I would imagine the PPC mindset is much more, I don't know, aggressive maybe, then let's say a content writer, let's say, creative writer, I mean. Menachem Ani: Yeah, so I think it's a little bit less creative and more analytical, because with paid media, you really have two kinds. You've got the Google stuff and the social stuff. Social does have a creative component to it. You really need to think with your creative brain, but even the analysis and then all of Google Search is primarily around analyzing things. You've got to have a very analytical brain for that. Crystal Carter: And I think that there's a lot of folks who have experience. Is experience enough in your opinion? Somebody who's like, "Oh, I've been doing this for this much time." Are you like, "Oh yeah, great, absolutely join the team." Or do you expect to see some of the stuff that they do? Are you more of a show don't tell kind of person? Menachem Ani: Yeah, I want to see how their brain works. And I'll do that by having conversations with them or ask them to look over a specific campaign. To me, experience is definitely important, but it's not everything. I think more important than experience is a personality like vibe check, will this person get along with others on the team? Do they have a can-do attitude? Do they want to get this done? Those are really important things. But also communication style. They can be the best at Google Ads, but if they don't answer an email in a timely fashion, it's like, "Okay." Crystal Carter: Right. Right. That can be a real sticky point. And I think that people think that the interview is the only part of the interview, but there's a lot more around that. So again, if you email them and it takes them three days to get back to you to say, "Yes, I want to..." That's a little bit tricky, isn't it? Menachem Ani: Yeah. I don't know. I might be looking at too much, but I'll look at spelling, grammar. Is the email too long? Is it too short? Are they answering what I really asked them? Are they just kind of fluffing over it? There's a lot of underlying stuff. I want to make sure that someone is thorough, detail-oriented and can get a job done. Mordy Oberstein: So you wouldn't hire Barry Schwartz, is what you're saying. Menachem Ani: It's not new. Mordy Oberstein: It's not grammatically correct. No, I'm just kidding. Menachem Ani: Barry's the best. We love Barry. Mordy Oberstein: Drill him a little bit. But that's interesting. Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, look, obviously if you're doing something with copy like PPC, where the spelling seriously matters, all right, you got a small grammar mistake in an SEO news article, no one's going to actually care, but in PPC, that's a huge deal, that you have one line to grab their attention. Menachem Ani: One line to grab their attention. A, it's got to be spelled right, proper grammar, punctuation, so on. But you really have to grab the user's attention. Your click-through rate is decided by how well that copy resonates with the user. So you got to be able to say complex things in short amount of space and really make it count. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, so then you would hire Barry. Sorry, go ahead Crystal. Sorry. Crystal Carter: So I talked to a lot of people who are looking to get started in SEO, looking to get their first job in SEO, people who were looking to get their first job generally. I was chatting to somebody recently and they sent me their CV and it looked like a MySpace page if I'm completely honest. There was lots of colors, there was lots of different fonts and stuff like that. What is your advice? And I was like, "Make it super basic." That was my advice to this person and the person since. But what is your advice to somebody who is new to the industry and wants to get a job in SEO right now or in PPC or at an agency, what would be your top point of advice? Menachem Ani: I think you got to start somewhere. Get educated. Google provides a lot of free resources. They have something called Skill Shop. You can take certifications, you can get yourself certified. Obviously there's some nuance there because you're being trained by Google who just, they want you to spend money, but it's the best place to start to understand the fundamentals of it and show that you've got at least a certification. From there, a lot of people start freelance, start small, run a family member or a friend's low-budget campaign. Just get in there. Get some experience so you can kind of play with it. But also there's a lot of great resources on different social media communities on Slack, so there's a lot you can learn and get to know people, just get into the industry. Crystal Carter: That's great. And I think that a lot of that is what we, just to shout out our own SEO course, it's one of the things that we put in there, is to make sure that there's lots of things that people can practically do and that people can show that they've been active in their learning process as well. What would be your top tip for somebody who's looking to hire one of these new people that's done all these courses and things? Menachem Ani: So honestly, sometimes it might be easier to hire somebody fresh who's just learning because so much has changed in paid search and paid social over the past few years, that a lot of people, their brains are stuck in the old way of thinking and it can hold you back from success. So it might be better. I don't know personally, I like to hire somebody with a couple of years experience and teach them our methodologies, but a fresh mind can grasp things quickly if they've got the right attitude. Hire them, teach them, and help find success together. Mordy Oberstein: I used to work for somebody who had a specific thing. He would only hire people who were not really there yet, because he wanted to train them his way and bring them up that way, which is an interesting way to go about it. Probably difficult in the beginning for sure. I mean, I've seen it. It's very difficult in the beginning. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Crystal Carter: But I think in order to do that, you have to have your processes together. You have to have a solid training foundation. Menachem Ani: For sure. Crystal Carter: Right. So is that something that you've worked on over the years? Menachem Ani: Definitely. I mean, we typically do hire people with some experience because that training process can be cumbersome if you're hiring somebody straight out of school or with very minimal experience. So I like to bring in people with a few years experience at least, and teach them our methodologies. But one of the things I look for in those initial conversations is, how do they like to set things up? Are they open-minded to the future forward way of thinking? Because shifting drastically, and if you're stuck in that old way, you can get lost. Mordy Oberstein: How has it changed? I'm curious. How has what you're looking for changed? Menachem Ani: Yeah, I mean, the old way of Google Ads was very manual, very granular. The new way is relying a lot more on algorithms and smart bidding. And you have to have an open mind to use broad match keywords where it's appropriate, and use smart bidding where it's appropriate, use newer campaign types that are more automated where it's appropriate. And a lot of people get stuck in like, "Oh, I would never do that." And it might be what's best for their clients, but they've never really tried it or they've tried it with a mindset that it's going to fail, and so it has. Mordy Oberstein: When you interview someone, you have a can of Mountain Dew, and if they're open to trying it, you're like, "Oh, okay, I'll hire them. They're open mind." If they're like, "Oh, that is disgusting. I'm not going anywhere near this," then no. Menachem Ani: Yeah, sometimes it's something like that. Mordy Oberstein: Not to bounce all over Mountain Dew, which is disgusting. Menachem Ani: I mean, I used to drink Mountain Dew every day, but I kind of gave it up. Mordy Oberstein: You will feel 30 years younger. Crystal Carter: Thank goodness. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know where to go to next after that. Crystal Carter: I don't know, someplace very refreshing. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, nice. What's the most refreshing interview experience you've ever had with an interviewee? Menachem Ani: Cool question. I think when they make me think, it feels refreshing. Because a lot of people just go along with industry standards, but for me it's like I want to learn something new every day. And if somebody can make me think that's refreshing. I know that this person wants to learn. Mordy Oberstein: Do you ever worry that person will leave, because they're super smart, super, I don't know, creative, on the ball, on the money, you know they're going to succeed in three or four years from now, but what happens in three or four years from now? Menachem Ani: Listen, it's on me to create a work environment that people want to stay in. So if they want to leave, I got to do something different there. Mordy Oberstein: Pay them more? Menachem Ani: Maybe. I don't know if it's just about that. It's about- Mordy Oberstein: No, it's not about that always. Menachem Ani: At the end of the day, we all want to enjoy what we do every day. Feel the challenge, feel rewarding in the work we do. When it gets boring or we work with clients that are not fun or the team that's not fun or a boss that's not fun, I think that's really where it starts to fall apart. Mordy Oberstein: It's all about fun. Menachem Ani: Have some Mountain Dew. Crystal Carter: But I think that the hiring process, I mean, Mordy mentioned people leaving. When you're thinking about hiring, you said that it's up to you to keep them engaged. When you're thinking about hiring folks, are you planning for them to be there a long term? I know that a lot of jobs these days, people jump around after a couple of years. Are you expecting them to be there for a long term? And does it change depending on the post, depending on the position? Menachem Ani: Yeah, I mean for us, we don't hire a ton. We're a small team. We want to try to bring people on who want to grow in the long term, give them a place to grow. So my hope is they'll stick around for a while. Therefore it's even more important to get the decision right, get that right person, because you want them to stick around for a while. Thankfully, we don't have a lot of turnover. We definitely do have some, but the goal is to do it in a way where people stay for a while. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. There's no other way to really build a culture and to really build a system if you're constantly changing people over, it's impossible. But it is harder now. I mean, if you looked at LinkedIn, people was like... I remember back in the day when you wrote on your CV or your resume, you were there for a year, the next job, you were there for a year, the next job you were there for a year. Oh, that looks bad. That's a red flag. A known red flag. That is literally LinkedIn now. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Crystal Carter: I am thrilled to announce. I'm thrilled to announce. Mordy Oberstein: Everyone congratulations. Crystal Carter: Right. Wow. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing, the amount of comments. Crystal Carter: Right. Right, right, right. Mordy Oberstein: That's good stuff. All right. So before we duly the part, what's your outlook on where the hiring market for PPC is going? Is it going to get more complicated? Is it going to get harder for you? Or is it hard to find people? Will it get harder to find people? Menachem Ani: It's definitely hard to find people because there's a lot of people who do paid media, but I think to find the ones that care, that will do good work, that will pay attention to all the little details. A lot of those people can find success on their own. Some of them would rather work in an agency environment because they get to interact with more people. But it's definitely getting harder, and as long as somebody stands out and does good work, they can always find a good home. Mordy Oberstein: That's great advice. Sure. Thank you. That is great advice. And with that, make sure you check out JXT Consulting. Don't click when you search for it on Google, don't click on the ad. Click on the organic result. Don't charge them money. And look for Menachem on social media. Where are you active these days? You're on X, you're still on X, you're on LinkedIn, no LinkedIn? Crystal Carter: He's on the Wix SEO Learning Hub. Go read his articles. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah. I always do that. I always forget. Menachem Ani: Wix SEO Learning Hub for sure. LinkedIn, Twitter, X as you call it. I'm still calling it Twitter. Sorry. Mordy Oberstein: I just started calling it X, because everyone else is. I'm like, "However." I've held out for so long. Crystal Carter: He's also on a YouTube recording of a webinar that we did on automation earlier in the year. And Menachem shares some fantastic resources for automation and tools that he uses at his own agency. Mordy Oberstein: To all those places, you'll be there. Menachem Ani: All those places. Mordy Oberstein: Well, thanks for being our guest and good luck with your hiring. Menachem Ani: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Once again, thank you, Menachem, for coming on. Really make sure to give him a follow, read his articles on the SEO Hub. And he writes for Search Engine Land a lot as well. You know who also writes a lot for Search Engine Land? Crystal Carter: Who's that? Mordy Oberstein: Danny Goodwin. But you know who also writes a lot for Search Engine Land? Crystal Carter: Anu Adegbola? Mordy Oberstein: I was just going to say that. You stole my thunder. But you know who also writes a little bit here and there for Search Engine Land? Crystal Carter: Don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Me neither, we'll find out. Crystal Carter: Can't think of anyone. Mordy Oberstein: Nah, Gary, Gary Bartz? Barry Schwartz. Barry Schwartz. But we usually quote him from Search Engine Roundtable anyway. So here's the Snappy News courtesy of probably SE Roundtable. Snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy News. Two for you this week. First up from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Google Search Console recommendations now fully live. If you follow, it's new, our Daily SEO News series, which you can check out each and every day except for Friday. We don't do Friday. Monday through Thursday. You'll know we've seen the test where Google is testing recommendations inside of Search Console. These recommendations are things like, "Hey, a page recently got fewer clicks than usual," or "A page got more clicks than usual" or "Recommendation display your three products on the shopping tab." Anyway, Google said that they are now live for all. Now, that doesn't mean you're actually going to see them, if Google has no recommendations, they're not going to show anything. By the way, if you're a Wix Studio user, you do have insights that are similar to this already built into your SEO dashboard if you connect to Google Search Console, so check them out there. Okay, onto Search Engine Journal. This from Matt Southern. Google Search sees UK decline. Users expressed low trust in AI. The decline was pretty small. This is according to Ofcom's Online Nation report. It went from user dropping from 86% to 83%. All right, to me, that's not like whatever. The interesting thing to me about this study, and I'll read to you what it says in the study, is the amount of trust. And again, these surveys are all, I would take them all with a grain of salt. It all depends how you ask the question, the result you get. I'm just pointing it out. I think it's interesting. I think it might be aligned to reality. That's why I'm reporting it, I guess. Anyway, the study says, "Although finding information or content is the most popular reason for using a generative AI tool, only a minority believe the information provided is reliable. The most popular reason for using a generative AI tool in the past was to find information on content report by 48% of internet users age 16 plus. And 13% of British online, eight to 15 year olds. Despite this, only 18% of those aged 16 or older said they thought the information from generative AI was reliable." That's interesting. I don't know if that lands for you. It lands for me. It's interesting. So I'm bringing it up here on this, the snappy news. I mentioned this a few weeks ago. I want to know is there actual roundtable? And if not, why already being lied to? Crystal Carter: I don't think he has a roundtable. I think he has an L-shaped table. I've seen it in his office. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe he has another table at a camera shot and it's a roundtable. Crystal Carter: No, I don't think so. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe he has a dollhouse. In the Dollhouse is the SEO roundtable. Crystal Carter: It's a tiny little SEO dollhouse. Mordy Oberstein: SEO is picking tea. Crystal Carter: Right. And it's just lots of tiny little... There's a little tiny John Mueller and there's a little tiny, tiny Barry Schwartz, and there's a little tiny Mordy Oberstein, and there's lots of little tiny people talking about SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Is that like... Well, I guess you could probably say that in reality there's a lot of little tiny people talking about SEO, but we're not going to go there. What we are going to go to is our follow of the week who is not a tiny person. He's a giant of the industry, Will Reynolds. Crystal Carter: A titan, if you will. Mordy Oberstein: A Titan, yes. Will Reynolds give him a follow over on, probably LinkedIn is probably the best place now. His content on LinkedIn is fabulous, by the way. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Really intriguing questions. Love your content, Will, on LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: Will's fantastic, very frank. And he's been running his agency for years. And they are super inventive and super on the pulse of what's going on. And he's got some great insights on teams, on managing content, on AI, on lots of different things. So yeah, shout-out to Will Reynolds. Also previous contributor to the SERP'S Up SEO podcast, so- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's right. That's right. Crystal Carter: ... go check in the archives and check out some of those insights there as well. But big shout-out to Will, great follow. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. But you mentioned, by the way, from Sierra Interactive, that's Will's agency. We should have mentioned that earlier in his bio, but we didn't. This is the kind of people who have jellyfish as pets. I told you we'd get back to it. Crystal Carter: I would love to have a jellyfish as a pet potential or maybe a Portuguese man-of-war, which is not a jellyfish, it's actually a colony. Mordy Oberstein: Nothing about that sounds peaceful. Crystal Carter: Dude, the Portuguese man-of-war are fascinating, because they're like the borg. It's a bunch of clones that do different things. It's an amazing creature. Mordy Oberstein: It's what I've always wanted for a pet. Crystal Carter: I'd love one. I don't think I'd have a fish tank big enough. Mordy Oberstein: We should do it. Crystal Carter: One can hope. Mordy Oberstein: Well, on that happy note. Thank you for joining us on this SERP'S Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week at the new episode as we dive into how to know what your audience is actually looking for. Look for wherever you consume on your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars over on the Wix Studio, SEO Learning about, 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 an SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Menachem Ani Wil Reynolds Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Rankix Wix App Bring automation and AI into your sales funnel Wix Studio SEO Course JXT Group News: Google Search Console recommendations now fully live Google Search Sees UK Decline, Users Express Low Trust In AI Online Nation 2024 Report Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Menachem Ani Wil Reynolds Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Rankix Wix App Bring automation and AI into your sales funnel Wix Studio SEO Course JXT Group News: Google Search Console recommendations now fully live Google Search Sees UK Decline, Users Express Low Trust In AI Online Nation 2024 Report 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 focusing on some groovy insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already overseeing the SEO brand here at Wix. I'm joined by the ever insightful, the ever sharing the ever joyful, the ever present, the ever lasting. The ever lasting gobstopper. Crystal Carter, head of communications, SEO Communications here at Wix. Crystal Carter: Bless you for trying to come up with a list for 104, 100 and whatever, how many? Mordy Oberstein: 113. 113. Crystal Carter: A 113 episodes. Mordy Oberstein: We should do a top list. Top list, top ways I describe Crystal Carter. It could be a list- Crystal Carter: A supercut of all of them. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And it would be like 10 minutes long. I appreciate you. Thank you. It's very kind of you, be very kind and generous and descriptive, Mordy Oberstein. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, keep going. Don't stop. This SERP'S Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you can only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Search Light, over at wix.com/SEO/newsletter and take our SEO courses. Or you can also expand your revenue possibilities or revenue sharing program by selling custom templates or by adding custom apps to our app markets. So expand your revenue possibilities with Wix Studio. This, so you can expand your revenue possibilities so that you can grow your team, as today we're covering how digital marketing teams of all kinds can know who to hire and when. How industry changes factor into the hiring process. New hires and getting ahead of the demand curve. And how to know what skills to value in a new hire. We sit down with Menachem Ani to discuss how the hiring process differs from one type of marketing team to another. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So get ready to nod and say, "Mm-hmm, aha." And ask questions like what's your biggest weakness? As we help you navigate the hiring process on the 113th episode of the SERP'S Up podcast. My biggest weakness is that I have none. Crystal Carter: One time in an interview they were like, "What's your biggest weakness?" And I hate that question. Why would I tell you that? Mordy Oberstein: It's candy, carbs. Crystal Carter: No. I said, my biggest weakness is that I'm too awesome. And Lily's like, "What?" I was like, "I'm just too awesome. People really struggle with how awesome I am, and it's a lot to bear." And I did not get hired. But I did finally get to say that, which I'd always wanted to say. Mordy Oberstein: That would be amazing if you just list your actual bigness weaknesses. Crystal Carter: Oh my God. Mordy Oberstein: That'd be like a therapy session. Crystal Carter: It's like, "Well, I have a tendency to be attracted to unavailable people. It's something I really struggle... Struggle with that. And one time when I was seven years old, I had a jellyfish, and the jellyfish met a really tragic end and I find that that trauma has stayed with me- Mordy Oberstein: A jellyfish? Crystal Carter: No, I don't know. I'm just saying things. Mordy Oberstein: It was a jellyfish. Crystal Carter: I would love to have a jellyfish. It's very relaxing to watch them swim. Mordy Oberstein: No, it is. I just don't know if anyone's had a jellyfish. Crystal Carter: Listeners of SERP'S Up podcast, if you have a jellyfish or have ever been the caretaker of a jellyfish, please, please share your stories. Mordy Oberstein: Before we get into more about jellyfish, which I'm sure we'll come back to the end of this podcast somehow, some way. And before we get to Menachem Ani, who's going to talk about how the hiring process and what you should be looking for and what you should be doing, differs from one kind of marketing team to another kind of marketing team. Let's talk about the general things that all digital marketing teams should be thinking about when trying to hire new employees. I'll start with budget. Yeah, budget's going to be a big one. I'm not sure how yet, but I speculate that somehow budget is going to factor into your hiring process. Crystal Carter: And it also varies between teams. So agency teams will have different budget considerations from people who are working in-house. People who are working in-house at a private company will have different considerations from people who are working for, say, an NGO or a charity or a local authority or a government organization, and things like that. And I think also the risk that you can take and the cost of that will change as well. So some teams have a really, really long hiring processes and that can be a challenge for people that are looking to get hired. They're like, "I don't have six months to give you. I don't know that it should take six months, but I don't have six, seven meetings to give you in order to potentially get hired in this role." That's something that people sometimes struggle with. But for big teams, that can be the process. It can take weeks and weeks and lots of rounds of interviews. And part of that is because the cost of hiring will include a recruiter, will include the time of going through all of those CVs and all of that sort of stuff. And people want to hire well so they don't have to do it again because the cost of hiring can be very, very high. And that's even before you get to paying someone. So these things will definitely come into consideration when people are thinking about hiring. And it's certainly something that if you're trying to get a new person on your team, you have to include that in the business case, that it's worth it and that it will yield this ROI and all of that sort of stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And it could be a little bit tricky, you're not just dealing with current performance and current ROI, you're trying to hire somebody because you're trying to facilitate potential growth and potential budget. So what your growth is now, what the numbers are now, what would that be if you actually hired that person? I'll give you a horrible example of what I mean by this, but if you want to say a free agent in sports, so how are we going to spend all that money hiring this big name? But yeah, when you think about how many butts are they going to put in the seats, I'll have so much more money. Crystal Carter: Right. And how many jerseys are we going to sell? Mordy Oberstein: All that kind of stuff, yeah, exactly. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that when you're thinking about that growth and you're trying to figure out is this person, is this role valuable? Will it be able to yield the value? You have to think about for an individual person, you can look at their previous track record. If you had a sports person, you say, "Well, they've won this many championships. They'll probably do a good job for us." If you got somebody more in a corporate space, business space, then you can look at their track record, look at people who have worked with them and the kinds of things that they're able to do. And also I think it's important to think about the gaps in your business. So if you look at your team and you do maybe a skills matrix and you say, "In our team, we don't have a PPC person. If we hired a PPC person, we could offer PPC. Currently we cannot. And we keep trying to, and it's hit-and-miss, but if we hired a dedicated PPC expert, then we would be able to offer this PPC service," for instance. And that growth, you can prospect that. You can say, "We would be able to see a 10% lift in profitability, we'd be able to offer this to this many clients," that sort of thing as well. So that's really important. And I think that when you're thinking about if you're in-house and you're looking to hire in SEO support via an agency or a freelancer, you can also do the same sort of maths where you look at, "Our business doesn't have PPC, for instance, and if we did PPC for this cost, then we'd be able to make this profit." And that's something to think about. Mordy Oberstein: Right. And that's where you really have to think about what the problem is you're trying to solve. And really, really understand the problem you're trying to solve. Because then you can go a million different directions. We can make more money by offering PPC. We don't have a PPC person. Great, we'll hire a PPC person. But you might have a situation where you have multiple problems that you need to fill and you need somebody who's able to handle multiple problems. So you might need someone who, I don't know, who can do SEO and create content, or could do PPC and also knows how to do social media, whatever it might be. Sometimes you need more of a generalist, sometimes you need more of a specialist. And you need to better understand what your problems are in order to understand what direction you need to go with the hire. One thing I do see teams try to do, and I think it's a point of caution, is the generalist seems more cost-effective because they can do multiple things, so I'll hire a generalist. But you're not really thinking long-term like, yes, they might be able to do more things, but can they do better? And can they create better growth? And that one person who is really good at that one thing might be able to fill your problem in such a great way, that they're able to better grow your business. Even though it seems counterintuitive, but it's not. Crystal Carter: Whenever I think about furniture or things like that, sometimes they're like, "Oh, this chair also converts into a bed and also converts into a this. And also just- Mordy Oberstein: It's uncomfortable. All of them are uncomfortable. Crystal Carter: All of them are uncomfortable. Mordy Oberstein: All of them are uncomfortable. I know exactly where you're going with that. Crystal Carter: You know what I'm talking about? Mordy Oberstein: Yes, I had that chair. Crystal Carter: Or one of them will break. Mordy Oberstein: It's like when you buy a futon, don't do it. It's not usable for either. Crystal Carter: It's not usable. And then one of the bits will break, and then you have neither a sofa nor- Mordy Oberstein: You have a futon mattress on the floor. Crystal Carter: Right. You have nothing. And I'm not saying the generalists do this. I'm not saying that at all. However, sometimes you will have a generalist... Generalist people, particularly generalist marketers are very good at trying new things. That's how they became generalists. They're really interested in lots of new things. So they're a great place if you're like, "Hey, let's see if we can do AI stuff. Let's see what can we do to do AI content creation or something like that." Your generalist is a great person to start and get you going on whether or not this is something that fits into lots of things, will work. And then they're used to using lots of tools and they'll be able to see lots of opportunities there. Once they get you going, then you can make a business case for getting a specialist. And your generalist will obviously keep an eye and that sort of thing. But then it's a good time for you to be thinking about getting a specialist. And a specialist will help you to be really laser focused on getting that value. And when you're thinking about hiring, that's a great thing. When we think about new projects, when we think about getting new support, we very often will do a POC. So we will do a proof of concept, so you're not just flying blind, you're not just making it up as you go. And sometimes with hiring people will get a temp for a little while. And I've had full-time roles where I started as a temp. And I started as a temp, and then they were like, "Oh, this works great. Having this person here to do this works really great." Then you come on full time. Similarly, you could maybe get, and people think about this for agency stuff as well, so for instance, if you get an agency support, you might have that person come on or that team come on and do a project for you, a small project to see if that's a viable channel for you. Maybe you've never done a link billing campaign before, and so maybe they come on and do a little project for you. And then you're like, "Okay, this is great. We could roll this out across multiple channels or multiple parts of the business." And then you can get into a more long-term situation. But yeah, proof of concept is really valuable. Mordy Oberstein: It's great because then you can also really see what kind of person are they. On the CV or when you interview them, you can see like, "I know their skills. I know that they're competent, I know that maybe they're friendly," whatever, you can get some general. But you really want to understand, do they fit into what you actually need, the way that they work and how they operate and how they think, that's very hard, very, very hard to do. I want to hit one more point before we get to Menachem, and that's understand what skills to value. And that can change based upon, you see this right now in the market, what's emerging, what's upcoming, what's happening? If the ecosystem is shifting one way, while you might need that person now, will you still need that person in a year from now or that skill in a year from now? You see that with AI. And what makes it hard, by the way, is A, predicting, and also not getting caught up, like in the AI. It's hard to predict where it's going to go. And at the same time, it's hard not to get caught up in it. So you might hire, "Oh, we're going to hire a prompt engineer," but maybe you won't need that in a year from now, maybe you're overestimating where AI is going to be at in a year. I don't know, I'm making that up. But it's easy to see that as an example. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that the market changes you need to think about aren't just from the wider market, but also from your team. So I've definitely known folks who were great, brilliant marketers, and they got settled in with a team that maybe was moving at a different pace than they were used to. And so, if you're in a fast-moving consumer goods, if you're in a B2C apparel sort of business, that e-comm timeline, those timelines are quick. Those are quick turnarounds. Whereas if somebody's in more of a lead gen space, then if somebody's used to e-comm pace, they'll be very surprised at the lead gen stuff where it might take three, four or five months to close a deal, for instance, and they'll need different things from marketing. So I think that it's important to get that bit. I know somebody who recently hired somebody who was great, they were a great AI person, and they were going to help them with their AI things. And in the end, the skills were there, but it wasn't a great fit for the team. And that's something to think about as well, where your team is at in your maturity in terms of having this person there. Do you have the setup to help that person thrive? Mordy Oberstein: That's a brilliant point. Yeah. Crystal Carter: For instance, if we had... My softball team got, I don't know, name a baseball player, Aaron Jed, is that a baseball player? Mordy Oberstein: Aaron Jed's, a baseball player. That's right. Crystal Carter: Okay. Yes. Good. So my softball- Mordy Oberstein: Doesn't know how to catch well lately, but yeah. Crystal Carter: Okay. So this is what I've learned from listening to Mordy for all these months and years. So if my softball team were like, "Hey, let's get a new player." And Aaron Jed was available and somehow he joined my team. Aaron Jed And would be bored and we wouldn't have the facilities, we wouldn't have the trainers, we wouldn't have the things to help this person to thrive and to help us. And so, it's important to make sure that you're set up for both things and that you're set up to be able to grow with this person, with this team, with this resource that you've got as well. So thinking about your maturity and what's the best fit for you right now and how that person might grow with you is super important. Mordy Oberstein: Could not answer that better myself. As we alluded to, who you hire and when, depends on the task at hand, but the nature of the task at hand depends at times upon the area of marketing that you're in. So let's compare and contrast who to hire or when to hire for a PPC team versus maybe an SEO team and beyond, as we invite Menachem Ani, founder of JXT Group to join us on a voyage into the funnel frontier. Welcome to the show, Menachem. How are you? Menachem Ani: I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Always fun to chat. Crystal Carter: It's always a pleasure to see you. I think the last time I saw you was in San Diego, I think, but we've done work across on the internet since then. But always great to see you and see what you're up to. Menachem Ani: Yeah, as you. Mordy Oberstein: I have one question for you. How does it feel to be on a podcast where they can pronounce your first name? Menachem Ani: It is unusual, I'll tell you that. Most people can't pronounce my first name. I use that as a spam filter on the phone. When the phone rings, if they can't pronounce my name right, I know it's spam. Mordy Oberstein: Or the IRS. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Either/or. Crystal Carter: I used to work with someone and his first name... He went by Thomas, not Tom. So if anybody called and they were like, "Is Tom there?" I was like, "No, he's not. You don't know him clearly, so no." Menachem Ani: What are you trying to tell me? Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. I love it when they're like, "Have you got five minutes?" I'm like, "Have you got a PO? Where can I send this invoice for this five minutes? I'm at work." Mordy Oberstein: That's good. I don't answer my phone anymore, so I don't get this problem. I just don't answer. Crystal Carter: You don't get calls from spam likely they call me. Mordy Oberstein: No, I do, but if I don't know the number. I just don't answer. Usually my kids' teachers, which also works when I don't answer. Anyhoo, enough about that. So hiring PPC versus SEO, or SEO versus content marketing, or PPC versus social media marketing. Is it all the same? What's the difference? Does it matter? Menachem Ani: Our focus is paid media, so that's where my experience comes from. I think that for me, a lot of it comes down to attention to detail, personality, things of that nature. Probably lines up well with some of the content stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I would imagine the PPC mindset is much more, I don't know, aggressive maybe, then let's say a content writer, let's say, creative writer, I mean. Menachem Ani: Yeah, so I think it's a little bit less creative and more analytical, because with paid media, you really have two kinds. You've got the Google stuff and the social stuff. Social does have a creative component to it. You really need to think with your creative brain, but even the analysis and then all of Google Search is primarily around analyzing things. You've got to have a very analytical brain for that. Crystal Carter: And I think that there's a lot of folks who have experience. Is experience enough in your opinion? Somebody who's like, "Oh, I've been doing this for this much time." Are you like, "Oh yeah, great, absolutely join the team." Or do you expect to see some of the stuff that they do? Are you more of a show don't tell kind of person? Menachem Ani: Yeah, I want to see how their brain works. And I'll do that by having conversations with them or ask them to look over a specific campaign. To me, experience is definitely important, but it's not everything. I think more important than experience is a personality like vibe check, will this person get along with others on the team? Do they have a can-do attitude? Do they want to get this done? Those are really important things. But also communication style. They can be the best at Google Ads, but if they don't answer an email in a timely fashion, it's like, "Okay." Crystal Carter: Right. Right. That can be a real sticky point. And I think that people think that the interview is the only part of the interview, but there's a lot more around that. So again, if you email them and it takes them three days to get back to you to say, "Yes, I want to..." That's a little bit tricky, isn't it? Menachem Ani: Yeah. I don't know. I might be looking at too much, but I'll look at spelling, grammar. Is the email too long? Is it too short? Are they answering what I really asked them? Are they just kind of fluffing over it? There's a lot of underlying stuff. I want to make sure that someone is thorough, detail-oriented and can get a job done. Mordy Oberstein: So you wouldn't hire Barry Schwartz, is what you're saying. Menachem Ani: It's not new. Mordy Oberstein: It's not grammatically correct. No, I'm just kidding. Menachem Ani: Barry's the best. We love Barry. Mordy Oberstein: Drill him a little bit. But that's interesting. Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, look, obviously if you're doing something with copy like PPC, where the spelling seriously matters, all right, you got a small grammar mistake in an SEO news article, no one's going to actually care, but in PPC, that's a huge deal, that you have one line to grab their attention. Menachem Ani: One line to grab their attention. A, it's got to be spelled right, proper grammar, punctuation, so on. But you really have to grab the user's attention. Your click-through rate is decided by how well that copy resonates with the user. So you got to be able to say complex things in short amount of space and really make it count. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, so then you would hire Barry. Sorry, go ahead Crystal. Sorry. Crystal Carter: So I talked to a lot of people who are looking to get started in SEO, looking to get their first job in SEO, people who were looking to get their first job generally. I was chatting to somebody recently and they sent me their CV and it looked like a MySpace page if I'm completely honest. There was lots of colors, there was lots of different fonts and stuff like that. What is your advice? And I was like, "Make it super basic." That was my advice to this person and the person since. But what is your advice to somebody who is new to the industry and wants to get a job in SEO right now or in PPC or at an agency, what would be your top point of advice? Menachem Ani: I think you got to start somewhere. Get educated. Google provides a lot of free resources. They have something called Skill Shop. You can take certifications, you can get yourself certified. Obviously there's some nuance there because you're being trained by Google who just, they want you to spend money, but it's the best place to start to understand the fundamentals of it and show that you've got at least a certification. From there, a lot of people start freelance, start small, run a family member or a friend's low-budget campaign. Just get in there. Get some experience so you can kind of play with it. But also there's a lot of great resources on different social media communities on Slack, so there's a lot you can learn and get to know people, just get into the industry. Crystal Carter: That's great. And I think that a lot of that is what we, just to shout out our own SEO course, it's one of the things that we put in there, is to make sure that there's lots of things that people can practically do and that people can show that they've been active in their learning process as well. What would be your top tip for somebody who's looking to hire one of these new people that's done all these courses and things? Menachem Ani: So honestly, sometimes it might be easier to hire somebody fresh who's just learning because so much has changed in paid search and paid social over the past few years, that a lot of people, their brains are stuck in the old way of thinking and it can hold you back from success. So it might be better. I don't know personally, I like to hire somebody with a couple of years experience and teach them our methodologies, but a fresh mind can grasp things quickly if they've got the right attitude. Hire them, teach them, and help find success together. Mordy Oberstein: I used to work for somebody who had a specific thing. He would only hire people who were not really there yet, because he wanted to train them his way and bring them up that way, which is an interesting way to go about it. Probably difficult in the beginning for sure. I mean, I've seen it. It's very difficult in the beginning. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Crystal Carter: But I think in order to do that, you have to have your processes together. You have to have a solid training foundation. Menachem Ani: For sure. Crystal Carter: Right. So is that something that you've worked on over the years? Menachem Ani: Definitely. I mean, we typically do hire people with some experience because that training process can be cumbersome if you're hiring somebody straight out of school or with very minimal experience. So I like to bring in people with a few years experience at least, and teach them our methodologies. But one of the things I look for in those initial conversations is, how do they like to set things up? Are they open-minded to the future forward way of thinking? Because shifting drastically, and if you're stuck in that old way, you can get lost. Mordy Oberstein: How has it changed? I'm curious. How has what you're looking for changed? Menachem Ani: Yeah, I mean, the old way of Google Ads was very manual, very granular. The new way is relying a lot more on algorithms and smart bidding. And you have to have an open mind to use broad match keywords where it's appropriate, and use smart bidding where it's appropriate, use newer campaign types that are more automated where it's appropriate. And a lot of people get stuck in like, "Oh, I would never do that." And it might be what's best for their clients, but they've never really tried it or they've tried it with a mindset that it's going to fail, and so it has. Mordy Oberstein: When you interview someone, you have a can of Mountain Dew, and if they're open to trying it, you're like, "Oh, okay, I'll hire them. They're open mind." If they're like, "Oh, that is disgusting. I'm not going anywhere near this," then no. Menachem Ani: Yeah, sometimes it's something like that. Mordy Oberstein: Not to bounce all over Mountain Dew, which is disgusting. Menachem Ani: I mean, I used to drink Mountain Dew every day, but I kind of gave it up. Mordy Oberstein: You will feel 30 years younger. Crystal Carter: Thank goodness. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know where to go to next after that. Crystal Carter: I don't know, someplace very refreshing. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, nice. What's the most refreshing interview experience you've ever had with an interviewee? Menachem Ani: Cool question. I think when they make me think, it feels refreshing. Because a lot of people just go along with industry standards, but for me it's like I want to learn something new every day. And if somebody can make me think that's refreshing. I know that this person wants to learn. Mordy Oberstein: Do you ever worry that person will leave, because they're super smart, super, I don't know, creative, on the ball, on the money, you know they're going to succeed in three or four years from now, but what happens in three or four years from now? Menachem Ani: Listen, it's on me to create a work environment that people want to stay in. So if they want to leave, I got to do something different there. Mordy Oberstein: Pay them more? Menachem Ani: Maybe. I don't know if it's just about that. It's about- Mordy Oberstein: No, it's not about that always. Menachem Ani: At the end of the day, we all want to enjoy what we do every day. Feel the challenge, feel rewarding in the work we do. When it gets boring or we work with clients that are not fun or the team that's not fun or a boss that's not fun, I think that's really where it starts to fall apart. Mordy Oberstein: It's all about fun. Menachem Ani: Have some Mountain Dew. Crystal Carter: But I think that the hiring process, I mean, Mordy mentioned people leaving. When you're thinking about hiring, you said that it's up to you to keep them engaged. When you're thinking about hiring folks, are you planning for them to be there a long term? I know that a lot of jobs these days, people jump around after a couple of years. Are you expecting them to be there for a long term? And does it change depending on the post, depending on the position? Menachem Ani: Yeah, I mean for us, we don't hire a ton. We're a small team. We want to try to bring people on who want to grow in the long term, give them a place to grow. So my hope is they'll stick around for a while. Therefore it's even more important to get the decision right, get that right person, because you want them to stick around for a while. Thankfully, we don't have a lot of turnover. We definitely do have some, but the goal is to do it in a way where people stay for a while. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. There's no other way to really build a culture and to really build a system if you're constantly changing people over, it's impossible. But it is harder now. I mean, if you looked at LinkedIn, people was like... I remember back in the day when you wrote on your CV or your resume, you were there for a year, the next job, you were there for a year, the next job you were there for a year. Oh, that looks bad. That's a red flag. A known red flag. That is literally LinkedIn now. Menachem Ani: Yeah. Crystal Carter: I am thrilled to announce. I'm thrilled to announce. Mordy Oberstein: Everyone congratulations. Crystal Carter: Right. Wow. Mordy Oberstein: Amazing, the amount of comments. Crystal Carter: Right. Right, right, right. Mordy Oberstein: That's good stuff. All right. So before we duly the part, what's your outlook on where the hiring market for PPC is going? Is it going to get more complicated? Is it going to get harder for you? Or is it hard to find people? Will it get harder to find people? Menachem Ani: It's definitely hard to find people because there's a lot of people who do paid media, but I think to find the ones that care, that will do good work, that will pay attention to all the little details. A lot of those people can find success on their own. Some of them would rather work in an agency environment because they get to interact with more people. But it's definitely getting harder, and as long as somebody stands out and does good work, they can always find a good home. Mordy Oberstein: That's great advice. Sure. Thank you. That is great advice. And with that, make sure you check out JXT Consulting. Don't click when you search for it on Google, don't click on the ad. Click on the organic result. Don't charge them money. And look for Menachem on social media. Where are you active these days? You're on X, you're still on X, you're on LinkedIn, no LinkedIn? Crystal Carter: He's on the Wix SEO Learning Hub. Go read his articles. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah. I always do that. I always forget. Menachem Ani: Wix SEO Learning Hub for sure. LinkedIn, Twitter, X as you call it. I'm still calling it Twitter. Sorry. Mordy Oberstein: I just started calling it X, because everyone else is. I'm like, "However." I've held out for so long. Crystal Carter: He's also on a YouTube recording of a webinar that we did on automation earlier in the year. And Menachem shares some fantastic resources for automation and tools that he uses at his own agency. Mordy Oberstein: To all those places, you'll be there. Menachem Ani: All those places. Mordy Oberstein: Well, thanks for being our guest and good luck with your hiring. Menachem Ani: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Once again, thank you, Menachem, for coming on. Really make sure to give him a follow, read his articles on the SEO Hub. And he writes for Search Engine Land a lot as well. You know who also writes a lot for Search Engine Land? Crystal Carter: Who's that? Mordy Oberstein: Danny Goodwin. But you know who also writes a lot for Search Engine Land? Crystal Carter: Anu Adegbola? Mordy Oberstein: I was just going to say that. You stole my thunder. But you know who also writes a little bit here and there for Search Engine Land? Crystal Carter: Don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Me neither, we'll find out. Crystal Carter: Can't think of anyone. Mordy Oberstein: Nah, Gary, Gary Bartz? Barry Schwartz. Barry Schwartz. But we usually quote him from Search Engine Roundtable anyway. So here's the Snappy News courtesy of probably SE Roundtable. Snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy News. Two for you this week. First up from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Google Search Console recommendations now fully live. If you follow, it's new, our Daily SEO News series, which you can check out each and every day except for Friday. We don't do Friday. Monday through Thursday. You'll know we've seen the test where Google is testing recommendations inside of Search Console. These recommendations are things like, "Hey, a page recently got fewer clicks than usual," or "A page got more clicks than usual" or "Recommendation display your three products on the shopping tab." Anyway, Google said that they are now live for all. Now, that doesn't mean you're actually going to see them, if Google has no recommendations, they're not going to show anything. By the way, if you're a Wix Studio user, you do have insights that are similar to this already built into your SEO dashboard if you connect to Google Search Console, so check them out there. Okay, onto Search Engine Journal. This from Matt Southern. Google Search sees UK decline. Users expressed low trust in AI. The decline was pretty small. This is according to Ofcom's Online Nation report. It went from user dropping from 86% to 83%. All right, to me, that's not like whatever. The interesting thing to me about this study, and I'll read to you what it says in the study, is the amount of trust. And again, these surveys are all, I would take them all with a grain of salt. It all depends how you ask the question, the result you get. I'm just pointing it out. I think it's interesting. I think it might be aligned to reality. That's why I'm reporting it, I guess. Anyway, the study says, "Although finding information or content is the most popular reason for using a generative AI tool, only a minority believe the information provided is reliable. The most popular reason for using a generative AI tool in the past was to find information on content report by 48% of internet users age 16 plus. And 13% of British online, eight to 15 year olds. Despite this, only 18% of those aged 16 or older said they thought the information from generative AI was reliable." That's interesting. I don't know if that lands for you. It lands for me. It's interesting. So I'm bringing it up here on this, the snappy news. I mentioned this a few weeks ago. I want to know is there actual roundtable? And if not, why already being lied to? Crystal Carter: I don't think he has a roundtable. I think he has an L-shaped table. I've seen it in his office. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe he has another table at a camera shot and it's a roundtable. Crystal Carter: No, I don't think so. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe he has a dollhouse. In the Dollhouse is the SEO roundtable. Crystal Carter: It's a tiny little SEO dollhouse. Mordy Oberstein: SEO is picking tea. Crystal Carter: Right. And it's just lots of tiny little... There's a little tiny John Mueller and there's a little tiny, tiny Barry Schwartz, and there's a little tiny Mordy Oberstein, and there's lots of little tiny people talking about SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Is that like... Well, I guess you could probably say that in reality there's a lot of little tiny people talking about SEO, but we're not going to go there. What we are going to go to is our follow of the week who is not a tiny person. He's a giant of the industry, Will Reynolds. Crystal Carter: A titan, if you will. Mordy Oberstein: A Titan, yes. Will Reynolds give him a follow over on, probably LinkedIn is probably the best place now. His content on LinkedIn is fabulous, by the way. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Really intriguing questions. Love your content, Will, on LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: Will's fantastic, very frank. And he's been running his agency for years. And they are super inventive and super on the pulse of what's going on. And he's got some great insights on teams, on managing content, on AI, on lots of different things. So yeah, shout-out to Will Reynolds. Also previous contributor to the SERP'S Up SEO podcast, so- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's right. That's right. Crystal Carter: ... go check in the archives and check out some of those insights there as well. But big shout-out to Will, great follow. Mordy Oberstein: Absolutely. But you mentioned, by the way, from Sierra Interactive, that's Will's agency. We should have mentioned that earlier in his bio, but we didn't. This is the kind of people who have jellyfish as pets. I told you we'd get back to it. Crystal Carter: I would love to have a jellyfish as a pet potential or maybe a Portuguese man-of-war, which is not a jellyfish, it's actually a colony. Mordy Oberstein: Nothing about that sounds peaceful. Crystal Carter: Dude, the Portuguese man-of-war are fascinating, because they're like the borg. It's a bunch of clones that do different things. It's an amazing creature. Mordy Oberstein: It's what I've always wanted for a pet. Crystal Carter: I'd love one. I don't think I'd have a fish tank big enough. Mordy Oberstein: We should do it. Crystal Carter: One can hope. Mordy Oberstein: Well, on that happy note. Thank you for joining us on this SERP'S Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week at the new episode as we dive into how to know what your audience is actually looking for. Look for wherever you consume on your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars over on the Wix Studio, SEO Learning about, 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 an SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

How do you effectively repurpose content for Google Search? What types of assets should you be repurposing? Can AI help with repurposing content at scale? In this episode, Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter dive deep into repurposing your audio and video content for Search. Joining the show is LinkedIn’s very own Purna Virji to demonstrate the benefits of repurposing content at scale. Plus, take a directional look into where the SERP is headed for of audio and video content. Ready to get the most out of your content with max efficiency? The SERP’s Up SEO Podcast takes repurposing content for organic search head-on! Back Repurposing your content for search How do you effectively repurpose content for Google Search? What types of assets should you be repurposing? Can AI help with repurposing content at scale? In this episode, Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter dive deep into repurposing your audio and video content for Search. Joining the show is LinkedIn’s very own Purna Virji to demonstrate the benefits of repurposing content at scale. Plus, take a directional look into where the SERP is headed for of audio and video content. Ready to get the most out of your content with max efficiency? The SERP’s Up SEO Podcast takes repurposing content for organic search head-on! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 48 | July 26, 2023 | 42 MIN 00:00 / 42:13 This week’s guests Purna Virji Purna Virji is the author of High-Impact Content Marketing and Principal Content Solutions Consultant at LinkedIn. She has been named by Adweek on their Young Influentials List, was crowned the Search Personality of the Year by the US Search Awards and was named by PPC Hero as the #1 Most Influential Expert in the world. Prior to joining LinkedIn, Purna led global learning and thought leadership programs for Microsoft. An award-winning former journalist, Purna is an avid traveler, aspiring top chef, and enthusiastic tennis player in her spare time. 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 fabulous, the un-impeccable, the uncomparable, the one, the only head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal J. Carter. Crystal Carter: Oh, snap. Mordy Oberstein: I don't think I've ever used your middle initial before. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah, that's what I was saying. That's why I was like, oh no, it's gotten real because like we're pulling out. We're pulling out. It's like when your mom calls you and she uses your full name and you're like, oh, snap. Mordy Oberstein: Not good. Things are bad. Crystal Carter: Things are happening now. Mordy Oberstein: When that happens, things are definitely bad. Crystal Carter: I did not clean my room and I'm about to hear all about it, that kind of thing. Oh, no. Mordy Oberstein: But I didn't realize this until right now, by the way, which is just terrible. We have the same middle initial. Crystal Carter: Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: I doubt it's the same name. I don't want to discuss my middle name, but I doubt it's the same. Mordy Oberstein: It's not Jacob? Crystal Carter: Jacob is a good name. I like that as a name because you can short it to Jake. You can shorten it to Jake. Mordy Oberstein: Jake, yeah. Crystal Carter: Jake's a good name. Mordy Oberstein: Jake The Snake. Crystal Carter: What's it called? Was it like Big Man Jake or something? Was that a movie or something? Mordy Oberstein: It might be. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Something like that. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Well, anyway, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you cannot only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can easily turn a great point in a blog post into a video for social media with a huge library of templates courtesy of Vimeo. I know, I've used it. This, as we're taking a look at repurposing your content for search. Have you ever done a webinar, perhaps a podcast, and now you're interested in making that content work for Google Search success? Then do we have the episode for you? Sorry, too salesy. Then you're in the right place. Still too salesy. Then today, we're talking about repurposing video and audio content that you love so much and making it work for the SERP. To use transcription or not to use transcription, this is the question when we're repurposing video and audio assets for search. Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of user intent, how not to waste your time repurposing the wrong assets. Friends, Romans, lend me your ears and you shall hear how AI can help you repurpose video and audio content for search. Also, LinkedIn's own Purna Virji stops by to share tips on how to repurpose content at scale. And we'll talk the flip side as we get into repurposing your audio and video content into Google SERP features. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social. So if repurposing be the music of Google rankings, repurpose on as episode number 48 of the SERP's Up podcast is a bounty that is boundless as the sea. That's all the Shakespeare I know. In fact, that's more than the Shakespeare I know. I had to Google half of that. Crystal Carter: Alas, poor Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Alas, I do not like Shakespeare. Crystal Carter: You do not like Shakespeare? Mordy Oberstein: No, which is I don't know why I went all Shakespearean. It started off with to use a transcript or not to use a transcript, that is the question when repurposing content for search. Oh, my God, I guess I got to go Shakespeare with this, so I did. Crystal Carter: Maybe so. I feel like there's a way. Shakespeare wasn't that into video particularly. Mordy Oberstein: No. He was more a podcast person. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I reckon. He was more into- Mordy Oberstein: Relax. Crystal Carter: ... waxing more poetical and things like that, but I think that yeah, maybe he would've had a YouTube channel or something if Bill was around today. Mordy Oberstein: He would have had a YouTube channel. He would've had a thumbnail of him doing crazy poses. Crystal Carter: Yeah. He'd be like, like and subscribe to The Bard, dropping bars here on the YouTube channel. Mordy Oberstein: So basically, Shakespeare would be your typical less unreputable YouTuber. Crystal Carter: He'd probably be making YouTube Short or TikToks or something. Mordy Oberstein: They would not too short. It'd be very long. It'd be- Crystal Carter: Absolute. Mordy Oberstein: ... very long,- Crystal Carter: Very long soliloquies- Mordy Oberstein: ... very long. Crystal Carter: ... and very dramatic things for some of the tragedy. I've seen a lot of Shakespeare and some of the tragedies, they're brutal at the end and everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Know what will be a tragedy? If you had a great audio and video content and you didn't repurpose it for search because repurposing content is incredibly powerful. It helps build cadence. I love talking about cadence. I had a whole tweet the other day from a recording, not the other day, from re-releasing all about how cadence is your ally as a brand marketer. It helps you to reach new audiences in new ways and new channels and it's super efficient because you're maximizing the amount of effort you put into the content creation process. However, I tend to think that we generally think of repurposing, at least I do, about taking written content that's really made for search and turning it into a podcast or a video or a short. But today, we're doing the opposite. We're talking about the reverse of taking your not written content and then turning it into written content that you can repurpose for search. Crazy, crazy right there. I think it's a whole different mindset, by the way, and I think it's what makes it difficult. When you're to say creating an infographic for social, that's a very specific kind of mindset. You want something catchy. You want something that's going to grab on. It's going to get retweets. It's going to get liked. It's whatever it is. It's a very in the moment kind of way of thinking. But search is very, very, very different. I think the biggest thing here is mindset. Mindset matters most. I'm a big believer in that. I think here in particular, I think there's a lot to swap around in terms of mindset when you're repurposing audio video content for search versus taking, let's say, a blog post and repurposing it as audio video content for other media channels. I think that means, for example, just to be really specific about it, I think you want to leave aside the hook to a certain degree and bring out quality insights and targeting, which is to say it's different than say social media where the hook is super important. I think in terms of mindset, you want to figure out how to work faster because the barrier to entry is harder. You're creating written content for search. It's very time-consuming. I think you want to fit into a larger strategy that has lasting power because hot trends on social and capturing that for a quick win so you can get a thousand more followers for you and your company, in two weeks, that's just not search and it's a completely different mindset. So talking about repurposing content, audio, video content for search, I feel like start with the mindset. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think that essentially, when you're thinking about taking video and adding it into the content that you expect to rank on search, then you should be taking the same SEO approach that you would to everything. So thinking about keyword research, thinking about the keywords in the content. On YouTube, for instance, you can search for the words wI've done it before where I was looking up something and I was looking for somethingithin the YouTube transcript. They auto-generate transcripts. You can search for the words within the transcript. and I found a video of you, Mordy Oberstein,- Mordy Oberstein: Do you really? Crystal Carter: ... talking about something else. The topic of the webinar wasn't anything to do with that. The topic of the thing that you were on wasn't anything to do with that, but you had mentioned this specific element within that transcript and so they're able to pull those things out. So when you're creating content, it's very important to think about what you're saying in the video if you're planning, as part of the content life cycle, to include that into other parts of your web page. The other thing that's really important to think about is that video content can be repurposed on multiple pages that you expect to rank for search. There may very well be a few different places where you can put this on your website and you should think about that again when you're in the mindset that the point of entry is high. It takes a long time to think about a script and get your lighting right and get everybody in the right place and make sure the sound is all good and all of that sort of stuff. It takes time to invest in video, so you want to make sure that you're able to get maximum impact out of that content, so something that is fairly evergreen, maybe something that doesn't need to be changed every two weeks. Like you were saying, you don't want something that like, oh, it's a trend to this week and then nobody cares next week because it's not that useful. Mordy Oberstein: SEO is long-term stable growth for the long run. Crystal Carter: Exactly. Exactly. So think about that when you're thinking about the kinds of things that would make good video and would make good video for people who are searching. I think also it's important to think about how the content that you have that you expect to help other content rank will help that content to rank. We generally see that the click-through rate for videos is much higher, sometimes three times higher than the content that doesn't have videos on the SERP because you've got a few different options to show that video on the SERP. So make the most of it. Make sure that the video lines up with the content that's written with any images that you have with all of those things, that it's not just some random video that's nothing to do with the page because Google can tell and that's important. Mordy Oberstein: Well, that's a good point because we're talking about you're setting up the video and you're thinking about the transcript, which is what you're going to be using for ranking and getting the right keywords in there. But let me bring up a question to you. Does it always make sense to transcript? Because sometimes, I find that the transcript can be very broad in a way. I'm not describing it the best way possible, but it's conversational, so getting those meaty points taken out of the transcript and really focusing on them might work better. Forget for search for your readers, but it also might work better for search. Now you can add in headers. Now you can structure the content a little bit better. I'm not saying that transcripts don't rank, can't rank and whatnot, but I'm wondering your thoughts on, you know what? Maybe that would be a good use case for AI. Maybe you take the transcript and say, "Hey, AI. Take this transcript and turn this into something that's more structured." Crystal Carter: Right. I think I've done similar exercises and you can tell the AI, I don't want this rewritten. Don't give me your hallucinations. I don't want that. I literally want you to tidy this up. Mordy Oberstein: Add headers to it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Take the ums out. Take all the likes out, like like, like, like and that sort of thing. So that's really useful. I think in terms of the content that supports the videos, so one thing that's really interesting about videos in search is that Google has recently, they keep adding more and more features on Google Search Console to help you manage your video pages. They've more clearly defined what a video page is. They've added in more documentation about what are the best requirements for having your videos show on the SERP, and particularly if you're using YouTube, which evidence has shown that YouTube is the service of choice. So definitely have a look at that. I'm talking about a lot of this at my MozCon presentation in August. Mordy Oberstein: A plug. Crystal Carter: So I'll get into this in a bit more detail, but studies have shown anecdotally in any way, we're seeing a lot of evidence that YouTube is a preferred platform. But the other thing that's great about YouTube is that YouTube has a lot of the defaults that match up with a lot of the requirements that Google has. YouTube will automatically generate a transcript. If you improve that transcript on YouTube, that is valuable. Mordy Oberstein: That's also true. Crystal Carter: That is useful. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point. Crystal Carter: Because YouTube, they doqn't always get it right. Mordy Oberstein: They don't always get it right. It's a little bit weird sometimes. Crystal Carter: Right, and they don't always put the periods, the full stops, whatever you want to call them. They don't always put those- Are Mordy Oberstein: That's what I mean. Crystal Carter: ... in the right place. Mordy Oberstein: You're talking about AI. I'm talking about AI and AI and AI. We talked about this with Ross Hudgens on our webinar that we did over the Wix SEO Learning Hub. When you give AI confines and you let it work in a closed environment, it is way better. If you already have some sort of content, which you generally have with video or a podcast you have, the transcript, you have something you're working with, it's an optimal case to use AI to refine it, which I'm not saying you don't need to go back and refine it yourself a little bit more, but you could take a lot of that hard work out. The repurposing video audio for search is a prime case where I think AI does work. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it does. It does. It works really well. And the thing is YouTube's using AI to understand it. YouTube's using AI to generate the transcript in the first place. So essentially, you're adding into more refinements there. So with regards to what's on the page, generally speaking, there can be good practice into adding a transcript. Again, it will depend on the quality of the transcript. Some videos are made specifically to be part of a page and so they essentially read and are written like a transcript. If you have a more conversational situation like a podcast or webinar or something or it's something to that effect, some editing, it can be really, really valuable. I think that it depends on the medium and on what users are expecting. I have very much, particularly when I've been looking for a quote, been extremely grateful when people have put the entire transcript of a webinar or an activity on a website because you can get the quote much more clearly when it's on the page. If you try to extract the transcript from YouTube, it's a little bit annoying. Then I use the AI to take out all the timestamps. So yeah, I think it depends on what the value is of the transcript and you'll know whether or not you were on topic or whether you were on a tangent and we're talking about Shakespeare when you were supposed to be talking about videos. Mordy Oberstein: We would never do that. We would never do that. Crystal Carter: Laser-focused. Mordy Oberstein: All the time. So we covered transcripts. We covered AI. I want to cover one more point if we could, and that's how to know if you're not wasting your time. How do you decide when you should repurpose video or audio content for the main search results? Because I'll give you a case. Did you know, Crystal, that Beatle videos has a global search volume of 1,100 searches every month according to Semrush? Wow. Did you know you should not repurpose your video content for written content there for the SERP because all of the results Google is showing is from YouTube? I could repeat this with the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan. Crystal Carter: Yeah. See? Mordy Oberstein: Beyonce. Crystal Carter: When you said Beatles, I wasn't sure which Beatles you were talking about. I was like, are we talking about stag beetles- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my God. Crystal Carter: ... because I like stag beetles. Stag beetles are cool. Mordy Oberstein: Let me quickly run this through Semrush again. Crystal Carter: B-E-E-T. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Beyonce videos has a monthly search volume of 4,400 every month, and I guarantee you if I Google it, it will all be YouTube videos. Do not waste your time. What I'm trying to say is you need to go and look and see what the intent on the surface because maybe it doesn't support written content. Crystal Carter: So here's the thing. When you're thinking about this, I tend to go the other way. I tend to look at what content you have on your site. Let's say you have written content on your site and you have some videos on your YouTube channel. You can do this on Semrush. I'm sure you can do this on other tools as well. Look at your site and look at which pages are ranking and which pages could be ranking for videos, which pages- Mordy Oberstein: You're spoiling it. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: You're spoiling it. Crystal Carter: What am I spoiling? Mordy Oberstein: This. This is our dynamic segment for later. Later, we're going to be going going Google where we talk about looking at what's ranking on the SERP for video and audio content. Crystal Carter: In the tool, you can do this. In the tool, you can do this. You can see what things are ranking for which SERP features. There's a few different tools that will tell you which SERP features are available and you can look on mass at your tools rather than just looking at a single page, which we will discuss in more detail. But you can look at which keywords your page is ranking for and you can look at and see where there are video opportunities. Doing it that way is really, really effective and can help make sure that you're not wasting your time and that you're complimenting content that is ranking well as well. Mordy Oberstein: It could be anything. It could be like, okay, I'm going to spend time optimizing this transcript and on the SERP, all that's there are very short, quick answers. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: You have to just make sure you're lining up with the intent when you're repurposing content for the SERP. Crystal Carter: Of course. Sometimes, it's a question of having a little bit of a mix and match. I'm going to caveat and say this isn't necessarily editorially my favorite publication, but one of the things that the Daily Mail does is they do a TLDR. They'll have an article about, oh, Blue Ivy performed with Beyonce at the London Show, and yes she did. Blue Ivy did not come out at the Cardiff show and I was a little bit upset because I was at the Cardiff show and I was not at the London show, and I was like, whatever. Okay, fine. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. Crystal Carter: Anyway, so let's say there's this article about that. They will have the headline and they will also have a couple of TLDR points. So they'll say like, "Blue Ivy showed up for this song. Blue Ivy did this. Blue Ivy did that." They have a couple of lines and then they'll get into the long, long, long, long, long of the whole article. For instance, if you're seeing something like that and let's say maybe at this time, this moment in time, maybe you don't have time to do a full refit of your transcript page, but maybe you have time to do at the top a couple of quick summarizing points of this topic covers this, this, this and this. That's something that can help you to satisfy some of that quick TLDR intent and also allows you to have the people who want to get in and get the quote or who just want to jump to the part that they're interested in, which are those people, and I'm one of those people, then it allows you to satisfy both intents for instance. Mordy Oberstein: So if you're doing all these different intents and all these different pieces of content and all this repurposing to try to take your audio and your video content and make it ready for rankings among the traditional blue links, then you need to do it at scale, which means we need ideas about how to do this at scale, which is why LinkedIn's own principal content solutions evangelist, Purna Virji, is here to discuss how you can repurpose content at scale. By the way, she got a new book. I'll link in the show notes. We're plugging her book. Crystal Carter: Get the book. Mordy Oberstein: Get the book. Here's Purna. Purna Virji: Hi, Mordy and Crystal. I'm here to share three tips in just about three minutes on how you can repurpose your content at scale. To do this, we're going to take inspiration from Hollywood. Think of a movie like Star Wars. That one creative has been turned from movies into toys, video games, lunch boxes, clothes, you name it. That one idea has been used in a ton of different ways to make billions and billions of dollars overall. May some of that force be with us and it certainly can be with these three blockbuster strategies to repurpose content like a movie mogul. Let's start with tip number one. Now, if we think about biopics and movies based on true stories, they tend to have a really great track record at the box office. We can channel that same idea by building content from news and current affairs to be relevant and timely or suddenly rewrap our content in this news and current affairs newsjacking shell. Let's say, for example, you're a financial planning company and some existing content that you have provides advice on how people can reduce the inheritance bill. How can you reuse it in a way that feels current and fresh and still interesting? That's why you turn to the news. For example, a company called Birkett Long had seen this news story talking about how the actor Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, 007, will not be gifting his estate. So they created a post all about that and then they segued very, very cleverly into sharing their practical advice into how people can reduce their inheritance bill. So clever, existing content rewrap to feel fresh and current and get people to want to read it. Tip number two, remakes of older movies or foreign movies are big business. What we can learn from that is why create from scratch when you can curate from what's worked elsewhere? One of my favorite places to curate from, your data, especially data that can help you stand out during your customer's research process. Think about things like success or effectiveness rates or you can share how customers saw a big improvement. Any values or benefits for choosing you that can be found by data can be turned into really high-value content that already exists. I swear if Mulder and Scully from X-Files were content marketers, they'd agree that the content is out there. You just need to join forces with other teams to find it. Okay, tip number three, think about spin-offs, re-releases, movies made from TV shows, they all show us the value of reusing our own heads in new ways. But now when I'm saying reuse your existing content, I'm not saying just take the existing content and slap it everywhere. No, because that's not really exciting, is it? Something that many people miss, but is one of my favorite tips to do is to go and look at high-value or high-investment pieces, whether it's a research report or a white paper or some ultimate guide. Generally, there's a lot of really good richness in there and its content that can appeal to different types of audiences. So what I advise people to do is pull out different excerpts from it and create shorter pieces that are very highly targeted to certain demographics. Let's say if you are a B2B company and you are trying to appeal to maybe an HR or a manager would be the ultimate decision maker, but the employees of the company would be the end users. You'd want to appeal to both so that way, you can get employees asking and recommending your brand, but you also then appeal to managers and HR to assign the decision. This way, you can speak much more relevantly to each audience and it's not starting from scratch. You can do this by just repurposing what works. So remember, you can create dozens and dozens and dozens of assets with minimal work when you can use the same core IP in a variety of different ways. So anti-hustle culture, reuse, and recycle. Let's even be sustainable with our content. Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Purna. Love all the movie references. This is great. Crystal Carter: Yeah, movies, TV. We had Star Wars. I'm guessing. Where it’s giving me like sci-fi fan vibes because she mentioned Star Wars and the X-Files. Mordy Oberstein: I love sci-fi. I love sci-fi. You know what I also love? Repurposing content the right way. Crystal Carter: Yes, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: It's so many good points. When I'm thinking about repurposing content, I'll tell you the way that I approach it is, what can I spin off really quickly that I can replicate over and over and over again without a lot of resources? Crystal Carter: Also, I think it's a question of what can add value to users in a new way? She talked about Star Wars for instance. One of the reasons why they rebooted it again was that- Mordy Oberstein: Make money, was to make lots of money. Crystal Carter: Well, there's that, but I think also, was to appeal to a new audience. We see this with a few different things where they'll take something that's a little bit retro and they'll reboot it with maybe a younger team or something. So then you have the people who remember it from the nostalgia, that audience, and then you have the people who are seeing it afresh and they're relating to the newer people who are involved with it. I think that this is the thing with your content. We've been talking about video in this particular instance. There might be people who really love a really chunky article that they can sit down with a nice cup of coffee and really get into. There's going to be some people who like video, who like to get video and they're getting most of their notifications via YouTube or via another video streaming platform. So if you're connecting with them in a different way, then that means that you're able to reach them in a way that they find most valuable. The content is going to be really good content, but if you're able to reformat it and repackage it, then yeah, all the better and great, better for user value. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, just make sure that you're not alienating your previous audience when you're creating this content like Star Wars did. I'm salty, very salty about the whole Star Wars thing. We had 20 years, 20 more, 30 years, 35 years, whatever, for Luke Skywalk to come. We're not even going to go there? I will say with repurposing content, one of the things that you want to think about is, hey look, you just got to get going with it sometimes. In order to get going with it, take the path of least resistance and build upon that and then take it from there because it can seem daunting. It can seem overwhelming and it can seem like five jobs all into itself. Get going. Find a quick way to get some momentum on it. See the value in it and that'll help you keep delving into that process even further. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Now, since we're talking about video and audio content, as you probably know, audio and video content does live on the SERP itself. Google has SERP features for both video and audio, which means that you want to get video and content itself to show up on the SERP whenever appropriate. Let's see where video and audio content on the SERP is heading as we take a directional look at where things are trending towards when it comes to audio and video content on the SERP as we are going, going, going Google. And it's going, going Google. It's out of here. As a podcaster, an award-winning podcaster I might add,- Crystal Carter: I've seen the award. Thanks, Mordy for reminding me that you got an award. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Hold on. Crystal Carter: It's obnoxiously gold. Mordy Oberstein: It is so golden and it's so heavy. Crystal Carter: It's like, what's that? There is a guy, speaking of movies, the baddie in Goldfinger. Mordy Oberstein: I never liked those movies. Crystal Carter: No, Goldmember, Goldmember, the Austin Powers. Mordy Oberstein: Ah. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: That, I know. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: If it was Bond, I don't know, but Austin Powers, right up my alley. You may know that I like podcasting. One of the things I pay attention to as a podcaster is what happens on the SERP for podcast. We've all blog post about this on the SEO hub, the Wix SEO hub that I'll share in the show notes about how to optimize your podcast for search. One of the things that Google tends to show is a box or a carousel, however you want to describe it, that lists all of the podcasts related to the queries. If I search for baseball podcasts, I'll get organic results, but it'll generally sit under a giant box of actual podcast listings that represent baseball podcasts. Now, something that I happen to notice is that for more niche areas like SEO, for example, that carousel is often gone, which by the way, means that the organic placement itself, meaning your actual organic result for the podcast are being shown on lists that represent in the podcast are really important now or more important than they were before. They're really important before because that carousel is gone. I'm talking about, say particularly when you're searching for something, SEO podcast, the carousel, as of this recording, has been gone for a while. I was tracking, by the way, sports medicine podcast, not that I'll do a sports medicine podcast, but again, as a podcaster keeping tabs on these things, that's gone. The only time it shows up is when you search for best SEO podcast. Now the carousel is back, or best sports medicine podcast. I have a theory. Crystal Carter: What's your theory? Mordy Oberstein: I have a theory that Google realizes that people are trending towards not going to the SERP for podcast anymore. Crystal Carter: Interesting, interesting. Mordy Oberstein: They're just going to go to Spotify. Crystal Carter: That's very interesting. I think that that's absolutely true for some searches. You're going to get people who go straight to Spotify or maybe go straight to Google or to Google Podcasts or there's the Apple Podcasts as well. I think that it's a prime example of how SERP features are amazing, but it's also important that you rank in the plain blue links when you're doing things because we've seen that the podcast carousel, for instance, will show. I think on marketing podcasts at the moment, in the UK anyway, I'm getting the display, but as you're saying, it's very dynamic and I've seen that SEO podcast one go up and go down and go up and go down and show and not show. I think that if you're not ranking on the blue links at all, then when those features come and go, which they are want to do because Google might be doing a test or Google might be changing around, they might try to change the SERP feature, if you're not ranking on the plain blue links as well, then that's something that can be a challenge. This is one of the reasons why you should think about that for all kinds of content and not just podcasts as well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and something to really pay attention to and it's interesting that it's changing. If you look at traffic around, let's say Spotify itself, you see a lot of the direct traffic, the organic traffic, a lot of this is going up and up and up over time. We didn't even see how the market ecosystem's play into what happens on Google. I'm just speculating. I don't really know. Crystal Carter: Well, I think they're also sending a lot of traffic to Spotify. So certainly on mobile, if you look up, I think we mentioned Beyonce or whatever, but let's mention her again, but if you look up one of her songs or one of her albums or something, they might very well give you a link to Spotify that goes direct to that part of Spotify that goes to that page or goes to that song or goes to that playlist or whatever. So they're very happy to send people directly into apps in order to satisfy the user need. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So that's audio. Let's talk about video because you started getting into this a little bit earlier around what's happening with the video SERP and what matters, what doesn't matter these days for getting your video onto the SERP. By the way, just some personal experience, we've seen it with our webinar videos. If you can get a video onto the SERP, you can drive a tremendous amount of views, traffic, or whatever to describe it to your YouTube channel, which is amazing. Crystal Carter: Right, and I think it's important to remember that those two things should work in conjunction. It's very much the case that if you have a video that is on your website and that you're using as a supplementary or complementary or even the primary aspects of a particular web page or blog, then you should also make sure that you're optimizing that page on YouTube. You can add in some of the chapters, for instance, on your YouTube videos. You can add in links back to your content on your YouTube video. You can add in keywords into your YouTube. You can also add in other things. Depending on how you're configuring your website, you can also use some of the attributes from your YouTube optimizations on your web page. So for instance, on Wix, we have Wix Video and one of the things that Wix Video does is you can embed a video from your website. Wix Video is using YouTube's configuration to generate schema markup for that video. So when you add a video onto Wix using Wix Video, it will automatically generate schema markup for that video and it will also pull out the attributes from the YouTube video. So not only will it pull out the summary and the name, but it will also pull out some of those keywords that you would add into your YouTube optimization. So if you are thinking coherently about your YouTube strategy and your video strategy as you're making your content, as you're optimizing your content, then you can find efficiencies through your optimizations. We've seen that users are very often clicking those links that are in the descriptions. We see that regularly. And also, the other thing that's really important to think about is backlinks. When you add a video onto YouTube, that counts as a backlink and that counts as referral traffic and that counts as Google being able to understand what's going on there. So that helps to distribute your content in a number of ways as well. Mordy Oberstein: And if you're going to have the video on the page, one thing to note as of more recent times is that in order for your page to have the video thumbnail show up, it has to be the video is the main content on the page. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: It's something to consider because if you do have that kind of video and you can show it where it's appropriate to show it towards the top of the SERP for that particular page, then do it because results that are visual are far more clickable than results that are just unto text. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Put the video at the top. Put it at the top. Put it at the top. There's nothing worse than having a video on your page and it says at the bottom like, "Oh, this isn't the main video." When you go onto Google Search Console that you can look in your video pages report and you can see whether or not this thinks this is the main content of the page, and if it is the main content of the page, put it at the top so that Google knows that it's the main content of the page. You shouldn't be any ambiguity about that. Mordy Oberstein: Since we're talking that directionally about Google, the fact that Google's adding more video information into Search Console kind of tells you everything that you really need to know about where the web is at. Crystal Carter: Right. Precisely. Users are updating video all the time and users really enjoy video. We see the number of videos that people are watching only increases every year. The thing that's really strange is that even though that people are watching more and more videos, marketers are saying they should make more and more videos. If you ask users do they want more videos from marketers, they say yes. So I'm like, when will it end? How many videos do you need, people? No. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, I could literally waste my life away on YouTube. I am your target market. Crystal Carter: Right. I've definitely done that of an evening. I watched that video. It was seven ways to tie a scarf, which is years old, but that was peak what am I doing with my life. Because I knew all of the different ways. There's only so many ways to tie a scarf. Mordy Oberstein: I literally enjoy sports people talking about the same point, different sports hosts talking about the same point over and over and over again on a daily basis. Crystal Carter: I really like watching people get their hair done on YouTube. I like the before and after. I like that when somebody comes in and we're like, oh look, now they've got a different hairstyle. Well, it's very nice. Mordy Oberstein: I like yelling and screaming. You like- Crystal Carter: Potatoes, potatoes. Anyway. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah. Hey, look, by the way, I sent a bunch of tweets about baseball, which you never even saw. You should check out. It's old Slack. They're hilarious. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: They're talking about videos. Anyway, speaking of videos, we have a great Follow of the Week for you who does a lot of videos, but we got some news for you first. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: What's the news? Crystal Carter: I don't know. What is it? Mordy Oberstein: I don't know yet because I haven't gotten to yet, but I do know one thing. It's snappy. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. First things first, the SEO tools that track changes in the levels of rank fluctuations have all been red-hot. Google is really mixing up rank these days. To that, Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable writes that, "Coming to a theater near you, you could expect an official Google algorithm update this summer." Prepare for impact, red alert and a bunch of other urgency-related catchphrases. Also, per Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable again, Google Merchant Center: How To Build Trust With Your Customers. A lot of really, really, really interesting takeaways from this one. This is how Google's looking at authority related to products, looking at trust related to products. One of the things they wrote is "include an about us page on your website to show your authenticity and tell customers your unique story." It's a very underrated tactic. You really should focus on the about page. It's one of the only pages where you can explicitly tell Google who you are, what you do in very direct terms. Also tell your users at the same time, but from an SEO point of view, really, really helpful. Also, Google wrote, "Help potential customers understand how to use your products or how other customers have used them. Show reviews and testimonials about your products and business." I've longed held that one of the things that can help a landing page really do better on search is showing informational content, how to use the product, when to use the product, all of that FAQ-ish kind of stuff. Usually on landing pages, we're very conversion-minded, but Google's basically telling you here, if you have a little bit of an informational intent embedded in there, it could be really helpful and I think it very much resonates with users at the same time, especially if they're a little more skeptical. Last one for you from Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal, Google's On Domain Name Selection: Branding Over Keywords. It's always good to get a refresh on this sort of points and to spell some SEO miss. This comes from Google's Search Off the Record podcast. The question, overarching question was, what do I do? Do I use a keyword to pick my domain name or do I choose a more brand-focused domain name? Gary from Google wrote for example, or rather he said, he didn't write, it's a podcast, Gary over Google said that basically, there's a very little impact from a ranking point of view using the keyword in the URL, but there could be a very big impact from a conversion point of view. I think the example that he gave was, let's say you are selling passport pictures and the domain name is something that relates to passport pictures like best passport picture place versus something very generic like get pictures. You're going to probably choose as a user the domain that is more specifically focused on what you're actually looking for. So keyword, not a big impact on rankings, but actually having the brand focus on what you do in very specific way, meaning don't worry about the keyword ranking stuff so much, more on the branding side can have a big conversion impact. John pointed out, and I always like John's perspective on these things, John Mueller said, "You should think long term because changing your domain name is always a hassle and you want to keep it for a long time if you can." What he's referring to is you want to think about how your business is going to expand. For example, I mentioned back in the day, the name of my website was vcrs.com when no one uses a VCR anymore. If the domain was more reflective on the wider media as opposed to the specific device, then I might be able to keep the same domain name as technology changes as my product or service offering expands. So really good points, really foundational points. Always good to get a refresher. Thank you, John. Thank you, Gary. Thank you Martin from Google for the podcast episode. We'll link to all these articles in the show notes and that is this week's Snappy News. As promised as always, so snappy. Crystal Carter: So snappy. Mordy Oberstein: Snappylicious, really. If it is a soft drink, it will be Snapple. Crystal Carter: I literally was just thinking of that and particularly I was thinking of the little poems that they put on their caps of the Snapple. That is proper microcopy. I don't know who thought of that, but the person who did- Mordy Oberstein: The branding right there. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's iconic. It's iconic. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Now, you know what else is iconic? Love my segues today. Sam Oh. If you're looking for videos about SEO, then you should definitely check out Sam Oh and the videos he's done for, Ahrefs. I'll call them timeless classics on SEO YouTube. Crystal Carter: We were very fortunate to have Sam Oh join us at a Wix SEO event at BrightonSEO. Mordy Oberstein: Well, I don't want to mess this up. This is our Follow of the Week, people. Sam Oh is our Follow of the Week. I got this, unprofessional award-winning podcast host. Crystal Carter: He is award-winning. You need to put that on your YouTube bio. Okay, so our Follow of the Week is Sam Oh. We were very fortunate to have him at a Wix SEO event during BrightonSEO recently. He walked in and he went, "Hi, I'm Sam Oh," and I was like, "Sam, everyone here knows who you are. We all know who you are." He's had billions and billions of views on YouTube and the guy is such a nice guy. He is so methodic and so clear in the way that he creates his videos and the content that he creates and the way that he approaches SEO and it's really very much a resource. It's the kind of content that is just exceptional. He's been doing it for a few years and he's a great asset to the SEO community, an absolute pillar. So absolutely follow Sam Oh, not only because his content's great, but he's a nice guy. Mordy Oberstein: And just to add value of it, is that on YouTube, I don't know how to put this gently, sometimes the SEO content is not of the highest quality and it's hard to know who to listen to. Sam is somebody you should listen to, so do follow Sam on Twitter. It's @samS-G-O-H, so S-A-M-S-G-O-H. We'll link to his Twitter profile in the show notes. Now, if we were taking our own advice, we would repurpose our outro every single week. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Sometimes it does pay to do custom stuff, so we're going to do a custom outro. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: We're not going to repurpose from week to week. Crystal Carter: All right. Mordy Oberstein: We value the podcast. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: Is it you're… Mordy Oberstein: You get what I'm saying? I'm saying we're talking about repurposing and saving time, but we're not repurposing something that many, many podcasts often repurpose, which is the intro in the outros. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Oh, good. Okay. So are we saying goodbye now? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah, sorry. This is my way of saying goodbye. Crystal Carter: Okay. Bye, everybody. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much for joining us at SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into, does social media matter for SEO? 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 all the great content and webinars at the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Purna Virji Sam Oh Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter ChatGPT and AI Writers in SEO Content High-Impact Content Marketing News: Google: Expect A Confirmed Google Algorithm Update This Summer Google Merchant Center: How To Build Trust With Your Customers Google’s On Domain Name Selection: Branding Over Keywords Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Purna Virji Sam Oh Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter ChatGPT and AI Writers in SEO Content High-Impact Content Marketing News: Google: Expect A Confirmed Google Algorithm Update This Summer Google Merchant Center: How To Build Trust With Your Customers Google’s On Domain Name Selection: Branding Over Keywords 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 fabulous, the un-impeccable, the uncomparable, the one, the only head of SEO communications here at Wix, Crystal J. Carter. Crystal Carter: Oh, snap. Mordy Oberstein: I don't think I've ever used your middle initial before. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah, that's what I was saying. That's why I was like, oh no, it's gotten real because like we're pulling out. We're pulling out. It's like when your mom calls you and she uses your full name and you're like, oh, snap. Mordy Oberstein: Not good. Things are bad. Crystal Carter: Things are happening now. Mordy Oberstein: When that happens, things are definitely bad. Crystal Carter: I did not clean my room and I'm about to hear all about it, that kind of thing. Oh, no. Mordy Oberstein: But I didn't realize this until right now, by the way, which is just terrible. We have the same middle initial. Crystal Carter: Oh. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: I doubt it's the same name. I don't want to discuss my middle name, but I doubt it's the same. Mordy Oberstein: It's not Jacob? Crystal Carter: Jacob is a good name. I like that as a name because you can short it to Jake. You can shorten it to Jake. Mordy Oberstein: Jake, yeah. Crystal Carter: Jake's a good name. Mordy Oberstein: Jake The Snake. Crystal Carter: What's it called? Was it like Big Man Jake or something? Was that a movie or something? Mordy Oberstein: It might be. Crystal Carter: I don't know. Something like that. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Well, anyway, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you cannot only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can easily turn a great point in a blog post into a video for social media with a huge library of templates courtesy of Vimeo. I know, I've used it. This, as we're taking a look at repurposing your content for search. Have you ever done a webinar, perhaps a podcast, and now you're interested in making that content work for Google Search success? Then do we have the episode for you? Sorry, too salesy. Then you're in the right place. Still too salesy. Then today, we're talking about repurposing video and audio content that you love so much and making it work for the SERP. To use transcription or not to use transcription, this is the question when we're repurposing video and audio assets for search. Cry havoc and let loose the dogs of user intent, how not to waste your time repurposing the wrong assets. Friends, Romans, lend me your ears and you shall hear how AI can help you repurpose video and audio content for search. Also, LinkedIn's own Purna Virji stops by to share tips on how to repurpose content at scale. And we'll talk the flip side as we get into repurposing your audio and video content into Google SERP features. And of course, we have the snappiest of SEO news for you and who you should be following for more SEO awesomeness on social. So if repurposing be the music of Google rankings, repurpose on as episode number 48 of the SERP's Up podcast is a bounty that is boundless as the sea. That's all the Shakespeare I know. In fact, that's more than the Shakespeare I know. I had to Google half of that. Crystal Carter: Alas, poor Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Alas, I do not like Shakespeare. Crystal Carter: You do not like Shakespeare? Mordy Oberstein: No, which is I don't know why I went all Shakespearean. It started off with to use a transcript or not to use a transcript, that is the question when repurposing content for search. Oh, my God, I guess I got to go Shakespeare with this, so I did. Crystal Carter: Maybe so. I feel like there's a way. Shakespeare wasn't that into video particularly. Mordy Oberstein: No. He was more a podcast person. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I reckon. He was more into- Mordy Oberstein: Relax. Crystal Carter: ... waxing more poetical and things like that, but I think that yeah, maybe he would've had a YouTube channel or something if Bill was around today. Mordy Oberstein: He would have had a YouTube channel. He would've had a thumbnail of him doing crazy poses. Crystal Carter: Yeah. He'd be like, like and subscribe to The Bard, dropping bars here on the YouTube channel. Mordy Oberstein: So basically, Shakespeare would be your typical less unreputable YouTuber. Crystal Carter: He'd probably be making YouTube Short or TikToks or something. Mordy Oberstein: They would not too short. It'd be very long. It'd be- Crystal Carter: Absolute. Mordy Oberstein: ... very long,- Crystal Carter: Very long soliloquies- Mordy Oberstein: ... very long. Crystal Carter: ... and very dramatic things for some of the tragedy. I've seen a lot of Shakespeare and some of the tragedies, they're brutal at the end and everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Know what will be a tragedy? If you had a great audio and video content and you didn't repurpose it for search because repurposing content is incredibly powerful. It helps build cadence. I love talking about cadence. I had a whole tweet the other day from a recording, not the other day, from re-releasing all about how cadence is your ally as a brand marketer. It helps you to reach new audiences in new ways and new channels and it's super efficient because you're maximizing the amount of effort you put into the content creation process. However, I tend to think that we generally think of repurposing, at least I do, about taking written content that's really made for search and turning it into a podcast or a video or a short. But today, we're doing the opposite. We're talking about the reverse of taking your not written content and then turning it into written content that you can repurpose for search. Crazy, crazy right there. I think it's a whole different mindset, by the way, and I think it's what makes it difficult. When you're to say creating an infographic for social, that's a very specific kind of mindset. You want something catchy. You want something that's going to grab on. It's going to get retweets. It's going to get liked. It's whatever it is. It's a very in the moment kind of way of thinking. But search is very, very, very different. I think the biggest thing here is mindset. Mindset matters most. I'm a big believer in that. I think here in particular, I think there's a lot to swap around in terms of mindset when you're repurposing audio video content for search versus taking, let's say, a blog post and repurposing it as audio video content for other media channels. I think that means, for example, just to be really specific about it, I think you want to leave aside the hook to a certain degree and bring out quality insights and targeting, which is to say it's different than say social media where the hook is super important. I think in terms of mindset, you want to figure out how to work faster because the barrier to entry is harder. You're creating written content for search. It's very time-consuming. I think you want to fit into a larger strategy that has lasting power because hot trends on social and capturing that for a quick win so you can get a thousand more followers for you and your company, in two weeks, that's just not search and it's a completely different mindset. So talking about repurposing content, audio, video content for search, I feel like start with the mindset. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I think that essentially, when you're thinking about taking video and adding it into the content that you expect to rank on search, then you should be taking the same SEO approach that you would to everything. So thinking about keyword research, thinking about the keywords in the content. On YouTube, for instance, you can search for the words wI've done it before where I was looking up something and I was looking for somethingithin the YouTube transcript. They auto-generate transcripts. You can search for the words within the transcript. and I found a video of you, Mordy Oberstein,- Mordy Oberstein: Do you really? Crystal Carter: ... talking about something else. The topic of the webinar wasn't anything to do with that. The topic of the thing that you were on wasn't anything to do with that, but you had mentioned this specific element within that transcript and so they're able to pull those things out. So when you're creating content, it's very important to think about what you're saying in the video if you're planning, as part of the content life cycle, to include that into other parts of your web page. The other thing that's really important to think about is that video content can be repurposed on multiple pages that you expect to rank for search. There may very well be a few different places where you can put this on your website and you should think about that again when you're in the mindset that the point of entry is high. It takes a long time to think about a script and get your lighting right and get everybody in the right place and make sure the sound is all good and all of that sort of stuff. It takes time to invest in video, so you want to make sure that you're able to get maximum impact out of that content, so something that is fairly evergreen, maybe something that doesn't need to be changed every two weeks. Like you were saying, you don't want something that like, oh, it's a trend to this week and then nobody cares next week because it's not that useful. Mordy Oberstein: SEO is long-term stable growth for the long run. Crystal Carter: Exactly. Exactly. So think about that when you're thinking about the kinds of things that would make good video and would make good video for people who are searching. I think also it's important to think about how the content that you have that you expect to help other content rank will help that content to rank. We generally see that the click-through rate for videos is much higher, sometimes three times higher than the content that doesn't have videos on the SERP because you've got a few different options to show that video on the SERP. So make the most of it. Make sure that the video lines up with the content that's written with any images that you have with all of those things, that it's not just some random video that's nothing to do with the page because Google can tell and that's important. Mordy Oberstein: Well, that's a good point because we're talking about you're setting up the video and you're thinking about the transcript, which is what you're going to be using for ranking and getting the right keywords in there. But let me bring up a question to you. Does it always make sense to transcript? Because sometimes, I find that the transcript can be very broad in a way. I'm not describing it the best way possible, but it's conversational, so getting those meaty points taken out of the transcript and really focusing on them might work better. Forget for search for your readers, but it also might work better for search. Now you can add in headers. Now you can structure the content a little bit better. I'm not saying that transcripts don't rank, can't rank and whatnot, but I'm wondering your thoughts on, you know what? Maybe that would be a good use case for AI. Maybe you take the transcript and say, "Hey, AI. Take this transcript and turn this into something that's more structured." Crystal Carter: Right. I think I've done similar exercises and you can tell the AI, I don't want this rewritten. Don't give me your hallucinations. I don't want that. I literally want you to tidy this up. Mordy Oberstein: Add headers to it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Take the ums out. Take all the likes out, like like, like, like and that sort of thing. So that's really useful. I think in terms of the content that supports the videos, so one thing that's really interesting about videos in search is that Google has recently, they keep adding more and more features on Google Search Console to help you manage your video pages. They've more clearly defined what a video page is. They've added in more documentation about what are the best requirements for having your videos show on the SERP, and particularly if you're using YouTube, which evidence has shown that YouTube is the service of choice. So definitely have a look at that. I'm talking about a lot of this at my MozCon presentation in August. Mordy Oberstein: A plug. Crystal Carter: So I'll get into this in a bit more detail, but studies have shown anecdotally in any way, we're seeing a lot of evidence that YouTube is a preferred platform. But the other thing that's great about YouTube is that YouTube has a lot of the defaults that match up with a lot of the requirements that Google has. YouTube will automatically generate a transcript. If you improve that transcript on YouTube, that is valuable. Mordy Oberstein: That's also true. Crystal Carter: That is useful. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point. Crystal Carter: Because YouTube, they doqn't always get it right. Mordy Oberstein: They don't always get it right. It's a little bit weird sometimes. Crystal Carter: Right, and they don't always put the periods, the full stops, whatever you want to call them. They don't always put those- Are Mordy Oberstein: That's what I mean. Crystal Carter: ... in the right place. Mordy Oberstein: You're talking about AI. I'm talking about AI and AI and AI. We talked about this with Ross Hudgens on our webinar that we did over the Wix SEO Learning Hub. When you give AI confines and you let it work in a closed environment, it is way better. If you already have some sort of content, which you generally have with video or a podcast you have, the transcript, you have something you're working with, it's an optimal case to use AI to refine it, which I'm not saying you don't need to go back and refine it yourself a little bit more, but you could take a lot of that hard work out. The repurposing video audio for search is a prime case where I think AI does work. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it does. It does. It works really well. And the thing is YouTube's using AI to understand it. YouTube's using AI to generate the transcript in the first place. So essentially, you're adding into more refinements there. So with regards to what's on the page, generally speaking, there can be good practice into adding a transcript. Again, it will depend on the quality of the transcript. Some videos are made specifically to be part of a page and so they essentially read and are written like a transcript. If you have a more conversational situation like a podcast or webinar or something or it's something to that effect, some editing, it can be really, really valuable. I think that it depends on the medium and on what users are expecting. I have very much, particularly when I've been looking for a quote, been extremely grateful when people have put the entire transcript of a webinar or an activity on a website because you can get the quote much more clearly when it's on the page. If you try to extract the transcript from YouTube, it's a little bit annoying. Then I use the AI to take out all the timestamps. So yeah, I think it depends on what the value is of the transcript and you'll know whether or not you were on topic or whether you were on a tangent and we're talking about Shakespeare when you were supposed to be talking about videos. Mordy Oberstein: We would never do that. We would never do that. Crystal Carter: Laser-focused. Mordy Oberstein: All the time. So we covered transcripts. We covered AI. I want to cover one more point if we could, and that's how to know if you're not wasting your time. How do you decide when you should repurpose video or audio content for the main search results? Because I'll give you a case. Did you know, Crystal, that Beatle videos has a global search volume of 1,100 searches every month according to Semrush? Wow. Did you know you should not repurpose your video content for written content there for the SERP because all of the results Google is showing is from YouTube? I could repeat this with the Rolling Stones or Bob Dylan. Crystal Carter: Yeah. See? Mordy Oberstein: Beyonce. Crystal Carter: When you said Beatles, I wasn't sure which Beatles you were talking about. I was like, are we talking about stag beetles- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my God. Crystal Carter: ... because I like stag beetles. Stag beetles are cool. Mordy Oberstein: Let me quickly run this through Semrush again. Crystal Carter: B-E-E-T. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Beyonce videos has a monthly search volume of 4,400 every month, and I guarantee you if I Google it, it will all be YouTube videos. Do not waste your time. What I'm trying to say is you need to go and look and see what the intent on the surface because maybe it doesn't support written content. Crystal Carter: So here's the thing. When you're thinking about this, I tend to go the other way. I tend to look at what content you have on your site. Let's say you have written content on your site and you have some videos on your YouTube channel. You can do this on Semrush. I'm sure you can do this on other tools as well. Look at your site and look at which pages are ranking and which pages could be ranking for videos, which pages- Mordy Oberstein: You're spoiling it. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: You're spoiling it. Crystal Carter: What am I spoiling? Mordy Oberstein: This. This is our dynamic segment for later. Later, we're going to be going going Google where we talk about looking at what's ranking on the SERP for video and audio content. Crystal Carter: In the tool, you can do this. In the tool, you can do this. You can see what things are ranking for which SERP features. There's a few different tools that will tell you which SERP features are available and you can look on mass at your tools rather than just looking at a single page, which we will discuss in more detail. But you can look at which keywords your page is ranking for and you can look at and see where there are video opportunities. Doing it that way is really, really effective and can help make sure that you're not wasting your time and that you're complimenting content that is ranking well as well. Mordy Oberstein: It could be anything. It could be like, okay, I'm going to spend time optimizing this transcript and on the SERP, all that's there are very short, quick answers. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: You have to just make sure you're lining up with the intent when you're repurposing content for the SERP. Crystal Carter: Of course. Sometimes, it's a question of having a little bit of a mix and match. I'm going to caveat and say this isn't necessarily editorially my favorite publication, but one of the things that the Daily Mail does is they do a TLDR. They'll have an article about, oh, Blue Ivy performed with Beyonce at the London Show, and yes she did. Blue Ivy did not come out at the Cardiff show and I was a little bit upset because I was at the Cardiff show and I was not at the London show, and I was like, whatever. Okay, fine. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. Crystal Carter: Anyway, so let's say there's this article about that. They will have the headline and they will also have a couple of TLDR points. So they'll say like, "Blue Ivy showed up for this song. Blue Ivy did this. Blue Ivy did that." They have a couple of lines and then they'll get into the long, long, long, long, long of the whole article. For instance, if you're seeing something like that and let's say maybe at this time, this moment in time, maybe you don't have time to do a full refit of your transcript page, but maybe you have time to do at the top a couple of quick summarizing points of this topic covers this, this, this and this. That's something that can help you to satisfy some of that quick TLDR intent and also allows you to have the people who want to get in and get the quote or who just want to jump to the part that they're interested in, which are those people, and I'm one of those people, then it allows you to satisfy both intents for instance. Mordy Oberstein: So if you're doing all these different intents and all these different pieces of content and all this repurposing to try to take your audio and your video content and make it ready for rankings among the traditional blue links, then you need to do it at scale, which means we need ideas about how to do this at scale, which is why LinkedIn's own principal content solutions evangelist, Purna Virji, is here to discuss how you can repurpose content at scale. By the way, she got a new book. I'll link in the show notes. We're plugging her book. Crystal Carter: Get the book. Mordy Oberstein: Get the book. Here's Purna. Purna Virji: Hi, Mordy and Crystal. I'm here to share three tips in just about three minutes on how you can repurpose your content at scale. To do this, we're going to take inspiration from Hollywood. Think of a movie like Star Wars. That one creative has been turned from movies into toys, video games, lunch boxes, clothes, you name it. That one idea has been used in a ton of different ways to make billions and billions of dollars overall. May some of that force be with us and it certainly can be with these three blockbuster strategies to repurpose content like a movie mogul. Let's start with tip number one. Now, if we think about biopics and movies based on true stories, they tend to have a really great track record at the box office. We can channel that same idea by building content from news and current affairs to be relevant and timely or suddenly rewrap our content in this news and current affairs newsjacking shell. Let's say, for example, you're a financial planning company and some existing content that you have provides advice on how people can reduce the inheritance bill. How can you reuse it in a way that feels current and fresh and still interesting? That's why you turn to the news. For example, a company called Birkett Long had seen this news story talking about how the actor Daniel Craig, aka James Bond, 007, will not be gifting his estate. So they created a post all about that and then they segued very, very cleverly into sharing their practical advice into how people can reduce their inheritance bill. So clever, existing content rewrap to feel fresh and current and get people to want to read it. Tip number two, remakes of older movies or foreign movies are big business. What we can learn from that is why create from scratch when you can curate from what's worked elsewhere? One of my favorite places to curate from, your data, especially data that can help you stand out during your customer's research process. Think about things like success or effectiveness rates or you can share how customers saw a big improvement. Any values or benefits for choosing you that can be found by data can be turned into really high-value content that already exists. I swear if Mulder and Scully from X-Files were content marketers, they'd agree that the content is out there. You just need to join forces with other teams to find it. Okay, tip number three, think about spin-offs, re-releases, movies made from TV shows, they all show us the value of reusing our own heads in new ways. But now when I'm saying reuse your existing content, I'm not saying just take the existing content and slap it everywhere. No, because that's not really exciting, is it? Something that many people miss, but is one of my favorite tips to do is to go and look at high-value or high-investment pieces, whether it's a research report or a white paper or some ultimate guide. Generally, there's a lot of really good richness in there and its content that can appeal to different types of audiences. So what I advise people to do is pull out different excerpts from it and create shorter pieces that are very highly targeted to certain demographics. Let's say if you are a B2B company and you are trying to appeal to maybe an HR or a manager would be the ultimate decision maker, but the employees of the company would be the end users. You'd want to appeal to both so that way, you can get employees asking and recommending your brand, but you also then appeal to managers and HR to assign the decision. This way, you can speak much more relevantly to each audience and it's not starting from scratch. You can do this by just repurposing what works. So remember, you can create dozens and dozens and dozens of assets with minimal work when you can use the same core IP in a variety of different ways. So anti-hustle culture, reuse, and recycle. Let's even be sustainable with our content. Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Purna. Love all the movie references. This is great. Crystal Carter: Yeah, movies, TV. We had Star Wars. I'm guessing. Where it’s giving me like sci-fi fan vibes because she mentioned Star Wars and the X-Files. Mordy Oberstein: I love sci-fi. I love sci-fi. You know what I also love? Repurposing content the right way. Crystal Carter: Yes, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: It's so many good points. When I'm thinking about repurposing content, I'll tell you the way that I approach it is, what can I spin off really quickly that I can replicate over and over and over again without a lot of resources? Crystal Carter: Also, I think it's a question of what can add value to users in a new way? She talked about Star Wars for instance. One of the reasons why they rebooted it again was that- Mordy Oberstein: Make money, was to make lots of money. Crystal Carter: Well, there's that, but I think also, was to appeal to a new audience. We see this with a few different things where they'll take something that's a little bit retro and they'll reboot it with maybe a younger team or something. So then you have the people who remember it from the nostalgia, that audience, and then you have the people who are seeing it afresh and they're relating to the newer people who are involved with it. I think that this is the thing with your content. We've been talking about video in this particular instance. There might be people who really love a really chunky article that they can sit down with a nice cup of coffee and really get into. There's going to be some people who like video, who like to get video and they're getting most of their notifications via YouTube or via another video streaming platform. So if you're connecting with them in a different way, then that means that you're able to reach them in a way that they find most valuable. The content is going to be really good content, but if you're able to reformat it and repackage it, then yeah, all the better and great, better for user value. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, just make sure that you're not alienating your previous audience when you're creating this content like Star Wars did. I'm salty, very salty about the whole Star Wars thing. We had 20 years, 20 more, 30 years, 35 years, whatever, for Luke Skywalk to come. We're not even going to go there? I will say with repurposing content, one of the things that you want to think about is, hey look, you just got to get going with it sometimes. In order to get going with it, take the path of least resistance and build upon that and then take it from there because it can seem daunting. It can seem overwhelming and it can seem like five jobs all into itself. Get going. Find a quick way to get some momentum on it. See the value in it and that'll help you keep delving into that process even further. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Mordy Oberstein: Now, since we're talking about video and audio content, as you probably know, audio and video content does live on the SERP itself. Google has SERP features for both video and audio, which means that you want to get video and content itself to show up on the SERP whenever appropriate. Let's see where video and audio content on the SERP is heading as we take a directional look at where things are trending towards when it comes to audio and video content on the SERP as we are going, going, going Google. And it's going, going Google. It's out of here. As a podcaster, an award-winning podcaster I might add,- Crystal Carter: I've seen the award. Thanks, Mordy for reminding me that you got an award. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Hold on. Crystal Carter: It's obnoxiously gold. Mordy Oberstein: It is so golden and it's so heavy. Crystal Carter: It's like, what's that? There is a guy, speaking of movies, the baddie in Goldfinger. Mordy Oberstein: I never liked those movies. Crystal Carter: No, Goldmember, Goldmember, the Austin Powers. Mordy Oberstein: Ah. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: That, I know. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: If it was Bond, I don't know, but Austin Powers, right up my alley. You may know that I like podcasting. One of the things I pay attention to as a podcaster is what happens on the SERP for podcast. We've all blog post about this on the SEO hub, the Wix SEO hub that I'll share in the show notes about how to optimize your podcast for search. One of the things that Google tends to show is a box or a carousel, however you want to describe it, that lists all of the podcasts related to the queries. If I search for baseball podcasts, I'll get organic results, but it'll generally sit under a giant box of actual podcast listings that represent baseball podcasts. Now, something that I happen to notice is that for more niche areas like SEO, for example, that carousel is often gone, which by the way, means that the organic placement itself, meaning your actual organic result for the podcast are being shown on lists that represent in the podcast are really important now or more important than they were before. They're really important before because that carousel is gone. I'm talking about, say particularly when you're searching for something, SEO podcast, the carousel, as of this recording, has been gone for a while. I was tracking, by the way, sports medicine podcast, not that I'll do a sports medicine podcast, but again, as a podcaster keeping tabs on these things, that's gone. The only time it shows up is when you search for best SEO podcast. Now the carousel is back, or best sports medicine podcast. I have a theory. Crystal Carter: What's your theory? Mordy Oberstein: I have a theory that Google realizes that people are trending towards not going to the SERP for podcast anymore. Crystal Carter: Interesting, interesting. Mordy Oberstein: They're just going to go to Spotify. Crystal Carter: That's very interesting. I think that that's absolutely true for some searches. You're going to get people who go straight to Spotify or maybe go straight to Google or to Google Podcasts or there's the Apple Podcasts as well. I think that it's a prime example of how SERP features are amazing, but it's also important that you rank in the plain blue links when you're doing things because we've seen that the podcast carousel, for instance, will show. I think on marketing podcasts at the moment, in the UK anyway, I'm getting the display, but as you're saying, it's very dynamic and I've seen that SEO podcast one go up and go down and go up and go down and show and not show. I think that if you're not ranking on the blue links at all, then when those features come and go, which they are want to do because Google might be doing a test or Google might be changing around, they might try to change the SERP feature, if you're not ranking on the plain blue links as well, then that's something that can be a challenge. This is one of the reasons why you should think about that for all kinds of content and not just podcasts as well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and something to really pay attention to and it's interesting that it's changing. If you look at traffic around, let's say Spotify itself, you see a lot of the direct traffic, the organic traffic, a lot of this is going up and up and up over time. We didn't even see how the market ecosystem's play into what happens on Google. I'm just speculating. I don't really know. Crystal Carter: Well, I think they're also sending a lot of traffic to Spotify. So certainly on mobile, if you look up, I think we mentioned Beyonce or whatever, but let's mention her again, but if you look up one of her songs or one of her albums or something, they might very well give you a link to Spotify that goes direct to that part of Spotify that goes to that page or goes to that song or goes to that playlist or whatever. So they're very happy to send people directly into apps in order to satisfy the user need. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. So that's audio. Let's talk about video because you started getting into this a little bit earlier around what's happening with the video SERP and what matters, what doesn't matter these days for getting your video onto the SERP. By the way, just some personal experience, we've seen it with our webinar videos. If you can get a video onto the SERP, you can drive a tremendous amount of views, traffic, or whatever to describe it to your YouTube channel, which is amazing. Crystal Carter: Right, and I think it's important to remember that those two things should work in conjunction. It's very much the case that if you have a video that is on your website and that you're using as a supplementary or complementary or even the primary aspects of a particular web page or blog, then you should also make sure that you're optimizing that page on YouTube. You can add in some of the chapters, for instance, on your YouTube videos. You can add in links back to your content on your YouTube video. You can add in keywords into your YouTube. You can also add in other things. Depending on how you're configuring your website, you can also use some of the attributes from your YouTube optimizations on your web page. So for instance, on Wix, we have Wix Video and one of the things that Wix Video does is you can embed a video from your website. Wix Video is using YouTube's configuration to generate schema markup for that video. So when you add a video onto Wix using Wix Video, it will automatically generate schema markup for that video and it will also pull out the attributes from the YouTube video. So not only will it pull out the summary and the name, but it will also pull out some of those keywords that you would add into your YouTube optimization. So if you are thinking coherently about your YouTube strategy and your video strategy as you're making your content, as you're optimizing your content, then you can find efficiencies through your optimizations. We've seen that users are very often clicking those links that are in the descriptions. We see that regularly. And also, the other thing that's really important to think about is backlinks. When you add a video onto YouTube, that counts as a backlink and that counts as referral traffic and that counts as Google being able to understand what's going on there. So that helps to distribute your content in a number of ways as well. Mordy Oberstein: And if you're going to have the video on the page, one thing to note as of more recent times is that in order for your page to have the video thumbnail show up, it has to be the video is the main content on the page. Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: It's something to consider because if you do have that kind of video and you can show it where it's appropriate to show it towards the top of the SERP for that particular page, then do it because results that are visual are far more clickable than results that are just unto text. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely. Put the video at the top. Put it at the top. Put it at the top. There's nothing worse than having a video on your page and it says at the bottom like, "Oh, this isn't the main video." When you go onto Google Search Console that you can look in your video pages report and you can see whether or not this thinks this is the main content of the page, and if it is the main content of the page, put it at the top so that Google knows that it's the main content of the page. You shouldn't be any ambiguity about that. Mordy Oberstein: Since we're talking that directionally about Google, the fact that Google's adding more video information into Search Console kind of tells you everything that you really need to know about where the web is at. Crystal Carter: Right. Precisely. Users are updating video all the time and users really enjoy video. We see the number of videos that people are watching only increases every year. The thing that's really strange is that even though that people are watching more and more videos, marketers are saying they should make more and more videos. If you ask users do they want more videos from marketers, they say yes. So I'm like, when will it end? How many videos do you need, people? No. Mordy Oberstein: Hey, I could literally waste my life away on YouTube. I am your target market. Crystal Carter: Right. I've definitely done that of an evening. I watched that video. It was seven ways to tie a scarf, which is years old, but that was peak what am I doing with my life. Because I knew all of the different ways. There's only so many ways to tie a scarf. Mordy Oberstein: I literally enjoy sports people talking about the same point, different sports hosts talking about the same point over and over and over again on a daily basis. Crystal Carter: I really like watching people get their hair done on YouTube. I like the before and after. I like that when somebody comes in and we're like, oh look, now they've got a different hairstyle. Well, it's very nice. Mordy Oberstein: I like yelling and screaming. You like- Crystal Carter: Potatoes, potatoes. Anyway. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah. Hey, look, by the way, I sent a bunch of tweets about baseball, which you never even saw. You should check out. It's old Slack. They're hilarious. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: They're talking about videos. Anyway, speaking of videos, we have a great Follow of the Week for you who does a lot of videos, but we got some news for you first. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: What's the news? Crystal Carter: I don't know. What is it? Mordy Oberstein: I don't know yet because I haven't gotten to yet, but I do know one thing. It's snappy. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. First things first, the SEO tools that track changes in the levels of rank fluctuations have all been red-hot. Google is really mixing up rank these days. To that, Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable writes that, "Coming to a theater near you, you could expect an official Google algorithm update this summer." Prepare for impact, red alert and a bunch of other urgency-related catchphrases. Also, per Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Roundtable again, Google Merchant Center: How To Build Trust With Your Customers. A lot of really, really, really interesting takeaways from this one. This is how Google's looking at authority related to products, looking at trust related to products. One of the things they wrote is "include an about us page on your website to show your authenticity and tell customers your unique story." It's a very underrated tactic. You really should focus on the about page. It's one of the only pages where you can explicitly tell Google who you are, what you do in very direct terms. Also tell your users at the same time, but from an SEO point of view, really, really helpful. Also, Google wrote, "Help potential customers understand how to use your products or how other customers have used them. Show reviews and testimonials about your products and business." I've longed held that one of the things that can help a landing page really do better on search is showing informational content, how to use the product, when to use the product, all of that FAQ-ish kind of stuff. Usually on landing pages, we're very conversion-minded, but Google's basically telling you here, if you have a little bit of an informational intent embedded in there, it could be really helpful and I think it very much resonates with users at the same time, especially if they're a little more skeptical. Last one for you from Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal, Google's On Domain Name Selection: Branding Over Keywords. It's always good to get a refresh on this sort of points and to spell some SEO miss. This comes from Google's Search Off the Record podcast. The question, overarching question was, what do I do? Do I use a keyword to pick my domain name or do I choose a more brand-focused domain name? Gary from Google wrote for example, or rather he said, he didn't write, it's a podcast, Gary over Google said that basically, there's a very little impact from a ranking point of view using the keyword in the URL, but there could be a very big impact from a conversion point of view. I think the example that he gave was, let's say you are selling passport pictures and the domain name is something that relates to passport pictures like best passport picture place versus something very generic like get pictures. You're going to probably choose as a user the domain that is more specifically focused on what you're actually looking for. So keyword, not a big impact on rankings, but actually having the brand focus on what you do in very specific way, meaning don't worry about the keyword ranking stuff so much, more on the branding side can have a big conversion impact. John pointed out, and I always like John's perspective on these things, John Mueller said, "You should think long term because changing your domain name is always a hassle and you want to keep it for a long time if you can." What he's referring to is you want to think about how your business is going to expand. For example, I mentioned back in the day, the name of my website was vcrs.com when no one uses a VCR anymore. If the domain was more reflective on the wider media as opposed to the specific device, then I might be able to keep the same domain name as technology changes as my product or service offering expands. So really good points, really foundational points. Always good to get a refresher. Thank you, John. Thank you, Gary. Thank you Martin from Google for the podcast episode. We'll link to all these articles in the show notes and that is this week's Snappy News. As promised as always, so snappy. Crystal Carter: So snappy. Mordy Oberstein: Snappylicious, really. If it is a soft drink, it will be Snapple. Crystal Carter: I literally was just thinking of that and particularly I was thinking of the little poems that they put on their caps of the Snapple. That is proper microcopy. I don't know who thought of that, but the person who did- Mordy Oberstein: The branding right there. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's iconic. It's iconic. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Now, you know what else is iconic? Love my segues today. Sam Oh. If you're looking for videos about SEO, then you should definitely check out Sam Oh and the videos he's done for, Ahrefs. I'll call them timeless classics on SEO YouTube. Crystal Carter: We were very fortunate to have Sam Oh join us at a Wix SEO event at BrightonSEO. Mordy Oberstein: Well, I don't want to mess this up. This is our Follow of the Week, people. Sam Oh is our Follow of the Week. I got this, unprofessional award-winning podcast host. Crystal Carter: He is award-winning. You need to put that on your YouTube bio. Okay, so our Follow of the Week is Sam Oh. We were very fortunate to have him at a Wix SEO event during BrightonSEO recently. He walked in and he went, "Hi, I'm Sam Oh," and I was like, "Sam, everyone here knows who you are. We all know who you are." He's had billions and billions of views on YouTube and the guy is such a nice guy. He is so methodic and so clear in the way that he creates his videos and the content that he creates and the way that he approaches SEO and it's really very much a resource. It's the kind of content that is just exceptional. He's been doing it for a few years and he's a great asset to the SEO community, an absolute pillar. So absolutely follow Sam Oh, not only because his content's great, but he's a nice guy. Mordy Oberstein: And just to add value of it, is that on YouTube, I don't know how to put this gently, sometimes the SEO content is not of the highest quality and it's hard to know who to listen to. Sam is somebody you should listen to, so do follow Sam on Twitter. It's @samS-G-O-H, so S-A-M-S-G-O-H. We'll link to his Twitter profile in the show notes. Now, if we were taking our own advice, we would repurpose our outro every single week. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: Sometimes it does pay to do custom stuff, so we're going to do a custom outro. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: We're not going to repurpose from week to week. Crystal Carter: All right. Mordy Oberstein: We value the podcast. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: Is it you're… Mordy Oberstein: You get what I'm saying? I'm saying we're talking about repurposing and saving time, but we're not repurposing something that many, many podcasts often repurpose, which is the intro in the outros. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Oh, good. Okay. So are we saying goodbye now? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, yeah, sorry. This is my way of saying goodbye. Crystal Carter: Okay. Bye, everybody. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much for joining us at SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into, does social media matter for SEO? 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 all the great content and webinars at the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Is programmatic SEO a good option for your site? The benefit can be huge but what about content quality and accuracy? Are you looking to create content at scale dynamically? Should you be? If so, when and how do you provide unique value along the way? Wix’s Crystal Carter and programmatic SEO curmudgeon Mordy Oberstein give their take on the benefits and pitfalls of programmatic SEO. Paul Andre De Vera gives his tips on keeping things personal when working programmatically so that you can still speak to your audience naturally. Don’t change the program… Dive into this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast all about programmatic SEO! Back Getting with the programmatic SEO program Is programmatic SEO a good option for your site? The benefit can be huge but what about content quality and accuracy? Are you looking to create content at scale dynamically? Should you be? If so, when and how do you provide unique value along the way? Wix’s Crystal Carter and programmatic SEO curmudgeon Mordy Oberstein give their take on the benefits and pitfalls of programmatic SEO. Paul Andre De Vera gives his tips on keeping things personal when working programmatically so that you can still speak to your audience naturally. Don’t change the program… Dive into this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast all about programmatic SEO! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 39 | May 24, 2023 | 34 MIN 00:00 / 34:13 This week’s guests Paul Andre De Vera You’ll find Paul Andre de Vera speaking on podcasts/webinars, looking for the next great place to devour a delicious rib-eye steak, and occasionally sipping a glass of whiskey. All while coaching, serving clients, and producing the SEO Video Show. 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 putting out some groovy new insights around what's happened in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of Brand SEO at Wix. Joined by Better Head SEO Communications. The person who knows all about all of the things most of the time. Because if I say all of the time, I'll get a snarky look. Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: There's no snarky looks. It's only happy looks. Mordy Oberstein: I say, you know all of the things, but everything. Like you're like, oh no, that's a lot of pressure Mordy. I don't like that. So... Crystal Carter: That's true. They say a man who knows something, knows that he knows nothing at all, or at least that's what Erica Badu said that one time. She's very wise. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, she's wise. I think Socrates said like, the only difference between me and you is that I know what I don't know. Crystal Carter: There you go. There you go. Mordy Oberstein: And you're a narcissistic, self-centered... I think that was the implication, what he was saying. Crystal Carter: Erica Badu and Socrates obviously like two grateful... Mordy Oberstein: He's a pod. Crystal Carter: Designs entirely. Mordy Oberstein: This SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can combine the power of Python and Wix's full stack dev tool Velo to build out programmatic dynamic content for yourself. Behold the full-on nerdiness and power of Wix. And if you don't believe you can do it, Colt Sliva over on Glassdoor did in his article all about just that because he literally did just that. We'll link to it in the show notes because today, guess what we're talking about? Programmatic SEO. That's right. We're talking about programmatic SEO as in what the heck is programmatic SEO? Is programmatic SEO a zero-sum game? Can everyone get with the program? What works, what doesn't work, and what to be wary of when doing programmatic SEO. And all-time SEO, all star and knowledge bomb dropper, Paul Andre De Vera will join us, share his tips on keeping things personal when working programmatically, and we'll dive into a special tool around programmatic SEO and beyond. As I already mentioned, Wix is Velo, and of course we have the snappiest of SEO News and who should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So program, get your program here as episode number 39 of the SERP's Up podcast helps you get with the program, the programmatic SEO program that is. I went full on, I'm a vendor at a baseball stadium. Crystal Carter: Well, I mean, they're very good at their jobs. I do love that when they, the guy's got the train. They- Mordy Oberstein: Programs! Crystal Carter: Who wants? I'm like, yeah- Mordy Oberstein: Hear hear! At Bryant, that's like, we had our stand-up Brighten SEO. We were giving out beer. I'm like, this is a perfect time to be a baseball stadium and a beer here. They don't do that anymore. You have to go to the stands to get your, that was half the fun. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Guy walking around yelling, hotdog! And then you have to pass it through the row to the person who actually ordered the hotdog. So everyone's hands all over your hotdog. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's all very communal. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: Very authentic. Sometimes you buy a thing just because of the experience. I used to go to green grocers and he just had platitudes for everything. I'd be like, oh, can I buy some grapes? He's like, all right, sweetheart, can I have some oranges? All right treacle. And what about some satsumas or something's like, oh, all right my pet. And I just kept buying things just to see if he ran out of stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Nice, nice. Crystal Carter: He never did. I don't know how, but yeah, I found it quite amusing. Mordy Oberstein: That is an amazing set. It's almost like Trader Joe's. When you go to Trader Joe's, they have a whole experience, ringing the bell, or wearing the pirate shirt. You go just for that. Crystal Carter: My Trader Joe's experience has never been like that. I've never worn a pirate shirt. Mordy Oberstein: No, I don't wear the pirate shirt, but they're wearing pirate shirts and stuff and Hawaiian shirts and pirate patches and all... It's all thematic at Trader Joe's. Crystal Carter: Thematic programmatic. What are we talking about today? Mordy Oberstein: Okay, so looking to create hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pages of content that follow the same template or format? Then programmatic SEO might for you. It also might not be for you, but we'll get to that in due course. So programmatic SEO, if I had to define it while standing on one foot, should I stand on, I will stand on one foot. I'm sitting down. I don't know how to do that. It's when you pull data or content in from a database into a content template, and then by natural result you have a heap of pages for your website. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: While some would argue that e-com, Kevin Indig, isn't a case for programmatic SEO, I would perhaps argue and say that it is a really easy case to point to about using programmatic SEO wisely. You pull things in like the product name, the description, which you can use for your title tag and meta description respectively as well, and all the naming from the inventory database. And you plug that in with your usual shipping and return policies you have on every page. And you basically have spun up programmatic content for who knows how many number of product pages without actually typing a single word. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: That's programmatic. I feel like some will disagree. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of people who are using this for e-commerce, incredibly, incredibly productively. Wayfair is someone who used programmatic SEO and has used some of Google's own tools for some of them work in there and they're crushing it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Hey, look. It works and it's good. Crystal Carter: I think it's entirely the kind of thing where you have something that has a lot of attributes, that has a lot of structured data, has a lot of things. For instance, if you think about a sofa, you're going to talk about the material. You're going to talk about how many seats it has. You're going to talk about whether it reclines, whether it has Bluetooth. I saw a sofa with Bluetooth- Mordy Oberstein: No. We were just shopping for a new sofa. Our children have destroyed it. And we had it for 16 years. I love it. It's great. I'm going to keep it, but not in the living room because I can't part with it. Crystal Carter: That's such a dad thing to do. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And there's like all these, I just want a sofa. And it's so much stuff. Sorry, sidetrack. Crystal Carter: Right. But I think when you have a product that has lots of attributes, and particularly if you're thinking about something like Google Merchant Center encourages you, it requires you to add in all of those attributes to your data sets, to the information that you have about your products anyway. So it makes sense to take that data, take those attributes, take that information and use it to generate content in a programmatic way. And so e-commerce is absolutely perfect for this. And it also means that you're much more consistent with your product pages when you're creating your product pages so that everything has the same information- Mordy Oberstein: Which makes making changes and fixing things. And it's also easier. So just one last point before we actually dive into the thick of it. Often is what I think separates our programmatic SEO as a content strategy from regular traditional SEO is that often when you're doing this, your goal is not to rank well for a specific page or specific keyword word, but to spin up so much content that it doesn't really matter. That if you have a hundred thousand pages ranking nine or 10 on the SERP, you'll get all of that same kind of traffic or the amount of traffic that you would've had if you were ranking number one with a far fewer pages kind of thing. So that's of course is kind of tricky from a strategic point of view. And all of the metrics might not be the same or as important when you're working programmatically and dynamically. So that's another thing to kind of keep in mind. But that's sort of the general gist on programmatic SEO. I for one, just going to say this at the onset. I'm a bit of a programmatic SEO, curmudgeon, even though I do think it's a great place to test things, but that's just me. Crystal, what about you? Crystal Carter: I think that it gives you the opportunity to serve content for really long tail keywords. This is something that Miriam Myriam Jessier talks about in one of the articles that we have on the SEO hub. And because you're able to use the information about your products, the entities associated with your products, the keywords associated with your products as fodder for content creation in a programmatic way, it's easy to spin up very long tail, very specific keyword categories or category pages or product pages for specific things. And so I think programmatic SEO is great when it solves a problem. Like any SEO. All of the SEO that you're doing is all about adding value for users. That's at the end of the day, adding value for users. And Google's measuring whether or not you're adding value for users. So when they ranking, that's a reflection of the value that they can ascertain that you add for users. So Etsy does this programmatic SEO, Wayfair I mentioned as well. If you're able to drill down into those Etsy keywords, gold earrings with leopard print trim in a hoop shape, and I'm looking specifically for those things, or shoes in this size and this color of this thing. And I'm able to drill all the way down and not have to filter through all of your pages and not have to navigate to everything, but to get exactly what I want from the SERP, then absolutely that's where programmatic SEO wins. And I think that that's where programmatic SEO really, really succeeds. Mordy Oberstein: So let me ask, when would you specifically recommend or not recommend programmatic SEO? Crystal Carter: If you have a large amount of content and you have a large number of products, and also if you have the tooling to do so, as well and to maintain it, I think also a lot of businesses that are working in a sort of high product turnover, like fast moving consumer goods space, they're going to need to do that because they need to be able to spin up content straight away so that they can sort of say, let's capitalize on say a trend that's happening straight away, or let's take this massive catalog. Because I've worked in, I previously worked for a toy manufacturer and we had all of our products, that we manufactured and we had the one, all these giant spreadsheets and all of that sort of stuff. And if you are trying to manually implement making all these changes to every particular product, then it's impossible. It is an impossible task. So when you have a big product set, then programmatic SEO is a fantastic one. Also, if it's something that you're seeing that your competitors are doing, and you might want to think, I need to keep pace because this is what consumers are going to be expecting to see. So it's always important to think about not just how people are searching on your site or how people are arriving on your site, but how the wider ecosystem is also experiencing a search. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point because it doesn't, first up, doesn't have to be zero-sum. It doesn't mean I only doing programmatic SEO. If you see that competitors doing it for certain types of keywords, certain types of pages or whatever it is, and you can do that for that. And if you want to take a demonstrate for different pages, you can do that for that. You could also programmatically build on certain elements of a page. Why wouldn't you? For example, on the e-comm side. Let's say for whatever reason you want to write custom descriptions. God bless. The shipping and the return policy. If you're not just reusing that on every page programmatically, I don't know why you wouldn't, for example. So that's a very hyperbolic example, but it's not zero-sum. You can use programmatic SEO in certain places on your website. You can programmatically build certain parts of the page. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. But I will say, the way I think about it as well, going back to my point of being an SEO curmudgeon about programmatic SEO is I kind of view it AI. AI generated content. It's very, very similar in my mind because you're talking about the possibility of running into creating a lot of low quality content. Or a lot of un-targeted content. And I feel like sometimes you do need to be careful. Cases where the language structure does matter. So for example, in the product review space. To programmatically build out product review pages, if you're a website that has, that's your whole thing, you're like a CNET and you're programmatically just like you're taking certain inputs, taking output certain inputs and creating pros and cons list out of them whatever you're doing. I think that's going to be a space where you have to be careful. Where you might build it out programmatically, but somehow supplement it at the same time. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. I think that goes back to your point of having a mix of programmatic content and I guess more manually created content. But I think that essentially we're working in a space where a lot of times we have massive data sets that we're trying to wrangle both from an SEO point of view, but also from a sort of just general marketing point of view. And I think that the efficiency that the programmatic SEO potentially combined with it, because this is the other thing that a lot of people are combining programmatic SEO and AI content, particularly for content generation. So for instance, you would say, I have a product with this attribute, this attribute, that attribute and that attribute. And then it'll write a product description for that particular, then you can use generative AI to write a product description for that content. And that is something that is going to be saving a lot of time. And also, again, producing a lot of consistency with those things. Though again, as we have with any AI thing, editing is key and QA is crucial. So checking over those things and making sure that you're not publishing things, that AI generated content that isn't accurate and making sure that you've trained your prompts so that they accurately reflect what your products do, how they work. So I think that we did a webinar on chat GPT and AI writers and how to use them. And one of the really good examples that Ross Hudgins showed was giving a generative tool, a dataset, for instance, say a product dataset and asking them to create a piece of copy based on that. And I think that if you're able to figure out the best prompt that works for your type of data set, then that can help you to scale content very quickly. So I think that it can help you to, could connect with niches really quickly. It can help you to spin up a lot of things. But also I think from a programmatic point of view, if you're talking about thin content, or maybe not necessarily low quality content, but maybe sort of fairly repetitive content, and Google talks about this, they show a case study for Wayfair, for instance, about this, for ads. So for instance, if you're a locksmith and you're working generally in New York, you might want a PPC landing page that's locksmith for the Bronx, locksmith for Brooklyn, locksmith for Westchester, locksmith, for Manhattan, for Harlem, for wherever. And spinning those out programmatically? Yeah, brilliant, because you're not indexing them anyway and you just need them to match what the query is that you're serving for your ads. And this is something that Google is advertising on their Think With Google, there's a great Think With Google example- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, on the ads side. It makes absolute total sense to do that. And even on the SEO side, a lot of it's the same thing. If it's a local pages go, most of that page's content is going to be very, very, very similar. And it's a matter of going in and changing a couple things around here and there and make it a little bit better and unique then do that. One of the other things that kind of touch on, something you were talking about that I wanted to quickly bring up is that when you do this, it's a great environment to test things. So if you want to have a certain way of constructing the page or certain type of description, it's a way of figuring out what really works, what doesn't work. Because you're working with A, a huge amount of page, so the data you're going to get back is going to be way more accurate than, oh, I have a couple of pages made a title tag change here. Is that really, so you are in an environment that already lends itself the testing where the results are way more accurate equals make those changes much quicker and it helps you drive. Okay. Here's how I think Google's kind of understanding me, which is kind of what Colt did in the post that we mentioned before. He spun up a website programmatically and he wanted with the idea of seeing, okay, what sticks? How is Google understanding this content and is this the right way to go with it or is it not the right way to go? So he spun up the programmatic content as a way of seeing what direction to take the final draft, which I thought was really interesting. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. Testing is absolutely crucial because Google will very often look at pages as a page type. So for instance, if you see a search console error, they will say, here's an example of a page like this. If you have 45,000 product pages, they're not going to show you the error for every single, the in-detail for every single product page. But they'll say, here's an example of one that you have. And then you can look at that. And so if you submit it up programmatically, then the fix, you might make a big mistake at once, but you can also make a big fix at once. That's really useful to being able to test that. And also, if you've ever done CRO testing, one of the things that can sometimes be a challenge, particularly when you're doing one page at a time, is actually getting the traffic volume to get any kind of data that's of any use. So if you're spinning up, many many pages have the same basic format, the same kind of iterations in terms of your CRO, then you're going to be able to get a lot more data more quickly than if you were to do it one page at a time. I think one of the other benefit, I can't remember if Colt touched on this as well, but one of the other benefits of programmatic SEO is that it's really easy to align it with things like schema markup, for instance. So I'm think I've mentioned them before, but I remember I judged as a search award and one of the entries was from Dairy Queen. And one of the things I love, they spun up all of these and they programmatically did this. They spun up all of these pages for their Dairy Queen locations and it has all of the attributes and they're aligned with the things that are on Google business profile. They're aligned with the things that are in their structured data and they're aligned with the things that are on their page. And so you can see that consistency going all the way through, what the hours are, where the location is, what the amenities are, whether they have delivery or pickup, or whether they accept credit cards and all of that sort of stuff. So they're able to spin those all up and they're also able to roll them all out to multiple channels. So you get all your pages that are marked up in the same way, and you have all the schema that works with all of those. And then you have all of those are also attributed to each of those Google business profiles. So what you get with programmatic SEO is the ability to use your content as a data set and to be able to use it consistently across multiple channels, which is epic. Mordy Oberstein: So taking into a completely different direction, going back to what we were talking about before about trying to add a personal touch, all your programmatic content to help us with that is the host of the SEO Video Show great YouTube show. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: At SEO. Knowledge Bombs. Crystal Carter: Fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: It's fantastic. Here's Paul Andre De Vera about when working with content at scale, how do you ensure you keep the right tone and personal touch with your content? Paul Andre De Vera: Maintaining a personal touch in your content is important to building a strong personal brand voice and establishing connection with your audience. One effective way I achieve this is by writing the way I speak. Recording yourself, taking and getting it transcribed can be an awesome exercise to help you capture your personal tone and language. You can then use transcriptions as a basis for your content, editing and refining it as needed to make sure it meets your personal language and fits within the context of your content strategy. However, when working with tools like Grammarly, it's important not to accept every suggestion blindly. These tools can help identify and correct grammar and spelling errors, and they may also try to substitute words and phrases that are part of your natural speaking style. I personally like using words such as, awesome, love it, fabulous. These are examples of words that Grammarly may flag, but is part of my personal language. Incorporating personal touches like these can help your content feel more genuine and relatable to your audience, building a stronger connection and establishing your brand as approachable and authentic. Just be your silly self consistently online just as you are offline. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Paul. Definitely. Again, check out Paul on Twitter at Paul Andre and check out the SEO Video Show Crystal Carter: On YouTube. Mordy Oberstein: On YouTube. Look, by the way, his point about Grammarly. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: I feel that in every bone of my body. Crystal Carter: Yo. Mordy Oberstein: Because sometimes it's like, change this change. I'm like, no. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: No. I'm not changing that. Mordy Oberstein: Not changing that. That's a whole linchpin. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Like Grammarly, that's my vibes. That's just my style. That's how I do it. Also with Grammarly, it's obviously they're making it so they and talk about Grammarly all the time. But I remember reading, I'm sure I mentioned this before Toni Morrison had a book and she just, she's, it was one sentence for the whole page and it was beautiful and it was fantastic. But I also say, and and and and and. And sometimes I'm trying to get some rhythm. Mordy Oberstein: Like, like, like, like. Crystal Carter: I do say like. Mordy Oberstein: I'm talking about myself. I say it all the time. Crystal Carter: I'm from California. That's how we do... it is what it is. But I think that, yeah, what he's saying about adding in, making sure that you keep your tone of voice is really important. I think about brands that have a tone and it's really important. So for instance, MailChimp has a tone that they just sort of have a tone, even when it's a small little piece of micro copy, there's definitely a tone of voice to it. There's a couple of other brands that I can think of that are a little bit, there's brands that are a little bit salty sometimes. So the- Mordy Oberstein: Wendy's? Crystal Carter: Duolingo can be a little bit salty sometimes. Duolingo has a very dry sense of humor as a brand, and that's kind of their style. And even sometimes to the point where you can recognize the style, you can recognize someone from their styles. And I think with some of the AI things, like Google I/O thing announced that Google Cloud is making it so that you can use your own data sets to train information. So it might be that you add your language style guide into something to maybe move that into programmatic SEO. There's a lot of moving parts going on at the moment, but I think that making sure that you've got your clear tone of voice when you're spinning things up programmatically is, yeah, really important. Mordy Oberstein: Super important. This again, it tells all the time, and I like my soapbox where brand marketing overlaps with SEO, it's such an under discussed undervalued point. And it's something that I know we talk about, you need to align with your designers and your devs, but a lot of times you need to align more with your brand marketers because they're the ones defining how you're going to have to speak publicly. And if they see the programmatic content and they see that it's not in line with the brand tone of voice, they're not going to be happy. So better get that done beforehand as opposed to after hand, which is, I know not a word, but it definitely- Crystal Carter: After hand? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Why would you say beforehand and then after the fact? Makes no sense. Let's be- Crystal Carter: Should it be before fact and- Mordy Oberstein: It should either be before fact or it should be after hand. Crystal Carter: After... Nobody's saying after hand, it's- Mordy Oberstein: Now we are. Crystal Carter: Stop trying to make fetch happen. Mordy Oberstein: So anyway, after hand that, speaking of programmatic content and SEO, we already mentioned cold sliver and how we use a combination of Python and a little tool we call Velo to dynamically create pages at scale. So we figured we jump into this fellow called Velo with a programmatic edition of Tool Time. Velo is a full stack dev tool inbuilt into Wix. So you can enable dev mode, which by the way, Phil should be getting a Mortal Combat... Enable dev mode. Crystal Carter: We should talk to the team and be like, what we need is an explosion though. It goes... Dev mode. Mordy Oberstein: And just like a firebomb goes off on the page. Crystal Carter: Instead of deploying, you should just go finish him. Mordy Oberstein: Dev mode activated. Finish him. Crystal Carter: And then when you run your code, it should go ….. Mordy Oberstein: I'll see if we can add to the roadmap. Crystal Carter: Okay, I'll do that. I'll do that. Mordy Oberstein: I'll advocate. This is why we advocate very much a lot internally. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: I feel we should add this to our list of things to advocate for. Crystal Carter: Dev mode. Mordy Oberstein: Activate it. Okay. So yeah, back on track. Velo. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So Velo. So Velo, I love Velo. I love Velo so much. Velo is absolutely brilliant. It is a JavaScript like playground essentially within Wix. And you can build JavaScript things all the way through it. And there's lots of fantastic stuff. So we have something called the content manager, and essentially you can take a spreadsheet, it's a spreadsheet sort of format, and it works really well for programmatic- Mordy Oberstein: Programmatic SEO. Because you're connected to a data set and there's your content. Crystal Carter: You can also connect to external datasets, you can add your own datasets, you can connect to other databases as well. And there's lots of tools for Tree to be able to do that. And basically you can use it for, you can use it with JavaScript to create all sorts of fantastic things. So Mark Preston is somebody who created an SEO jobs board, for instance, using Velo. And so you're able to create tools there. And I've also created a few tools myself. I created a Bingo game on my website. Mordy Oberstein: Did you really? You used it to get a Bingo game. I did not know that. How did I not know that? Crystal Carter: I need a bingo game for, it's like a conference SEO bingo game. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's right, you did. I do remember that. Okay, fine. I'm not a horrible friend. Crystal Carter: So the other thing that's great about Velo is that Velo has, so you might say, well, but I'm not a JavaScript person. I don't know all the things. That's okay. Because first of all, our documentation is extremely extensive. Second of all, within Velo, they have tons of guidance in the actual code. So if you input the code incorrectly, it will tell you. It will give you an error or it'll give you a little thing that says, hey, you should have this, or there should be a variable, or you should update that part. So that's really useful. The other thing that's great is that you can use it with an LOM. So for instance, Bard. Bard is trained on loads of bits of code, so is Chat GPT. So I have, I've created something and my JavaScript is, okay. And that's generous. My JavaScript is okay. But I was able to go, I was basically able to take some of the guidance that I got from Velo. So Velo says, oh, this bit of code isn't quite right. And I'm like, okay. So I popped that into GPT and I was like, hey, GPT, I got this error for this code, but I wanted to do this. And GPT was like, yeah, try this bit of code. So then I popped it back into Velo and then I got a different error and then I put that back into GPT, and by the time I'd gone back and forth between these two things, I was able to build something that was amazing. So what's really cool is that we have... It's got so many different functionalities in it. There's something called Velo Examples, which is a collection of lots of really cool things that people have built on Velo. And on each of those pages there is, there's the code, there's a demo, and you can copy the code from it. The other thing that's great about Velo is that the code is transferable. So for instance, we have lots, it's all sort of API based, and we have a library that's Wix SEO. So if you have a piece of code that is for changing the canonical, we had this situation, didn't we Mordy? Mordy, you were like, oh- Mordy Oberstein: A bomb, A podcast website. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Somebody was like, oh, I want to change the canonical on this podcast change. I was like, oh, you can do this. He was like, oh, maybe you can set up a call. I was like, no, literally just copy and paste this code. Mordy Oberstein: The code, yeah. Crystal Carter: Copy and paste this code and put it on that page and it will work because it's all sort of set up to work. Mordy Oberstein: You could do that dynamically. You could dynamically as structured data to whatever you want, kind of set up pages, you want to do it. There's so much you can do with it. Crystal Carter: And you can create your own variable. So if you have a piece of content on your page, let's say you've got the word or something, you can create a variable. You can name that variable, you can use that variable in your code further down. We also have connections into NPM. So there's like lots of API integrations that are built in Google sheets and Google Maps, for instance. But you can also connect into NPM. I literally love Velo. The team behind Velo have nurtured this and have spent so much time making it fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: And there's so much content, by the way. If you, we'll link to a bunch of it. But there's an endless amount of content they've put out there... It's a cavernous library of content Velo, which we'll link to it. It's awesome. Crystal Carter: And I think the thing that's great is working with those things, but also, particularly if you're a noob, like me, to JavaScript, is that the things like GPT, like Bard that are trained on code, you can say in JavaScript, how do I do this? So if there's something that's specific, you can also back up some of the things with general information about JavaScript and things like that. So it's fantastic. And it also opens up a whole world of functionality on Wix, and I think it's going to be fantastic as we go into the headless space. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I was going to say it. It's perfect. Because we've just gotten headless for this. For example, the CMS that you just mentioned. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: You can use that. It's headless. You can take that and you can plug that into your front end, and you can use the Wix function, that CMS functionality kind of wherever. Crystal Carter: And the things that with the headless Wix situation, a lot of the things that they leaned on in the first instance are particularly lean themselves to programmatic SEO and programmatic data creation. So for instance, like the events, the bookings- Mordy Oberstein: Booking, products... Crystal Carter: Products, all of that sort of stuff, it leans itself really well... Lends itself really well to that. So between the headless space and the Velo and all of the amazing functionalities- Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot of automation you could be doing. Crystal Carter: A lot of stuff you can do. I mean, who even needs to touch it? Mordy Oberstein: Who needs humans anymore? Crystal Carter: But I think it's really great, and I think it's great to see the combination of opening up the platform more and also bringing in some of the AI elements that we have and making it really accessible to lots of different developers and lots of different development needs. Mordy Oberstein: It's really cutting edge stuff from really great people. Now you know what else is new? The actual news. So here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy news, two little juicy SEO tidbits for you this week. First up, as reported from Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal, Neva, the ad free search engine announces closure. Neva was built, by the way, as a sort of a way to downplay the role of ads and search and increase the role of content creators. It had an AI chat experience, and it had a pretty good little search engine. Unfortunately will be shuttered, which is very unfortunate. You never want to see anything fail. It was a nice idea. It really does though, kind of highlight how hard it is to compete with Google. So as you see things developing in the AI world and you see, oh, Google's going down... Take a deep breath, take pause. It is very hard to compete with Google. From his royal Rustiness, the king of bricks, Mr. Rusty Brick, AKA Barry Schwartz, the fourth. Google helpful content update can demote and now promote content. As you may know, and as we've talked about here on this very podcast, Google announced that the helpful content update will be getting a revamp. This was announced at Google I/O 2023. In specific, Google said the system would help identify "hidden gems". Seeing this, friend of the show, an avid Yankees fan, Glen Gabe, asked Google search liaison Denny Sullivan, if this was an update to the current functioning of the ranking system or a new ability altogether. Denny said, "The helpful content system will be working to identify and show more hidden gems on search, along with still working to ensure unhelpful content is not performing well." So in a nutshell, the helpful content update will not only be about hitting sites with low quality, but will now have a net positive impact of uplifting the hidden gems of the web. I feel like there should be a special badge if you are one of these hidden gems of the web that says, hidden gem of the web, you could plaster on your homepage. And that is this week's Snappy News. I just got to say, I just love by the way, that when the news happens so organically like that, in this case, Glen Gabe asking a question, Barry covering it. They're great people, Glen and Barry. Speaking of people, by the way, that brings us to our follow of the week, which is, we've already mentioned him three or four times at this point. He is Glassdoor's, SEO, former member of the Wix SEO Advisory Board. He's a writer for the Web Almanac. He's Colt Sliva. Crystal Carter: He's such a nice guy. He's so smart. Mordy Oberstein: The nicest dude, right? Crystal Carter: So nice. Mordy Oberstein: The nicest guy. Crystal Carter: And so smart. I think the first time that I came across Colt was he was speaking at SMX about something very clever, and I remember watching the talk and I was like- Mordy Oberstein: It was very clever. Crystal Carter: I remember watching him. I was like, this guy knows stuff. This guy is so smart. Mordy Oberstein: I came across him the first time at, when he was at IOL rank, we were working Gareth Sussman. I think he was on my podcast I was doing at the time. I don't remember anything about- Crystal Carter: Probably. Mordy Oberstein: Probably. Crystal Carter: Probably. Mordy Oberstein: The smartest guy, the nicest guy. I worked with him obviously on the Wix SEO advisory board, but also we worked together on the SEO section, on the web almanac. He was such a resource. I will tell you right now that Web Almanac, or at least the SEO section, would not have happened if it weren't for Colt. Crystal Carter: The other thing I would say about Colt is that he has such a healthy curiosity and people say, oh, what do you need to be in SEO? Like, do you need this skill or that skill or that skill. I'm like, fundamentally, you need to be curious. You need to be the kind of person who would talk about- Mordy Oberstein: John Mueller. Crystal Carter: Yeah, you need to be the kind of person who wants to go down the rabbit hole who wants, hears like, oh, there's a new toilet. They're like, what does it do? What happens if I do this? What if I do that? What if I look at this? Mordy Oberstein: You change the JavaScript around on the toilet, what happens? Crystal Carter: Exactly. And Colt, he likes to build things. He likes to explore things, and he's super approachable and super interested. So yeah, can't say nice enough things about Colt, like do follow Colt. Mordy Oberstein: Don't just follow Colt, interact with Colt, talk to Colt. Crystal Carter: Tell him that we sent you. Tell him that Mordy and Crystal sent you. Mordy Oberstein: Talk to him. He's on Twitter at, S I G N O R C O L T. Of course, we'll link to his Twitter profile in the show notes because I don't expect you remember how to spell that by listening to this in your car. But that does bring us to the end of the podcast. I would programmatically end the podcast now. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: But I don't know how to do that with my VO. I guess I could record an ending and plug that in every single time, but I feel like that would not be doing justice to the audience and to the podcast. Crystal Carter: Yeah, well, you know... Mordy Oberstein: Not a good use of programmatic. Crystal Carter: No, I don't think so. No, not on this particular occasion. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, fine. Crystal Carter: You betcha. Mordy Oberstein: Here's the custom ending. 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 as we dive into how to get started with international SEO as we chat with drum roll, Aleyda Solis. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO learning lab over at www.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO learning lab 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 Paul Andre De Vera Colt Sliva Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Programmatic content expansion The SEO Video Show Wix Velo News: Neeva, The Ad-Free Search Engine, Announces Closure Google Helpful Content Update Can Demote & Now Promote Content: Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Paul Andre De Vera Colt Sliva Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Programmatic content expansion The SEO Video Show Wix Velo News: Neeva, The Ad-Free Search Engine, Announces Closure Google Helpful Content Update Can Demote & Now Promote 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 putting out some groovy new insights around what's happened in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of Brand SEO at Wix. Joined by Better Head SEO Communications. The person who knows all about all of the things most of the time. Because if I say all of the time, I'll get a snarky look. Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: There's no snarky looks. It's only happy looks. Mordy Oberstein: I say, you know all of the things, but everything. Like you're like, oh no, that's a lot of pressure Mordy. I don't like that. So... Crystal Carter: That's true. They say a man who knows something, knows that he knows nothing at all, or at least that's what Erica Badu said that one time. She's very wise. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, she's wise. I think Socrates said like, the only difference between me and you is that I know what I don't know. Crystal Carter: There you go. There you go. Mordy Oberstein: And you're a narcissistic, self-centered... I think that was the implication, what he was saying. Crystal Carter: Erica Badu and Socrates obviously like two grateful... Mordy Oberstein: He's a pod. Crystal Carter: Designs entirely. Mordy Oberstein: This SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Searchlight over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can combine the power of Python and Wix's full stack dev tool Velo to build out programmatic dynamic content for yourself. Behold the full-on nerdiness and power of Wix. And if you don't believe you can do it, Colt Sliva over on Glassdoor did in his article all about just that because he literally did just that. We'll link to it in the show notes because today, guess what we're talking about? Programmatic SEO. That's right. We're talking about programmatic SEO as in what the heck is programmatic SEO? Is programmatic SEO a zero-sum game? Can everyone get with the program? What works, what doesn't work, and what to be wary of when doing programmatic SEO. And all-time SEO, all star and knowledge bomb dropper, Paul Andre De Vera will join us, share his tips on keeping things personal when working programmatically, and we'll dive into a special tool around programmatic SEO and beyond. As I already mentioned, Wix is Velo, and of course we have the snappiest of SEO News and who should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So program, get your program here as episode number 39 of the SERP's Up podcast helps you get with the program, the programmatic SEO program that is. I went full on, I'm a vendor at a baseball stadium. Crystal Carter: Well, I mean, they're very good at their jobs. I do love that when they, the guy's got the train. They- Mordy Oberstein: Programs! Crystal Carter: Who wants? I'm like, yeah- Mordy Oberstein: Hear hear! At Bryant, that's like, we had our stand-up Brighten SEO. We were giving out beer. I'm like, this is a perfect time to be a baseball stadium and a beer here. They don't do that anymore. You have to go to the stands to get your, that was half the fun. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Guy walking around yelling, hotdog! And then you have to pass it through the row to the person who actually ordered the hotdog. So everyone's hands all over your hotdog. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's all very communal. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: Very authentic. Sometimes you buy a thing just because of the experience. I used to go to green grocers and he just had platitudes for everything. I'd be like, oh, can I buy some grapes? He's like, all right, sweetheart, can I have some oranges? All right treacle. And what about some satsumas or something's like, oh, all right my pet. And I just kept buying things just to see if he ran out of stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Nice, nice. Crystal Carter: He never did. I don't know how, but yeah, I found it quite amusing. Mordy Oberstein: That is an amazing set. It's almost like Trader Joe's. When you go to Trader Joe's, they have a whole experience, ringing the bell, or wearing the pirate shirt. You go just for that. Crystal Carter: My Trader Joe's experience has never been like that. I've never worn a pirate shirt. Mordy Oberstein: No, I don't wear the pirate shirt, but they're wearing pirate shirts and stuff and Hawaiian shirts and pirate patches and all... It's all thematic at Trader Joe's. Crystal Carter: Thematic programmatic. What are we talking about today? Mordy Oberstein: Okay, so looking to create hundreds upon hundreds upon hundreds of pages of content that follow the same template or format? Then programmatic SEO might for you. It also might not be for you, but we'll get to that in due course. So programmatic SEO, if I had to define it while standing on one foot, should I stand on, I will stand on one foot. I'm sitting down. I don't know how to do that. It's when you pull data or content in from a database into a content template, and then by natural result you have a heap of pages for your website. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: While some would argue that e-com, Kevin Indig, isn't a case for programmatic SEO, I would perhaps argue and say that it is a really easy case to point to about using programmatic SEO wisely. You pull things in like the product name, the description, which you can use for your title tag and meta description respectively as well, and all the naming from the inventory database. And you plug that in with your usual shipping and return policies you have on every page. And you basically have spun up programmatic content for who knows how many number of product pages without actually typing a single word. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: That's programmatic. I feel like some will disagree. Crystal Carter: There's a lot of people who are using this for e-commerce, incredibly, incredibly productively. Wayfair is someone who used programmatic SEO and has used some of Google's own tools for some of them work in there and they're crushing it. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Hey, look. It works and it's good. Crystal Carter: I think it's entirely the kind of thing where you have something that has a lot of attributes, that has a lot of structured data, has a lot of things. For instance, if you think about a sofa, you're going to talk about the material. You're going to talk about how many seats it has. You're going to talk about whether it reclines, whether it has Bluetooth. I saw a sofa with Bluetooth- Mordy Oberstein: No. We were just shopping for a new sofa. Our children have destroyed it. And we had it for 16 years. I love it. It's great. I'm going to keep it, but not in the living room because I can't part with it. Crystal Carter: That's such a dad thing to do. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. And there's like all these, I just want a sofa. And it's so much stuff. Sorry, sidetrack. Crystal Carter: Right. But I think when you have a product that has lots of attributes, and particularly if you're thinking about something like Google Merchant Center encourages you, it requires you to add in all of those attributes to your data sets, to the information that you have about your products anyway. So it makes sense to take that data, take those attributes, take that information and use it to generate content in a programmatic way. And so e-commerce is absolutely perfect for this. And it also means that you're much more consistent with your product pages when you're creating your product pages so that everything has the same information- Mordy Oberstein: Which makes making changes and fixing things. And it's also easier. So just one last point before we actually dive into the thick of it. Often is what I think separates our programmatic SEO as a content strategy from regular traditional SEO is that often when you're doing this, your goal is not to rank well for a specific page or specific keyword word, but to spin up so much content that it doesn't really matter. That if you have a hundred thousand pages ranking nine or 10 on the SERP, you'll get all of that same kind of traffic or the amount of traffic that you would've had if you were ranking number one with a far fewer pages kind of thing. So that's of course is kind of tricky from a strategic point of view. And all of the metrics might not be the same or as important when you're working programmatically and dynamically. So that's another thing to kind of keep in mind. But that's sort of the general gist on programmatic SEO. I for one, just going to say this at the onset. I'm a bit of a programmatic SEO, curmudgeon, even though I do think it's a great place to test things, but that's just me. Crystal, what about you? Crystal Carter: I think that it gives you the opportunity to serve content for really long tail keywords. This is something that Miriam Myriam Jessier talks about in one of the articles that we have on the SEO hub. And because you're able to use the information about your products, the entities associated with your products, the keywords associated with your products as fodder for content creation in a programmatic way, it's easy to spin up very long tail, very specific keyword categories or category pages or product pages for specific things. And so I think programmatic SEO is great when it solves a problem. Like any SEO. All of the SEO that you're doing is all about adding value for users. That's at the end of the day, adding value for users. And Google's measuring whether or not you're adding value for users. So when they ranking, that's a reflection of the value that they can ascertain that you add for users. So Etsy does this programmatic SEO, Wayfair I mentioned as well. If you're able to drill down into those Etsy keywords, gold earrings with leopard print trim in a hoop shape, and I'm looking specifically for those things, or shoes in this size and this color of this thing. And I'm able to drill all the way down and not have to filter through all of your pages and not have to navigate to everything, but to get exactly what I want from the SERP, then absolutely that's where programmatic SEO wins. And I think that that's where programmatic SEO really, really succeeds. Mordy Oberstein: So let me ask, when would you specifically recommend or not recommend programmatic SEO? Crystal Carter: If you have a large amount of content and you have a large number of products, and also if you have the tooling to do so, as well and to maintain it, I think also a lot of businesses that are working in a sort of high product turnover, like fast moving consumer goods space, they're going to need to do that because they need to be able to spin up content straight away so that they can sort of say, let's capitalize on say a trend that's happening straight away, or let's take this massive catalog. Because I've worked in, I previously worked for a toy manufacturer and we had all of our products, that we manufactured and we had the one, all these giant spreadsheets and all of that sort of stuff. And if you are trying to manually implement making all these changes to every particular product, then it's impossible. It is an impossible task. So when you have a big product set, then programmatic SEO is a fantastic one. Also, if it's something that you're seeing that your competitors are doing, and you might want to think, I need to keep pace because this is what consumers are going to be expecting to see. So it's always important to think about not just how people are searching on your site or how people are arriving on your site, but how the wider ecosystem is also experiencing a search. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great point because it doesn't, first up, doesn't have to be zero-sum. It doesn't mean I only doing programmatic SEO. If you see that competitors doing it for certain types of keywords, certain types of pages or whatever it is, and you can do that for that. And if you want to take a demonstrate for different pages, you can do that for that. You could also programmatically build on certain elements of a page. Why wouldn't you? For example, on the e-comm side. Let's say for whatever reason you want to write custom descriptions. God bless. The shipping and the return policy. If you're not just reusing that on every page programmatically, I don't know why you wouldn't, for example. So that's a very hyperbolic example, but it's not zero-sum. You can use programmatic SEO in certain places on your website. You can programmatically build certain parts of the page. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. But I will say, the way I think about it as well, going back to my point of being an SEO curmudgeon about programmatic SEO is I kind of view it AI. AI generated content. It's very, very similar in my mind because you're talking about the possibility of running into creating a lot of low quality content. Or a lot of un-targeted content. And I feel like sometimes you do need to be careful. Cases where the language structure does matter. So for example, in the product review space. To programmatically build out product review pages, if you're a website that has, that's your whole thing, you're like a CNET and you're programmatically just like you're taking certain inputs, taking output certain inputs and creating pros and cons list out of them whatever you're doing. I think that's going to be a space where you have to be careful. Where you might build it out programmatically, but somehow supplement it at the same time. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. I think that goes back to your point of having a mix of programmatic content and I guess more manually created content. But I think that essentially we're working in a space where a lot of times we have massive data sets that we're trying to wrangle both from an SEO point of view, but also from a sort of just general marketing point of view. And I think that the efficiency that the programmatic SEO potentially combined with it, because this is the other thing that a lot of people are combining programmatic SEO and AI content, particularly for content generation. So for instance, you would say, I have a product with this attribute, this attribute, that attribute and that attribute. And then it'll write a product description for that particular, then you can use generative AI to write a product description for that content. And that is something that is going to be saving a lot of time. And also, again, producing a lot of consistency with those things. Though again, as we have with any AI thing, editing is key and QA is crucial. So checking over those things and making sure that you're not publishing things, that AI generated content that isn't accurate and making sure that you've trained your prompts so that they accurately reflect what your products do, how they work. So I think that we did a webinar on chat GPT and AI writers and how to use them. And one of the really good examples that Ross Hudgins showed was giving a generative tool, a dataset, for instance, say a product dataset and asking them to create a piece of copy based on that. And I think that if you're able to figure out the best prompt that works for your type of data set, then that can help you to scale content very quickly. So I think that it can help you to, could connect with niches really quickly. It can help you to spin up a lot of things. But also I think from a programmatic point of view, if you're talking about thin content, or maybe not necessarily low quality content, but maybe sort of fairly repetitive content, and Google talks about this, they show a case study for Wayfair, for instance, about this, for ads. So for instance, if you're a locksmith and you're working generally in New York, you might want a PPC landing page that's locksmith for the Bronx, locksmith for Brooklyn, locksmith for Westchester, locksmith, for Manhattan, for Harlem, for wherever. And spinning those out programmatically? Yeah, brilliant, because you're not indexing them anyway and you just need them to match what the query is that you're serving for your ads. And this is something that Google is advertising on their Think With Google, there's a great Think With Google example- Mordy Oberstein: Oh, on the ads side. It makes absolute total sense to do that. And even on the SEO side, a lot of it's the same thing. If it's a local pages go, most of that page's content is going to be very, very, very similar. And it's a matter of going in and changing a couple things around here and there and make it a little bit better and unique then do that. One of the other things that kind of touch on, something you were talking about that I wanted to quickly bring up is that when you do this, it's a great environment to test things. So if you want to have a certain way of constructing the page or certain type of description, it's a way of figuring out what really works, what doesn't work. Because you're working with A, a huge amount of page, so the data you're going to get back is going to be way more accurate than, oh, I have a couple of pages made a title tag change here. Is that really, so you are in an environment that already lends itself the testing where the results are way more accurate equals make those changes much quicker and it helps you drive. Okay. Here's how I think Google's kind of understanding me, which is kind of what Colt did in the post that we mentioned before. He spun up a website programmatically and he wanted with the idea of seeing, okay, what sticks? How is Google understanding this content and is this the right way to go with it or is it not the right way to go? So he spun up the programmatic content as a way of seeing what direction to take the final draft, which I thought was really interesting. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. Testing is absolutely crucial because Google will very often look at pages as a page type. So for instance, if you see a search console error, they will say, here's an example of a page like this. If you have 45,000 product pages, they're not going to show you the error for every single, the in-detail for every single product page. But they'll say, here's an example of one that you have. And then you can look at that. And so if you submit it up programmatically, then the fix, you might make a big mistake at once, but you can also make a big fix at once. That's really useful to being able to test that. And also, if you've ever done CRO testing, one of the things that can sometimes be a challenge, particularly when you're doing one page at a time, is actually getting the traffic volume to get any kind of data that's of any use. So if you're spinning up, many many pages have the same basic format, the same kind of iterations in terms of your CRO, then you're going to be able to get a lot more data more quickly than if you were to do it one page at a time. I think one of the other benefit, I can't remember if Colt touched on this as well, but one of the other benefits of programmatic SEO is that it's really easy to align it with things like schema markup, for instance. So I'm think I've mentioned them before, but I remember I judged as a search award and one of the entries was from Dairy Queen. And one of the things I love, they spun up all of these and they programmatically did this. They spun up all of these pages for their Dairy Queen locations and it has all of the attributes and they're aligned with the things that are on Google business profile. They're aligned with the things that are in their structured data and they're aligned with the things that are on their page. And so you can see that consistency going all the way through, what the hours are, where the location is, what the amenities are, whether they have delivery or pickup, or whether they accept credit cards and all of that sort of stuff. So they're able to spin those all up and they're also able to roll them all out to multiple channels. So you get all your pages that are marked up in the same way, and you have all the schema that works with all of those. And then you have all of those are also attributed to each of those Google business profiles. So what you get with programmatic SEO is the ability to use your content as a data set and to be able to use it consistently across multiple channels, which is epic. Mordy Oberstein: So taking into a completely different direction, going back to what we were talking about before about trying to add a personal touch, all your programmatic content to help us with that is the host of the SEO Video Show great YouTube show. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: At SEO. Knowledge Bombs. Crystal Carter: Fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: It's fantastic. Here's Paul Andre De Vera about when working with content at scale, how do you ensure you keep the right tone and personal touch with your content? Paul Andre De Vera: Maintaining a personal touch in your content is important to building a strong personal brand voice and establishing connection with your audience. One effective way I achieve this is by writing the way I speak. Recording yourself, taking and getting it transcribed can be an awesome exercise to help you capture your personal tone and language. You can then use transcriptions as a basis for your content, editing and refining it as needed to make sure it meets your personal language and fits within the context of your content strategy. However, when working with tools like Grammarly, it's important not to accept every suggestion blindly. These tools can help identify and correct grammar and spelling errors, and they may also try to substitute words and phrases that are part of your natural speaking style. I personally like using words such as, awesome, love it, fabulous. These are examples of words that Grammarly may flag, but is part of my personal language. Incorporating personal touches like these can help your content feel more genuine and relatable to your audience, building a stronger connection and establishing your brand as approachable and authentic. Just be your silly self consistently online just as you are offline. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Paul. Definitely. Again, check out Paul on Twitter at Paul Andre and check out the SEO Video Show Crystal Carter: On YouTube. Mordy Oberstein: On YouTube. Look, by the way, his point about Grammarly. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: I feel that in every bone of my body. Crystal Carter: Yo. Mordy Oberstein: Because sometimes it's like, change this change. I'm like, no. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: No. Crystal Carter: No. I'm not changing that. Mordy Oberstein: Not changing that. That's a whole linchpin. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Like Grammarly, that's my vibes. That's just my style. That's how I do it. Also with Grammarly, it's obviously they're making it so they and talk about Grammarly all the time. But I remember reading, I'm sure I mentioned this before Toni Morrison had a book and she just, she's, it was one sentence for the whole page and it was beautiful and it was fantastic. But I also say, and and and and and. And sometimes I'm trying to get some rhythm. Mordy Oberstein: Like, like, like, like. Crystal Carter: I do say like. Mordy Oberstein: I'm talking about myself. I say it all the time. Crystal Carter: I'm from California. That's how we do... it is what it is. But I think that, yeah, what he's saying about adding in, making sure that you keep your tone of voice is really important. I think about brands that have a tone and it's really important. So for instance, MailChimp has a tone that they just sort of have a tone, even when it's a small little piece of micro copy, there's definitely a tone of voice to it. There's a couple of other brands that I can think of that are a little bit, there's brands that are a little bit salty sometimes. So the- Mordy Oberstein: Wendy's? Crystal Carter: Duolingo can be a little bit salty sometimes. Duolingo has a very dry sense of humor as a brand, and that's kind of their style. And even sometimes to the point where you can recognize the style, you can recognize someone from their styles. And I think with some of the AI things, like Google I/O thing announced that Google Cloud is making it so that you can use your own data sets to train information. So it might be that you add your language style guide into something to maybe move that into programmatic SEO. There's a lot of moving parts going on at the moment, but I think that making sure that you've got your clear tone of voice when you're spinning things up programmatically is, yeah, really important. Mordy Oberstein: Super important. This again, it tells all the time, and I like my soapbox where brand marketing overlaps with SEO, it's such an under discussed undervalued point. And it's something that I know we talk about, you need to align with your designers and your devs, but a lot of times you need to align more with your brand marketers because they're the ones defining how you're going to have to speak publicly. And if they see the programmatic content and they see that it's not in line with the brand tone of voice, they're not going to be happy. So better get that done beforehand as opposed to after hand, which is, I know not a word, but it definitely- Crystal Carter: After hand? Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Why would you say beforehand and then after the fact? Makes no sense. Let's be- Crystal Carter: Should it be before fact and- Mordy Oberstein: It should either be before fact or it should be after hand. Crystal Carter: After... Nobody's saying after hand, it's- Mordy Oberstein: Now we are. Crystal Carter: Stop trying to make fetch happen. Mordy Oberstein: So anyway, after hand that, speaking of programmatic content and SEO, we already mentioned cold sliver and how we use a combination of Python and a little tool we call Velo to dynamically create pages at scale. So we figured we jump into this fellow called Velo with a programmatic edition of Tool Time. Velo is a full stack dev tool inbuilt into Wix. So you can enable dev mode, which by the way, Phil should be getting a Mortal Combat... Enable dev mode. Crystal Carter: We should talk to the team and be like, what we need is an explosion though. It goes... Dev mode. Mordy Oberstein: And just like a firebomb goes off on the page. Crystal Carter: Instead of deploying, you should just go finish him. Mordy Oberstein: Dev mode activated. Finish him. Crystal Carter: And then when you run your code, it should go ….. Mordy Oberstein: I'll see if we can add to the roadmap. Crystal Carter: Okay, I'll do that. I'll do that. Mordy Oberstein: I'll advocate. This is why we advocate very much a lot internally. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: I feel we should add this to our list of things to advocate for. Crystal Carter: Dev mode. Mordy Oberstein: Activate it. Okay. So yeah, back on track. Velo. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So Velo. So Velo, I love Velo. I love Velo so much. Velo is absolutely brilliant. It is a JavaScript like playground essentially within Wix. And you can build JavaScript things all the way through it. And there's lots of fantastic stuff. So we have something called the content manager, and essentially you can take a spreadsheet, it's a spreadsheet sort of format, and it works really well for programmatic- Mordy Oberstein: Programmatic SEO. Because you're connected to a data set and there's your content. Crystal Carter: You can also connect to external datasets, you can add your own datasets, you can connect to other databases as well. And there's lots of tools for Tree to be able to do that. And basically you can use it for, you can use it with JavaScript to create all sorts of fantastic things. So Mark Preston is somebody who created an SEO jobs board, for instance, using Velo. And so you're able to create tools there. And I've also created a few tools myself. I created a Bingo game on my website. Mordy Oberstein: Did you really? You used it to get a Bingo game. I did not know that. How did I not know that? Crystal Carter: I need a bingo game for, it's like a conference SEO bingo game. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's right, you did. I do remember that. Okay, fine. I'm not a horrible friend. Crystal Carter: So the other thing that's great about Velo is that Velo has, so you might say, well, but I'm not a JavaScript person. I don't know all the things. That's okay. Because first of all, our documentation is extremely extensive. Second of all, within Velo, they have tons of guidance in the actual code. So if you input the code incorrectly, it will tell you. It will give you an error or it'll give you a little thing that says, hey, you should have this, or there should be a variable, or you should update that part. So that's really useful. The other thing that's great is that you can use it with an LOM. So for instance, Bard. Bard is trained on loads of bits of code, so is Chat GPT. So I have, I've created something and my JavaScript is, okay. And that's generous. My JavaScript is okay. But I was able to go, I was basically able to take some of the guidance that I got from Velo. So Velo says, oh, this bit of code isn't quite right. And I'm like, okay. So I popped that into GPT and I was like, hey, GPT, I got this error for this code, but I wanted to do this. And GPT was like, yeah, try this bit of code. So then I popped it back into Velo and then I got a different error and then I put that back into GPT, and by the time I'd gone back and forth between these two things, I was able to build something that was amazing. So what's really cool is that we have... It's got so many different functionalities in it. There's something called Velo Examples, which is a collection of lots of really cool things that people have built on Velo. And on each of those pages there is, there's the code, there's a demo, and you can copy the code from it. The other thing that's great about Velo is that the code is transferable. So for instance, we have lots, it's all sort of API based, and we have a library that's Wix SEO. So if you have a piece of code that is for changing the canonical, we had this situation, didn't we Mordy? Mordy, you were like, oh- Mordy Oberstein: A bomb, A podcast website. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Somebody was like, oh, I want to change the canonical on this podcast change. I was like, oh, you can do this. He was like, oh, maybe you can set up a call. I was like, no, literally just copy and paste this code. Mordy Oberstein: The code, yeah. Crystal Carter: Copy and paste this code and put it on that page and it will work because it's all sort of set up to work. Mordy Oberstein: You could do that dynamically. You could dynamically as structured data to whatever you want, kind of set up pages, you want to do it. There's so much you can do with it. Crystal Carter: And you can create your own variable. So if you have a piece of content on your page, let's say you've got the word or something, you can create a variable. You can name that variable, you can use that variable in your code further down. We also have connections into NPM. So there's like lots of API integrations that are built in Google sheets and Google Maps, for instance. But you can also connect into NPM. I literally love Velo. The team behind Velo have nurtured this and have spent so much time making it fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: And there's so much content, by the way. If you, we'll link to a bunch of it. But there's an endless amount of content they've put out there... It's a cavernous library of content Velo, which we'll link to it. It's awesome. Crystal Carter: And I think the thing that's great is working with those things, but also, particularly if you're a noob, like me, to JavaScript, is that the things like GPT, like Bard that are trained on code, you can say in JavaScript, how do I do this? So if there's something that's specific, you can also back up some of the things with general information about JavaScript and things like that. So it's fantastic. And it also opens up a whole world of functionality on Wix, and I think it's going to be fantastic as we go into the headless space. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I was going to say it. It's perfect. Because we've just gotten headless for this. For example, the CMS that you just mentioned. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: You can use that. It's headless. You can take that and you can plug that into your front end, and you can use the Wix function, that CMS functionality kind of wherever. Crystal Carter: And the things that with the headless Wix situation, a lot of the things that they leaned on in the first instance are particularly lean themselves to programmatic SEO and programmatic data creation. So for instance, like the events, the bookings- Mordy Oberstein: Booking, products... Crystal Carter: Products, all of that sort of stuff, it leans itself really well... Lends itself really well to that. So between the headless space and the Velo and all of the amazing functionalities- Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot of automation you could be doing. Crystal Carter: A lot of stuff you can do. I mean, who even needs to touch it? Mordy Oberstein: Who needs humans anymore? Crystal Carter: But I think it's really great, and I think it's great to see the combination of opening up the platform more and also bringing in some of the AI elements that we have and making it really accessible to lots of different developers and lots of different development needs. Mordy Oberstein: It's really cutting edge stuff from really great people. Now you know what else is new? The actual news. So here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy news, two little juicy SEO tidbits for you this week. First up, as reported from Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal, Neva, the ad free search engine announces closure. Neva was built, by the way, as a sort of a way to downplay the role of ads and search and increase the role of content creators. It had an AI chat experience, and it had a pretty good little search engine. Unfortunately will be shuttered, which is very unfortunate. You never want to see anything fail. It was a nice idea. It really does though, kind of highlight how hard it is to compete with Google. So as you see things developing in the AI world and you see, oh, Google's going down... Take a deep breath, take pause. It is very hard to compete with Google. From his royal Rustiness, the king of bricks, Mr. Rusty Brick, AKA Barry Schwartz, the fourth. Google helpful content update can demote and now promote content. As you may know, and as we've talked about here on this very podcast, Google announced that the helpful content update will be getting a revamp. This was announced at Google I/O 2023. In specific, Google said the system would help identify "hidden gems". Seeing this, friend of the show, an avid Yankees fan, Glen Gabe, asked Google search liaison Denny Sullivan, if this was an update to the current functioning of the ranking system or a new ability altogether. Denny said, "The helpful content system will be working to identify and show more hidden gems on search, along with still working to ensure unhelpful content is not performing well." So in a nutshell, the helpful content update will not only be about hitting sites with low quality, but will now have a net positive impact of uplifting the hidden gems of the web. I feel like there should be a special badge if you are one of these hidden gems of the web that says, hidden gem of the web, you could plaster on your homepage. And that is this week's Snappy News. I just got to say, I just love by the way, that when the news happens so organically like that, in this case, Glen Gabe asking a question, Barry covering it. They're great people, Glen and Barry. Speaking of people, by the way, that brings us to our follow of the week, which is, we've already mentioned him three or four times at this point. He is Glassdoor's, SEO, former member of the Wix SEO Advisory Board. He's a writer for the Web Almanac. He's Colt Sliva. Crystal Carter: He's such a nice guy. He's so smart. Mordy Oberstein: The nicest dude, right? Crystal Carter: So nice. Mordy Oberstein: The nicest guy. Crystal Carter: And so smart. I think the first time that I came across Colt was he was speaking at SMX about something very clever, and I remember watching the talk and I was like- Mordy Oberstein: It was very clever. Crystal Carter: I remember watching him. I was like, this guy knows stuff. This guy is so smart. Mordy Oberstein: I came across him the first time at, when he was at IOL rank, we were working Gareth Sussman. I think he was on my podcast I was doing at the time. I don't remember anything about- Crystal Carter: Probably. Mordy Oberstein: Probably. Crystal Carter: Probably. Mordy Oberstein: The smartest guy, the nicest guy. I worked with him obviously on the Wix SEO advisory board, but also we worked together on the SEO section, on the web almanac. He was such a resource. I will tell you right now that Web Almanac, or at least the SEO section, would not have happened if it weren't for Colt. Crystal Carter: The other thing I would say about Colt is that he has such a healthy curiosity and people say, oh, what do you need to be in SEO? Like, do you need this skill or that skill or that skill. I'm like, fundamentally, you need to be curious. You need to be the kind of person who would talk about- Mordy Oberstein: John Mueller. Crystal Carter: Yeah, you need to be the kind of person who wants to go down the rabbit hole who wants, hears like, oh, there's a new toilet. They're like, what does it do? What happens if I do this? What if I do that? What if I look at this? Mordy Oberstein: You change the JavaScript around on the toilet, what happens? Crystal Carter: Exactly. And Colt, he likes to build things. He likes to explore things, and he's super approachable and super interested. So yeah, can't say nice enough things about Colt, like do follow Colt. Mordy Oberstein: Don't just follow Colt, interact with Colt, talk to Colt. Crystal Carter: Tell him that we sent you. Tell him that Mordy and Crystal sent you. Mordy Oberstein: Talk to him. He's on Twitter at, S I G N O R C O L T. Of course, we'll link to his Twitter profile in the show notes because I don't expect you remember how to spell that by listening to this in your car. But that does bring us to the end of the podcast. I would programmatically end the podcast now. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: But I don't know how to do that with my VO. I guess I could record an ending and plug that in every single time, but I feel like that would not be doing justice to the audience and to the podcast. Crystal Carter: Yeah, well, you know... Mordy Oberstein: Not a good use of programmatic. Crystal Carter: No, I don't think so. No, not on this particular occasion. Mordy Oberstein: Okay, fine. Crystal Carter: You betcha. Mordy Oberstein: Here's the custom ending. 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 as we dive into how to get started with international SEO as we chat with drum roll, Aleyda Solis. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix SEO learning lab over at www.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO learning lab 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 you’re ready or not Google’s GA4 is rolling out this July and UA will be sunsetted. Jill Quick, an analytics consultant, and trainer for The Coloring In Department, joins us as a special guest host to help us get a better grasp of GA4. Join us as Jill sits down with hosts Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein to discuss what SEOs need to know about the new GA4. From how the data in GA4 differs from UA to the mindset GA4 demands - you don’t want to miss this one if you plan on continuing to use Google Analytics past July 2023. With all the talk of analytics, Crystal, and Mordy will help you explore how much “analytics” are actually useful so that you don’t overwhelm yourself out of the gate. Listen in to learn the differences between UA and GA4 and more in episode 30 of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Back Get ready for GA4 Whether you’re ready or not Google’s GA4 is rolling out this July and UA will be sunsetted. Jill Quick, an analytics consultant, and trainer for The Coloring In Department, joins us as a special guest host to help us get a better grasp of GA4. Join us as Jill sits down with hosts Crystal Carter and Mordy Oberstein to discuss what SEOs need to know about the new GA4. From how the data in GA4 differs from UA to the mindset GA4 demands - you don’t want to miss this one if you plan on continuing to use Google Analytics past July 2023. With all the talk of analytics, Crystal, and Mordy will help you explore how much “analytics” are actually useful so that you don’t overwhelm yourself out of the gate. Listen in to learn the differences between UA and GA4 and more in episode 30 of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 30 | March 22, 2023 | 52 MIN 00:00 / 51:44 This week’s guests Jill Quick Jill Quick is an analytics consultant and trainer and has been working in digital marketing for a very long time. She helps brands get the most out of their measurement strategy through training, reviews, and audits, to troubleshooting and consulting. She works with small startup founders, agencies, and brands you own in your home. She has a knack for creating guided, practical, step-by-step, paint-by-numbers style templates to get you where you need to be, faster. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining us for SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing out groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO branding here at Wix.com, joined by the fantastic, the amazing, the person without any musical references this week, head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: How do you dooby-dooby-doo? Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like I’m on Scooby Doo now. Hey Scooby. Crystal Carter: This show is not about scatting, it's about Google Analytics. That's what we're going to talk about. But thank you for that lovely introduction there, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: It's my pleasure. And speaking of Google Analytics, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can easily create a connection to GA4 and have your site or even upgrade your site from UA to GA4 with the Google Analytics, Wix marketing integration right there inside of our marketing integrations where you can easily set your site up with Google Analytics, walks you right through the whole process. So isn't that great? Because today we're talking about GA4, which Crystal already said so redundant. Canonical backdoor, Crystal said it before, SEO jokes. Crystal Carter: Yeah, so today we're talking about GA4. Why are we talking about GA4, Mordy? Why? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, because they're coming for your data, hide your kids. That's right. They're coming for your kids and there is no hiding because the boogeyman is coming for your data. Your UA data. Well, it's not a boogeyman, it's Google, and they're changing your analytics to conform to the new web. So they're moving over from Universal Analytics to GA4. Either way, scare mongering aside, just for a minute, we'll get back to scare mongering later. If you're used to Google Analytics as you know it now, you can kiss it goodbye as GA4 is just around the corner. We have analytics maven and consultant and trainer over at the Coloring in Department, Jill Quick will join us as a guest host to help us make sense of GA4. Thank God someone's going to be here to help us and make sense out of this thing. Also, crystal and I will take a little bit of a deep dive down the analytics rabbit hole. We have a deep thought moment about how many of those darn analytics data points do you really need? And of course we have the snappiest SEO news for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. Let's get right to the point, the data point, as episode number 30 of the SERP's Up podcast enters the final analysis, or should I say the final analytics analysis or should I say the final UA analytics analysis? Either way, take it away, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Yes. So today we're talking about GA4, Google Analytics for the fourth iteration of Google Analytics. That's what we're talking about. And the reason why we're talking about it is because the end is nine, it's coming. It's coming whether we like it or not, it is coming. And a lot of people have said that they do not like it. However, it has improved since they said that it was coming. So basically if we think about the timeline, they launched the beta for GA4 in 2019. Then in 2020 they announced the official release. Then in 2022, they announced that there was a deprecation date for UA because until that point, everyone had been pretty much with the exception of fine analytics professionals like Jill had been sort of burying their heads in the sand around GA4. And then after that point people started going, "oh my gosh, yeah, maybe we actually should deal with this". And then deadline for deprecation in June 2022, and then they finally gave us the full deprecation date, which is the 1st of July 2023, which is not that long from right now. If you look at your calendar and if you look up and you haven't done anything with regards to GA4, that is one of the reasons why we are bringing this up because it is time to take your head out of the sand. It is time to step into the light, face the music as it were, and to get involved with GA4. There was a recent email that came around that said that Google was going to migrate it for you if you didn't do it yourself. And this is something that we think that you should probably do that yourself if you can. I'm sure Jill will get into that a little bit more. But that's why we're talking about it. It's super important. And whether you are really into your analytics or not, the team that runs your marketing is almost certainly relying on quality analytics from UA or from a tool that is using UA backed data. So this is something that you should be thinking about and something that you should definitely make sure that your team is covered by because they also announced that at a certain point, you won't even be able to see or get access to that data. So this is something that you should be thinking about and this is the reason why we have Jill here and we are so grateful for Jill to be here to shed some light. I've seen Jill speak on this topic and I found it incredibly illuminating. So we're pleased to have Jill here. Mordy Oberstein: Hi, Jill. Jill Quick: Hi. I've never been called a maven before. I kind of like it. Crystal Carter: I feel like it suits you. Mordy Oberstein: I try to switch things up a little on people in the intros. I try to make it unique, although Crystal's is pretty much the same every week. Crystal Carter: He just throws compliments at me, which I'm not mad at. Mordy Oberstein: Like Rose is at your feet. Crystal Carter: It's fine. Mordy Oberstein: But first off, do you hear that sound? That's me slowly taking my head out of the sand, just so you know. I guess I want to know, Jill, just top level, what's the difference between Universal Analytics, the Google Analytics we're all very fond of and used to and GA4? Jill Quick: So I am going to use my little analogy of methods of transportation because I know Crystal seen it. Mordy, you've heard it. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Jill Quick: Listeners, you might be bored of me talking about this, but here we go. For those of you that are new with it, the way that I like to think of the journey that analytics has been on is that if analytics was a mode of transportation, then the first version that we got, GA1, if we're going to call it, that was Urchin around about 2005. And that was a bike. And I am old enough to remember hit counters and other weird and wonderful things from the very early days of the worldwide web marketing. So we were honestly delighted when we started to get Urchin and it was free and it was really popular. And actually... And we'll come back to this point about servers. I'm going to put a pin in that thought later. I don't think Google expected it to be as popular as it became and it swelled and we wanted more. And then we had an upgrade with Classic analytics around about 2007, and that was getting rid of the bike and giving you a moped, a scooter. So we had a little bit more with our data. We got a new user interface. And I'm saying this because we have gone through multiple interface changes. We've just forgotten because it was so long ago. Now, Universal Analytics, where Mordy's super comfortable at the moment... Mordy Oberstein: Very comfortable. Jill Quick: Yeah, this was 2011, 2012, and it is the equivalent of getting rid of the moped and the bike and giving us the keys to our very own universal analytics car. Now, majority of people, we've had this car for over 10 years and you've either been the driver, the passenger, the engineer, I have met people that don't even know where the car is parked or who has the key. We like the car, we know the car, it's comfortable. And again, it was free and you just kind of started a job. They gave you access and you drove away and got what you needed from it. With the transition to GA4, as Crystal mentioned, we had the very... Not necessarily best name of app and web, and then they rebranded it to GA4 is the fourth version of that analytics platform. And despite Google saying it's an upgrade and it is an upgrade, but it's not an upgrade as in get rid of my crappy old card that could do with a wash and some reupholstering and give me a new one. They're taking away the car, setting it on fire this year, so we can't have it anymore. And they've given us the keys to a helicopter. That is the equivalent shift that we have. And that's where I think, and I've been in the same bucket when they announced this, it was like, not now Google. It's the pandemic. I'm teaching my kids, we’re going to get the plague not now. Read the room. We don't want to be doing any of this. And there are lots of people that, and I'm sure some people are still in this bucket, they log into GA4 and they're like, what is going on? Where are the things? Because you are used to a car and the steering wheel and the dashboard and you've now got a gear stick and there's toggles that are above your head now, and it's just really not that familiar. And I know that there's a lot of people, as I said, they love the car, they're happy with the car, but with GA4, there are some similarities. Both of them have doors and seat belts and windows, but it is a completely different data model. And if you're trying to get GA4 to do what GA3 did, you're going to be disappointed. You can't make the helicopter a car. The car can't be a helicopter. They're similar, but they can't interlink with each other. So going into what the data models are, we'll think about this as the engines of these methods of analytics, transportation, the data model of universal analytics was a hit based model that ran on users and hopefully they had multiple sessions and anytime they did anything on that website, a hit was fired, A page view was loaded, PDF downloaded, bought a product, filled out a form, that kind of thing. When it comes to the data model of GA4, because it's an adaptation of Firebase, which was the product for app and web and rebranded to GA4, they have adopted that Firebase model. So they're moving away from this hit based model towards a user and event data model. And events are slightly different to events in GA3. And we can go through that unless there's a talking point on here what those different events are. Mordy Oberstein: If you gave me the keys to a helicopter right now, I will tell you exactly what I'll do with the helicopter. I'll crash that thing so hard into a cliff between a hot fiery mess, which is exactly what's happening to me in GA4, not because I don't think I understand... I think I understand what I'm looking at once I find it. I'm just having... On that car, you said, I know where all the buttons are, I feel like I'm in the cockpit. Forget a helicopter, of a 747 and there's all the switches and I don't even know where to go to find the data because GA3 or Universal Analytics, it was to me at least so simple, it's on the left-hand nav. When you go into the report, you see, okay, I can switch the medium, I can switch this metric, I can add a secondary metric. God, I can compare periods. God, it's all uniform across the board. But I feel like when I go into GA4, at one place that functions this way, at one place it functions that way. In one place that functions like this and it feels like it's a hot mess. Jill Quick: I would say that the data story is still pretty similar. So there are four different reporting areas in GA4. One of them is the reports, the standard aggregate. You have that data for as long as you're tracking reports. And in that life cycle you've still got acquisition. How do people find you? Behavior, what did they do? Conversions, monetization, am I still in a job? And on the right-hand side, you've still got the date range. And I would point out with the date range actually, there's the ability to do a comparison between different dates and match the day of the week, which is really useful when you've got certain cyclical cycles that move around and you can still add secondary dimensions. It's just the layout's different, the buttons are different. I mean Google if you're listening, I love you. I do work in this all the time, but I don't think usability was a big thing and I don't think you've done a great job in communicating how to do it. Selling the helicopter's great. Oh, you can fly around and get loads of stuff and BigQuery and all this. It's like, no, no. Can you just go through a crash course for a better word of how to do it. Crystal Carter: I think one of the tricky things is that with UA, essentially, so all the things are on the side, it's really easy to browse and there was very much as a marketer and doing audits on sites, it would be very easy to sort of go log into an analytics account and just have a look around at various things. And sometimes I'd find stuff I wasn't even expecting to see because there was so much data there and I could see and I could compare and things like that. And the thing that I find really tricky about analytics, and I said they say, oh, you can build this, you can build that, but I'm like, I don't want to build it. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. I want to go in there, I want to see what's there and have fun, look around and see... But I feel like in GA4 there is no looking around, unless I specifically said it, I do not see it. Crystal Carter: So what I'm asking is what's your advice for people who are used to browsing and to streamline the process of rebuilding or resetting some of the reports that they're used to or that they like or even that they see other people reporting on. Jill Quick: So GA4, the success of your GA4 implementation will come down to the quality of the events that you are tracking. And I think that's been the biggest flex that... You've still got dimensions and metrics. So that terminology and that language is still the same. However, pageview is now an event and pageview was an event in GA3. So if we do a couple of minutes on what is the difference between the data model. So Events in GA3, so if you heard the word events, you typically were thinking about the behavior reports and anything outside of a page view was loaded. If you wanted anything else to be tracked in GA3, in the car, you would have to send those as events in Google Tag Manager and you'd have. . . Crystal Carter: So you downloaded something or something like that. Jill Quick: Category was a big broad bouquet. Video, the action, the doing, play the video, pause the video, label gave context of the thing that they just did brings and repeat to all the things that you wanted to track for your measurement objectives. When it comes to GA4, everything is an event. They want it all lowercase and underscore like snake case because it's a computer program. So it likes things built that way so that everything works and you now have an event name, event parameters and then there'll be values assigned to those parameters. And the way that I have done training on this and the talks I've done and the audits that I do, I'd like to think of it as event DNA. So if you can picture in your mind now the old science lesson where you did that nice little helix string of a DNA sequence, imagine that's the events that you've got in your GA4 data stream. You would have an event name up to 25 parameters, so there's 25 nodes max, and the DNA is just going to dissolve and not work and there's a certain length that we can have with each of these parameters and the values. Now, out of these events in their DNA, they are grouped into what I like to call four parent categories. These parents are made up of event DNA and we've got the auto enhanced recommended and custom. So the automatic collected events are a bundle of events that you get when you say I'm going to have a GA4 instance and I'm going to put that configuration tag on and it's going to start collecting data that's going to give you information like the page location, session start, first visit, engagement, which is like time. Great. The enhanced measurement are additional events you get in your data stream so you can further tweak what you can get. That's going to have things like page view data. It's going to have files downloaded, site search, a really crappy named event called click. But that event click has a number of parameters like link URL, which is tracking all outbound links. And for most sites that's really useful because they're sending people to Glassdoor or TripAdvisor or review sites or Google Maps. It also tracks telephone numbers and email addresses because they're technically outbound links. So these were things that were actually quite hard to track in GA3 and I've done enough audits that there were always something wrong with somebody's account, but there's a lot that comes out of the box, but you just need to know these parent categories and what you get out of it. Recommended are a bunch of events that Google has given us a list basically. So sign up events, generate lead events or forms, purchase events, they've got some pre named ones and we want to use those so we can get more information into the reports because they're listening for these. And then you have custom, which is basically anything that doesn't fit in the previous three. So I did one recently which was a B2B company that had Calendly booking so that you could book an appointment with them. There isn't a recommended event for that, doesn't come out of the box in auto and enhance, so we'd have to track it. So we've got these four parent events and if you just look at the four parents when you log in to GA4, and I think this is where the frustration comes from, you go to events and you might have nine and an event count and it'll say like, "click, file download, scroll", and you are like, "but I want to know the page that they were on. I want to know the file that they downloaded". And you can add a secondary dimension and you can play around with that if you want. But there's another concept to get your head around, which is that you can create an event from an event. Now, if we go along with my little story here that we have our four parent categories all made up of event DNA, if I wanted to create a new event, I have to take the DNA from a parent. So I'm making a child. Now, for SEO listeners, you're familiar with this concept because you've got parent categories and subcategories, children that we like. You've got all that structure. So if I wanted to create a new event to make it easy for people to see that somebody clicked mordy@website.com , then I can go into the user interface, create a new event where I say, "please create me a child and I'd like to call this email_high and where the event name equals click and the parameter equals link_URL and the value of that is mordy@website.com . Please fire a new event called email_high" and then I've got that in my reports and I can report on it. So there's some tweaking we have to do within the user interface, but it's not obvious when you log in because there's no tool tip and Google just goes, "it's flexible, you can do anything". And people are like, "give me a fricking use case". And common ones are you'll probably want to create child events for the type of file that was downloaded, see the PDFs, the zips and the docs. You might want to break out those click events for outbound links to your review site, Google Maps, telephone numbers, email addresses. And when you start getting familiar with the events, the parameters, the parents and the children, it becomes easier to understand how do I go into the user interface and ask it? Because it's a different language, isn't it? It's like hieroglyphics almost when you first start because you are not familiar with what you need to do. And it reminds me, and I think I've had this conversation with both of you before, it reminds me when I remember people showing me WordPress websites and I was like, "oh wow, that's great". I'm like, "why does mine not look great? Why does mine go hello world and there's a crap at the site, like why?" And then somebody goes, "yeah, you got to think about your information architecture and your images and your placement". I was like, "I thought it was going to build it for me. I thought it was going to do the thing and I'm not..." and GA4 is a bit like that where you have to go, "oh, I've got to do some thinking". And that's the difference between getting the helicopter off the ground and driving away on the car that the car was pre-built. A lot of these things were already there and GA4 looks wonderful. There's some great things you could do, which we were talking about in a moment. But you've got to get your head around what is an event? What are they called? Because it's taken me some rewiring of my brain to go page_location when I'm like pages, all pages, why am I having to remember new things? So there's a lot of rewiring of the brain, I think, some neuroplasticity going on to make it a little bit easier. Crystal Carter: So on the plus side, I will say for Wix users who are listening, the team at Wix have worked with Google to create some preset events for certain Wix properties. So you should have a little bit of a headstart with regards to that. But I would also say what's interesting in the events thing is that I was following along while you were chatting and starts to make a lot more sense and there's two things that stood out to me was that I think a lot of people, I've seen a lot of people when they're talking about their reporting and how they set up their events and how they set up all of the different things using additional tools to help make it easier to understand. So I know a lot of people are using Looker Studio, I'd be interested to know what you think about that. The other thing that I think is interesting is that you talked about a few other third-party tools and you talked about people trying to square peg round hole, the old of universal analytics and I've definitely done cross domain tracking and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't make sense and I believe, and maybe you can shed some light on this as well, that cross domain tracking is a bit better. Jill Quick: Yeah, it's easier. Use the same measurement ID of your data stream. You've got to make sure you go in your admin settings and do the usual that you would have to do in things in Universal, configure your domains to say Google, it's this subdomain in this domain referral exclusions. Do not pat yourself on the back for traffic and they got all the credit for the conversions, the usual. But yeah, I have noticed that a bit like Mordy be like, "my head's out of the sand". I think I spoke to a lady last week and she went, "I'm in gone past the denial. I'm in the acceptance phase now. They're not changing the deadline. I'm going to have to do it". I'm like, "yeah, you are". And I think some of the other providers like there was... Had a client that's using Drift widget for their chat box and they just announced in February that they're now able to push those events with the measurement ID and I'm like, "yay, why have you done it so close to the deadline", Shopify, they're getting it done this month now in March. They're like, "yay, Shopify's going to be working". So I think maybe the slow adoption is because we've also been waiting for other tech stack support to help that migration because you're looking for the events and now Drift widget, if you've got the chat bot is going to push those events to you. I don't have to touch Google Tag Manager. If Shopify's doing it, great, I don't have to build loads of events for e-commerce if it's going to seamlessly push that in and going to your point on Looker, Looker's using the GA4 API, so it's only as good as your data collection. So yeah, use Looker, but if you haven't got the child events and the events and the other things you want to track that's useful to you, you are not going to get as much fun in those Looker reports because it's only as good as what you've got in that data collection. Mordy Oberstein: That's exactly the point. To me, that's exactly why one of the first things we did was automatically trigger those events in GA4. But it makes me wonder at the same time, from a business point of view, do you think that people like yourself are going to end up with a lot more clients who are... Let's say SEOs, whereas before in universal analytics, I never felt like, Hey, I need to go to an analytics expert. I have a general handle on this unless I come to a specific problem, which case I need to go to somebody one level up, but the way that Google construct this, are they... And I wonder if it's purposeful or not or whatever it is, are they creating a dynamic where professionals are now going to say, "you know what? Forget this. I am just going to sub this out to somebody else to handle". Jill Quick: Yeah. I think for people it might be for time they know enough to be dangerous but they haven't got the time to do it and they want to trust that somebody else is going to do that for them. I think that when it comes to why is Google doing this and I think there are a number of reasons. The way that GA3, the previous versions work don't really work with the way that it's going to be going in the future with cookies and consent mode and things like that. I think there's another part of me that I for fun was reading some of people's financial statements to see what they were doing and they were mentioning their servers and I'm like, "oh, I wonder why they're doing that?" And a hundred percent they're going to be taking all of the servers from the old Universal analytics when they've been it and they are going to be repurposed for service side tagging and BigQuery and all the other cloud stuff because that's really expensive. When it comes to putting investment into your analytics because it's been free for so long. I don't think people... And I've made a living out this for a decade, I've done hundreds of audits and there was always something wrong. There was always a... I've got a phrase I like to use, a confabulation of data, lies, you say, honestly because nobody goes, I'm going to tinker with my data and try and fake something for my boss. They think the data's solid because they didn't know how the data model worked and how the data got there. They just took it for granted and thought, "well, that's somebody else's problem". That leads into conversations of, well, who owns analytics? Is it dev? Is it your IT department? So it kind of just drifts around in a very ephemeral way and now people are having to put some time and money in some cases to get GA4 to work, but it's probably the first time they've had to really sit down and think, what are our measurement objectives? What is it that we're trying to do with this data? You don't want to have number soup and have reports for the sake of reporting. You want data so that it's going to give you an indication of what you should be doing with your strategy and tactics. And when you report to somebody, it's only really one or two people that get that report that can action it. Here's your purchase order, carry on, you are still in a job, that kind of thing. And when you narrow that down, it makes it a little bit better and more competitive in a way for that business owner because they've really considered what do they need and how are they going to get that data? I would say out of everybody using GA4, I reckon a good 10 million or so accounts will not move over to GA4, and that's not necessarily because they're not ready or they don't want it, they're just not going to use it. They're like, do you know what? I don't do a lot of marketing or we don't invest a lot, so I just want to know that the phone rings. People come into my shop kind of happy with that and they'll find as an analytics solution that fits those measurement objectives. The people I'm working with, they've got an SEO agency, a PPC agency, a CRO agency, 50 staff, a million pound of money to spend on marketing. They need more than what you can get from other data sources and that's why they're transitioning to GA4. So I think there's going to be a real mix and from us as marketeers as SEO people listening to this, we're going to need more analytics acumen. There's going to be more accounts that you're going to look after where it's not GA as the default. You'll have people that go, well, we use Piwik, we use Amplitude, we use another software. So we're all going to have to learn more because we're going to be seeing more people choosing a different provider. And that's quite exciting, but it's work either way, isn't it? But it feels like its analytics time to grow up a little bit, I think, because you are having to really think in a measured approach. What's a nice point though, isn't it a measured approach into what you should be doing doing and why you're doing it. Crystal Carter: And I think from the Wix side, and I'm sure there's other people who are thinking this way, we've been investing in our analytics stack, so the reports that we're able to provide people, we just added another Google Search Console one, Google Search Console has been investing a lot and improving a lot of the visibility there as well. So yeah, I think you're right. I think there's going to be people who maybe don't use it as a default. I think also a lot of people aren't going to port over to GA4 because they haven't touched that website in years. There's definitely a case where there's websites that were set up ages ago, nobody pays. It goes into that GA4, nobody's going to look at it. And I think a lot of, certainly if you have a CMS like Wix, then we have analytics built into the CMS, so if you are not doing, even if you are doing a super complex thing, we have a lot of filters and things within it, but if you just need a bird's eye view, for instance, you can absolutely see that from your... Jill Quick: I think what's really useful for that, you know you've got an alternative there. Questions you should be asking yourself because yes, if you want to continue to use Google Analytics, you're going to have to get a wiggle on and get it moved over, but go through some questions around, do you use the data because there are people that go, not really, or I log in or I get a report and it makes me feel comfortable, but I don't really do anything else. How are you currently reporting on your marketing performance? You've got to look at dashboard. Well, what's in that dashboard and is there stuff there that doesn't need to be there? Are you trying tangibelize the stuff that marketing does with a report because so much of what we do feels mystical, if that's the right word. Are you ready to invest in your data quality and collection? Because if they go, "yeah, no, I can't be asked or I have no money or there's no budget", how are you currently doing your data collection? Do you trust any of the points? These are all questions you need to ask yourself. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Jill Quick: And If you come out of it and go, "yeah, do you know what? I just need to know that the SEO stuff that we're doing is useful, that the content is engaging for my readers and that I'm building my database or the shop is busy with people because they've got other sources of truth for other marketing performance stats". Then just because people are saying you should move to GA4 doesn't mean that you actually should, if it's right for you with those measurement objectives and I've had many discovery calls with prospects where I've gone, "I don't think you are ready". Like the stage of your business, which is another important thing, how big is the business and what is your stage of growth? If you are in the mature phase, you're a market leader, yeah, you're going to be using GA or Adobe or Snowplow or so you're really investing in what you're doing. But there's a lot of people at the early phases of their business and they just want to grow. They're like, what am I doing to get that hockey stick of growth? What am I doing to improve the quality of the leads and business that I'm getting? Does that mean you should be learning about GA4, setting up BigQuery, building audiences with time? You're not going to use any of that information, get your information from somewhere else and when you are ready, you review the same questions. Are we using the data? Well, how are we reporting? Are we ready to invest? Oh yes, we are. Let's move to the next step then. And then you can always go back to another provider and if some of the people that are listening, if you viciously hate it and you're not going to... Well, don't use it. If you're a consultant, you might have clients that are like, yeah, tough, you're going to have to use GA and you're just going to have to get used to it. But there's a lot of people listening that just because... I mean I do it for my job, but you don't have to do it if it's not right for you. So it's getting the right fit so that you get a dashboard that answers the questions that you need at this point in time. Mordy Oberstein: I have so many questions. Crystal Carter: So many. Mordy Oberstein: And you mentioned questions. For example, for the love of god please explain the custom creation of reports and how to get started with that, but time is ebbed away. So where can people find you, Jill, in case they have questions about analytics. Where can I find you later if I have questions about analytics? Jill Quick: Probably more active on LinkedIn. So I'm Jill Quick. I'm a cartoon face. There's not many people with the name Jill Quick. I am on Twitter, but I'm a bit of a lurker. I just log on, read what's happening and then I kind of log off. I don't really engage because certain parts of Twitter are just not for me. Mordy Oberstein: I envy you. Jill Quick: Elon Musk is ruining it for us all with the feed. But yeah, LinkedIn's probably if you want to reach out and say, hi, and then there's my website, which is the coloringindepartment.com and I'm in the process of building some more easy step guides and content to get people started in this. Mordy Oberstein: I will link to a couple of those in the show notes if you're interested. Jill, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. It was really insightful and I have a million more questions. I'll find you somewhere. Jill Quick: That just means you need to bring me on for part two, doesn't it? Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Jill Quick: Shoot myself. Mordy Oberstein: I need to recover from part one though. Jill Quick: I like being called maven as well. So just for that. Yeah, marketing maven, analytics Maven, Jill, a little bit. Crystal Carter: We'll have to bring you in after July. It’s done. What? Jill Quick: Calling over your keyboard, so bad. Mordy Oberstein: If you see, by the way, you see a helicopter crashing somewhere. That is me using GA4. Jill Quick: Yeah. Okay, got it. But you can learn. I mean, one final note from me on this. Honest to God, if you can learn SEO, if you can understand Google's algorithm and do your log file analysis and make sense of Google Search Console, you can learn GA4. It is a learnable skill. You just have to get over the hump of the stages of grief, isn't it? Like ignoring it, anger, frustration, acceptance. And now we're in the doing part. Yeah, you can do it though, Mordy. I believe in you. Mordy Oberstein: Accepting is hard for me. Jill Quick: Yeah. You can do it. I believe in you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on, Jill. We really appreciate it. Jill Quick: Thanks for having me. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much. Mordy Oberstein: Talk to you soon. Jill Quick: I'll see you soon. Off now. Bye. Mordy Oberstein: Well, since we're talking about analytics and learning and questions, and since you're... I'm going to guess if you're like me, somewhat overwhelmed by what you just heard, this is a segment for you because in this segment, Crystal and I are going to dive into how much of that do you really need to know as we take a deep thought into how to even use or how much of analytics in general, not just GA4 to even use. It's a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. I have many thoughts about GA4 and analytics. Most of them are not deep, most of them are salty. Crystal Carter: Most of them are just, I don't want to. Mordy Oberstein: Right. This is not a salty thought with Crystal and Mordy. This is a deep thought. Crystal Carter: But why? No, I think it's... Well, a deep thoughts like the salty ocean. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Here we go. So let me just put it out there. There's so many data points. So let's set GA4 aside for a second. Let's stick in our comfort zone. I'm imagining myself still in Google Analytics 3 or universal analytics, the real analytics, you want to call it that. And in there is a ton of data, an enormous amount of data. And this could be applied to your SEO tools. This could be applied to Google's search console, even though I think that's a little bit less, but even to Google Search Console and of course at GA4, how much of that data is, wow, so cool. I have access to that data versus, you know what? That's really good data point that I need to make sure that I'm reporting on and tracking carefully. Crystal Carter: I don't know. People love data. They love a chart. They love a chart. And to be honest, you have to have some kind of data in order to back up the things that you want to do. And in order to get proof of concept for the things you want to do. Mordy Oberstein: Of course, this is not, should you use analytics, the question is how much of it, and I will put my foot on the landmine and say sometimes it's too much or sometimes it's not worth the while. Although, I am a data nerd, so I kind of get it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But I think that sometimes it might like less is more. I feel like that phrase in reality is usually not true. You give me a steak, I want more, not less, give me a house, more, not less. But with analytics sometimes less is more. Crystal Carter: I think that's true. Certainly I think that when you think about reporting to decision makers, you can blind them with science. And sometimes if there's too many numbers, people don't trust the numbers... Mordy Oberstein: Science. Crystal Carter: I think people don't trust the numbers that you give them because they can't see the wood for the trees as it were. So that's definitely the case. I've also seen it sometimes where I've had clients who were tracking the wrong thing and they were really, really, really worried about one particular metric or another. We had the fantastic Jill Quick here talking about GA4, yesterday we had the fifth or the... Sorry, not yesterday in podcast release time, but yesterday in podcast recording time. Mordy Oberstein: Yesterday in our recording time. Crystal Carter: We had the amazing Christian Simon and she was talking about bounce rate and how she hates bounce rate. And I know that there's an entire contingent of SEOs who really hate bounce rate as a metric. So there's metrics that people get hung up on and sometimes make big poor decisions over those metrics. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: And you say, oh God, we really need to sort this out. And they're trying to find a solution for a problem that doesn't exist because they're looking at the wrong metric. And sometimes when you have lots and lots and lots of metrics to choose from, people will pick the shiniest one and that will be the thing that they worry about. But it's not actually worth the bother, to quote you from a previous podcast, "sometimes it's a nothing burger". Mordy Oberstein: That's right. So that snore, what should I say about my meta descriptions being too long or short? By the way, I want to start optimizing meta descriptions by converting them from actual text, like wing dings, like symbols and see how that goes on my SEO. I think also at the same time when I find this, I get sometimes caught up in this is that what you end up doing is, and it's going to apply to any sort of data and analysis. Let's say keywords, keyword analysis, whether it's rankings or impressions or whatever it is, you could get so far down the rabbit hole. You can start looking at minutiae of minutiae. You can do this with any. You can dive into, let me see how I'm doing in the US. Okay, fine. Great, that makes sense. Let me see how I'm doing in New York. Okay, that kind of makes sense. Let me see how I'm doing in West Hempstead. Does not matter. I will tell you, unless you're a local business located in West Hempstead, New York, it doesn't really matter, but you could go that far. You can go so far down the rabbit hole that you end up creating problems for yourselves that if you took a minute to stop and think they are problems, you probably could fix them. You might see some benefit, but what's the opportunity cost? Does it really matter? Or is my time better spent focusing on larger problems? And I feel like that's sometimes is the danger with data and analytics. Crystal Carter: And I think also benchmarking. Benchmarking is really important in this whole conversation around GA4. There's a lot of people talking about migrating your data and storing your data from UA. So they're going to make it so that you can't access the UA data. They're going to make it so that the UA data is not available or stops collecting or that sort of thing. So if you want to get insights on what is good for your business, because that's the thing, if like someone says, "oh, we got 4,000 clicks this month", on whatever thing it was, or it's like, "is that good?" I don't know if that's good for your business. What if your business is used to having 400,000 clicks and this month you had 4,000 or what if it's used to having 4,000 and this month you had 400, then how do you know what's good? If you're used to having 40 and you have 4,000. Wow, brilliant. So the benchmarking is really important. So understanding the context of your data is really important. So I think that just a piece of quantitative data in the middle of the ether means very, very little when it's not part of a wider data story, a data profile or business. So I think the context is very important to think about with all of these things with reporting. Mordy Oberstein: You just brought up an absolutely amazing point. We just had this, let's break the fourth wall here with the Wix SEO learning hub, where sometimes you look at a data reporting period and you trying to benchmark, which essentially we're trying to do, and you could say, okay, this is the data, now we should do X or here's the data, now let's look at Y. When really you don't have enough data and sometimes it could take months and months and months to get the right data. Let's say for example, you launch a new product or new page or whatever it is. Let's say October, November is Thanksgiving and Black Friday, December is Christmas, January is people are just getting back to the new year. It'll take you to February theoretically until you start seeing normal data. So now you have October data when you launched, which is all right, whatever, you just launched it. November, not normal data. December, not normal data. January, maybe getting close to normal data and February, you have two months. Crystal Carter: This is it. And I'll tell you right now, if any SEOs out there who do monthly reporting who say, let's compare this month to last month, February always looks terrible. February always looks terrible because January's 31 days. 31 big old days, and February is 28, so that's 29... Mordy Oberstein: Stepchild month. Crystal Carter: Three days shorter. So it's going to be less. Tell you right now, if you're looking at hard numbers, it's going to be less. Mordy Oberstein: If you look at how much money you saved in February versus January and you're spending, it might be better because, "hey, I ain't spending", it's three days where I could not pull out my credit card. Crystal Carter: Right. And March is always way, way better than February. And every March, you're like, "we crushed it, guys. We crushed it". Mordy Oberstein: We're so good. Crystal Carter: So, yeah. And I think the data point, yeah, I had a look at... Like one analogy I always use is like trees. You could look at trees and that you could do six months of data for trees between May, and you look at trees in the spring, going all the way into September or something and you go, oh yeah, trees are green, they're great, they've got lots of leaves, and then you don't know why you need a rake in November and you're completely confused because your data's wrong. So yeah, the data stuff is absolutely important. You can't make decisions without solid data. What's useful is to... I always recommend having multiple sources of data, but being able to understand what's common across them with no. . . In the conversation with GA4, and one of the things that's tricky, and one of the things reasons why Jill was talking about events so much is that the things don't always line up. So if you're trying to compare, it's like you're not comparing apples to apples. You might be comparing apples to oranges. So it's very important for you to have some kind of consistent data. So one of the things that's good during this data migration is that Google, sorry, Google Search Console is going to be consistent throughout, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: You can only store data from Google Search Console for so long, so you might need to have an export thing, but she was right. We do need to be more mature about data, and this isn't just about making marketing decisions, it's also about search. Because there's so much machine learning in search and so much machine learning in search advertising right now, and so much like AI, and we say, "oh, there's AI". AI is machine learning in practice. Mordy Oberstein: So there actually is no AI, it's all machine learning, but whatever... Crystal Carter: It's all machine learning and they say, garbage in, garbage out. So you have to feed the machine good data, and the better data you're feeding it, the better the machine will reward you. So yeah, Jill's entirely right that we need to be more mature about our data. I need to make sure that works well and that includes the way that we think about data, includes the kinds of events we have. It includes the structured data that we have on our site, includes the metadata that we have on our site because that also goes into the data profile, and I've seen it before where we've had clients who were running machine learning advertising campaigns and the machine came back with all these different words that it thought were relevant to the page. Then we made some optimizations to the on page information and the on page meta tags for that page, and then the machine understood it better. So these are things that we need to think about and be much more aware of how we manage our data online and on our website. Mordy Oberstein: So I'm want to go back to one thing you said about comparing apples and oranges. There is no comparison. Oranges are infinitely better than apples. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: How is an apple better than an orange? Crystal Carter: When was the last time you had an orange pie? Mordy Oberstein: I didn't say pie. Pie is better. Crystal Carter: When was the last time you had an orange pie? When was the last time little Debbie's made you an orange pie? Mordy Oberstein: What? Orange juice or apple juice? Which one? Crystal Carter: I mean apple juice has its place... Mordy Oberstein: Two fruits, in an apple and orange fruit, which one would you eat? Crystal Carter: Which one would I eat? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Depend on what time of year. I like a nice crisp apple. I enjoy nice crisp apple. This is delicious. Mordy Oberstein: You're just saying that it's like you could be right and you know that... Crystal Carter: No, I live in England, there's so many different kinds of apples. Mordy Oberstein: I'm from New York. We have apples. We don't grow oranges, but I still like oranges better. Crystal Carter: Oranges are oranges. You got to peel them. Sometimes the rind is thin. Sometimes the rind is thick. Sometimes it's like a whole thing. Sometimes you can peel it with your fingers. Sometimes you need a knife. You can't always just bite into an apple. I'm just saying. Mordy Oberstein: We should bite into nail though. Some snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news. Snappy news. When it rains, things get wet. Wait, no, that's not how that goes. When it rains, it pours. There we go. We just finished with the February 2023 product review update, and then suddenly on March 15th, Google went ahead and announced the March 2023 core update. So I'll run through my usual spiel here. One, it takes a few weeks for this sort of thing to roll out. Two, there could be all sorts of rank spikes and losses and reversals along the way. So don't panic, let the update play itself out. Three, per tools like the summer sensor, we've already seen a few days of elevator rank fluctuations, but don't be fooled if the tools go back to normal for a few days as there can be spikes and rank reverse at the tail end, like I just said before. Definitely have a look at Barry Schwartz's search engine land coverage, if you're looking to get more context, as he's got like, I don't know, a gazillion, bazillion, trillion links to the various updates. He's coverage. You can see how the updates have functioned in the past and what's happened and how big they are, and yada, yada, yada. Yes, Barry, we know you've covered them all and now you have the internal links to prove it. Okay, onto the second item of business, and this one's not really an SEO story, but it's, Hey, hi. So who cares? Heard James Vincent over at the Verge. Google announces AI features and Gmail, docs and more to rival Microsoft. Let the AI wars begin. Okay, so basically Google is giving you the ability, or we'll be giving you the ability to enter a few prompts and have the AI create the entire content for you within a Google Doc and so forth. The example Google shows is in a Google Doc where they enter very bare bones prompt to create a job listing for a sales rep opening, and then Google goes ahead and completely goes bonkers and creates the entire complete listing format and everything in seconds. I'll just reiterate what I've been saying this entire time about AI content. Please, please, please, for the love of God, please use this responsibly. Boy do I sound like a boomer. And last, and you might say least, but I don't because it may not sound like a big deal, but to me this is huge. Again, Barry Schwartz, who else over at Search Engine Roundtable this time "Google Search, save your favorite brand's feature". So back at Google's event Search On in 2022, Google announced that you'll be able to have a setting that will let you see results on Google from your favorite brands. Well, SEO legend, Britney Mueller spotted this for the first time live in the wild on the surf when searching for something on mobile and the search came back and said, "Hey, save your favorite brand to get more relevant results". Okay, Mordy, this is cool, right? You can go to the SERP, you search for something and you search on our jeans and Google says, "Hey, save this setting so that you can get great results from either the Gap or I don't know where else do you get jeans from, Old Navy or Macy's? And you can get results from all these different companies and brands specifically and take out results from other brands that you don't like in the SERP". It's cool, but was there not a bigger SEO story than this all week, Mordy? No. It was a really quiet week. Just kidding. To me, this is huge because it hinted how the ecosystem will function going forward, where the user will be able to refine what they see at the onset. So you won't even have an opportunity to rank theoretically based upon how the user set things up. In this case, if the user set up to only see, or their favorite brands were the Gap and Old Navy, but they didn't save Macy's, well, then maybe that user wouldn't see any results from Macy's anymore. So what the user will do with the onset will define what they see, which has implications on everything from ring tracking to the very undervalued idea that brand marketing greatly impacts SEO, which in this case it directly impacts SEO, because if the people like the brand and they save the brand, if they don't like the brand, then they don't save the brand, they don't save any of the results. So there's that. Anyway, that's this week's version of the Snappy News. Oh, that was the snappiest of SEO news for you. So that was great. Crystal Carter: That was great. It was so snappy. Mordy Oberstein: So snappy and so newsy, like every week. We say this in every week, I feel this is our most uncreative pivot. Crystal Carter: Have you seen Newsies? Did you realize that Christian Bale... Mordy Oberstein: Christian Bale? Yeah, obviously. Oh, please. If you going to just try to stump me with a movie trivia thing, it cannot be that. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Like what letter comes after a? B. Crystal Carter: I didn't realize you were such a Newsies fan. Mordy Oberstein: I love Newsies. Crystal Carter: Okay. I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Brooklyn is here. Crystal Carter: Oh, of course. Of course. This is a movie for me. Mordy Oberstein: This is for me, it's built for me. It's a bespoke movie. Well, speaking of Newsies, actually, no, this has absolutely nothing to do with that, but before we do leave, we need to leave you with somebody who you, it should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness, in this case, more analytics awesomeness as if analytics is awesomeness, but whatever leading that little technicality aside for a moment, this week's follow of the week is the one, the only Dana DiTomaso on Twitter @DANADITOMASO. If you can't keep up with the spelling of it so quickly, which nobody can cause I talk way too fast. We'll link to Dana's Twitter profile in the show notes. And Dana is somebody who has been the forefront of the Google Analytics for conundrum. She is cautious. She speaks about it. She's a lot of great resources out there about it. So look for on Twitter. Also, by the way, on LinkedIn, she posts a lot of resources about GA4, so a great follow. Crystal Carter: Yeah, she's great. I saw her speak at Mozcon last year. She's very frank, and she's very clear and very astute about analytics and about how people track data on websites. So yeah, she's fantastic. Absolutely, check her out online, and if you see her speaking at a conference of which she does sometimes do check her out as well, because she's a smart person. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great way to put it. She's a smart, smart, smart person. No, it'll be smart for you. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: In the next week, because... Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: ... that's going to wrap it up. Thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episodes. We dive into building the ultimate SEO team with a very, very special guest. Crystal Carter: Hint. Mordy Oberstein: They may like cheese, they may not like cheese. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO learning hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Look to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO learning hub over 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 Jill Quick Dana DiTomaso Resources : Wix SEO Learning Hub The Coloring In Department What you need to know about GA4 Resources to learn GA4 from Jill Quick News : Google releases March 2023 broad core update Google announces AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft Google Search Save Your Favorite Brands Feature Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Jill Quick Dana DiTomaso Resources : Wix SEO Learning Hub The Coloring In Department What you need to know about GA4 Resources to learn GA4 from Jill Quick News : Google releases March 2023 broad core update Google announces AI features in Gmail, Docs, and more to rival Microsoft Google Search Save Your Favorite Brands Feature Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining us for SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing out groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO branding here at Wix.com, joined by the fantastic, the amazing, the person without any musical references this week, head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: How do you dooby-dooby-doo? Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like I’m on Scooby Doo now. Hey Scooby. Crystal Carter: This show is not about scatting, it's about Google Analytics. That's what we're going to talk about. But thank you for that lovely introduction there, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: It's my pleasure. And speaking of Google Analytics, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can easily create a connection to GA4 and have your site or even upgrade your site from UA to GA4 with the Google Analytics, Wix marketing integration right there inside of our marketing integrations where you can easily set your site up with Google Analytics, walks you right through the whole process. So isn't that great? Because today we're talking about GA4, which Crystal already said so redundant. Canonical backdoor, Crystal said it before, SEO jokes. Crystal Carter: Yeah, so today we're talking about GA4. Why are we talking about GA4, Mordy? Why? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, because they're coming for your data, hide your kids. That's right. They're coming for your kids and there is no hiding because the boogeyman is coming for your data. Your UA data. Well, it's not a boogeyman, it's Google, and they're changing your analytics to conform to the new web. So they're moving over from Universal Analytics to GA4. Either way, scare mongering aside, just for a minute, we'll get back to scare mongering later. If you're used to Google Analytics as you know it now, you can kiss it goodbye as GA4 is just around the corner. We have analytics maven and consultant and trainer over at the Coloring in Department, Jill Quick will join us as a guest host to help us make sense of GA4. Thank God someone's going to be here to help us and make sense out of this thing. Also, crystal and I will take a little bit of a deep dive down the analytics rabbit hole. We have a deep thought moment about how many of those darn analytics data points do you really need? And of course we have the snappiest SEO news for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. Let's get right to the point, the data point, as episode number 30 of the SERP's Up podcast enters the final analysis, or should I say the final analytics analysis or should I say the final UA analytics analysis? Either way, take it away, Crystal. Crystal Carter: Yes. So today we're talking about GA4, Google Analytics for the fourth iteration of Google Analytics. That's what we're talking about. And the reason why we're talking about it is because the end is nine, it's coming. It's coming whether we like it or not, it is coming. And a lot of people have said that they do not like it. However, it has improved since they said that it was coming. So basically if we think about the timeline, they launched the beta for GA4 in 2019. Then in 2020 they announced the official release. Then in 2022, they announced that there was a deprecation date for UA because until that point, everyone had been pretty much with the exception of fine analytics professionals like Jill had been sort of burying their heads in the sand around GA4. And then after that point people started going, "oh my gosh, yeah, maybe we actually should deal with this". And then deadline for deprecation in June 2022, and then they finally gave us the full deprecation date, which is the 1st of July 2023, which is not that long from right now. If you look at your calendar and if you look up and you haven't done anything with regards to GA4, that is one of the reasons why we are bringing this up because it is time to take your head out of the sand. It is time to step into the light, face the music as it were, and to get involved with GA4. There was a recent email that came around that said that Google was going to migrate it for you if you didn't do it yourself. And this is something that we think that you should probably do that yourself if you can. I'm sure Jill will get into that a little bit more. But that's why we're talking about it. It's super important. And whether you are really into your analytics or not, the team that runs your marketing is almost certainly relying on quality analytics from UA or from a tool that is using UA backed data. So this is something that you should be thinking about and something that you should definitely make sure that your team is covered by because they also announced that at a certain point, you won't even be able to see or get access to that data. So this is something that you should be thinking about and this is the reason why we have Jill here and we are so grateful for Jill to be here to shed some light. I've seen Jill speak on this topic and I found it incredibly illuminating. So we're pleased to have Jill here. Mordy Oberstein: Hi, Jill. Jill Quick: Hi. I've never been called a maven before. I kind of like it. Crystal Carter: I feel like it suits you. Mordy Oberstein: I try to switch things up a little on people in the intros. I try to make it unique, although Crystal's is pretty much the same every week. Crystal Carter: He just throws compliments at me, which I'm not mad at. Mordy Oberstein: Like Rose is at your feet. Crystal Carter: It's fine. Mordy Oberstein: But first off, do you hear that sound? That's me slowly taking my head out of the sand, just so you know. I guess I want to know, Jill, just top level, what's the difference between Universal Analytics, the Google Analytics we're all very fond of and used to and GA4? Jill Quick: So I am going to use my little analogy of methods of transportation because I know Crystal seen it. Mordy, you've heard it. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Jill Quick: Listeners, you might be bored of me talking about this, but here we go. For those of you that are new with it, the way that I like to think of the journey that analytics has been on is that if analytics was a mode of transportation, then the first version that we got, GA1, if we're going to call it, that was Urchin around about 2005. And that was a bike. And I am old enough to remember hit counters and other weird and wonderful things from the very early days of the worldwide web marketing. So we were honestly delighted when we started to get Urchin and it was free and it was really popular. And actually... And we'll come back to this point about servers. I'm going to put a pin in that thought later. I don't think Google expected it to be as popular as it became and it swelled and we wanted more. And then we had an upgrade with Classic analytics around about 2007, and that was getting rid of the bike and giving you a moped, a scooter. So we had a little bit more with our data. We got a new user interface. And I'm saying this because we have gone through multiple interface changes. We've just forgotten because it was so long ago. Now, Universal Analytics, where Mordy's super comfortable at the moment... Mordy Oberstein: Very comfortable. Jill Quick: Yeah, this was 2011, 2012, and it is the equivalent of getting rid of the moped and the bike and giving us the keys to our very own universal analytics car. Now, majority of people, we've had this car for over 10 years and you've either been the driver, the passenger, the engineer, I have met people that don't even know where the car is parked or who has the key. We like the car, we know the car, it's comfortable. And again, it was free and you just kind of started a job. They gave you access and you drove away and got what you needed from it. With the transition to GA4, as Crystal mentioned, we had the very... Not necessarily best name of app and web, and then they rebranded it to GA4 is the fourth version of that analytics platform. And despite Google saying it's an upgrade and it is an upgrade, but it's not an upgrade as in get rid of my crappy old card that could do with a wash and some reupholstering and give me a new one. They're taking away the car, setting it on fire this year, so we can't have it anymore. And they've given us the keys to a helicopter. That is the equivalent shift that we have. And that's where I think, and I've been in the same bucket when they announced this, it was like, not now Google. It's the pandemic. I'm teaching my kids, we’re going to get the plague not now. Read the room. We don't want to be doing any of this. And there are lots of people that, and I'm sure some people are still in this bucket, they log into GA4 and they're like, what is going on? Where are the things? Because you are used to a car and the steering wheel and the dashboard and you've now got a gear stick and there's toggles that are above your head now, and it's just really not that familiar. And I know that there's a lot of people, as I said, they love the car, they're happy with the car, but with GA4, there are some similarities. Both of them have doors and seat belts and windows, but it is a completely different data model. And if you're trying to get GA4 to do what GA3 did, you're going to be disappointed. You can't make the helicopter a car. The car can't be a helicopter. They're similar, but they can't interlink with each other. So going into what the data models are, we'll think about this as the engines of these methods of analytics, transportation, the data model of universal analytics was a hit based model that ran on users and hopefully they had multiple sessions and anytime they did anything on that website, a hit was fired, A page view was loaded, PDF downloaded, bought a product, filled out a form, that kind of thing. When it comes to the data model of GA4, because it's an adaptation of Firebase, which was the product for app and web and rebranded to GA4, they have adopted that Firebase model. So they're moving away from this hit based model towards a user and event data model. And events are slightly different to events in GA3. And we can go through that unless there's a talking point on here what those different events are. Mordy Oberstein: If you gave me the keys to a helicopter right now, I will tell you exactly what I'll do with the helicopter. I'll crash that thing so hard into a cliff between a hot fiery mess, which is exactly what's happening to me in GA4, not because I don't think I understand... I think I understand what I'm looking at once I find it. I'm just having... On that car, you said, I know where all the buttons are, I feel like I'm in the cockpit. Forget a helicopter, of a 747 and there's all the switches and I don't even know where to go to find the data because GA3 or Universal Analytics, it was to me at least so simple, it's on the left-hand nav. When you go into the report, you see, okay, I can switch the medium, I can switch this metric, I can add a secondary metric. God, I can compare periods. God, it's all uniform across the board. But I feel like when I go into GA4, at one place that functions this way, at one place it functions that way. In one place that functions like this and it feels like it's a hot mess. Jill Quick: I would say that the data story is still pretty similar. So there are four different reporting areas in GA4. One of them is the reports, the standard aggregate. You have that data for as long as you're tracking reports. And in that life cycle you've still got acquisition. How do people find you? Behavior, what did they do? Conversions, monetization, am I still in a job? And on the right-hand side, you've still got the date range. And I would point out with the date range actually, there's the ability to do a comparison between different dates and match the day of the week, which is really useful when you've got certain cyclical cycles that move around and you can still add secondary dimensions. It's just the layout's different, the buttons are different. I mean Google if you're listening, I love you. I do work in this all the time, but I don't think usability was a big thing and I don't think you've done a great job in communicating how to do it. Selling the helicopter's great. Oh, you can fly around and get loads of stuff and BigQuery and all this. It's like, no, no. Can you just go through a crash course for a better word of how to do it. Crystal Carter: I think one of the tricky things is that with UA, essentially, so all the things are on the side, it's really easy to browse and there was very much as a marketer and doing audits on sites, it would be very easy to sort of go log into an analytics account and just have a look around at various things. And sometimes I'd find stuff I wasn't even expecting to see because there was so much data there and I could see and I could compare and things like that. And the thing that I find really tricky about analytics, and I said they say, oh, you can build this, you can build that, but I'm like, I don't want to build it. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. I want to go in there, I want to see what's there and have fun, look around and see... But I feel like in GA4 there is no looking around, unless I specifically said it, I do not see it. Crystal Carter: So what I'm asking is what's your advice for people who are used to browsing and to streamline the process of rebuilding or resetting some of the reports that they're used to or that they like or even that they see other people reporting on. Jill Quick: So GA4, the success of your GA4 implementation will come down to the quality of the events that you are tracking. And I think that's been the biggest flex that... You've still got dimensions and metrics. So that terminology and that language is still the same. However, pageview is now an event and pageview was an event in GA3. So if we do a couple of minutes on what is the difference between the data model. So Events in GA3, so if you heard the word events, you typically were thinking about the behavior reports and anything outside of a page view was loaded. If you wanted anything else to be tracked in GA3, in the car, you would have to send those as events in Google Tag Manager and you'd have. . . Crystal Carter: So you downloaded something or something like that. Jill Quick: Category was a big broad bouquet. Video, the action, the doing, play the video, pause the video, label gave context of the thing that they just did brings and repeat to all the things that you wanted to track for your measurement objectives. When it comes to GA4, everything is an event. They want it all lowercase and underscore like snake case because it's a computer program. So it likes things built that way so that everything works and you now have an event name, event parameters and then there'll be values assigned to those parameters. And the way that I have done training on this and the talks I've done and the audits that I do, I'd like to think of it as event DNA. So if you can picture in your mind now the old science lesson where you did that nice little helix string of a DNA sequence, imagine that's the events that you've got in your GA4 data stream. You would have an event name up to 25 parameters, so there's 25 nodes max, and the DNA is just going to dissolve and not work and there's a certain length that we can have with each of these parameters and the values. Now, out of these events in their DNA, they are grouped into what I like to call four parent categories. These parents are made up of event DNA and we've got the auto enhanced recommended and custom. So the automatic collected events are a bundle of events that you get when you say I'm going to have a GA4 instance and I'm going to put that configuration tag on and it's going to start collecting data that's going to give you information like the page location, session start, first visit, engagement, which is like time. Great. The enhanced measurement are additional events you get in your data stream so you can further tweak what you can get. That's going to have things like page view data. It's going to have files downloaded, site search, a really crappy named event called click. But that event click has a number of parameters like link URL, which is tracking all outbound links. And for most sites that's really useful because they're sending people to Glassdoor or TripAdvisor or review sites or Google Maps. It also tracks telephone numbers and email addresses because they're technically outbound links. So these were things that were actually quite hard to track in GA3 and I've done enough audits that there were always something wrong with somebody's account, but there's a lot that comes out of the box, but you just need to know these parent categories and what you get out of it. Recommended are a bunch of events that Google has given us a list basically. So sign up events, generate lead events or forms, purchase events, they've got some pre named ones and we want to use those so we can get more information into the reports because they're listening for these. And then you have custom, which is basically anything that doesn't fit in the previous three. So I did one recently which was a B2B company that had Calendly booking so that you could book an appointment with them. There isn't a recommended event for that, doesn't come out of the box in auto and enhance, so we'd have to track it. So we've got these four parent events and if you just look at the four parents when you log in to GA4, and I think this is where the frustration comes from, you go to events and you might have nine and an event count and it'll say like, "click, file download, scroll", and you are like, "but I want to know the page that they were on. I want to know the file that they downloaded". And you can add a secondary dimension and you can play around with that if you want. But there's another concept to get your head around, which is that you can create an event from an event. Now, if we go along with my little story here that we have our four parent categories all made up of event DNA, if I wanted to create a new event, I have to take the DNA from a parent. So I'm making a child. Now, for SEO listeners, you're familiar with this concept because you've got parent categories and subcategories, children that we like. You've got all that structure. So if I wanted to create a new event to make it easy for people to see that somebody clicked mordy@website.com , then I can go into the user interface, create a new event where I say, "please create me a child and I'd like to call this email_high and where the event name equals click and the parameter equals link_URL and the value of that is mordy@website.com . Please fire a new event called email_high" and then I've got that in my reports and I can report on it. So there's some tweaking we have to do within the user interface, but it's not obvious when you log in because there's no tool tip and Google just goes, "it's flexible, you can do anything". And people are like, "give me a fricking use case". And common ones are you'll probably want to create child events for the type of file that was downloaded, see the PDFs, the zips and the docs. You might want to break out those click events for outbound links to your review site, Google Maps, telephone numbers, email addresses. And when you start getting familiar with the events, the parameters, the parents and the children, it becomes easier to understand how do I go into the user interface and ask it? Because it's a different language, isn't it? It's like hieroglyphics almost when you first start because you are not familiar with what you need to do. And it reminds me, and I think I've had this conversation with both of you before, it reminds me when I remember people showing me WordPress websites and I was like, "oh wow, that's great". I'm like, "why does mine not look great? Why does mine go hello world and there's a crap at the site, like why?" And then somebody goes, "yeah, you got to think about your information architecture and your images and your placement". I was like, "I thought it was going to build it for me. I thought it was going to do the thing and I'm not..." and GA4 is a bit like that where you have to go, "oh, I've got to do some thinking". And that's the difference between getting the helicopter off the ground and driving away on the car that the car was pre-built. A lot of these things were already there and GA4 looks wonderful. There's some great things you could do, which we were talking about in a moment. But you've got to get your head around what is an event? What are they called? Because it's taken me some rewiring of my brain to go page_location when I'm like pages, all pages, why am I having to remember new things? So there's a lot of rewiring of the brain, I think, some neuroplasticity going on to make it a little bit easier. Crystal Carter: So on the plus side, I will say for Wix users who are listening, the team at Wix have worked with Google to create some preset events for certain Wix properties. So you should have a little bit of a headstart with regards to that. But I would also say what's interesting in the events thing is that I was following along while you were chatting and starts to make a lot more sense and there's two things that stood out to me was that I think a lot of people, I've seen a lot of people when they're talking about their reporting and how they set up their events and how they set up all of the different things using additional tools to help make it easier to understand. So I know a lot of people are using Looker Studio, I'd be interested to know what you think about that. The other thing that I think is interesting is that you talked about a few other third-party tools and you talked about people trying to square peg round hole, the old of universal analytics and I've definitely done cross domain tracking and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't make sense and I believe, and maybe you can shed some light on this as well, that cross domain tracking is a bit better. Jill Quick: Yeah, it's easier. Use the same measurement ID of your data stream. You've got to make sure you go in your admin settings and do the usual that you would have to do in things in Universal, configure your domains to say Google, it's this subdomain in this domain referral exclusions. Do not pat yourself on the back for traffic and they got all the credit for the conversions, the usual. But yeah, I have noticed that a bit like Mordy be like, "my head's out of the sand". I think I spoke to a lady last week and she went, "I'm in gone past the denial. I'm in the acceptance phase now. They're not changing the deadline. I'm going to have to do it". I'm like, "yeah, you are". And I think some of the other providers like there was... Had a client that's using Drift widget for their chat box and they just announced in February that they're now able to push those events with the measurement ID and I'm like, "yay, why have you done it so close to the deadline", Shopify, they're getting it done this month now in March. They're like, "yay, Shopify's going to be working". So I think maybe the slow adoption is because we've also been waiting for other tech stack support to help that migration because you're looking for the events and now Drift widget, if you've got the chat bot is going to push those events to you. I don't have to touch Google Tag Manager. If Shopify's doing it, great, I don't have to build loads of events for e-commerce if it's going to seamlessly push that in and going to your point on Looker, Looker's using the GA4 API, so it's only as good as your data collection. So yeah, use Looker, but if you haven't got the child events and the events and the other things you want to track that's useful to you, you are not going to get as much fun in those Looker reports because it's only as good as what you've got in that data collection. Mordy Oberstein: That's exactly the point. To me, that's exactly why one of the first things we did was automatically trigger those events in GA4. But it makes me wonder at the same time, from a business point of view, do you think that people like yourself are going to end up with a lot more clients who are... Let's say SEOs, whereas before in universal analytics, I never felt like, Hey, I need to go to an analytics expert. I have a general handle on this unless I come to a specific problem, which case I need to go to somebody one level up, but the way that Google construct this, are they... And I wonder if it's purposeful or not or whatever it is, are they creating a dynamic where professionals are now going to say, "you know what? Forget this. I am just going to sub this out to somebody else to handle". Jill Quick: Yeah. I think for people it might be for time they know enough to be dangerous but they haven't got the time to do it and they want to trust that somebody else is going to do that for them. I think that when it comes to why is Google doing this and I think there are a number of reasons. The way that GA3, the previous versions work don't really work with the way that it's going to be going in the future with cookies and consent mode and things like that. I think there's another part of me that I for fun was reading some of people's financial statements to see what they were doing and they were mentioning their servers and I'm like, "oh, I wonder why they're doing that?" And a hundred percent they're going to be taking all of the servers from the old Universal analytics when they've been it and they are going to be repurposed for service side tagging and BigQuery and all the other cloud stuff because that's really expensive. When it comes to putting investment into your analytics because it's been free for so long. I don't think people... And I've made a living out this for a decade, I've done hundreds of audits and there was always something wrong. There was always a... I've got a phrase I like to use, a confabulation of data, lies, you say, honestly because nobody goes, I'm going to tinker with my data and try and fake something for my boss. They think the data's solid because they didn't know how the data model worked and how the data got there. They just took it for granted and thought, "well, that's somebody else's problem". That leads into conversations of, well, who owns analytics? Is it dev? Is it your IT department? So it kind of just drifts around in a very ephemeral way and now people are having to put some time and money in some cases to get GA4 to work, but it's probably the first time they've had to really sit down and think, what are our measurement objectives? What is it that we're trying to do with this data? You don't want to have number soup and have reports for the sake of reporting. You want data so that it's going to give you an indication of what you should be doing with your strategy and tactics. And when you report to somebody, it's only really one or two people that get that report that can action it. Here's your purchase order, carry on, you are still in a job, that kind of thing. And when you narrow that down, it makes it a little bit better and more competitive in a way for that business owner because they've really considered what do they need and how are they going to get that data? I would say out of everybody using GA4, I reckon a good 10 million or so accounts will not move over to GA4, and that's not necessarily because they're not ready or they don't want it, they're just not going to use it. They're like, do you know what? I don't do a lot of marketing or we don't invest a lot, so I just want to know that the phone rings. People come into my shop kind of happy with that and they'll find as an analytics solution that fits those measurement objectives. The people I'm working with, they've got an SEO agency, a PPC agency, a CRO agency, 50 staff, a million pound of money to spend on marketing. They need more than what you can get from other data sources and that's why they're transitioning to GA4. So I think there's going to be a real mix and from us as marketeers as SEO people listening to this, we're going to need more analytics acumen. There's going to be more accounts that you're going to look after where it's not GA as the default. You'll have people that go, well, we use Piwik, we use Amplitude, we use another software. So we're all going to have to learn more because we're going to be seeing more people choosing a different provider. And that's quite exciting, but it's work either way, isn't it? But it feels like its analytics time to grow up a little bit, I think, because you are having to really think in a measured approach. What's a nice point though, isn't it a measured approach into what you should be doing doing and why you're doing it. Crystal Carter: And I think from the Wix side, and I'm sure there's other people who are thinking this way, we've been investing in our analytics stack, so the reports that we're able to provide people, we just added another Google Search Console one, Google Search Console has been investing a lot and improving a lot of the visibility there as well. So yeah, I think you're right. I think there's going to be people who maybe don't use it as a default. I think also a lot of people aren't going to port over to GA4 because they haven't touched that website in years. There's definitely a case where there's websites that were set up ages ago, nobody pays. It goes into that GA4, nobody's going to look at it. And I think a lot of, certainly if you have a CMS like Wix, then we have analytics built into the CMS, so if you are not doing, even if you are doing a super complex thing, we have a lot of filters and things within it, but if you just need a bird's eye view, for instance, you can absolutely see that from your... Jill Quick: I think what's really useful for that, you know you've got an alternative there. Questions you should be asking yourself because yes, if you want to continue to use Google Analytics, you're going to have to get a wiggle on and get it moved over, but go through some questions around, do you use the data because there are people that go, not really, or I log in or I get a report and it makes me feel comfortable, but I don't really do anything else. How are you currently reporting on your marketing performance? You've got to look at dashboard. Well, what's in that dashboard and is there stuff there that doesn't need to be there? Are you trying tangibelize the stuff that marketing does with a report because so much of what we do feels mystical, if that's the right word. Are you ready to invest in your data quality and collection? Because if they go, "yeah, no, I can't be asked or I have no money or there's no budget", how are you currently doing your data collection? Do you trust any of the points? These are all questions you need to ask yourself. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Jill Quick: And If you come out of it and go, "yeah, do you know what? I just need to know that the SEO stuff that we're doing is useful, that the content is engaging for my readers and that I'm building my database or the shop is busy with people because they've got other sources of truth for other marketing performance stats". Then just because people are saying you should move to GA4 doesn't mean that you actually should, if it's right for you with those measurement objectives and I've had many discovery calls with prospects where I've gone, "I don't think you are ready". Like the stage of your business, which is another important thing, how big is the business and what is your stage of growth? If you are in the mature phase, you're a market leader, yeah, you're going to be using GA or Adobe or Snowplow or so you're really investing in what you're doing. But there's a lot of people at the early phases of their business and they just want to grow. They're like, what am I doing to get that hockey stick of growth? What am I doing to improve the quality of the leads and business that I'm getting? Does that mean you should be learning about GA4, setting up BigQuery, building audiences with time? You're not going to use any of that information, get your information from somewhere else and when you are ready, you review the same questions. Are we using the data? Well, how are we reporting? Are we ready to invest? Oh yes, we are. Let's move to the next step then. And then you can always go back to another provider and if some of the people that are listening, if you viciously hate it and you're not going to... Well, don't use it. If you're a consultant, you might have clients that are like, yeah, tough, you're going to have to use GA and you're just going to have to get used to it. But there's a lot of people listening that just because... I mean I do it for my job, but you don't have to do it if it's not right for you. So it's getting the right fit so that you get a dashboard that answers the questions that you need at this point in time. Mordy Oberstein: I have so many questions. Crystal Carter: So many. Mordy Oberstein: And you mentioned questions. For example, for the love of god please explain the custom creation of reports and how to get started with that, but time is ebbed away. So where can people find you, Jill, in case they have questions about analytics. Where can I find you later if I have questions about analytics? Jill Quick: Probably more active on LinkedIn. So I'm Jill Quick. I'm a cartoon face. There's not many people with the name Jill Quick. I am on Twitter, but I'm a bit of a lurker. I just log on, read what's happening and then I kind of log off. I don't really engage because certain parts of Twitter are just not for me. Mordy Oberstein: I envy you. Jill Quick: Elon Musk is ruining it for us all with the feed. But yeah, LinkedIn's probably if you want to reach out and say, hi, and then there's my website, which is the coloringindepartment.com and I'm in the process of building some more easy step guides and content to get people started in this. Mordy Oberstein: I will link to a couple of those in the show notes if you're interested. Jill, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us. It was really insightful and I have a million more questions. I'll find you somewhere. Jill Quick: That just means you need to bring me on for part two, doesn't it? Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Jill Quick: Shoot myself. Mordy Oberstein: I need to recover from part one though. Jill Quick: I like being called maven as well. So just for that. Yeah, marketing maven, analytics Maven, Jill, a little bit. Crystal Carter: We'll have to bring you in after July. It’s done. What? Jill Quick: Calling over your keyboard, so bad. Mordy Oberstein: If you see, by the way, you see a helicopter crashing somewhere. That is me using GA4. Jill Quick: Yeah. Okay, got it. But you can learn. I mean, one final note from me on this. Honest to God, if you can learn SEO, if you can understand Google's algorithm and do your log file analysis and make sense of Google Search Console, you can learn GA4. It is a learnable skill. You just have to get over the hump of the stages of grief, isn't it? Like ignoring it, anger, frustration, acceptance. And now we're in the doing part. Yeah, you can do it though, Mordy. I believe in you. Mordy Oberstein: Accepting is hard for me. Jill Quick: Yeah. You can do it. I believe in you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for coming on, Jill. We really appreciate it. Jill Quick: Thanks for having me. Crystal Carter: Thank you so much. Mordy Oberstein: Talk to you soon. Jill Quick: I'll see you soon. Off now. Bye. Mordy Oberstein: Well, since we're talking about analytics and learning and questions, and since you're... I'm going to guess if you're like me, somewhat overwhelmed by what you just heard, this is a segment for you because in this segment, Crystal and I are going to dive into how much of that do you really need to know as we take a deep thought into how to even use or how much of analytics in general, not just GA4 to even use. It's a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. I have many thoughts about GA4 and analytics. Most of them are not deep, most of them are salty. Crystal Carter: Most of them are just, I don't want to. Mordy Oberstein: Right. This is not a salty thought with Crystal and Mordy. This is a deep thought. Crystal Carter: But why? No, I think it's... Well, a deep thoughts like the salty ocean. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Here we go. So let me just put it out there. There's so many data points. So let's set GA4 aside for a second. Let's stick in our comfort zone. I'm imagining myself still in Google Analytics 3 or universal analytics, the real analytics, you want to call it that. And in there is a ton of data, an enormous amount of data. And this could be applied to your SEO tools. This could be applied to Google's search console, even though I think that's a little bit less, but even to Google Search Console and of course at GA4, how much of that data is, wow, so cool. I have access to that data versus, you know what? That's really good data point that I need to make sure that I'm reporting on and tracking carefully. Crystal Carter: I don't know. People love data. They love a chart. They love a chart. And to be honest, you have to have some kind of data in order to back up the things that you want to do. And in order to get proof of concept for the things you want to do. Mordy Oberstein: Of course, this is not, should you use analytics, the question is how much of it, and I will put my foot on the landmine and say sometimes it's too much or sometimes it's not worth the while. Although, I am a data nerd, so I kind of get it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: But I think that sometimes it might like less is more. I feel like that phrase in reality is usually not true. You give me a steak, I want more, not less, give me a house, more, not less. But with analytics sometimes less is more. Crystal Carter: I think that's true. Certainly I think that when you think about reporting to decision makers, you can blind them with science. And sometimes if there's too many numbers, people don't trust the numbers... Mordy Oberstein: Science. Crystal Carter: I think people don't trust the numbers that you give them because they can't see the wood for the trees as it were. So that's definitely the case. I've also seen it sometimes where I've had clients who were tracking the wrong thing and they were really, really, really worried about one particular metric or another. We had the fantastic Jill Quick here talking about GA4, yesterday we had the fifth or the... Sorry, not yesterday in podcast release time, but yesterday in podcast recording time. Mordy Oberstein: Yesterday in our recording time. Crystal Carter: We had the amazing Christian Simon and she was talking about bounce rate and how she hates bounce rate. And I know that there's an entire contingent of SEOs who really hate bounce rate as a metric. So there's metrics that people get hung up on and sometimes make big poor decisions over those metrics. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Crystal Carter: And you say, oh God, we really need to sort this out. And they're trying to find a solution for a problem that doesn't exist because they're looking at the wrong metric. And sometimes when you have lots and lots and lots of metrics to choose from, people will pick the shiniest one and that will be the thing that they worry about. But it's not actually worth the bother, to quote you from a previous podcast, "sometimes it's a nothing burger". Mordy Oberstein: That's right. So that snore, what should I say about my meta descriptions being too long or short? By the way, I want to start optimizing meta descriptions by converting them from actual text, like wing dings, like symbols and see how that goes on my SEO. I think also at the same time when I find this, I get sometimes caught up in this is that what you end up doing is, and it's going to apply to any sort of data and analysis. Let's say keywords, keyword analysis, whether it's rankings or impressions or whatever it is, you could get so far down the rabbit hole. You can start looking at minutiae of minutiae. You can do this with any. You can dive into, let me see how I'm doing in the US. Okay, fine. Great, that makes sense. Let me see how I'm doing in New York. Okay, that kind of makes sense. Let me see how I'm doing in West Hempstead. Does not matter. I will tell you, unless you're a local business located in West Hempstead, New York, it doesn't really matter, but you could go that far. You can go so far down the rabbit hole that you end up creating problems for yourselves that if you took a minute to stop and think they are problems, you probably could fix them. You might see some benefit, but what's the opportunity cost? Does it really matter? Or is my time better spent focusing on larger problems? And I feel like that's sometimes is the danger with data and analytics. Crystal Carter: And I think also benchmarking. Benchmarking is really important in this whole conversation around GA4. There's a lot of people talking about migrating your data and storing your data from UA. So they're going to make it so that you can't access the UA data. They're going to make it so that the UA data is not available or stops collecting or that sort of thing. So if you want to get insights on what is good for your business, because that's the thing, if like someone says, "oh, we got 4,000 clicks this month", on whatever thing it was, or it's like, "is that good?" I don't know if that's good for your business. What if your business is used to having 400,000 clicks and this month you had 4,000 or what if it's used to having 4,000 and this month you had 400, then how do you know what's good? If you're used to having 40 and you have 4,000. Wow, brilliant. So the benchmarking is really important. So understanding the context of your data is really important. So I think that just a piece of quantitative data in the middle of the ether means very, very little when it's not part of a wider data story, a data profile or business. So I think the context is very important to think about with all of these things with reporting. Mordy Oberstein: You just brought up an absolutely amazing point. We just had this, let's break the fourth wall here with the Wix SEO learning hub, where sometimes you look at a data reporting period and you trying to benchmark, which essentially we're trying to do, and you could say, okay, this is the data, now we should do X or here's the data, now let's look at Y. When really you don't have enough data and sometimes it could take months and months and months to get the right data. Let's say for example, you launch a new product or new page or whatever it is. Let's say October, November is Thanksgiving and Black Friday, December is Christmas, January is people are just getting back to the new year. It'll take you to February theoretically until you start seeing normal data. So now you have October data when you launched, which is all right, whatever, you just launched it. November, not normal data. December, not normal data. January, maybe getting close to normal data and February, you have two months. Crystal Carter: This is it. And I'll tell you right now, if any SEOs out there who do monthly reporting who say, let's compare this month to last month, February always looks terrible. February always looks terrible because January's 31 days. 31 big old days, and February is 28, so that's 29... Mordy Oberstein: Stepchild month. Crystal Carter: Three days shorter. So it's going to be less. Tell you right now, if you're looking at hard numbers, it's going to be less. Mordy Oberstein: If you look at how much money you saved in February versus January and you're spending, it might be better because, "hey, I ain't spending", it's three days where I could not pull out my credit card. Crystal Carter: Right. And March is always way, way better than February. And every March, you're like, "we crushed it, guys. We crushed it". Mordy Oberstein: We're so good. Crystal Carter: So, yeah. And I think the data point, yeah, I had a look at... Like one analogy I always use is like trees. You could look at trees and that you could do six months of data for trees between May, and you look at trees in the spring, going all the way into September or something and you go, oh yeah, trees are green, they're great, they've got lots of leaves, and then you don't know why you need a rake in November and you're completely confused because your data's wrong. So yeah, the data stuff is absolutely important. You can't make decisions without solid data. What's useful is to... I always recommend having multiple sources of data, but being able to understand what's common across them with no. . . In the conversation with GA4, and one of the things that's tricky, and one of the things reasons why Jill was talking about events so much is that the things don't always line up. So if you're trying to compare, it's like you're not comparing apples to apples. You might be comparing apples to oranges. So it's very important for you to have some kind of consistent data. So one of the things that's good during this data migration is that Google, sorry, Google Search Console is going to be consistent throughout, right? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: You can only store data from Google Search Console for so long, so you might need to have an export thing, but she was right. We do need to be more mature about data, and this isn't just about making marketing decisions, it's also about search. Because there's so much machine learning in search and so much machine learning in search advertising right now, and so much like AI, and we say, "oh, there's AI". AI is machine learning in practice. Mordy Oberstein: So there actually is no AI, it's all machine learning, but whatever... Crystal Carter: It's all machine learning and they say, garbage in, garbage out. So you have to feed the machine good data, and the better data you're feeding it, the better the machine will reward you. So yeah, Jill's entirely right that we need to be more mature about our data. I need to make sure that works well and that includes the way that we think about data, includes the kinds of events we have. It includes the structured data that we have on our site, includes the metadata that we have on our site because that also goes into the data profile, and I've seen it before where we've had clients who were running machine learning advertising campaigns and the machine came back with all these different words that it thought were relevant to the page. Then we made some optimizations to the on page information and the on page meta tags for that page, and then the machine understood it better. So these are things that we need to think about and be much more aware of how we manage our data online and on our website. Mordy Oberstein: So I'm want to go back to one thing you said about comparing apples and oranges. There is no comparison. Oranges are infinitely better than apples. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: How is an apple better than an orange? Crystal Carter: When was the last time you had an orange pie? Mordy Oberstein: I didn't say pie. Pie is better. Crystal Carter: When was the last time you had an orange pie? When was the last time little Debbie's made you an orange pie? Mordy Oberstein: What? Orange juice or apple juice? Which one? Crystal Carter: I mean apple juice has its place... Mordy Oberstein: Two fruits, in an apple and orange fruit, which one would you eat? Crystal Carter: Which one would I eat? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Depend on what time of year. I like a nice crisp apple. I enjoy nice crisp apple. This is delicious. Mordy Oberstein: You're just saying that it's like you could be right and you know that... Crystal Carter: No, I live in England, there's so many different kinds of apples. Mordy Oberstein: I'm from New York. We have apples. We don't grow oranges, but I still like oranges better. Crystal Carter: Oranges are oranges. You got to peel them. Sometimes the rind is thin. Sometimes the rind is thick. Sometimes it's like a whole thing. Sometimes you can peel it with your fingers. Sometimes you need a knife. You can't always just bite into an apple. I'm just saying. Mordy Oberstein: We should bite into nail though. Some snappy SEO news. Snappy news, snappy news. Snappy news. When it rains, things get wet. Wait, no, that's not how that goes. When it rains, it pours. There we go. We just finished with the February 2023 product review update, and then suddenly on March 15th, Google went ahead and announced the March 2023 core update. So I'll run through my usual spiel here. One, it takes a few weeks for this sort of thing to roll out. Two, there could be all sorts of rank spikes and losses and reversals along the way. So don't panic, let the update play itself out. Three, per tools like the summer sensor, we've already seen a few days of elevator rank fluctuations, but don't be fooled if the tools go back to normal for a few days as there can be spikes and rank reverse at the tail end, like I just said before. Definitely have a look at Barry Schwartz's search engine land coverage, if you're looking to get more context, as he's got like, I don't know, a gazillion, bazillion, trillion links to the various updates. He's coverage. You can see how the updates have functioned in the past and what's happened and how big they are, and yada, yada, yada. Yes, Barry, we know you've covered them all and now you have the internal links to prove it. Okay, onto the second item of business, and this one's not really an SEO story, but it's, Hey, hi. So who cares? Heard James Vincent over at the Verge. Google announces AI features and Gmail, docs and more to rival Microsoft. Let the AI wars begin. Okay, so basically Google is giving you the ability, or we'll be giving you the ability to enter a few prompts and have the AI create the entire content for you within a Google Doc and so forth. The example Google shows is in a Google Doc where they enter very bare bones prompt to create a job listing for a sales rep opening, and then Google goes ahead and completely goes bonkers and creates the entire complete listing format and everything in seconds. I'll just reiterate what I've been saying this entire time about AI content. Please, please, please, for the love of God, please use this responsibly. Boy do I sound like a boomer. And last, and you might say least, but I don't because it may not sound like a big deal, but to me this is huge. Again, Barry Schwartz, who else over at Search Engine Roundtable this time "Google Search, save your favorite brand's feature". So back at Google's event Search On in 2022, Google announced that you'll be able to have a setting that will let you see results on Google from your favorite brands. Well, SEO legend, Britney Mueller spotted this for the first time live in the wild on the surf when searching for something on mobile and the search came back and said, "Hey, save your favorite brand to get more relevant results". Okay, Mordy, this is cool, right? You can go to the SERP, you search for something and you search on our jeans and Google says, "Hey, save this setting so that you can get great results from either the Gap or I don't know where else do you get jeans from, Old Navy or Macy's? And you can get results from all these different companies and brands specifically and take out results from other brands that you don't like in the SERP". It's cool, but was there not a bigger SEO story than this all week, Mordy? No. It was a really quiet week. Just kidding. To me, this is huge because it hinted how the ecosystem will function going forward, where the user will be able to refine what they see at the onset. So you won't even have an opportunity to rank theoretically based upon how the user set things up. In this case, if the user set up to only see, or their favorite brands were the Gap and Old Navy, but they didn't save Macy's, well, then maybe that user wouldn't see any results from Macy's anymore. So what the user will do with the onset will define what they see, which has implications on everything from ring tracking to the very undervalued idea that brand marketing greatly impacts SEO, which in this case it directly impacts SEO, because if the people like the brand and they save the brand, if they don't like the brand, then they don't save the brand, they don't save any of the results. So there's that. Anyway, that's this week's version of the Snappy News. Oh, that was the snappiest of SEO news for you. So that was great. Crystal Carter: That was great. It was so snappy. Mordy Oberstein: So snappy and so newsy, like every week. We say this in every week, I feel this is our most uncreative pivot. Crystal Carter: Have you seen Newsies? Did you realize that Christian Bale... Mordy Oberstein: Christian Bale? Yeah, obviously. Oh, please. If you going to just try to stump me with a movie trivia thing, it cannot be that. Crystal Carter: Okay. Mordy Oberstein: Like what letter comes after a? B. Crystal Carter: I didn't realize you were such a Newsies fan. Mordy Oberstein: I love Newsies. Crystal Carter: Okay. I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: Brooklyn is here. Crystal Carter: Oh, of course. Of course. This is a movie for me. Mordy Oberstein: This is for me, it's built for me. It's a bespoke movie. Well, speaking of Newsies, actually, no, this has absolutely nothing to do with that, but before we do leave, we need to leave you with somebody who you, it should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness, in this case, more analytics awesomeness as if analytics is awesomeness, but whatever leading that little technicality aside for a moment, this week's follow of the week is the one, the only Dana DiTomaso on Twitter @DANADITOMASO. If you can't keep up with the spelling of it so quickly, which nobody can cause I talk way too fast. We'll link to Dana's Twitter profile in the show notes. And Dana is somebody who has been the forefront of the Google Analytics for conundrum. She is cautious. She speaks about it. She's a lot of great resources out there about it. So look for on Twitter. Also, by the way, on LinkedIn, she posts a lot of resources about GA4, so a great follow. Crystal Carter: Yeah, she's great. I saw her speak at Mozcon last year. She's very frank, and she's very clear and very astute about analytics and about how people track data on websites. So yeah, she's fantastic. Absolutely, check her out online, and if you see her speaking at a conference of which she does sometimes do check her out as well, because she's a smart person. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great way to put it. She's a smart, smart, smart person. No, it'll be smart for you. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy Oberstein: In the next week, because... Crystal Carter: Oh, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: ... that's going to wrap it up. Thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episodes. We dive into building the ultimate SEO team with a very, very special guest. Crystal Carter: Hint. Mordy Oberstein: They may like cheese, they may not like cheese. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on our SEO learning hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Look to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO learning hub over 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 is AI reshaping the world of content creation and SEO? With Wix's Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter “prompting” the conversation, they look into the evolving landscape of AI in marketing with Garrett Sussman, Director of Marketing at iPullRank and Paula Mejia, VP of Marketing Enterprise at Wix. How are AI search engines changing user behavior? With natural language queries and personalized results challenging traditional SEO, AI is revolutionizing content production, refreshing strategies, and pushing the boundaries of what marketing teams can achieve. Plus, get the lowdown on the latest AI tools in Wix Studio and how they’re making a splash without overwhelming your workflow. Back AI & The Future of Search Engines How is AI reshaping the world of content creation and SEO? With Wix's Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter “prompting” the conversation, they look into the evolving landscape of AI in marketing with Garrett Sussman, Director of Marketing at iPullRank and Paula Mejia, VP of Marketing Enterprise at Wix. How are AI search engines changing user behavior? With natural language queries and personalized results challenging traditional SEO, AI is revolutionizing content production, refreshing strategies, and pushing the boundaries of what marketing teams can achieve. Plus, get the lowdown on the latest AI tools in Wix Studio and how they’re making a splash without overwhelming your workflow. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 107 | October 23, 2024 | 55 MIN 00:00 / 52:55 This week’s guests Paula Ximena Mejia Paula is the Vice President of Enterprise Marketing at Wix Studio. She is responsible for growth, brand and product marketing for this audience. With seven years at Wix, Paula has led various marketing efforts in the areas of customer success, eCommerce and inbound marketing, catering to the platform’s 250+ million users worldwide. 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 serps. Aloha. Mahalo. Put your serps up podcast. We're pushing out some grooving insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Morty oversting, the head of SEO brand here at Wix. And I'm joined by the always cutting edge, innovative new emerging tech of the SEO communications world, or head of SEO communications here at Wix and Wix studio, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello. I try not to cut up too much. I've been known to cut a rug from time to time. I've always liked that turn of phrase. Mordy Oberstein: It was better than cutting the cheese, so. Crystal Carter: Oh no, we're not doing that on this podcast. Mordy Oberstein: It's like a podcast, guys. What a bad rap for cheese. Like, cheese is wonderful. Like, why would I get her, like cut the cheese. Please, please cut me some cheese. Crystal Carter: I mean, I've had some smelly cheese in my time. Like there are some cheeses that like really go for it. Mordy Oberstein: It's like fancy people's cheese. Like, I'm not talking about that. Like cheddar and mozzarella, right? Maybe some monster, right? Crystal Carter: We keep it simple. We keep it like, like classy. Yeah, that's what it works. Mordy Oberstein: The Surface up podcast is brought to you by Cheez whiz and not by cheese, but by Wix Studio, where you can only subscribe to our SEO newsletter Searchlight, over@wix.com SEO Learn Newsletter. But where you can also spin up some AI images, create title tags and meta descriptions using AI and more. Look for it wherever you do stuff inside of Wixtudicause all over the place. It's everywhere. AI is everywhere inside of Wix Studios. I'm trying to say is today we're talking about preparing for the future as AI search engines and AIO reviews aiositive set to dominate the skies perhaps maybe. And as the chat GPTs of the world rule the seas, why an entity first approach to SEO show rule the day when looking to get your URL's into AI outputs. Why there are no shortcuts, cheats and or hacks to reigning supreme in AI results. Mordy Oberstein: So sorry. Not heading yonder past the mountain views and gazing out on AI search engines beyond Google as AI SEO influencer, an actual real life human being, Garrett Sussmann pipes in on how AI search engines will change user behavior. Plus, we talked to Wix Studios Paula Mejia about what AI abilities move the needle for large marketing teams. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO News and who you should be following on social media for more SEO and AI awesomeness. So as AI search engines and outputs with URL's of all sorts set to ascend towards user preference, sovereignty, and how ye can knight thyself master of the realm. That is. LLM on this, the Serps up podcast. I win all medieval times in y'all, which like, it's such a weird thing, medieval. Mordy Oberstein: You show up to watch, like, people jousting while you're eating a cheeseburger. I've never been there, so I don't know, but it seems weird. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I kind of always wanted to go to the knights of roundtable in Las Vegas. I don't know, mostly to hear the terrible english accents. Like people in Las Vegas going, hear ye, hear ye. Mordy Oberstein: Like, I'm not from England. Clearly they don't do that all the time. Crystal Carter: What? Have terrible english accents? Mordy Oberstein: No, like I thought, like, you know, if I'm an english person, I'm going into, I don't know, like a restaurant. I'm trying to get the waiter's attention. I'll be, hear ye, hear ye, thy waiter. They don't do that. Crystal Carter: Only for special occasions. Mordy Oberstein: Ah, okay. They don't have like a bella ringing? Crystal Carter: No, only for special occasions. In England, what you do find is there are sometimes places where they have a lord mayor and the lord mayor has bling, has ridiculous necklaces, this huge necklace and wears a cape and stuff. It's amazing because they're supposed to have all this decorum, but they wear all. Mordy Oberstein: This bling that I'm talking about touristy Englands for me. So. All right, all right. It's the subject of basically every marketing team's meetings, blog posts, social media. It's the subject of all the posters on trees, whatever, is basically how do I get my site mentioned? And when possible, link to an AI output like search, GPT, chat GPT, and everyone's favorite classic, the AI overview. And it seems to me that everyone is looking for some sort of like optimization hack. I cannot tell you how many times people are like, yeah, how can I get in there quickly? And the answer is, there's no hack. It's a lot of work to get in there, and it's going to be a lot of real digital marketing, presence, brand presence, building, that's the only way of getting in there. Mordy Oberstein: And for SEOs, it's a different kind of optimization and a different kind of way of thinking, because again, it's really entity based. If you go to chat GPT and you're like, what are the best places to get a cheeseburger? It's going to say McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. Because McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are everywhere. Those are the known quantities. Those are the known entities. And they didn't, McDonald's didn't get there. But doing something like SEO hack, they got it because they've been around forever and they're everywhere because it's not like, I don't know, it's not like links or title tags or crawl weights or whatever. It's good old entity building or in my day when I walk to school, uphill both ways. Mordy Oberstein: So we call brand building, or I like to call it momentum building because fundamentally getting inside of these outputs means being the entity related to the input. And there's no hack for that. And that's where I like to start this conversation. Crystal Carter: Yeah, so this is something that I've looked into and I'll be speaking at Brighton SEO. I can't remember if this goes out before then or after that about this as well. And one of the things is that essentially within these systems, they're using entities to understand because from a large language model they're using entities to understand relationships to things, to understand language. Right. So a prime example that I use when I'm speaking to people is I put in the, there's a great tool if you're trying to understand entities. And we've got some great resources on the Wix SEO learning hub about entities and about the relationship between entities and search. So we have, Michelle Fortin's written a great one about entity relationships and we also have some other resources around that as well. So if you really want to get into that, and also I think Gus Pelosi has a great article about the knowledge graph and how that all works and that all backs up all of these sort of things. Crystal Carter: And one of the tools that I use when I'm looking at entity relationships, and it's really great because it's free to use and you can see it, lays it out really clearly, is something called Textrazr. Textrazr is old school. It's an oldie but a goodie. And what you can do is you can pop in a piece of text and it will pull out all of the entities that can see and all the entities that are related to it and how they're related, et cetera, et cetera. One of the ones that is a classic example that I use all the time is the Barbie movie description. The Barbie movie description doesn't mention anything about a doll. It says, like, barbie and Ken go on a hilarious adventure to save Barbie land, something to that effect. And when you pop that into textrazure, one of the entities it pulls out is Mattel and fashion doll and barbie. Crystal Carter: And it doesn't say mattel, it doesn't say fashion doll. It doesn't say. It doesn't say Barbie the doll. But because you have the word barbie and the word can in close proximity and you have the word Barbie land, the machine learning is able to, is able to identify that those entities are latent in there. So if, similarly, if you go into something like Chachi pt, if you go into perplexity, quad Gemini, et cetera, and you say, name me a fashion doll, what they will do is they'll say Barbie, right? Because they understand that Barbie, that the entity of Barbie is related to a fashion doll. Now, it's very tricky if you don't have a legacy ip like Barbie. Barbie's been going for like 70 years or something like that. Like, you know, the pre Internet in there, all of that sort of stuff. Crystal Carter: It's very tricky to sort of sharp your entity. However, Wix, which has been around for. I think we're coming. We're like old, old man Internet Wix. Mordy Oberstein: 1617 years, 18 years, something like that. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's 18 years. It'll be 20. It'll be 20 years in 2026. And Wix on our knowledge graph says we are cloud based cms. If you go into chats and say, name me a cloud based cms, guess what it'll say Wix, right? Because that's part of our entity. This is really important for a couple of reasons. One is because people try to rank on Chachi BT, but what they forget is that, like, it's not that you have to wait for the updates, right? It's not live, live data. They do have links in there, but they're not like brand new live updating links. Crystal Carter: It's kind of like, I'm gonna date myself here. It's kind of like the phone book. Remember when the phone book would come out and they release it either once a year, right? Mordy Oberstein: Big ass books. Crystal Carter: Now, if Aardvark taxis only started up in January and they dropped the phone book in December, guess what? Aardvark taxis isn't in the phone book. But the next time they drop the phone book, Aardvark Taxis is going to be top of the top of the phone book, right? So what you have to do is sometimes you have to wait for the next drop of chat GBT. So when it first came out, I think it was dated to 2022. I think now it's up to 2023. And I think that as they go on, they'll get quicker and quicker and, like, the gaps between their data updates will be between the training models will get smaller. So when chat GBT first dropped, I was like, hello? And they were like, hi. I was like, who is Crystal Carter? And they said, who? And I said, who is Crystal Carter? They were like, I don't know who you are. And it's like, okey dokey. Crystal Carter: And me and my little ego sat back down. So then I recently said to chat GPT, I was like, when was the last time you updated your data? What training data are you working up to? What was the last time you updated it? And they said, oh, 2023, blah blah, blah. And I said, okay, so who is Crystal Carter? And they were like, crystal Carter is head of SEO communications at Wix, blah blah blah blah, right? Because between then and between now, I've done a lot more stuff around my entity to build up my name around that particular stuff. Like, there's stuff on websites, there's stuff on articles, talks and this, that and the other, and that will update it. Similarly, I've had people who are like, oh, we just launched this product last month and we're not on track BT. I'm like, yeah. Cause chat GBT isn't up to last month, it's up to now. If you want to check an entity on something that's brand new, you need to look at some of the live scrape, the more like sort of hybrid ones that are like that are. Crystal Carter: They have augmented data. So they have a training set that's supported by live augmented data. Something like Copilot, right? So you launched your thing a month ago, check it on Copilot. Ask Copilot who is. Who is this? And if you're doing okay on that, then when chat BT up to updates, you're probably going to see yourself in there, right? But it's worth thinking about, but it's worth understanding, like, which models they are. So if you're. If your team is going, we're not ranking on chat GBT, we're not showing on chat to BT, understand the parameters, because there's some, some cases where, like, you're just ain't gonna. It's not, you're not gonna, you're not, because you just launched that, right. Crystal Carter: However, it's also the case of understanding, like how. How chatty BT understands that entity and understands where you are within that entity as well. So understanding, like some of these things is really, really important. And understanding how you can be unique in your entity. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I mean, look, let's assume for a second that chat GPT updated every day. It's updated every day. Fine. It doesn't. Right. As you mentioned, if you're, if you're asking, why are we not showing in there? How do we get in there? And then you're asking yourself that again next week, or even, like, I'll even say, like, next month, you're on the wrong track, in my opinion. Like, you, I don't think you understand how this works. It's momentum. Mordy Oberstein: Like, you need to generate digital momentum, which, by the way, can be offline, but you need to start, like, partnering with people. You need to start interacting. You need to start engaging, you need to start getting people talking about you, even if you have a strong entity. So, like, Google can understand who I am because I have a website, I have a LinkedIn profile of yada, yada, yada. You're not just trying to get them to understand, like, that you existed, right? You're trying to get in there from some kind of commercial way, like, what are the best soft drinks? It's gonna be coke, sprite, whatever. Even if it's not just as simple, like, as it's not simple either. But it's not as a matter of getting, like getting the knowledge graph to understand that you exist and to understand who you are. It's getting them to understand who you are and then getting them to understand that you're relevant enough to show us one of the top results in their output. Mordy Oberstein: And the only way to do that is to have that broader momentum that keeps building, by the way, that keeps building upon itself. Because if you don't and someone else will, and even if you are the top hot dog vendor, that when someone's best hot dog vendor in New York City, you might not be that again in six months from now, if the other hot dog vendor down the cart, down the cart, down the street with his cart, is building up all the momentum, and now it is the known entity or the hot entity around this, it comes down to you taking a different kind of mentality. How do I, how do I make connections? How do I get other people to talk about me? And how do I keep the momentum going? It's not a simple one to one linear optimization, like even a knowledge panel theoretically might be, which is also it's. Crystal Carter: Not, I think, from a practical point of view that that comes down to having, having like a paper trail, essentially having, having a paper trail. So one of the things that's worth thinking about is like, if there is somebody else within your sector, within your search ecosystem, I guess you would say, who is already a known entity to chat GBT and you're trying to get yourself aligned, like into chat GBT, it's worth prioritizing those links. So, for instance, like, if you were to think about Barbie, for instance, Barbie's gonna want to make sure that Mattel is already on there, right? If Mattel's already on there, then that great, that's a great place to start. So you need to make sure that you also are like very, very clearly articulated within the Mattel website within, and that you're associated with Mattel because you are, for instance, like one of the good example that I give for where Google gets a little confused and there's, there's some disambiguation that needs, needs acquiring, is like, if you were to say something like, Steve McQueen is a man known for his films, right? There are two Steve McQueen's who are men known for their films, right? There's Steve McQueen from the sixties, and there's Steve McQueen who's like a Turner Prize winning director from now, right? And what would be important if you were to disambiguate those particular entities? For instance, if you just said, who's Steve McQueen? Who is Steve McQueen? For instance, so that Google understands there are two, for instance, you need to make sure that they're very distinct, very clear named entities that are already known by these LLMs. So, for instance, Steve McQueen has a Turner Prize, or the current Steve McQueen has a Turner Prize as an Academy Award. It's worth mentioning in a bio, for instance, for, for Steve McQueen on his website and in any art, any podcasts, any, you know, awards, things that he does, any, any appearances anywhere where he's mentioned online that he has a Turner Prize, has, it has an Academy Award, for instance, because that will align with those particular entities. And then you would think when it says who's, who's somebody who's won an Academy Award, it would say McQueen. What I've seen a few times is I've spoken to agency owners, for instance, who are like, we're trying to get on chat GPT, and we haven't had any luck. Crystal Carter: We can't see why we're not on chat CPT. We ask, like, can you name a good agency in Paris? And we can't see ourselves on chat CPT. Well, I had a look at some, like, top agencies who have great, great, great work. They do wonderful, wonderful things. And one of the things that I saw was that everybody has the same bio. Like, everybody has the same, like, sort of the same, like, usp, like by line, tagline, whatever. They're like, we are a global agency serving top brands in, you know, over 100 countries on some incredible campaigns, but you could literally copy and paste that onto, like, seven different, like, top tier agencies, for instance. Like, it's the same one. Crystal Carter: So when Google's like, can you name me an agency? Like, they're, they're, they don't necessarily need to name someone specific or, sorry, not Google. Like, if you're looking at an LLM, like, they, they don't necessarily name someone specific because there's not anything specific to differentiate you. So when you're thinking about, about your entities, make sure that you're aligning yourself with named entities. So that. So that when you're, when someone's doing a search on an Llmde, on a generative search tool, like perplexity, like quad, like copilot or whatever, that when they're showing up, you're also showing up. And it's worth thinking about that in relation to your brand in relationship to the partnerships that you develop in relationship to the sort of online paper trail that you're developing across the web. Mordy Oberstein: You mentioned something that I want to piggyback on or swing back around on, and it's a website. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Like, I'm obviously interested in selling websites because that's how I feel my family. But yeah, I think a lot of, a lot of this is like, if you're, if you're listening to this and you're not a big brand and you're doing, and you're doing a podcast, are you doing a podcast? I'm gonna, I'm gonna run this, actually, right now. I'm gonna type. I am gonna search for Yankees podcast and best Yankees podcast and chat GPT at million bucks. This is what happens. I'm going to predict, okay, if I run best Yankees podcast into chat GPT, the results that are going to come up are the ones with the largest, like, web presence, and it's gonna be the ones that actually have a website even though they're more popular ones on YouTube. So let's run this great. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: There's a Yankees podcast I listen to. His father was actually a professional baseball player for the New York Yankees, Gary Sheffield. Gary Sheffield junior is called Yankees unloaded. It's a great pocket. It's one of my favorite Yankees podcasts, and there are many. And in fact, oh, this is perfect. Okay. They don't show up. Mordy Oberstein: In fact, the Yankees announcer and this might be an entity thing, actually has a radio show which on ESPN, which mainly talks about the Yankees, and he's not even here because they don't have websites. You know who's here? There's someone called talking Yanks. They're a whole like, network of podcasts, basically, and a bunch of their subsidiaries, like, they're like, they're like, I don't know what you call their sub brand podcasts. They're here because they all have websites. All of the podcasts that actually have a website and are connected via websites, those are the ones that show up here because you have to give the LLM something to grab onto. If you're just on your podcast platform, on Spotify, if you're just on YouTube, or if you're on Spotify and YouTube, there's nothing to grab onto. So if you are a smaller brand and you're like, what do I do here? The first thing to do is get, is honestly get off of social for five minutes and build a website. Crystal Carter: I think the important thing to remember is that. So chat GPT, one of the founding things for their model, one of the founding pieces of data for their model is a common crawl. So common crawl is one of the things it was based off of early, early on. And so, yeah, that's web scraping. If you're thinking about copilot, for instance, that's Bing and that's chat GPT. If you're thinking about perplexity, they have their own bot that goes around and across the web. It goes around and across web. And perplexity is listing things as well. Crystal Carter: They're also on the web. So it's worth thinking about that as well. It's also worth considering which elements are thinking about where they get their data from. So we know that Google is getting information from Reddit, for instance, and they're using that to train to train their models, including Gemini. We know that chat GBT is aligned with Bing, and you're using Bing search results as well. So, for instance, if you're not ranking in Bing, that's something to consider as well. But I think that it's worth looking at how these models work in order to align that with you. And they are listing links to websites. Crystal Carter: So the chat PBT four, which is the one that's free for most people, is listing websites where they can sometimes and then also perplexity is listing web listing links all the time as well. For instance, when you look in GA four, you can see the traffic that's coming into your sites. Jess Schultz recently shared a really good regex for finding it's really simple to use for finding all of the traffic that you're getting from LLMs. And Chachi BT is leading the charge in many, many cases, but perplexity is actually coming in significantly regularly. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, it's interesting, but yeah, and. Crystal Carter: It'S coming in regularly for a lot of folks, and I've seen it on some occasions where it's actually surpassing chat pt for certain queries. So I think that's worth understanding as well where you're getting a little bit of traction and where you can build. But they are sending traffic to websites and I think that it's worth getting on these LLMs if you're not already. Don't just log in to Google yourself, use them so that you understand how they work. Mordy Oberstein: If we're talking about perplexity, it kind of brings up something we asked Garrett Sussmann over at ipol rank, how will AI search engines change user behavior? Is this the death of Google? It's not, but it's interesting because it's a conversation that we wanted to have for a long time that a lot of SEOs are having is how are AI search engines going to change user behavior? So here's Garrett on how AI search engines will change user behavior. Garrett Sussman: How will AI search engines change user behavior? That is a meaty question. And you know what? Nobody knows. However, let's dive into this and think about it. So right now, current 2024, nothing stealing market share from Google, it's still like 90 some percent. We're talking perplexity. Search, GPT, even Bing's copilot, they're really not being used to the extent that they're making a marginal difference. However, just thinking about AI search engines and the way that they understand natural language so much better than traditional old school search engines, it could potentially be a game changer that we should delve into. No, but honestly, you think about the way that we used to use search engines, basic keywords. Garrett Sussman: We were trained by the search engines and their capabilities, but now they really can understand so much more context with the advent of mum and, and these types of algorithms that are making things so much more complex that they understand these nuance of language. So what happens when people feel more and more comfortable using these AI search engines? Well, we're going to use natural language. We're going to have longer tailed search terms. We're going to be able to talk like humans to ask our queries. We're going to be able to infuse our own biases, confirmation bias, into the actual searches we make, which as SEOs is extremely challenging and problematic because these AI search engines are going to search for more personalized results that are very, very, very specific and potentially pulled from all different types of content and other queries and other links. Remember, it expands on the queries. It's not just exactly what you're asking. In addition to that, rank tracking is going to be so much more difficult. Garrett Sussman: I mean, you're not going to be able to track a singular keyword because they're going to be so many variations. So do I think this is going to happen in the near future? Like twelve months? No, probably not. Unless, you know, we have some major antitrust trial where, you know, the american government decides that Google has to break up and there are consequences maybe faster than that, but chances are we're not going to see any actual user behavior change for another two 3510 years until people really become used to using these AI search engines and they trust the results so that they actually start to talk to them like real people. It's meaty. It's fascinating. Nobody knows, but I cannot wait to watch and see how we start to interact with this technology and it becomes more mainstream over time. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Garrett. Make sure to give Garrett a follow over on LinkedIn and on Twitter at Garrett Sussman or X. What do you want to call it? It's such an interesting conversation. He made a great point, or interesting point. It is a great point and an interesting point about the accuracy. Like for example, I actually looked up like best SEO podcast and Garrett had the rankable podcast. They got his name wrong as a host. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: So will the format allow you to deep dive the way you want to deep dive? I feel like for a top level query or top level search, like, yeah, it's probably like that's a no brainer. Like, you're going to see people going to the chat GPTs of the world, but for deeper investigations, like, I don't know, how do I deal with kidney? Like, I don't know if I want to go to chat DBT for that. But really looking to get like a balanced look and really dive into the topic. Maybe it's not the easiest way to explore, I don't know. But the accuracy thing, I know it's great, but there's, there's, there's still, and it's definitely better than it was before, but there are still a lot of instances where it's not exactly accurate. And if you're going to be like, well, I have to pick a search engine, which am I going to go to? Even like, no, 80% of the time might be great. That 20% is still going to weigh on people's minds. I feel like I, I feel like. Crystal Carter: Though, that main Google search is not always accurate either. So I feel like what I tend to use in terms of as a user, because I use multiple search engines is I go to Google and I can't find what I need or if I don't even know where to start, right? If I'm like, I don't even know what this is called, I don't know what this is. I need a thing that will help me to do this. And then they'll say, well, you might need one of this, this, this and this. And I'm like, okay, well, what is that? And then they'll explain that. The LLM will explain the information there. But he was talking about like conversational topics. When you go to Copilot, they have the microphone as the easiest thing for you to use. Crystal Carter: Like it's, it's really high priority. When you use the copilot app, the microphone is super useful and you literally just say what you want and then it will spit out something, something that you need. And I think that that's having the microphone as a central search tool is going to make you more likely to speak more conversationally, like Garrett is talking about. Similarly, within with Bing recently, they, they opened up their chat bar, like, you know, when you need to go onto it and it's like, oh, I think it's like 2000 characters or something they opened it up to. And all of these LLMs keep expanding the character count that you can add in for what you need. So I've had it before where I'm trying to troubleshoot a piece of code and before you were able to only able to put in a certain amount and then you'd sort of top off at the characters. And now I can put in pretty much the whole document and say, I have this documentation, I have this piece of code. Please can you help me debug it? And then it will help you to pull those things out. Crystal Carter: So I think that when we're thinking about search and how people are going from some of these tools into a website, I think the trust factor is important. I think for ymyl stuff, it's super, super important. I was looking at some financial question or something and I said, if my income is this, how much should I invest in this? If my income is this, how could. And then it was like, it was like, you should. And then the number that I put on the income or whatever, they were like, the whole number is what you should invest in the thing. And I'm like, that's terrible advice. Luckily, I'm not a complete moron, but if somebody was to just follow that advice wholesale, they would be putting their entire savings into whatever this investment thing is and would have nothing. And the thing that's fascinating about that is that if you go onto, I mean, break the fourth wall, I was looking at Cedars type types, things where you look at supporting smaller companies, startups and stuff. Crystal Carter: And if you go on one of those websites, it has disclaimers all over the website that's like, be careful. Investment is risky. Make sure you've read all the terms and conditions. Do not invest everything. Blah, blah, blah. If you go to buy a credit card, they say, please be careful about all of these stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Like, credit cards are coffee, coffee is hot, please be careful. Right? Crystal Carter: There's all of these different disclaimers, but in chat and copilot, there was nothing. It was just like, go, like, invest all of the, everything that you want, like, make all this money, like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, guys, like, where are the, you know, you should understand it's. Mordy Oberstein: Not always there yet. That's kind of the thing. It's not always there yet. And that it's a bad association. Like, it's all about it. These kind of things of trust is all about associations. It's a bad association. I don't think it's there yet. Mordy Oberstein: I do think though, like, what's interesting or perhaps different about, let's say, like Google's use of AI versus like, going to chat. If the Google's a overview doesn't give you what you want, or it's a little bit wonky or whatever it is, you have the actual results right underneath it. So even though the results sometimes aren't always right, they're diverse. So like, the top results, not what you want, the second one might be so like that. That diversity of sources, I don't think is something that's ever going to go away. I think it's like inbuilt in what we want is when we want to look at a topic. And I wonder if, I mean, I searched GBT something different, but like the chat GPTs of the world, that kind of format, what really lend itself to what people ultimately really want. Again, it's a lot. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot to discuss there. Who knows what we're talking about? AI products. We have a little treat for you because we know someone who knows a lot about AI products. No matter what AI search engines you might be using or what it might mean for user behavior, there's no doubt that the technology has already impacted your marketing team and one way, shape, form or another, I completely botched that idiom. And it's fine. I'm okay with it. I'm hallucinating right now. I'm AI. Mordy Oberstein: Anyway, the question is, in what way should AI move large scale marketing teams or big organizations, or even small ones too, into action? To help us end this, we're going across the wix verse with our very own vp of marketing enterprise, Paula Mejia. And this very special, as I already mentioned, across the Wix verse. Three, two, one, ignition. Crystal Carter: Lift up. Mordy Oberstein: Paula, welcome to the show. Paula Mejia: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here, you guys. Mordy Oberstein: I'm terrified right now. It's Monday morning. This is like one of the first things, like, I'm actually doing with, like, you're the first person I'm speaking to this week. Paula Mejia: Oh, that's so. Actually, you are also, other than my children, who woke up at like. Mordy Oberstein: No, I spoke to my wife and children. Like, those are not people. That's family. Crystal Carter: We had a silent school run. I don't know about you guys, my kids. Mordy Oberstein: I don't have a silent anything. I'm lying. Crystal Carter: We didn't at all. There was lots of shouting. Mordy Oberstein: There's lots of shouting. That sounds. Crystal Carter: Where are your socks? Where are they? Anyway? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my God, the socks, right? What the hell with the socks and the shoes? Crystal Carter: Takes forever for anyway. Mordy Oberstein: I love system. Paula Mejia: I have a system. So outside of marketing our enterprise solution, I have systems for finding socks. I will share it with you separately. Crystal Carter: No, please share it now. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Yeah. Paula Mejia: Those like grocery bags that are like, the sustainable ones that are like nets? Crystal Carter: Yes. Paula Mejia: You know? Okay. I have three kids, and they're really young, so they have similarly sized feet, which is part of the problem because I'm like this. I don't know whose sock this is, and somehow it doesn't fit everyone. So anyway, so I got three of those nets and I hang them next to the laundry. So, so each net has a name, and then I put all the socks in their corresponding child's net. And then I have a basket on the side for all the pairless socks. And so they just live there until like two weeks. And if you don't find your match within that time frame. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's smart. That's smart. Paula Mejia: You go, you are done. I don't want anything to do with you. It's not very environmentally friendly, but like, I just can't with the, like one sock. Crystal Carter: You can recycle them at TK Maxx. Shout out to TK Maxx. You can recycle the spare socks at TK Maxx. Yes, you can. And also, this is one of the reasons why Paula does what she does, because she finds solutions for things. She finds solutions not just for socks, but for your whole enterprise. She's very good at this kind of. Mordy Oberstein: Thing, which is what we should be talking about. So AI for large marketing teams, I'll start with this off. I feel like there's been a little bit of pushback in the, in the digital marketing space, especially in larger organizations around AI. It was neat, it was awesome. We tried to implement it and it didn't exactly go as we thought it would, or we lack differentiation. We're worried about what it's going to mean for all these different concerns that maybe you don't have at the SMB level, but you might have at the enterprise level. What are you seeing out there in the enterprise ether? Paula Mejia: Yeah, no, I totally hear that. So I think before you assess the impact that AI has had for marketing teams today, I would just first look at what marketing teams, and especially leaders of marketing team, they're feeling. And what they're feeling is a ton, a ton of pressure. So I think marketing has evolved a lot over the last couple of years, and the list of responsibilities for marketing teams just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So where you used to be responsible for brand and growth, now you're responsible for, you know, ginormous P and ls. But you have less budget, you have less resources. All sorts of additional business metrics are kind of, of part of the KPI's for marketers. And marketing takes a lot of time, and it's really not that easy to do, even though a lot of people think it looks easy. Paula Mejia: And this is why I think you also see ten years of like, senior executives in marketing being quite short compared to others. So I think the average tenure, first CMO is two years, whereas everyone else in the C suite is more than five. So you kind of enter this world of like, pressure, pressure, pressure, less resources, deliver more, and in comes AI for marketers, right? And everyone is like, oh my God, a little scared. Maybe it'll take some more jobs, but it should bring a ton of efficiency, right? You should be able to create content like that. There should be no problem. It should be super great. And yet that kind of sense of urgency and lack of support, I would say organizationally, still is very much felt for marketers. And I think right now the reason is that AI feels a bit like a false promise to marketing teams in terms of the efficiencies it can deliver. Paula Mejia: Because while it's being used to varying degrees in different organizations, as you said, where it is being used, it's mostly in small kind of slivers of content creation. So aspiring partner for your content writer, maybe editing certain pieces of your blogs, occasionally being used and designed to make the process a bit more efficient. But it isn't an integrated part of your marketing process. It's kind of bits and bolts. And then you look at kind of the process of going live with a marketing campaign and it's, you know, it's like a full, it's a huge thing that involves many levels of approval. Often it's, let's call it gate kept by technology that may or may not be set up in a way to make you more efficient. And this is obviously the area that Wix studio addresses the best. So what I often tell people to look at before they even look at the AI solution is, is what are the processes and systems in place your marketing team has? And are those the right ones to make it more efficient? Because right now, if you use AI to create more thought leadership content or a campaign, but you can't get to market quickly enough because you're depending on a developer or the technical person that works on your DXP, it doesn't matter if you create that content really fast, but no one will see it. Paula Mejia: And marketing content. Tell me if you guys agree. I don't think that there's such a thing as like Evergreen content anymore. I think most marketing content now is a very specific shelf life. So I see a lot of marketers under this pressure to create more. And the creation process is kind of getting there, but then the getting to the market with that thing you created is not being enabled by AI. And so this is part of the gap that I think we absolutely have to bridge and something that we're working on at Wix Studio to do so teaser. That's the new product that's coming out next year. Paula Mejia: But basically what we understood is, okay, you know, Wix generally, and Wix Studio has kind of solved the problem of creating sites at speed, creating digital assets at speed at the highest quality. Crystal Carter: Right. Paula Mejia: So that's kind of the end, right? And the beginning is more the content creation, which as I said, right now feels quite strange in terms of how AI can support you. And my content writers use club and my designer uses whatever synesthesia promotion video. So how do you kind of integrate all those things together? And this is, that's the idea. This is what we're working on, a platform, a marketing suite, let's call it, that enables marketing teams to create the highest quality assets that are enabled by AI. Crystal Carter: And I think that this is something I really like about the approach. So when you go into Wix studio, there's AI everywhere, but it's not overwhelming. Like I use Grammarly all the time and Grammarly is constantly trying to push AI on me and I'm like, I don't want it. Just tell me how to spell receipt because I always put the e and the I in the wrong place. Just tell me how to spell it, please. Thank you. And whereas like with Wix, like what we have is we haven't, we have an opt in for all of the areas and we have, and with Wix Studio, we have it built into all of the different parts. So if you're stuck on a page and you need to get that page out and you're, you're like, I don't know how to write this about page. Crystal Carter: You can click the create with text. If you've got a bunch of products that are brand new and you need to get product descriptions on there so that you go to market, then we have tools that help you do that. We have tools that help you do stuff in the CMS that you're like, okay, I want to create a bunch of dynamic pages. We have templates for that. Go forth and do what you need to do. I've got this image that somebody sent me. It's a great image, but it's only this many megapixels and I need it to be bigger and I don't want to have to wait two weeks for them to send me another picture. I can upscale it in this part of the, the CMS as well. Crystal Carter: You don't want to have to wait four weeks for the developer to come back to you to make the page responsive. All of that sort of stuff, we have it built in at point of use so you don't have to go and search for another tool to find it because I think that that can be really tricky for marketing teams right now. There's this need to adopt. But also, every time you try to adopt something, there's the time to learn it, but then there's something else that comes out right after that. And then you're like, oh, I spent all this time learning this other AI tool and now there's this new one and it's sort of, there's so much technology coming out right now, it's difficult to keep up. Paula Mejia: Exactly. No, that's exactly right. Mordy Oberstein: The pressure to adopt, I think, is interesting. It's almost like, it's like a value in and of itself. Like, we have to be using AI, but so it creates this, like, almost like weird, weird pressure on these teams to start using AI. But then when you start actually think you mentioned before, when you start thinking about, like, where it's actually applicable and where it's not applicable, it's really, you know, I would say not few and far between, but it's really targeted. I feel this. Right. I have a ton of content to get out, but I also am, like, very, very careful about my messaging. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: So it does work, but that it doesn't work. And, like, finding that sweet spot is so hard right now. Paula Mejia: I feel like, yeah, for sure. I think for me, it's really also important to say that when we talk about efficiency, I think it's often understood as, oh, marketers are just trying to put more and more content out there. And for me, it's less about. More and more about optimizing content you have. Crystal Carter: Right. Paula Mejia: Like, everything. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Paula Mejia: You need to be able to put things out and then iterate on it quickly. And what about. I need 17 different articles. I need to create the landing page that comforts best for my audience. So I need multiple versions generated quickly enough, which I think is very in line with what you said around your messaging. Like, it's about kind of getting that quality and efficiency at the right balance. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. That's why, like, reusing something that, where you can have, like a construct and have the AI reuse it in multiple places and you come in after the fact and kind of like, do your thing with that, with that construct, I think it's a great way to use AI. Crystal Carter: I think also when you're talking about building on the quality, like, there's the, you've mentioned evergreen content, and I think that our idea of evergreen content has definitely changed, partially because, like, the not trend cycle, but what's new, what's considered new content on Google, whatever is changing. Like, the gap between, like, and I, I talked about this at the beginning of the year. And then we're seeing it, seeing this play out is that the gap between content refreshes is getting much smaller because teams that are using AI, teams that have accelerated content updates. So, for instance, it might be that you put out a piece of content and then you look back at it and you're like, actually, I could put this into a table. You can use AI to take that paragraph. You drop that into your AI tool and say, make this into a table. And they can make it into a table. It's not rewriting. Crystal Carter: It doesn't have to hallucinate. You can check everything really quickly. You can pop that into the table and make the content better, more readable, accessible to more people. For instance, using tools like that, maybe you didn't have illustrations and maybe now you're able to do that, for instance, and repurposing content. Right. Paula Mejia: Like, we marketers have lots of ideas. You don't need to reinvent the wheel every time. You just need to get it to your audience, maybe in a different channel, make sure they didn't miss it on the channel that already existed. And repackaging content, that was good and that had an impact. Like, we need to be doing that. That's for sure. Our key to efficiency and making sure that our, our impact is higher. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we just recorded 100th episode of this podcast a few weeks ago. So we recorded in a stream. We did a live version of it recorded in Streamyard. And Streamyard gives you a way to, like, auto generate clips through AI to repurpose them, like, just exactly what you're looking for. Like, I don't want to have to go back through, manually create an audiogram if you can, you know, cut that out for me and it's, and it's decent. Give me 20 of them. If ten of them are good, then great. I still save a ton of time. Crystal Carter: Right, right. And I think that there are a lot of people who are talking about efficiency. PricewaterhouseCooper recently did a report and they were saying that that's the biggest gains that we're seeing right now, today. And then as we go forward, we should see more AI agents that are more specialized and more unique for things. Where are you seeing marketing teams make the most efficiency gains right now from AI? Paula Mejia: Yeah, I think in content creation, that's where I see it the most. But I think that the impact really lies in the, in the hands of the creator. You guys have seen some really bad execution events in the SEO world, and I've all like people who I'm just like I, you know, I'm not an expert, but that looks really not like. Mordy Oberstein: The right way to create. Paula Mejia: I think some people, like I said, have misunderstood the efficiency that AI can bring with the fact that you still really much are the gatekeeper of the quality of that content. So I think this is, this, you know, like I said, there's, there is a promise that AI has for marketers. And I know we're close, but I think we need to be responsible in the way we use it and make sure that it is up to the highest quality standards. And that's something that I think anyone who is concerned about the future of your job with AI, whether you're in content design or in a more managerial area in marketing, I don't think that they will replace you. I don't think AI was going to replace an individual, but I think people who use AI will take your job if you're not using it. That for sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I agree. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Paula Mejia: I think for agencies, I don't know if this is something that's come up in some of your conversations in the past, but I've spoken with a lot of agencies, some of which are more hesitant to use AI than others. And I think customers of agencies are rising up and asking, how are you using AI to make my money go farther? Show me the ways in which you're employing this new technology, or I'm going to go to another agency that can. And I think that, like I said, marketing and advertising is an area of a lot of pressure. And I think AI, because everyone hears about it and hears efficiency, you will be, in a way, accountable for showing how you're using it, but also making sure the quality is of the right standard. Crystal Carter: I think the other thing is that. So I recently attended an event. There's a group in London called Agency Hackers, and they've got another one coming up at the beginning of the year called the robot, are coming. It's a great session. It's very hands on about AI and how people are using AI. I spoke to loads of agencies there about how they're using AI and how we use AI at Wix and how one of the things, so just to give us the wix first, a little bit behind the fourth wall or whatever, at Wix, like, and you posted about this, actually on your LinkedIn, Paula, about how, like, we had, we, you know, we regularly have, like, AI workshop days. Like, we have, like, what can we do with AI? Let's have, let's talk about, like, different things that we're doing with AI. We have like, you know, we have, you know, working groups where people are trying things, testing things, iterating with things, talking to each other about how they're, how they're using it. Crystal Carter: But what's really important, and one of the things I love about Wix is that, like, we test things and as a team, as a company, as a business, we're not afraid to like, try something and see what happens and learn from it. If you're an agency, enterprise business, any kind of business, if you're not using AI, then you're also not learning how to use AI. If you're not using it in any way, then you don't know, you know, what you can do or how you can do it. We had Dale Bertrande on for a great webinar a few months ago, and one of the things he was talking about was a really good way to get started is to use Chachi. He had a couple of, a couple of ways. One was to try to use Chachi PT for everything, and then you'll learn very quickly what you can't use it for. Another way was to give it your to do list and say, how can you help me with this? And that can be really useful as well. But testing iterating and not expecting it to be, not expecting it to be perfect the first time, so, so, so important, I think. Mordy Oberstein: I think you have to kind of realize, like, where it is and where it's not really applicable categorically. Like, if you're on the performance side, like, there's gonna be a lot more ways where it's really, really, really easy and much more linear to realizing how you can use AI. Let's say you're more like, on the brand side, and especially in a world where content has become much more conversational, that you're going to have a more of a difficult time using it, or I was a more difficult time. You're going to be a little more creative in how you're going to use it. I use it in the research phase. I can use it to write up to x points where you're going to have to be a little more cautious, a little more strategic about how you go about implementing it. And again, if you're a marketing manager listening to this and you have multiple teams under you, I think you need to realize that different types of teams are going to be able to use the AI in different ways in different moments. It's not a linear equation. Paula Mejia: Absolutely. I will say, though, about the brand component, at least our solution does allow marketing teams, especially with larger integrated marketing teams, where I keeping that consistent tone of voice across, whether it's a franchise model or just different localized teams, that does enable you to keep more consistency in place just by putting certain guardrails in terms of how changes are rolled out across all your sites, making sure that it's following certain brand guidelines. So there are some things kind of helping that brand consistency component that I think teams really need to be aware of. But yeah, back to your point, Crystal. I think something that marketers are also responsible for on top of brand awareness, growth, conversion, blah, blah, is a tech stack. Now, no matter what you do, you're a technology user. And if you're managing a team, you need to be up to date on what technology they're using. Are they using the right one? Are they using outdated technology? Do you have even just from an ROI perspective, do you have too many licenses for things that are not bringing you value? Like do your tech stack audits people, even if you're not really like, this is kind of like a realization I had. Paula Mejia: I was at an event recently that we hosted in London and I was talking to someone about their CRM and they're like, oh, we have three CRMs. And I almost fell out of my chair, girl. Crystal Carter: Why? Paula Mejia: And you know, it's like legacy and also different teams. We don't like there was a some kind of reason, but you know, from an efficiency and like data quality perspective, three CRM's not the way to go, you guys. Crystal Carter: This is like your sock. If you haven't found your socks in two weeks, if you haven't touched that CRM in two weeks, let it go. Mordy Oberstein: Having worked two different SEO tool providers, I can tell you like, there's a significant amount of their user base or people who are paying large amounts of money every month who don't log into the tool. Crystal Carter: It's like people who go to the gym or who have a gym membership and. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly, that's what. Yeah, that's the SEO equivalent. Right, Paula? Folks want to keep up to date with what you're doing on the enterprise side for marketers and AI. Where can they find you? Paula Mejia: You can find me on LinkedIn. That's my, that's my jam these days. Mordy Oberstein: So everybody's jammed these days because there's nowhere else to go. Paula Mejia: Also true. Mordy Oberstein: Also speaking truth on the serves up podcast. Thank you so much, Paula, for coming on and telling us about the enterprise product. And we'll see you out there. Paula Mejia: Yeah, happy to. Thanks so much. Have a good day. Mordy Oberstein: Make sure, you follow Paul Mejia over on LinkedIn. Paul is wonderful, you know, also wonderful, Barry's wonderful, and all the other people who cover the SEO news as well. Which brings us to this week's snappy news. Crystal Carter: In a major development that was the talk of the digital marketing world, Semrush has announced its acquisition of third Door Media, the parent company of search Engine Land. This acquisition also includes all of their door media's brands, including SMX, the search Marketing Expo, Martech.org, comma, the Martech Conference, and digital Marketing Expo. For anyone that's been keeping score, this is another jewel in the some rush SEO media crown alongside backlinko and traffic think tank, this is quite the media portfolio. In other news, Google has announced a significant leadership change. Nick Fox has been appointed as the new head of Google Search, succeeding Prabhakar Raghavan, who is transitioning to chief technologist. Fox has been at Google since 2003 and will now oversee the knowledge and information division, which includes search, ads, e commerce, products and other things. This leadership change comes amidst lots of competition and legal pressures as Google faces lots of challenges from lots of different angles. Speaking of Google challengers over there at Bing, Microsoft is integrating new AI features into their search platform, so you can expect to see AI enhanced summaries providing concise information from different online sources appearing in the knowledge panel section. Crystal Carter: Though these aren't quite widely available just now, you should expect to see them roll out in the near future. Also from Bing, there have been lots of reports that there are bugs within the Bing webmaster tools API and documentation. Ryan Siddle, for instance, highlighted at least five issues, including problems with setting country and region on site requests. Microsoft has responded, saying that they acknowledge the bugs and that they are actively working to fix them. So they've already got two scheduled. And that concludes the snappy news. Mordy Oberstein: That was wonderful. Thank you, Barry and all those who cover the news. When Eric Clapton wrote wonderful tonight, he was writing it about Barry. Indeed. I hope that makes you feel a little bit awkward, Barry, that's special kind of way. If we're talking about AI and we mentioned who can you follow the very beginning of this episode for more SEO and AI awesomeness? This then Eli Schwartz is your man. Eli spends a lot of time talking about SEO and AI. He did so on our 100th episode of the podcast, and he does so all over LinkedIn. Mordy Oberstein: A lot of thought provoking question about how AI will not just impact SEO practice, but impact the SEO industry and the amount of money you're able to earn as an SEO so check out Eli on LinkedIn. It's a lot of great content about that. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think he's absolutely, absolutely great. And he did a webinar with us as well, which was really good as well, talking about all of these different tools and talking about how they impact. And he talks a lot about brand and about reputation as well. So he was joined by Anne Smarty for that webinar. Highly recommend checking it out. Mordy Oberstein: He's a good dude, and she's a good follow also. Wow, so many follows. Crystal Carter: So many follows. Check it out. Mordy Oberstein: How many follows? But where do you follow people now? Not an ex, I guess. I guess. Crystal Carter: LinkedIn. Mordy Oberstein: LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's also weird. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's all we have, Morty. Mordy Oberstein: I know, I know. It's all that's left. It's problematic. Crystal Carter: I get more action on Instagram than I do on Twitter. Mordy Oberstein: I'm not doing Instagram. I get a mix. It's funny to see what works well on X and what works well on LinkedIn. They're not the same thing. It's really interesting. Anyway, anyway, we can. Crystal Carter: That's a different podcast. Mordy Oberstein: That's a different. That's a different griping session. Thank you for joining us on the Surface up podcast. That sounded like Sean Connery podcasts. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into refreshing your SEO career. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix studio SEO learning hub, over@wix.com SEO learn looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content webinars on the Wix studio 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. Mordy Oberstein: Until next time, peace of love and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Garrett Sussman Paula Mejia Eli Schwartz Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Rankix Wix App iPull Rank SEO Agency Wix Enterprise Solution News: Semrush acquires Search Engine Land Nick Fox New Lead Of Google Search; Replaced Prabhakar Raghavan Bing Search Adding Al-Enhanced Summary Several Bugs Within Bing Webmaster Tools API & Documentation Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Garrett Sussman Paula Mejia Eli Schwartz Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Rankix Wix App iPull Rank SEO Agency Wix Enterprise Solution News: Semrush acquires Search Engine Land Nick Fox New Lead Of Google Search; Replaced Prabhakar Raghavan Bing Search Adding Al-Enhanced Summary Several Bugs Within Bing Webmaster Tools API & Documentation Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to serps. Aloha. Mahalo. Put your serps up podcast. We're pushing out some grooving insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Morty oversting, the head of SEO brand here at Wix. And I'm joined by the always cutting edge, innovative new emerging tech of the SEO communications world, or head of SEO communications here at Wix and Wix studio, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello. I try not to cut up too much. I've been known to cut a rug from time to time. I've always liked that turn of phrase. Mordy Oberstein: It was better than cutting the cheese, so. Crystal Carter: Oh no, we're not doing that on this podcast. Mordy Oberstein: It's like a podcast, guys. What a bad rap for cheese. Like, cheese is wonderful. Like, why would I get her, like cut the cheese. Please, please cut me some cheese. Crystal Carter: I mean, I've had some smelly cheese in my time. Like there are some cheeses that like really go for it. Mordy Oberstein: It's like fancy people's cheese. Like, I'm not talking about that. Like cheddar and mozzarella, right? Maybe some monster, right? Crystal Carter: We keep it simple. We keep it like, like classy. Yeah, that's what it works. Mordy Oberstein: The Surface up podcast is brought to you by Cheez whiz and not by cheese, but by Wix Studio, where you can only subscribe to our SEO newsletter Searchlight, over@wix.com SEO Learn Newsletter. But where you can also spin up some AI images, create title tags and meta descriptions using AI and more. Look for it wherever you do stuff inside of Wixtudicause all over the place. It's everywhere. AI is everywhere inside of Wix Studios. I'm trying to say is today we're talking about preparing for the future as AI search engines and AIO reviews aiositive set to dominate the skies perhaps maybe. And as the chat GPTs of the world rule the seas, why an entity first approach to SEO show rule the day when looking to get your URL's into AI outputs. Why there are no shortcuts, cheats and or hacks to reigning supreme in AI results. Mordy Oberstein: So sorry. Not heading yonder past the mountain views and gazing out on AI search engines beyond Google as AI SEO influencer, an actual real life human being, Garrett Sussmann pipes in on how AI search engines will change user behavior. Plus, we talked to Wix Studios Paula Mejia about what AI abilities move the needle for large marketing teams. And of course we have your snappiest of SEO News and who you should be following on social media for more SEO and AI awesomeness. So as AI search engines and outputs with URL's of all sorts set to ascend towards user preference, sovereignty, and how ye can knight thyself master of the realm. That is. LLM on this, the Serps up podcast. I win all medieval times in y'all, which like, it's such a weird thing, medieval. Mordy Oberstein: You show up to watch, like, people jousting while you're eating a cheeseburger. I've never been there, so I don't know, but it seems weird. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I kind of always wanted to go to the knights of roundtable in Las Vegas. I don't know, mostly to hear the terrible english accents. Like people in Las Vegas going, hear ye, hear ye. Mordy Oberstein: Like, I'm not from England. Clearly they don't do that all the time. Crystal Carter: What? Have terrible english accents? Mordy Oberstein: No, like I thought, like, you know, if I'm an english person, I'm going into, I don't know, like a restaurant. I'm trying to get the waiter's attention. I'll be, hear ye, hear ye, thy waiter. They don't do that. Crystal Carter: Only for special occasions. Mordy Oberstein: Ah, okay. They don't have like a bella ringing? Crystal Carter: No, only for special occasions. In England, what you do find is there are sometimes places where they have a lord mayor and the lord mayor has bling, has ridiculous necklaces, this huge necklace and wears a cape and stuff. It's amazing because they're supposed to have all this decorum, but they wear all. Mordy Oberstein: This bling that I'm talking about touristy Englands for me. So. All right, all right. It's the subject of basically every marketing team's meetings, blog posts, social media. It's the subject of all the posters on trees, whatever, is basically how do I get my site mentioned? And when possible, link to an AI output like search, GPT, chat GPT, and everyone's favorite classic, the AI overview. And it seems to me that everyone is looking for some sort of like optimization hack. I cannot tell you how many times people are like, yeah, how can I get in there quickly? And the answer is, there's no hack. It's a lot of work to get in there, and it's going to be a lot of real digital marketing, presence, brand presence, building, that's the only way of getting in there. Mordy Oberstein: And for SEOs, it's a different kind of optimization and a different kind of way of thinking, because again, it's really entity based. If you go to chat GPT and you're like, what are the best places to get a cheeseburger? It's going to say McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's. Because McDonald's, Burger King and Wendy's are everywhere. Those are the known quantities. Those are the known entities. And they didn't, McDonald's didn't get there. But doing something like SEO hack, they got it because they've been around forever and they're everywhere because it's not like, I don't know, it's not like links or title tags or crawl weights or whatever. It's good old entity building or in my day when I walk to school, uphill both ways. Mordy Oberstein: So we call brand building, or I like to call it momentum building because fundamentally getting inside of these outputs means being the entity related to the input. And there's no hack for that. And that's where I like to start this conversation. Crystal Carter: Yeah, so this is something that I've looked into and I'll be speaking at Brighton SEO. I can't remember if this goes out before then or after that about this as well. And one of the things is that essentially within these systems, they're using entities to understand because from a large language model they're using entities to understand relationships to things, to understand language. Right. So a prime example that I use when I'm speaking to people is I put in the, there's a great tool if you're trying to understand entities. And we've got some great resources on the Wix SEO learning hub about entities and about the relationship between entities and search. So we have, Michelle Fortin's written a great one about entity relationships and we also have some other resources around that as well. So if you really want to get into that, and also I think Gus Pelosi has a great article about the knowledge graph and how that all works and that all backs up all of these sort of things. Crystal Carter: And one of the tools that I use when I'm looking at entity relationships, and it's really great because it's free to use and you can see it, lays it out really clearly, is something called Textrazr. Textrazr is old school. It's an oldie but a goodie. And what you can do is you can pop in a piece of text and it will pull out all of the entities that can see and all the entities that are related to it and how they're related, et cetera, et cetera. One of the ones that is a classic example that I use all the time is the Barbie movie description. The Barbie movie description doesn't mention anything about a doll. It says, like, barbie and Ken go on a hilarious adventure to save Barbie land, something to that effect. And when you pop that into textrazure, one of the entities it pulls out is Mattel and fashion doll and barbie. Crystal Carter: And it doesn't say mattel, it doesn't say fashion doll. It doesn't say. It doesn't say Barbie the doll. But because you have the word barbie and the word can in close proximity and you have the word Barbie land, the machine learning is able to, is able to identify that those entities are latent in there. So if, similarly, if you go into something like Chachi pt, if you go into perplexity, quad Gemini, et cetera, and you say, name me a fashion doll, what they will do is they'll say Barbie, right? Because they understand that Barbie, that the entity of Barbie is related to a fashion doll. Now, it's very tricky if you don't have a legacy ip like Barbie. Barbie's been going for like 70 years or something like that. Like, you know, the pre Internet in there, all of that sort of stuff. Crystal Carter: It's very tricky to sort of sharp your entity. However, Wix, which has been around for. I think we're coming. We're like old, old man Internet Wix. Mordy Oberstein: 1617 years, 18 years, something like that. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's 18 years. It'll be 20. It'll be 20 years in 2026. And Wix on our knowledge graph says we are cloud based cms. If you go into chats and say, name me a cloud based cms, guess what it'll say Wix, right? Because that's part of our entity. This is really important for a couple of reasons. One is because people try to rank on Chachi BT, but what they forget is that, like, it's not that you have to wait for the updates, right? It's not live, live data. They do have links in there, but they're not like brand new live updating links. Crystal Carter: It's kind of like, I'm gonna date myself here. It's kind of like the phone book. Remember when the phone book would come out and they release it either once a year, right? Mordy Oberstein: Big ass books. Crystal Carter: Now, if Aardvark taxis only started up in January and they dropped the phone book in December, guess what? Aardvark taxis isn't in the phone book. But the next time they drop the phone book, Aardvark Taxis is going to be top of the top of the phone book, right? So what you have to do is sometimes you have to wait for the next drop of chat GBT. So when it first came out, I think it was dated to 2022. I think now it's up to 2023. And I think that as they go on, they'll get quicker and quicker and, like, the gaps between their data updates will be between the training models will get smaller. So when chat GBT first dropped, I was like, hello? And they were like, hi. I was like, who is Crystal Carter? And they said, who? And I said, who is Crystal Carter? They were like, I don't know who you are. And it's like, okey dokey. Crystal Carter: And me and my little ego sat back down. So then I recently said to chat GPT, I was like, when was the last time you updated your data? What training data are you working up to? What was the last time you updated it? And they said, oh, 2023, blah blah, blah. And I said, okay, so who is Crystal Carter? And they were like, crystal Carter is head of SEO communications at Wix, blah blah blah blah, right? Because between then and between now, I've done a lot more stuff around my entity to build up my name around that particular stuff. Like, there's stuff on websites, there's stuff on articles, talks and this, that and the other, and that will update it. Similarly, I've had people who are like, oh, we just launched this product last month and we're not on track BT. I'm like, yeah. Cause chat GBT isn't up to last month, it's up to now. If you want to check an entity on something that's brand new, you need to look at some of the live scrape, the more like sort of hybrid ones that are like that are. Crystal Carter: They have augmented data. So they have a training set that's supported by live augmented data. Something like Copilot, right? So you launched your thing a month ago, check it on Copilot. Ask Copilot who is. Who is this? And if you're doing okay on that, then when chat BT up to updates, you're probably going to see yourself in there, right? But it's worth thinking about, but it's worth understanding, like, which models they are. So if you're. If your team is going, we're not ranking on chat GBT, we're not showing on chat to BT, understand the parameters, because there's some, some cases where, like, you're just ain't gonna. It's not, you're not gonna, you're not, because you just launched that, right. Crystal Carter: However, it's also the case of understanding, like how. How chatty BT understands that entity and understands where you are within that entity as well. So understanding, like some of these things is really, really important. And understanding how you can be unique in your entity. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I mean, look, let's assume for a second that chat GPT updated every day. It's updated every day. Fine. It doesn't. Right. As you mentioned, if you're, if you're asking, why are we not showing in there? How do we get in there? And then you're asking yourself that again next week, or even, like, I'll even say, like, next month, you're on the wrong track, in my opinion. Like, you, I don't think you understand how this works. It's momentum. Mordy Oberstein: Like, you need to generate digital momentum, which, by the way, can be offline, but you need to start, like, partnering with people. You need to start interacting. You need to start engaging, you need to start getting people talking about you, even if you have a strong entity. So, like, Google can understand who I am because I have a website, I have a LinkedIn profile of yada, yada, yada. You're not just trying to get them to understand, like, that you existed, right? You're trying to get in there from some kind of commercial way, like, what are the best soft drinks? It's gonna be coke, sprite, whatever. Even if it's not just as simple, like, as it's not simple either. But it's not as a matter of getting, like getting the knowledge graph to understand that you exist and to understand who you are. It's getting them to understand who you are and then getting them to understand that you're relevant enough to show us one of the top results in their output. Mordy Oberstein: And the only way to do that is to have that broader momentum that keeps building, by the way, that keeps building upon itself. Because if you don't and someone else will, and even if you are the top hot dog vendor, that when someone's best hot dog vendor in New York City, you might not be that again in six months from now, if the other hot dog vendor down the cart, down the cart, down the street with his cart, is building up all the momentum, and now it is the known entity or the hot entity around this, it comes down to you taking a different kind of mentality. How do I, how do I make connections? How do I get other people to talk about me? And how do I keep the momentum going? It's not a simple one to one linear optimization, like even a knowledge panel theoretically might be, which is also it's. Crystal Carter: Not, I think, from a practical point of view that that comes down to having, having like a paper trail, essentially having, having a paper trail. So one of the things that's worth thinking about is like, if there is somebody else within your sector, within your search ecosystem, I guess you would say, who is already a known entity to chat GBT and you're trying to get yourself aligned, like into chat GBT, it's worth prioritizing those links. So, for instance, like, if you were to think about Barbie, for instance, Barbie's gonna want to make sure that Mattel is already on there, right? If Mattel's already on there, then that great, that's a great place to start. So you need to make sure that you also are like very, very clearly articulated within the Mattel website within, and that you're associated with Mattel because you are, for instance, like one of the good example that I give for where Google gets a little confused and there's, there's some disambiguation that needs, needs acquiring, is like, if you were to say something like, Steve McQueen is a man known for his films, right? There are two Steve McQueen's who are men known for their films, right? There's Steve McQueen from the sixties, and there's Steve McQueen who's like a Turner Prize winning director from now, right? And what would be important if you were to disambiguate those particular entities? For instance, if you just said, who's Steve McQueen? Who is Steve McQueen? For instance, so that Google understands there are two, for instance, you need to make sure that they're very distinct, very clear named entities that are already known by these LLMs. So, for instance, Steve McQueen has a Turner Prize, or the current Steve McQueen has a Turner Prize as an Academy Award. It's worth mentioning in a bio, for instance, for, for Steve McQueen on his website and in any art, any podcasts, any, you know, awards, things that he does, any, any appearances anywhere where he's mentioned online that he has a Turner Prize, has, it has an Academy Award, for instance, because that will align with those particular entities. And then you would think when it says who's, who's somebody who's won an Academy Award, it would say McQueen. What I've seen a few times is I've spoken to agency owners, for instance, who are like, we're trying to get on chat GPT, and we haven't had any luck. Crystal Carter: We can't see why we're not on chat CPT. We ask, like, can you name a good agency in Paris? And we can't see ourselves on chat CPT. Well, I had a look at some, like, top agencies who have great, great, great work. They do wonderful, wonderful things. And one of the things that I saw was that everybody has the same bio. Like, everybody has the same, like, sort of the same, like, usp, like by line, tagline, whatever. They're like, we are a global agency serving top brands in, you know, over 100 countries on some incredible campaigns, but you could literally copy and paste that onto, like, seven different, like, top tier agencies, for instance. Like, it's the same one. Crystal Carter: So when Google's like, can you name me an agency? Like, they're, they're, they don't necessarily need to name someone specific or, sorry, not Google. Like, if you're looking at an LLM, like, they, they don't necessarily name someone specific because there's not anything specific to differentiate you. So when you're thinking about, about your entities, make sure that you're aligning yourself with named entities. So that. So that when you're, when someone's doing a search on an Llmde, on a generative search tool, like perplexity, like quad, like copilot or whatever, that when they're showing up, you're also showing up. And it's worth thinking about that in relation to your brand in relationship to the partnerships that you develop in relationship to the sort of online paper trail that you're developing across the web. Mordy Oberstein: You mentioned something that I want to piggyback on or swing back around on, and it's a website. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Like, I'm obviously interested in selling websites because that's how I feel my family. But yeah, I think a lot of, a lot of this is like, if you're, if you're listening to this and you're not a big brand and you're doing, and you're doing a podcast, are you doing a podcast? I'm gonna, I'm gonna run this, actually, right now. I'm gonna type. I am gonna search for Yankees podcast and best Yankees podcast and chat GPT at million bucks. This is what happens. I'm going to predict, okay, if I run best Yankees podcast into chat GPT, the results that are going to come up are the ones with the largest, like, web presence, and it's gonna be the ones that actually have a website even though they're more popular ones on YouTube. So let's run this great. Okay. Mordy Oberstein: There's a Yankees podcast I listen to. His father was actually a professional baseball player for the New York Yankees, Gary Sheffield. Gary Sheffield junior is called Yankees unloaded. It's a great pocket. It's one of my favorite Yankees podcasts, and there are many. And in fact, oh, this is perfect. Okay. They don't show up. Mordy Oberstein: In fact, the Yankees announcer and this might be an entity thing, actually has a radio show which on ESPN, which mainly talks about the Yankees, and he's not even here because they don't have websites. You know who's here? There's someone called talking Yanks. They're a whole like, network of podcasts, basically, and a bunch of their subsidiaries, like, they're like, they're like, I don't know what you call their sub brand podcasts. They're here because they all have websites. All of the podcasts that actually have a website and are connected via websites, those are the ones that show up here because you have to give the LLM something to grab onto. If you're just on your podcast platform, on Spotify, if you're just on YouTube, or if you're on Spotify and YouTube, there's nothing to grab onto. So if you are a smaller brand and you're like, what do I do here? The first thing to do is get, is honestly get off of social for five minutes and build a website. Crystal Carter: I think the important thing to remember is that. So chat GPT, one of the founding things for their model, one of the founding pieces of data for their model is a common crawl. So common crawl is one of the things it was based off of early, early on. And so, yeah, that's web scraping. If you're thinking about copilot, for instance, that's Bing and that's chat GPT. If you're thinking about perplexity, they have their own bot that goes around and across the web. It goes around and across web. And perplexity is listing things as well. Crystal Carter: They're also on the web. So it's worth thinking about that as well. It's also worth considering which elements are thinking about where they get their data from. So we know that Google is getting information from Reddit, for instance, and they're using that to train to train their models, including Gemini. We know that chat GBT is aligned with Bing, and you're using Bing search results as well. So, for instance, if you're not ranking in Bing, that's something to consider as well. But I think that it's worth looking at how these models work in order to align that with you. And they are listing links to websites. Crystal Carter: So the chat PBT four, which is the one that's free for most people, is listing websites where they can sometimes and then also perplexity is listing web listing links all the time as well. For instance, when you look in GA four, you can see the traffic that's coming into your sites. Jess Schultz recently shared a really good regex for finding it's really simple to use for finding all of the traffic that you're getting from LLMs. And Chachi BT is leading the charge in many, many cases, but perplexity is actually coming in significantly regularly. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, it's interesting, but yeah, and. Crystal Carter: It'S coming in regularly for a lot of folks, and I've seen it on some occasions where it's actually surpassing chat pt for certain queries. So I think that's worth understanding as well where you're getting a little bit of traction and where you can build. But they are sending traffic to websites and I think that it's worth getting on these LLMs if you're not already. Don't just log in to Google yourself, use them so that you understand how they work. Mordy Oberstein: If we're talking about perplexity, it kind of brings up something we asked Garrett Sussmann over at ipol rank, how will AI search engines change user behavior? Is this the death of Google? It's not, but it's interesting because it's a conversation that we wanted to have for a long time that a lot of SEOs are having is how are AI search engines going to change user behavior? So here's Garrett on how AI search engines will change user behavior. Garrett Sussman: How will AI search engines change user behavior? That is a meaty question. And you know what? Nobody knows. However, let's dive into this and think about it. So right now, current 2024, nothing stealing market share from Google, it's still like 90 some percent. We're talking perplexity. Search, GPT, even Bing's copilot, they're really not being used to the extent that they're making a marginal difference. However, just thinking about AI search engines and the way that they understand natural language so much better than traditional old school search engines, it could potentially be a game changer that we should delve into. No, but honestly, you think about the way that we used to use search engines, basic keywords. Garrett Sussman: We were trained by the search engines and their capabilities, but now they really can understand so much more context with the advent of mum and, and these types of algorithms that are making things so much more complex that they understand these nuance of language. So what happens when people feel more and more comfortable using these AI search engines? Well, we're going to use natural language. We're going to have longer tailed search terms. We're going to be able to talk like humans to ask our queries. We're going to be able to infuse our own biases, confirmation bias, into the actual searches we make, which as SEOs is extremely challenging and problematic because these AI search engines are going to search for more personalized results that are very, very, very specific and potentially pulled from all different types of content and other queries and other links. Remember, it expands on the queries. It's not just exactly what you're asking. In addition to that, rank tracking is going to be so much more difficult. Garrett Sussman: I mean, you're not going to be able to track a singular keyword because they're going to be so many variations. So do I think this is going to happen in the near future? Like twelve months? No, probably not. Unless, you know, we have some major antitrust trial where, you know, the american government decides that Google has to break up and there are consequences maybe faster than that, but chances are we're not going to see any actual user behavior change for another two 3510 years until people really become used to using these AI search engines and they trust the results so that they actually start to talk to them like real people. It's meaty. It's fascinating. Nobody knows, but I cannot wait to watch and see how we start to interact with this technology and it becomes more mainstream over time. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you so much, Garrett. Make sure to give Garrett a follow over on LinkedIn and on Twitter at Garrett Sussman or X. What do you want to call it? It's such an interesting conversation. He made a great point, or interesting point. It is a great point and an interesting point about the accuracy. Like for example, I actually looked up like best SEO podcast and Garrett had the rankable podcast. They got his name wrong as a host. Crystal Carter: Right. Mordy Oberstein: So will the format allow you to deep dive the way you want to deep dive? I feel like for a top level query or top level search, like, yeah, it's probably like that's a no brainer. Like, you're going to see people going to the chat GPTs of the world, but for deeper investigations, like, I don't know, how do I deal with kidney? Like, I don't know if I want to go to chat DBT for that. But really looking to get like a balanced look and really dive into the topic. Maybe it's not the easiest way to explore, I don't know. But the accuracy thing, I know it's great, but there's, there's, there's still, and it's definitely better than it was before, but there are still a lot of instances where it's not exactly accurate. And if you're going to be like, well, I have to pick a search engine, which am I going to go to? Even like, no, 80% of the time might be great. That 20% is still going to weigh on people's minds. I feel like I, I feel like. Crystal Carter: Though, that main Google search is not always accurate either. So I feel like what I tend to use in terms of as a user, because I use multiple search engines is I go to Google and I can't find what I need or if I don't even know where to start, right? If I'm like, I don't even know what this is called, I don't know what this is. I need a thing that will help me to do this. And then they'll say, well, you might need one of this, this, this and this. And I'm like, okay, well, what is that? And then they'll explain that. The LLM will explain the information there. But he was talking about like conversational topics. When you go to Copilot, they have the microphone as the easiest thing for you to use. Crystal Carter: Like it's, it's really high priority. When you use the copilot app, the microphone is super useful and you literally just say what you want and then it will spit out something, something that you need. And I think that that's having the microphone as a central search tool is going to make you more likely to speak more conversationally, like Garrett is talking about. Similarly, within with Bing recently, they, they opened up their chat bar, like, you know, when you need to go onto it and it's like, oh, I think it's like 2000 characters or something they opened it up to. And all of these LLMs keep expanding the character count that you can add in for what you need. So I've had it before where I'm trying to troubleshoot a piece of code and before you were able to only able to put in a certain amount and then you'd sort of top off at the characters. And now I can put in pretty much the whole document and say, I have this documentation, I have this piece of code. Please can you help me debug it? And then it will help you to pull those things out. Crystal Carter: So I think that when we're thinking about search and how people are going from some of these tools into a website, I think the trust factor is important. I think for ymyl stuff, it's super, super important. I was looking at some financial question or something and I said, if my income is this, how much should I invest in this? If my income is this, how could. And then it was like, it was like, you should. And then the number that I put on the income or whatever, they were like, the whole number is what you should invest in the thing. And I'm like, that's terrible advice. Luckily, I'm not a complete moron, but if somebody was to just follow that advice wholesale, they would be putting their entire savings into whatever this investment thing is and would have nothing. And the thing that's fascinating about that is that if you go onto, I mean, break the fourth wall, I was looking at Cedars type types, things where you look at supporting smaller companies, startups and stuff. Crystal Carter: And if you go on one of those websites, it has disclaimers all over the website that's like, be careful. Investment is risky. Make sure you've read all the terms and conditions. Do not invest everything. Blah, blah, blah. If you go to buy a credit card, they say, please be careful about all of these stuff. Mordy Oberstein: Like, credit cards are coffee, coffee is hot, please be careful. Right? Crystal Carter: There's all of these different disclaimers, but in chat and copilot, there was nothing. It was just like, go, like, invest all of the, everything that you want, like, make all this money, like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, guys, like, where are the, you know, you should understand it's. Mordy Oberstein: Not always there yet. That's kind of the thing. It's not always there yet. And that it's a bad association. Like, it's all about it. These kind of things of trust is all about associations. It's a bad association. I don't think it's there yet. Mordy Oberstein: I do think though, like, what's interesting or perhaps different about, let's say, like Google's use of AI versus like, going to chat. If the Google's a overview doesn't give you what you want, or it's a little bit wonky or whatever it is, you have the actual results right underneath it. So even though the results sometimes aren't always right, they're diverse. So like, the top results, not what you want, the second one might be so like that. That diversity of sources, I don't think is something that's ever going to go away. I think it's like inbuilt in what we want is when we want to look at a topic. And I wonder if, I mean, I searched GBT something different, but like the chat GPTs of the world, that kind of format, what really lend itself to what people ultimately really want. Again, it's a lot. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot to discuss there. Who knows what we're talking about? AI products. We have a little treat for you because we know someone who knows a lot about AI products. No matter what AI search engines you might be using or what it might mean for user behavior, there's no doubt that the technology has already impacted your marketing team and one way, shape, form or another, I completely botched that idiom. And it's fine. I'm okay with it. I'm hallucinating right now. I'm AI. Mordy Oberstein: Anyway, the question is, in what way should AI move large scale marketing teams or big organizations, or even small ones too, into action? To help us end this, we're going across the wix verse with our very own vp of marketing enterprise, Paula Mejia. And this very special, as I already mentioned, across the Wix verse. Three, two, one, ignition. Crystal Carter: Lift up. Mordy Oberstein: Paula, welcome to the show. Paula Mejia: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here, you guys. Mordy Oberstein: I'm terrified right now. It's Monday morning. This is like one of the first things, like, I'm actually doing with, like, you're the first person I'm speaking to this week. Paula Mejia: Oh, that's so. Actually, you are also, other than my children, who woke up at like. Mordy Oberstein: No, I spoke to my wife and children. Like, those are not people. That's family. Crystal Carter: We had a silent school run. I don't know about you guys, my kids. Mordy Oberstein: I don't have a silent anything. I'm lying. Crystal Carter: We didn't at all. There was lots of shouting. Mordy Oberstein: There's lots of shouting. That sounds. Crystal Carter: Where are your socks? Where are they? Anyway? Mordy Oberstein: Oh, my God, the socks, right? What the hell with the socks and the shoes? Crystal Carter: Takes forever for anyway. Mordy Oberstein: I love system. Paula Mejia: I have a system. So outside of marketing our enterprise solution, I have systems for finding socks. I will share it with you separately. Crystal Carter: No, please share it now. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. Yeah. Paula Mejia: Those like grocery bags that are like, the sustainable ones that are like nets? Crystal Carter: Yes. Paula Mejia: You know? Okay. I have three kids, and they're really young, so they have similarly sized feet, which is part of the problem because I'm like this. I don't know whose sock this is, and somehow it doesn't fit everyone. So anyway, so I got three of those nets and I hang them next to the laundry. So, so each net has a name, and then I put all the socks in their corresponding child's net. And then I have a basket on the side for all the pairless socks. And so they just live there until like two weeks. And if you don't find your match within that time frame. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's smart. That's smart. Paula Mejia: You go, you are done. I don't want anything to do with you. It's not very environmentally friendly, but like, I just can't with the, like one sock. Crystal Carter: You can recycle them at TK Maxx. Shout out to TK Maxx. You can recycle the spare socks at TK Maxx. Yes, you can. And also, this is one of the reasons why Paula does what she does, because she finds solutions for things. She finds solutions not just for socks, but for your whole enterprise. She's very good at this kind of. Mordy Oberstein: Thing, which is what we should be talking about. So AI for large marketing teams, I'll start with this off. I feel like there's been a little bit of pushback in the, in the digital marketing space, especially in larger organizations around AI. It was neat, it was awesome. We tried to implement it and it didn't exactly go as we thought it would, or we lack differentiation. We're worried about what it's going to mean for all these different concerns that maybe you don't have at the SMB level, but you might have at the enterprise level. What are you seeing out there in the enterprise ether? Paula Mejia: Yeah, no, I totally hear that. So I think before you assess the impact that AI has had for marketing teams today, I would just first look at what marketing teams, and especially leaders of marketing team, they're feeling. And what they're feeling is a ton, a ton of pressure. So I think marketing has evolved a lot over the last couple of years, and the list of responsibilities for marketing teams just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So where you used to be responsible for brand and growth, now you're responsible for, you know, ginormous P and ls. But you have less budget, you have less resources. All sorts of additional business metrics are kind of, of part of the KPI's for marketers. And marketing takes a lot of time, and it's really not that easy to do, even though a lot of people think it looks easy. Paula Mejia: And this is why I think you also see ten years of like, senior executives in marketing being quite short compared to others. So I think the average tenure, first CMO is two years, whereas everyone else in the C suite is more than five. So you kind of enter this world of like, pressure, pressure, pressure, less resources, deliver more, and in comes AI for marketers, right? And everyone is like, oh my God, a little scared. Maybe it'll take some more jobs, but it should bring a ton of efficiency, right? You should be able to create content like that. There should be no problem. It should be super great. And yet that kind of sense of urgency and lack of support, I would say organizationally, still is very much felt for marketers. And I think right now the reason is that AI feels a bit like a false promise to marketing teams in terms of the efficiencies it can deliver. Paula Mejia: Because while it's being used to varying degrees in different organizations, as you said, where it is being used, it's mostly in small kind of slivers of content creation. So aspiring partner for your content writer, maybe editing certain pieces of your blogs, occasionally being used and designed to make the process a bit more efficient. But it isn't an integrated part of your marketing process. It's kind of bits and bolts. And then you look at kind of the process of going live with a marketing campaign and it's, you know, it's like a full, it's a huge thing that involves many levels of approval. Often it's, let's call it gate kept by technology that may or may not be set up in a way to make you more efficient. And this is obviously the area that Wix studio addresses the best. So what I often tell people to look at before they even look at the AI solution is, is what are the processes and systems in place your marketing team has? And are those the right ones to make it more efficient? Because right now, if you use AI to create more thought leadership content or a campaign, but you can't get to market quickly enough because you're depending on a developer or the technical person that works on your DXP, it doesn't matter if you create that content really fast, but no one will see it. Paula Mejia: And marketing content. Tell me if you guys agree. I don't think that there's such a thing as like Evergreen content anymore. I think most marketing content now is a very specific shelf life. So I see a lot of marketers under this pressure to create more. And the creation process is kind of getting there, but then the getting to the market with that thing you created is not being enabled by AI. And so this is part of the gap that I think we absolutely have to bridge and something that we're working on at Wix Studio to do so teaser. That's the new product that's coming out next year. Paula Mejia: But basically what we understood is, okay, you know, Wix generally, and Wix Studio has kind of solved the problem of creating sites at speed, creating digital assets at speed at the highest quality. Crystal Carter: Right. Paula Mejia: So that's kind of the end, right? And the beginning is more the content creation, which as I said, right now feels quite strange in terms of how AI can support you. And my content writers use club and my designer uses whatever synesthesia promotion video. So how do you kind of integrate all those things together? And this is, that's the idea. This is what we're working on, a platform, a marketing suite, let's call it, that enables marketing teams to create the highest quality assets that are enabled by AI. Crystal Carter: And I think that this is something I really like about the approach. So when you go into Wix studio, there's AI everywhere, but it's not overwhelming. Like I use Grammarly all the time and Grammarly is constantly trying to push AI on me and I'm like, I don't want it. Just tell me how to spell receipt because I always put the e and the I in the wrong place. Just tell me how to spell it, please. Thank you. And whereas like with Wix, like what we have is we haven't, we have an opt in for all of the areas and we have, and with Wix Studio, we have it built into all of the different parts. So if you're stuck on a page and you need to get that page out and you're, you're like, I don't know how to write this about page. Crystal Carter: You can click the create with text. If you've got a bunch of products that are brand new and you need to get product descriptions on there so that you go to market, then we have tools that help you do that. We have tools that help you do stuff in the CMS that you're like, okay, I want to create a bunch of dynamic pages. We have templates for that. Go forth and do what you need to do. I've got this image that somebody sent me. It's a great image, but it's only this many megapixels and I need it to be bigger and I don't want to have to wait two weeks for them to send me another picture. I can upscale it in this part of the, the CMS as well. Crystal Carter: You don't want to have to wait four weeks for the developer to come back to you to make the page responsive. All of that sort of stuff, we have it built in at point of use so you don't have to go and search for another tool to find it because I think that that can be really tricky for marketing teams right now. There's this need to adopt. But also, every time you try to adopt something, there's the time to learn it, but then there's something else that comes out right after that. And then you're like, oh, I spent all this time learning this other AI tool and now there's this new one and it's sort of, there's so much technology coming out right now, it's difficult to keep up. Paula Mejia: Exactly. No, that's exactly right. Mordy Oberstein: The pressure to adopt, I think, is interesting. It's almost like, it's like a value in and of itself. Like, we have to be using AI, but so it creates this, like, almost like weird, weird pressure on these teams to start using AI. But then when you start actually think you mentioned before, when you start thinking about, like, where it's actually applicable and where it's not applicable, it's really, you know, I would say not few and far between, but it's really targeted. I feel this. Right. I have a ton of content to get out, but I also am, like, very, very careful about my messaging. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: So it does work, but that it doesn't work. And, like, finding that sweet spot is so hard right now. Paula Mejia: I feel like, yeah, for sure. I think for me, it's really also important to say that when we talk about efficiency, I think it's often understood as, oh, marketers are just trying to put more and more content out there. And for me, it's less about. More and more about optimizing content you have. Crystal Carter: Right. Paula Mejia: Like, everything. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Paula Mejia: You need to be able to put things out and then iterate on it quickly. And what about. I need 17 different articles. I need to create the landing page that comforts best for my audience. So I need multiple versions generated quickly enough, which I think is very in line with what you said around your messaging. Like, it's about kind of getting that quality and efficiency at the right balance. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. That's why, like, reusing something that, where you can have, like a construct and have the AI reuse it in multiple places and you come in after the fact and kind of like, do your thing with that, with that construct, I think it's a great way to use AI. Crystal Carter: I think also when you're talking about building on the quality, like, there's the, you've mentioned evergreen content, and I think that our idea of evergreen content has definitely changed, partially because, like, the not trend cycle, but what's new, what's considered new content on Google, whatever is changing. Like, the gap between, like, and I, I talked about this at the beginning of the year. And then we're seeing it, seeing this play out is that the gap between content refreshes is getting much smaller because teams that are using AI, teams that have accelerated content updates. So, for instance, it might be that you put out a piece of content and then you look back at it and you're like, actually, I could put this into a table. You can use AI to take that paragraph. You drop that into your AI tool and say, make this into a table. And they can make it into a table. It's not rewriting. Crystal Carter: It doesn't have to hallucinate. You can check everything really quickly. You can pop that into the table and make the content better, more readable, accessible to more people. For instance, using tools like that, maybe you didn't have illustrations and maybe now you're able to do that, for instance, and repurposing content. Right. Paula Mejia: Like, we marketers have lots of ideas. You don't need to reinvent the wheel every time. You just need to get it to your audience, maybe in a different channel, make sure they didn't miss it on the channel that already existed. And repackaging content, that was good and that had an impact. Like, we need to be doing that. That's for sure. Our key to efficiency and making sure that our, our impact is higher. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, we just recorded 100th episode of this podcast a few weeks ago. So we recorded in a stream. We did a live version of it recorded in Streamyard. And Streamyard gives you a way to, like, auto generate clips through AI to repurpose them, like, just exactly what you're looking for. Like, I don't want to have to go back through, manually create an audiogram if you can, you know, cut that out for me and it's, and it's decent. Give me 20 of them. If ten of them are good, then great. I still save a ton of time. Crystal Carter: Right, right. And I think that there are a lot of people who are talking about efficiency. PricewaterhouseCooper recently did a report and they were saying that that's the biggest gains that we're seeing right now, today. And then as we go forward, we should see more AI agents that are more specialized and more unique for things. Where are you seeing marketing teams make the most efficiency gains right now from AI? Paula Mejia: Yeah, I think in content creation, that's where I see it the most. But I think that the impact really lies in the, in the hands of the creator. You guys have seen some really bad execution events in the SEO world, and I've all like people who I'm just like I, you know, I'm not an expert, but that looks really not like. Mordy Oberstein: The right way to create. Paula Mejia: I think some people, like I said, have misunderstood the efficiency that AI can bring with the fact that you still really much are the gatekeeper of the quality of that content. So I think this is, this, you know, like I said, there's, there is a promise that AI has for marketers. And I know we're close, but I think we need to be responsible in the way we use it and make sure that it is up to the highest quality standards. And that's something that I think anyone who is concerned about the future of your job with AI, whether you're in content design or in a more managerial area in marketing, I don't think that they will replace you. I don't think AI was going to replace an individual, but I think people who use AI will take your job if you're not using it. That for sure. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I agree. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Paula Mejia: I think for agencies, I don't know if this is something that's come up in some of your conversations in the past, but I've spoken with a lot of agencies, some of which are more hesitant to use AI than others. And I think customers of agencies are rising up and asking, how are you using AI to make my money go farther? Show me the ways in which you're employing this new technology, or I'm going to go to another agency that can. And I think that, like I said, marketing and advertising is an area of a lot of pressure. And I think AI, because everyone hears about it and hears efficiency, you will be, in a way, accountable for showing how you're using it, but also making sure the quality is of the right standard. Crystal Carter: I think the other thing is that. So I recently attended an event. There's a group in London called Agency Hackers, and they've got another one coming up at the beginning of the year called the robot, are coming. It's a great session. It's very hands on about AI and how people are using AI. I spoke to loads of agencies there about how they're using AI and how we use AI at Wix and how one of the things, so just to give us the wix first, a little bit behind the fourth wall or whatever, at Wix, like, and you posted about this, actually on your LinkedIn, Paula, about how, like, we had, we, you know, we regularly have, like, AI workshop days. Like, we have, like, what can we do with AI? Let's have, let's talk about, like, different things that we're doing with AI. We have like, you know, we have, you know, working groups where people are trying things, testing things, iterating with things, talking to each other about how they're, how they're using it. Crystal Carter: But what's really important, and one of the things I love about Wix is that, like, we test things and as a team, as a company, as a business, we're not afraid to like, try something and see what happens and learn from it. If you're an agency, enterprise business, any kind of business, if you're not using AI, then you're also not learning how to use AI. If you're not using it in any way, then you don't know, you know, what you can do or how you can do it. We had Dale Bertrande on for a great webinar a few months ago, and one of the things he was talking about was a really good way to get started is to use Chachi. He had a couple of, a couple of ways. One was to try to use Chachi PT for everything, and then you'll learn very quickly what you can't use it for. Another way was to give it your to do list and say, how can you help me with this? And that can be really useful as well. But testing iterating and not expecting it to be, not expecting it to be perfect the first time, so, so, so important, I think. Mordy Oberstein: I think you have to kind of realize, like, where it is and where it's not really applicable categorically. Like, if you're on the performance side, like, there's gonna be a lot more ways where it's really, really, really easy and much more linear to realizing how you can use AI. Let's say you're more like, on the brand side, and especially in a world where content has become much more conversational, that you're going to have a more of a difficult time using it, or I was a more difficult time. You're going to be a little more creative in how you're going to use it. I use it in the research phase. I can use it to write up to x points where you're going to have to be a little more cautious, a little more strategic about how you go about implementing it. And again, if you're a marketing manager listening to this and you have multiple teams under you, I think you need to realize that different types of teams are going to be able to use the AI in different ways in different moments. It's not a linear equation. Paula Mejia: Absolutely. I will say, though, about the brand component, at least our solution does allow marketing teams, especially with larger integrated marketing teams, where I keeping that consistent tone of voice across, whether it's a franchise model or just different localized teams, that does enable you to keep more consistency in place just by putting certain guardrails in terms of how changes are rolled out across all your sites, making sure that it's following certain brand guidelines. So there are some things kind of helping that brand consistency component that I think teams really need to be aware of. But yeah, back to your point, Crystal. I think something that marketers are also responsible for on top of brand awareness, growth, conversion, blah, blah, is a tech stack. Now, no matter what you do, you're a technology user. And if you're managing a team, you need to be up to date on what technology they're using. Are they using the right one? Are they using outdated technology? Do you have even just from an ROI perspective, do you have too many licenses for things that are not bringing you value? Like do your tech stack audits people, even if you're not really like, this is kind of like a realization I had. Paula Mejia: I was at an event recently that we hosted in London and I was talking to someone about their CRM and they're like, oh, we have three CRMs. And I almost fell out of my chair, girl. Crystal Carter: Why? Paula Mejia: And you know, it's like legacy and also different teams. We don't like there was a some kind of reason, but you know, from an efficiency and like data quality perspective, three CRM's not the way to go, you guys. Crystal Carter: This is like your sock. If you haven't found your socks in two weeks, if you haven't touched that CRM in two weeks, let it go. Mordy Oberstein: Having worked two different SEO tool providers, I can tell you like, there's a significant amount of their user base or people who are paying large amounts of money every month who don't log into the tool. Crystal Carter: It's like people who go to the gym or who have a gym membership and. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly, that's what. Yeah, that's the SEO equivalent. Right, Paula? Folks want to keep up to date with what you're doing on the enterprise side for marketers and AI. Where can they find you? Paula Mejia: You can find me on LinkedIn. That's my, that's my jam these days. Mordy Oberstein: So everybody's jammed these days because there's nowhere else to go. Paula Mejia: Also true. Mordy Oberstein: Also speaking truth on the serves up podcast. Thank you so much, Paula, for coming on and telling us about the enterprise product. And we'll see you out there. Paula Mejia: Yeah, happy to. Thanks so much. Have a good day. Mordy Oberstein: Make sure, you follow Paul Mejia over on LinkedIn. Paul is wonderful, you know, also wonderful, Barry's wonderful, and all the other people who cover the SEO news as well. Which brings us to this week's snappy news. Crystal Carter: In a major development that was the talk of the digital marketing world, Semrush has announced its acquisition of third Door Media, the parent company of search Engine Land. This acquisition also includes all of their door media's brands, including SMX, the search Marketing Expo, Martech.org, comma, the Martech Conference, and digital Marketing Expo. For anyone that's been keeping score, this is another jewel in the some rush SEO media crown alongside backlinko and traffic think tank, this is quite the media portfolio. In other news, Google has announced a significant leadership change. Nick Fox has been appointed as the new head of Google Search, succeeding Prabhakar Raghavan, who is transitioning to chief technologist. Fox has been at Google since 2003 and will now oversee the knowledge and information division, which includes search, ads, e commerce, products and other things. This leadership change comes amidst lots of competition and legal pressures as Google faces lots of challenges from lots of different angles. Speaking of Google challengers over there at Bing, Microsoft is integrating new AI features into their search platform, so you can expect to see AI enhanced summaries providing concise information from different online sources appearing in the knowledge panel section. Crystal Carter: Though these aren't quite widely available just now, you should expect to see them roll out in the near future. Also from Bing, there have been lots of reports that there are bugs within the Bing webmaster tools API and documentation. Ryan Siddle, for instance, highlighted at least five issues, including problems with setting country and region on site requests. Microsoft has responded, saying that they acknowledge the bugs and that they are actively working to fix them. So they've already got two scheduled. And that concludes the snappy news. Mordy Oberstein: That was wonderful. Thank you, Barry and all those who cover the news. When Eric Clapton wrote wonderful tonight, he was writing it about Barry. Indeed. I hope that makes you feel a little bit awkward, Barry, that's special kind of way. If we're talking about AI and we mentioned who can you follow the very beginning of this episode for more SEO and AI awesomeness? This then Eli Schwartz is your man. Eli spends a lot of time talking about SEO and AI. He did so on our 100th episode of the podcast, and he does so all over LinkedIn. Mordy Oberstein: A lot of thought provoking question about how AI will not just impact SEO practice, but impact the SEO industry and the amount of money you're able to earn as an SEO so check out Eli on LinkedIn. It's a lot of great content about that. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think he's absolutely, absolutely great. And he did a webinar with us as well, which was really good as well, talking about all of these different tools and talking about how they impact. And he talks a lot about brand and about reputation as well. So he was joined by Anne Smarty for that webinar. Highly recommend checking it out. Mordy Oberstein: He's a good dude, and she's a good follow also. Wow, so many follows. Crystal Carter: So many follows. Check it out. Mordy Oberstein: How many follows? But where do you follow people now? Not an ex, I guess. I guess. Crystal Carter: LinkedIn. Mordy Oberstein: LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: That's also weird. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's all we have, Morty. Mordy Oberstein: I know, I know. It's all that's left. It's problematic. Crystal Carter: I get more action on Instagram than I do on Twitter. Mordy Oberstein: I'm not doing Instagram. I get a mix. It's funny to see what works well on X and what works well on LinkedIn. They're not the same thing. It's really interesting. Anyway, anyway, we can. Crystal Carter: That's a different podcast. Mordy Oberstein: That's a different. That's a different griping session. Thank you for joining us on the Surface up podcast. That sounded like Sean Connery podcasts. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into refreshing your SEO career. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on the Wix studio SEO learning hub, over@wix.com SEO learn looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content webinars on the Wix studio 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. Mordy Oberstein: Until next time, peace of love and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Who is SEO testing for? When is it worthwhile to run an SEO test? What if you don’t have a huge amount of data, is SEO testing still a viable option? Subjecting your website's SEO to testing can be extremely insightful. It can also be extremely complex. Will Critchlow, CEO and founder of SearchPilot joins Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein, and Crystal Carter to evaluate how you should conduct SEO tests on your website. Get insights into the guidelines for when it’s appropriate to run an SEO test and when the tactic may not be worth your while. Go beyond the SEO testing process by understanding how to analyze your findings and apply them to your SEO strategy. Keep your eyes on your own paper as this week we discuss the ins and outs of SEO testing here on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Putting SEO to the test Who is SEO testing for? When is it worthwhile to run an SEO test? What if you don’t have a huge amount of data, is SEO testing still a viable option? Subjecting your website's SEO to testing can be extremely insightful. It can also be extremely complex. Will Critchlow, CEO and founder of SearchPilot joins Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein, and Crystal Carter to evaluate how you should conduct SEO tests on your website. Get insights into the guidelines for when it’s appropriate to run an SEO test and when the tactic may not be worth your while. Go beyond the SEO testing process by understanding how to analyze your findings and apply them to your SEO strategy. Keep your eyes on your own paper as this week we discuss the ins and outs of SEO testing here on the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 65 | December 6, 2023 | 48 MIN 00:00 / 48:17 This week’s guests Will Critchlow Will Critchlow is CEO of SearchPilot, a company that spun out of his previous business Distilled, which was acquired by Brainlabs in early 2020. SearchPilot is an enterprise SEO A/B testing platform that proves the value of SEO for the world’s biggest websites by empowering them to make agile changes and test their impact. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahala, for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already over to the SEO Branding here at Wix. I'm joined by our Head of SEO Communications, the true tried and tested, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: That was a shorter intro than normal. Are you testing out something different? Mordy Oberstein: Because I didn't know how to... The tested part is a part on today's topic, but I didn't know how to tie that into a longer... Crystal Carter: So you're experimenting, are you? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, maybe testing the... Yeah. If you're listening, which one do you like better, when I do a pun tied into the Crystal's title or I just go full on, "The incredible, the fabulous, the amazing, the unparalleled Crystal Carter"? Crystal Carter: Don't know where you get all of the adjectives from. I don't know where they all come from. Literally, I ran out of adjectives years ago. I just do a fire emoji, whatever it is in my fire Emoji. Mordy Oberstein: I officially have diarrhea of the mouth. So it helps. Crystal Carter: That's clinical condition. I hope it's not. I hope you're okay. Mordy Oberstein: You can talk to my wife, ask her. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also create custom widgets that you can use across all the sites that you manage for your clients, or just some of the sites or many of the sites that you manage for your clients. Really, what I'm saying is it's up to you where you want to replicate those custom widgets that you create. And I'm saying you can do it with Wix Studio. Perhaps by the way, you can take two versions of that widget and test each one as today's topic is SEO testing. That's right. We are the Doc Browns of the digital world. And unlike fourth graders everywhere, in SEO, we love tests and testing. We're diving into what you should or shouldn't run with an SEO test, when you should or shouldn't run an SEO test. And how do you run an SEO test if you need a gargantuan amount of data to draw any conclusions. To help us prep for this SEO test in the sky, CEO and founder of SearchPilot, Will Critchlow is set to join us in just a few minutes. We'll also give you a great and classic run through of a tool to help you run some SEO research that kind of touches upon SEO testing in a unique way. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So close your books and keep your eyes on your own damn papers as episode number 64 of the SERP's Up Podcast, which is your conceptions of SEO experimentations to the test. By the way, when I say, "Eyes on your damn own paper," I say that with full conviction as a former teacher, "Eyes on your own damn paper." Crystal Carter: I think that's a really important thing to think about. But although it's strange though, because at school, they're always like, "No, no, no, your own thing, your own thing." But then when you get into the world of work, they're like, "You have to work together." And I'm like, "No, it's mine. It's mine. I know this and they don't. And I should get a gold star." But that's not how life is. You have to share. Mordy Oberstein: I used to always like making jokes that went a little bit, just a little bit over the kids' heads. That's my way of being aggressive. It was a fifth grade, sixth grade class and every year, it was Baltimore City. The whole state rather, makes you do this whole ridiculous testing, set of testing every year. And everyone, it's a whole day of inspectors coming around to see who's doing what and make sure all the rules are being followed. Some kid had his notebook on his desk. I'm like, "Dude, you can't have a notebook on your desk." He's like, "What notebook? Where did that come from?" I'm like, "Oh, it must be the Immaculate Notebook." Anyway, anyway, as the idea of testing children brings up a lot of anxiety for me and the children, we would like to welcome to the show, Will Critchlow. Hey Will, how are you? Will Critchlow: Hey, good to join you. Thanks for having me on the show. Crystal Carter: So absolutely honored. I think when we think of as you're testing, you're the first person I think of- Will Critchlow: Good. Good. Crystal Carter: ... if I'm completely honest. And so yeah, it's a real honor to have you and to have you go through your methods, and talk about how you can get some good results and set some good hypotheses, and set out to get something that's actually actionable out of a test. Will Critchlow: Looking forward to it. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Thank you so much. Mordy Oberstein: So great. Before we get going, Mark is going to mark a quick plug for what you do. Will Critchlow: Yeah. So as you said, I'm founder and CEO at SearchPilot. You can find us at searchpilot.com or at SearchPilot on the social channels. So we focus really at the enterprise end of the market. We make software that helps really big websites test for SEO. And so our customers tend to be in travel, real estate, jobs, E-commerce, those kinds of verticals where you have really huge websites. And our software helps them run SEO tests just like the ones that we're going to talk about today. And out of the back of that, we obviously get a load of learnings, things that we discover, and we try and give some of that back to the community and publish a bunch of tests and test results on our website at searchpilot.com. Crystal Carter: I should highly recommend anybody who's interested in this to visit the SearchPilot case studies folder. They've got it broken down into a lot of different things. So they've got test inconclusive, negative, winning, things like that, and they've always got a control at a variant and they really break down a lot of good examples of how you can test and things you can test. One of the ones that's currently at the top is then, how valuable is unique content for SEO and testing? That is interesting. Will, I can see your eyes lighting up on that. I don't know if you want to jump in on that one. Will Critchlow: Well, the whole area of the site, you're absolutely right. So we basically try to produce the stuff that I wish had existed as content when I was a consultant. And so it all feeds into, we have an email newsletter you can sign up on the case study section and we just send these out every couple of weeks. And they're all coming from these tests that we've run with our customers. And I find it fascinating. I find it fascinating to test myself and figure out if I can work out what's going to have gone on. And yet, specifically things like that one where you're saying we all have the best practices in mind, we all know what Google says, we all know what the soundbites are. And many of us, we can give them conference presentations about this stuff. But when you try and quantify it, it gets really tough to kind of actually say, "Is it worth investing the money that it's going to take to upgrade this particular piece of content or this particular section of the page? Mordy Oberstein: So maybe that's a good place to start, sort of loop in everybody who's listening to this podcast, what is an SEO test exactly and what are you testing? Will Critchlow: Yeah. Great question. So most people can be familiar with conversion rate testing or user experience testing, the kind of thing that you'd run typically with a JavaScript plugin on your website, where you show different versions of a page to different website visitors. And then you see whether the group who saw version A convert better or the group who saw version B convert better. And that's been around for well over a decade now and folks are generally familiar with that kind of technology. We're trying to bring that same level of rigor and statistical approach to the SEO world, which as we all know, we've all been in it for a while, has a history of being less than scientific in some areas. So the kinds of tests that we are talking about when I say SEO tests, we're trying to run these controlled scientific experiments. And unlike a CRO test where you show two versions of the same page to half your users at a time, the way an SEO test works, because you kind of have to think of Googlebot as one visitor, is we take a large site section, so a whole bunch of pages that are in what we call a site section, a group of pages with a similar page template. So think for example, product listing pages on an E-commerce website and we make changes to some of those pages and not to others. So we have a controlled group of pages and a variant group of pages. And all users including Googlebot, see that there's no cloaking, no duplication, all that kind of stuff. And then by looking at the relative performance of the different groups of pages, you can run a bunch of statistics and figure out a confidence interval on the impact of the specific change that you made. And the crucial thing here is that that then allows us to account for all of the confounding variables. So whether it's seasonality, other changes to the website, Google algorithm updates, things your competitors are doing, all these things that mean your analytics moves around all over the place, we're controlling for all of that. And we're saying, "Given all of the stuff that's going on in the outside world, here's the impact of this specific, very small, very specific change to those pages." Crystal Carter: And I think just to break down a couple of those things, so you mentioned a few things showing. So just to catch up anybody who's new to these ideas, so you said showing one set of information to one group and showing another group to another one that's referred to as an AD test. So that's if anybody wants to look up more and more of that. You also talked about controls and variables, and I think that that's a really important thing to dive into a little bit about how you identify the controls. So if you were to think of, I don't know, I'm trying to think of something like a medicine for instance. Normally, if they're testing a new medicine, they'll have a control group which gets a placebo, which is essentially sugar pill. So it changes nothing. They've changed to nothing. So essentially on a website, you're doing something similar where you have one site where you haven't changed anything. Will Critchlow: That's right. So yeah, the control pages are exactly like that. They're the ones where nothing has changed. And so that doesn't of course, mean that traffic stays completely flat on those pages. Right? It can increase or decrease for a million other reasons. But the fact that we know that we didn't do anything to those pages means that we can take that data, apply it to our analysis of what happened to the pages that did change, and we can tease out what happened because we did something versus what happened just because the world changed. Crystal Carter: And you're doing those things at the same time. So let's say over the month of July, so let's say you had the blog, right? Let's say you had the blog and you had one set of things and you're like, "We're not going to change these blogs at all. We're going to change these blogs, so that one is the control group, one is the other, and it happens at the same time." And so just to catch few people up. And presumably, you also have to tell everyone involved in the team not to touch anything on those pages, including devs. Will Critchlow: So actually, there is a lot of coordination and communication needed, which we can kind of get into. But actually, it is okay for that to be site-wide changes to the site in the meantime, as this stuff is happening. Because that all gets taken care of by the control and variant because those changes tend to happen randomly. They don't happen to every page across the control group and the variant group and therefore, they count seasonality or algorithm updates or whatever else, or they happen randomly. It's like this page gets it, that page doesn't. But those pages, some of them will be in the control group and some of them will be in the variant group. So where we are coming from is as I say, we're working on these really big websites and that's where you can get into this really detail-level statistical analysis. Some of our tests, we're calling us statistically confident result of plus 2% of organic traffic, which just disappears into the noise on a small business website, or a typical blog or whatever else. And really, what I'm hoping, and this will again, we'll get deeper into this, what I'm hoping is that the work that we are doing on these big websites by publishing some of that analysis and by deconstructing it and doing the thinking about it, we get to help even those small business owners or those folks who are working on smaller websites. And that's kind of like as I say, I wish that had existed when I was a consultant, kind of paying it forward into that part of the industry as well. Crystal Carter: Well, I think it's so valuable because even 2%, and I know that if you're starting with a small blog, let's say you've got... I don't know, you've got a thousand views a month or something like that and let's say you think 2%, the thing about SEO is it compounds. And I think the other thing is once you learn how to test hypothesis in SEO, then you can grow really quickly. So it might be that you learn how to test that, and then the next time, you can test another thing, and then you're adding and adding and adding. Because I think so often, people will just do something and have no idea what impact they expect it to have, have no idea whether it had any impact. And I think even with small teams, one of the things I've seen, and this is why I wanted to pull up the control thing, is that sometimes they'll be like, "Oh, but we did a PPC change," or "Oh, but we did this, that, and the other change." And I think sometimes with SEO, particularly if you're helping someone with their SEO, you need to be able to evidence that you did the work. Do your tests help with that process? Will Critchlow: So definitely, they do on the kind of sites that we're working with where we get to... Because we're controlling out all that other stuff, so we get to say notwithstanding all these other effects, "Here's the impact of this change." And without going deep into our specialism too much, you get some really quite cool dashboards where you have a list of SEO initiatives and each one has an associated uplift or decrease associated with it and a degree of statistical confidence attached to it. And that's the kind of thing that really helps with broader communication with the business and I mentioned earlier, the lack of scientific rigor is one problem in SEO. I think another one is too many of us historically, have not been great at talking business. I'm guilty of this. I'd love geeking out about robots.txt or whatever it might be, hreflang, the business doesn't speak that language. That's not what the CMO, CFO, whoever else cares about, CEO. And we're trying to bridge that gap and help bring those metrics that the business cares about connected to the effort and the work that folks are putting in as well. Mordy Oberstein: What's a case off the top of your head, that you really saw that come through? You run an SEO test, and then you run through the whole thing and the outcome was, "Hey look, if we did this, your bottom line's going to increase by whatever percent." Will Critchlow: So actually, I don't think it's specifically the case study that you were mentioning, Crystal, but we had a very similar one, testing content quality, which we've had a few really fascinating ones that have led to businesses making specific investments in different areas or not investing in different areas. Because the big thing about this is very contextual. So it depends on your website, your industry, your place in the market, what your competitors are doing. But I remember one case where the team we were working with built a business case to invest in a whole load of high quality freelance written... Basically, bring in a bunch of editors and writers and overhaul a whole site section's worth of content. And they did that with an initial test on, I think it was like a hundred pieces of content, proved the substantial uplift that came from it, quantified it, turned that into business metrics and said, "Look, the cost of doing this is X thousand dollars. The benefit is a bigger number. Should we go for it?" And that definitely helped with that kind of sign off. But the great thing about testing is you see the inverse where we've definitely had cases where folks are like, "Should we do this, run the numbers?" No, probably not. Actually, time and effort and money is better spent elsewhere. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. And running the test, that can save you so much of that hassle between going all the way down. And then people are like, "How come we didn't see? We did all that stuff and how come nothing happened?" And I think the other thing that's really important is that if you have that too many times, you lose some momentum with regards to SEO buy-in and SEO investment and things. So it's really important to- Will Critchlow: Yeah, for sure. So you definitely see it with the executives. Executives get bored of just hearing these pie-in-the-sky numbers that maybe are going to materialize year after year. We also see it in trust between SEO teams and product and engineering teams as well, because a lot of SEO requests are not very exciting engineering requests. It's like, "Hey guys, we want you to change the titles again." And they're like, "I mean, I was hoping to do some machine learning." And there's a disconnect sometimes between the things that the SEO team wants the engineering product team to work on and what's exciting and interesting for an engineering product team to work on. And one of the things that we found is by running these tests, we're able to reduce the number of requests that go to engineering because we're now only asking them to do the good stuff, which might only be 20% of the work that we previously would've asked for to get all of the benefit. And crucially, each ticket that's raised has an uplift associated with it. And so even if it's not the most exciting day at work, it's a rewarding day at work because they know that they've added to the bottom line and- Crystal Carter: Right. And you can get a gold star. Will Critchlow: A gold star, a raise, a bonus, whatever it might be. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. I think also, when you're working with devs, engineering teams, et cetera, it's always great to tell them about those uplifts like, "Hey, remember those title tags we asked you for?" Will Critchlow: Your work did this. Yeah, absolutely. And everybody wants to know their work is meaningful and that it makes a difference to the organization that they're working for. And part of our purpose at SearchPilot, part of it is the kind of SEO-centric. We want to prove the value of SEO for the world's biggest websites, is how we phrase it. But we have another piece, which is about creating great jobs. And that is almost like a layered approach where we're saying, "First of all, we want to have good jobs at SearchPilot," in like a direct sphere of influence. But the next layer out is we want to make the jobs better for the folks that we're interacting with, whether it's our customers, whether it's their colleagues and their stakeholders, whether it's all these different things and we see that coming together. I love it. We occasionally share in our Slack when one of our customers posts a job ad that says, "We are hiring for an SEO manager," and there's a line item that says, "It's going to get to run SEO tests." And we're like, "Yes." That means that folks are going to work at this company because they're going to work with SearchPilot. Crystal Carter: That's awesome. Will Critchlow: If those dots join up, that's what gets me out of bed still, whatever. I'm 18 years into my SEO career now. Mordy Oberstein: Pushing gears just a little bit, if you're let's say the average site, it's not a huge enterprise site and you're looking at let's say both the content on the SearchPilot blog, you're trying to take away some lessons and you're saying, "You know what? Maybe I should run some tests." Can they take away lessons from what you're putting out in terms of the content and can they run some sort of equivalent test even though statistically speaking, they do not have the amount of data that you're working with? Will Critchlow: For sure. So I've been in this boat. Yeah, I've consulted with small organizations. I mean, SearchPilot, our own website in fact, is the kind of site you're talking about. We are not in our own target market. We unfortunately, can't really run these statistically significant SEO tests on our own site. So I feel you. If the folks who are listening, who are in that situation, I have a couple of recommendations. I think the biggest lessons that I've applied in those situations from the work that we are doing at scale is first of all, do read that content. We are putting out these test results that are tested on very large websites. And the fact that they won't apply exactly perfectly in your niche, in your industry on your site, doesn't mean that they're not directionally useful. And so in particular, consuming that it tells you, look, if this is only consistently we're seeing that these kinds of tests are very small uplifts or typically no big impact, that's probably going to not be a massive impact on your site either. So it's a source of inspiration, a source of ideas, source of direction. The second piece I would say is there are things you can do that fall short of a full scientific double-blind controlled, whatever gold standard test that are still valuable. The first of those goes back to what you were saying Crystal, about communication, that a big part of it is communication and documentation. So one of the great things that we have is that every time we roll out a test, we know exactly when it started, we know exactly what we changed, we have that record of... And that could just be an Excel file, right? It does not have to be some kind of sophisticated platform, but knowing what you changed when, why you changed it, what your hypothesis was, why you thought this was a good idea, even just having that list of stuff you did and when and why, that's a huge part of building that business case when the boss comes back or the client comes back and says, "What have you been up to and what was the benefit of that?" It also lets you then do basically, the next best thing to the kind of testing that we're talking about, which is before and after testing, which is to say you can at least look at how things have gone since you made the change, compared to how they were prior to making that change. I was going to say it's the thing I'm most sad about on the GA-III to GA-IV transition, but let's probably not go there, but the loss of the annotations is killing me. Crystal Carter: It's so simple. Will Critchlow: It's so sad. I mean, there's so much that's so sad, but that's so sad. But literally, you can just do the before and after. And you just have to be aware that that can easily be confounded by outside effects. So like your saying Crystal, if somebody releases a major update to your website or you change other things in your advertising or your strategy or whatever, that's going to screw with your data. And I have a presentation, a conference deck that I run through sometimes, which highlights this where I show the before and after data, but we managed to launch right over the time that a Google algorithm update happened. And then two weeks later, it was Thanksgiving or whatever, there was some kind of holiday, and so the traffic goes all over the place. And you're like, you just can't expect to detect a couple of percentage points. You can tell if it's up 20%. You can tell if it's down 20%, but you're not going to be able to tell that kind of fine-grained data. But my argument is that's okay, because if you are in that spot where you were talking about earlier, you're getting a thousand organic visits a month to your blog, an extra two visits a month, that's not what you're getting out of bed for. You're probably better putting that effort into writing a new blog post or connecting with some folks and doing some outreach or whatever it might be doing the thing, rather than doing the micro-level optimizations that can make all the difference in the kind of hyper-competitive big website space. Mordy Oberstein: If you are in that position and you do want to start doing some testing, what might be a good way to say, "Okay, this is not worth my time. I shouldn't bother testing it." Or you know what? This scenario might be worthwhile to run to try something and see maybe it did, maybe it didn't work. What are some, I guess, guidelines around when it might be worth it? Will Critchlow: So I've got some guidelines. I've also got a really specific example of a time when I did this. So as I mentioned on SearchPilot.com, our website isn't big enough to run our own kinds of tests. So what I did for ours was those case studies that we were talking about earlier, I literally downloaded a kind of CSV file of the titles and method descriptions on, however, many it was at the time when I did it, 100, 200. So that kind of order of magnitude and did a manual rewrite of titles and methods. And I think that's worked out well for us. Basically, we'd got in the habit of being quite introspective in how we described those things and I wanted to make them a bit more problem-centric, figuring that folks would be going on Google searching things like, should I put the brand at the beginning or end of my title tags? And so I was like, our title should answer that question or should at least tell you that the answer to that question is in this post. So I just did that kind of quite opinionated, not very scientific rewrite, kept track of when I did it and could see the... Can't quantify exactly, but could see that it was performing better afterwards versus before. So my general rule of thumb is on small sites in particular, the place I would start is things that overlap between ranking signals and display in the search results signal. So title is the place that I would start. Because if you remember before machine learning, our paid search colleagues, almost their whole job was optimizing the advert to get more people to click on it. It was like tons of people's jobs in the industry. But on the SEO side, I feel like folks have massively under-invested in click-through rate. Even if you don't rank better, even if you stay ranky in the position you are already in, you can double, triple your click-through rate by writing a better, more compelling whatever. And the great thing about the title is you might even rank better as well. And so that's why I did start on SearchPilot and that's where I'd recommend folks start if they've got a smaller website. Crystal Carter: Yeah. There's some great case studies. Adding a question mark into a title tag is a case study on SearchPilot and it's like a 5% uplift on that. Will Critchlow: We've got all kinds of little data points. I also would say, if you're in a small business space, trust your intuition as well. Make these things... Just take kind of a customer-centric approach. What's your target market? What are they actually looking for? Are you actually solving their problem or answering their question? When we get deep into this in our enterprise space, we end up running what we call full funnel tests, which is where we get to test SEO performance and conversion rate offer specific change. So you can say this was positive for one, but negative for the other. How are we going to mitigate that problem or whatever? We can get deeper into that. Point being, there can be attention. And in particular, there can be attention... If you're a B2B desk, SearchPilot is a great example, we actually want to appear for things that in-house SEOs at very large websites are searching for. If we write something that gets a whole load of, I don't know, analysts or agencies searching for it, then our traffic stats might increase, but our business metrics aren't going to. And so again, we are running scientific tests on this stuff. If you are at the smaller size, that's where you have to trust the fact that you are the business, you know the business, you know your market, you know the audience, and you have to hone in on those things that are going to appeal to them and are going to work for them. Crystal Carter: And I think also certainly, what I've found, I wonder if you'd also recommend this for smaller businesses, one of the benefits of working at an agency or working with an agency is that agencies are able to test techniques across multiple websites at the same time. And so if you have a small business, and I know a lot of people who recommend having your main site and also having a test site, that's a similar thing or maybe something else where you can sort of test something in a sort of low, low-risk area. Is that something that you would also recommend for smaller businesses, that they also maybe have, particularly if they're SEO nerds, although I guess not everybody who's a business owner is an SEO nerd. Shame, but... Will Critchlow: It's a shame. One day. So where I would come from on that is test sites are useful to the SEO nerds. They're not particularly useful to the business. That's my kind of controversial, maybe controversial position. If I'm in the business owner's shoes, I'm saying, "Let's not waste our time messing around over there. Let's write some more blog posts or produce some more content," or whatever it might be. Where the test bed site is useful in my opinion, is answering questions for nerds like us. And you can get some great conference presentations out of it. We've probably seen Olly Mason's stuff, for example, where he'll do the kind of destructive testing. What happens if I make my site map take 30 seconds to load or whatever? And you're like, you don't want to do that on your money maker. Crystal Carter: No. Will Critchlow: So he's doing that kind of testing where he's saying, "I want to really figure out what happens with Google at these edge cases. If I do something that seems odd or that seems weird, can I poke at the algorithm in specific ways?" And I get answers out of that. I'm glad he's doing that work. I'm also glad none of my customers are doing it on their stuff. And so that is valuable work. And so that's the third kind of testing. So we have the kind of stuff that we are doing, the big kind of controlled experiment. We have the before and after type analysis that we talked about, which doesn't quite reach the threshold for scientific testing, but it's the best you can do in certain situations. And the third kind, which is kind of more like what Olly is often doing, is what I call kind of laboratory testing. So you're taking a completely artificial situation and you're doing something weird and you're saying, "When I poke Google like this, what happens?" And that's like, I know I indexed every page on my site or I tried to use temporary redirects across the whole thing just to see what would happen and... Yeah, but we learn. So like I said, I'm glad other people do those experiments and we can learn from them. In particular, that's where folks run these experiments with made up words. Right? So you make up some words, put them out on domains that have never been indexed before and see if does the link order matter, right? So on one website, you put the links in one order on the menu, and then on the other website, you put them in a different order in the menu and you see which one ranks for this made up nonsense word that nobody's ever searched for before. That's closer to doing science, right? You're kind of saying, Google is this black box and we really want to understand into the minutiae of what's going on. It's not always actionable. It doesn't always turn into, "I should do this on my business website and make more money." So it's interesting. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, I think if you're a business owner, that's kind of the mentality you should be walking away after listening to this podcast. You should always be looking at things, testing things, seeing what's working, what's not working, changing things around when it does make sense. Don't just change things around for the sake of changing things around. Don't change big things around for the sake of changing big things around because that will not end up well for you. But you do want to be in a learning mode and seeing what works, what doesn't work. Sometimes correlation doesn't equal causation, sometimes it does. I'll quote Barry Adams. "Having some data is better than having no data." So work with what you got. Will Critchlow: I think that's particularly true if in the small business world, you do your best to understand what's going on and you use your instinct and you use your understanding of the industry and the market, along with that data. And I think where it's dangerous if we're quoting random quotes at each other, there's that saying about some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost for support, not illumination. And if you go looking for the answer that you think you want to find- Mordy Oberstein: You will find it. Will Critchlow: Especially in a small amount of data, you can find anything you want. You just look on different days, look on different... Keep digging into the data until you find that one thing that backs up the thing you hoped or you wished was true. And my experience at the small business end is that when stuff is good, it moves the needle enough that you can spot it. Right? You start getting more inquiries, you start getting better inquiries. Folks start to set, they'll call you up and they say, "I was reading this thing on your website." And it's that qualitative subjective feedback that layers on top of the stats in the small business world, for me. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, for sure. If people wanted to learn from you, where could they find you? Will Critchlow: So I'm @willcritchlow on all the social places. I have historically, been most active on Twitter, but it's kind of a weird place right now, isn't it? Crystal Carter: It's somewhere with GA-III. Will Critchlow: So sad. So sad. I am on threads. I'm probably most active on a combination of Twitter and LinkedIn still. So yeah, I haven't quite figured out my long-term home, but I'm definitely more about the writing and reading than the taking photos and looking at photos. So I'm more likely to be found on the Twitter and LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: You're not on Instagram? Will Critchlow: I have an Instagram account. I think I have 10 photos on there. The last one was like two years ago. They're mainly pictures of my dog and that kind of stuff these days. Yeah, nobody's getting any SEO insight out of my Instagram. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. But they did see what you ate for dinner though. Will Critchlow: Three years ago. Sure. Mordy Oberstein: That works. Well, thank you so much. Folks, check out the show notes and check out all of links, all the links to Will's various profiles, probably not his Instagram profile. I don't think I'm going to throw that in there. If you really want me to, Will, I will put the Instagram. No? Will Critchlow: I think it's probably for the best that we leave folks to find that themselves if they really want to. Mordy Oberstein: There you go. Thank you so much. Will Critchlow: Thank you. It's been great. Thanks for having me on. Mordy Oberstein: Now, speaking of testing things, one tool that can help you do more than testing, but I also think it can help you do testing, is the Wayback Machine. What is the Wayback Machine? Let's go back and find out as we go tool time on the SERP's Up Podcast. The Wayback Machine is the coolest name for anything on the planet. Well, you will not find it at waybackmachine.com. It's internet Archive. I want you to be aware of this. If you're looking for like, "Hey, the Wayback Machine," I recommend you just Google it, as opposed to putting in wayback.machine.com. I don't know what that will give you. Crystal Carter: No. So the actual address is archive.org/web and that gets lead to- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, Google Wayback Machine. You'll be good to go. That's how I find it. Crystal Carter: Basically, what the Wayback Machine is, and the first time I found out about this, I was like, "Oh my gosh." Mordy Oberstein: Right? Crystal Carter: Wow. Mordy Oberstein: It's amazing. I just showed this to somebody last week and they were, "What? What is this voodoo? What is this magic that you have?" Crystal Carter: Right. Right. So for those of y'all who are civilians in the SEO community, for those of y'all who are deep, deep in the weeds of SEO, the Wayback Machine is this fantastic, incredible archive of over 840 billion web pages saved over time. Some of these for years, and years, and years, and years. If you have a new client who's had a domain for a while, you can go into Wayback Machine and you can see old versions of their website. You can see old versions of certain pages on the website. And I've had this before where I had a client who came to me and we were just doing a migration, but they had recently had another migration a couple of years ago. And two years ago isn't that long in terms of a website migration. So I was able to see what their website not before, not the one that I was looking at now, but before that, what that was, and that can give you some insights into that. What's really great and the reason why it's a great tool for testing and for understanding testing stuff is that if you're looking at the analytics and you're seeing that they used to have this great conversion rate on a particular page or they used to have tons of traffic to a particular page- Mordy Oberstein: What happened? Crystal Carter: What happened, why did it change? Well, you can cross-reference the dates that you see that activity happening, or the ranking or the whatever. And with the Wayback Machine, and you can see... So it says, okay, let's say in 2020, they were ranking really, really well for potato mashers. I don't know why we're mashing potatoes today, but that's what we're doing. Mordy Oberstein: I'm making potato salad for lunch. Crystal Carter: Okay. You're mashing potatoes for potato salad? You're chopping them. You're cubing them. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. So that's the ones I know about potato salad. Crystal Carter: We're cubing the potatoes. We're not using the potato masher for the potato salad. We're mashing potatoes for mashed potatoes. Okay. Anyways, maybe we're doing stuffed mashed potato skins. You mash them, and then you put the skins back in with other tasty treats. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know what that is. Crystal Carter: Okay. I'm distracted. Anyway, okay, so what you do, so you have a potato masher webpage, and let's say it used to convert really, really well in 2020. And now, it's not converting really well or maybe it dropped off a cliff recently. And if someone saying, "We used to do really well with this page. I don't understand," you can go back to 2020 and look at the potato masher page and see what was on that page and maybe it used to have the picture right at the top. And now, it has the picture further down the bottom and you can go, "Okay, well, it seems like this is an issue and we should fix that. It's a fantastic tool for illustrating those kinds of changes. And when you compare it with traffic and when you compare it with activity, it can be really, really useful for helping you to understand things that you can do with the website, things that you used to do with the website, things that maybe you should bring back, things maybe you should burn with fire, whatever you need to do. Mordy Oberstein: It's really great for contextualizing. Essentially, that's what it is. It's a way to contextualize if you have a new client and you want to go back and see. Okay, they have a whole ranking history. I can see the ranking history. What happened? What went on here? For a lot of the things that you're going to look at, particularly the content, you can go back and see what happened. If all of a sudden they changed their content, it's right around the same time as the helpful content let's say, comes out. There you go. That's the first place to start looking. If it's a competitor, what happened? All of a sudden, their rankings are up and what do they do? What happened? What's going on? You can take a look. I've used it to analyze content trends. I recently did this to... There's whole focus on experience in content and rankings using the actual experience. And I went back and looking at a whole bunch of product review sites. Seeing how many times he used the word, our and we two years ago, three years ago, how often they're using our and we now, a lot more now by the way. So for those kinds of things, it's amazing. Crystal Carter: It's really useful. And I think it's also really great when you're looking at your competitors because sometimes if you've got a client for instance, and they're on your vertical and they've said, "We've done this, this, and this, and this website started... We fell behind at this time," you can go and you can look on their competitor's site and say, "Okay, did they have a migration at that time?" And you can say, "Does this website from two years ago still look the same as it does now? Does this website from six months ago still look the same as it does now?" Because you can't really call up the competitors and go, "Hey, can you just tell me your full web history?" They're not going to tell you that. So you can go onto Wayback Machine and you can look that up and it's super, super useful. There's an API that's attached to it as well that can help you to understand. And also, you can see information about... Sometimes you can see things like the site map even on Wayback Machine, which can be useful and you can see different elements of it. It's a super useful tool. Every year, they say, "Would you like to donate money to the Wayback Machine?" And every year, I'm like, "Yeah, you know what? You guys can have a fiber." Because there's been so many times on the Wayback Machine that it has saved my bacon. There's a situation though... I think the one that really stood out for me was I had a client and we did a migration. And suddenly, their pages weren't getting indexed at the same rate. And I was like, "We need these pages indexed. They need to be indexed now. Why aren't they being indexed?" And I compared the new homepage to the old homepage, and the old homepage had a feed of the new content. And the new homepage did not have a feed of the new content. And I was like, "Y'all, do you see this?" Mordy Oberstein: Feed the content. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And they were like, "Oh, okay." So they put the feed on and everything was exactly as I expected it to be. So absolutely, use Wayback Machine to solve issues. It's particularly useful for migrations and it's also useful for trying to fill gaps maybe between what a client knows. Because sometimes, you get a client and they know the full history of the website. Sometimes it's a brand new marketing manager and they have no idea what did or didn't happen before. So yeah, it's really, really useful. Mordy Oberstein: Cool. Go back. See previous versions of web pages. Not all of them show up because if it's a random, random, random page, they didn't archive it, but a lot of the ones that you would think wouldn't be there, are there. And the best part is, you don't need a flux capacitor and going 88 miles an hour in DeLorean to go back in time. You could just go to the Wayback Machine. Now, speaking of the Wayback Machine, I was just looking at somebody recently who was using the Wayback Machine. It was Barry Schwartz using the way- Crystal Carter: Really? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he just had it saved. I'm pretty sure he is using the Wayback Machine to see, and he used it to see changes in Google's guidelines. Crystal Carter: So Barry Schwartz is himself or the- Mordy Oberstein: A Wayback Machine? Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Are you saying that because his dress and design style, that's what I'm looking for, is not up-to-date? Crystal Carter: Barry, I didn't say that. Okay. What I'm saying is that I've done research on featured snippets. And if you want to, for instance, see research on featured snippets, he's been covering featured snippets the entire time. So for decks and stuff, I very often reference photos that he shared of different things from 2016. This is what a product carousel looked like in 2016, and now I can compare it to what it looks like now. They'll share things from like, "This is what this looked like, this is what an instant answer looked like in 2014. And I can compare it to what it looks like now." Barry Schwartz is an incredible- Mordy Oberstein: It's the way back machine of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Of the SERP, precisely. And it's really useful for understanding, again, if you're thinking about there's traffic changes, why does my traffic change? If you're looking and you're looking at some of the SERP photos of what it said, what it looked like in 2018 versus what it looks like now, then you can say, "Okay, well, that's our future changed." And I have evidence of this, thanks to Barry Schwartz. Mordy Oberstein: What we're basically trying to say is, it's now time for the Snappy news as brought to you by Barry Schwartz. So here's the snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news this week on trifecta from none other, but Barry Schwartz. This one coming from Search Engine Land. Google Search now supports discussion form and profile page structure data. So basically, Google is on a first person first hand knowledge, first hand experience kick as well they should be. The E for experience in E-A-T being a prime example of this, but Google has said they want to show they haven't made a couple announcements trying to show more first hand knowledge on the SERP. This structured data would allow such content from forums to show up as a rich result. So Google said, "that the functionality allows them to show" first person perspectives on social media platforms, forums, and other communities. By the way, I think Google needs to go beyond social media for this content, which is why I think they're focusing on forums here with the profile page structure data. They know they need to go beyond social media and actually have content specifically generated for this kind of purpose. The "Search Engine Land," the new profile page structure data and markup is for any site where creators, either people or organizations, share first hand perspectives. The markup will help Google highlight the creator's name or social handle, profile photo, follower account, or the popularity of their content in the Google Search results. So if someone on your forum, you want to make sure that they're kind of prominent because Google's going to pull on their profile information. I think forum SEO is going to be a thing. Google is very serious about showing first hand knowledge on the SERP. It's a wider content trend that if Google wants to deal with, I don't know, TikTok, is going to have to do. Google's made a variety of announcements kind of showing that they are going to do that, this being one of them. First hand knowledge, first person knowledge experience is going to be a thing, just like forum content SEO, which I termed I have just coined, is going to be a thing. Next up from Barry Schwartz, this is from Search Engine Roundtable. Google Discover showing older content since follow feature. This was spotted by Glenn Gabe. If you don't know who Glenn Gabe is, please follow Glenn Gabe on Twitter, X, whatever it is. And Glenn basically said that he's noticing more content showing on the Discover feed that is not from the last day or so. So generally speaking, Google Discover shows current event-ish kind of content. So the content is generally very fresh, a couple of hours a day, maybe two days old. Once in a while, it'll sprinkle in a four-day-old post, but Glenn's noticing that he's getting articles that are two months old. I personally noticed that the last month or so, my feed has changed. The topics have sort of opened up a little bit. The type of content that Google shows in my personal Discover feed is opening up a little bit. I wonder if Google is making some more foundational changes to the Discover feed as it tries. Because again, Discover feed is a great place where Google can kind of be a sort of social media-ish kind of content provider. So I wonder if they're going to make some significant changes as time goes along, and wider preferences and content consumption trends change. Okay. Last up from Barry Schwartz, this one from seroundtable.com. Google November 2023 core update rollout is now complete. So as of the time of this recording, the November 2023 review update is still rolling out, but by the time you hear this, it might be done. So check your local news provider, AKA Barry, to see if that is finished. But check your rankings because the core update from the November 2023 core update rather, is done rolling out. I have some fresh Semrush data in my hands. It looks like generally speaking, the November 2023 core update was slightly more comprehensive, powerful, potent, however, you want to volatile, however, you want to phrase it. Then the October 2023 core update is a little bit tricky to pull the data out because you could only look at the really very beginning of the November 2023 core update. Otherwise, you start getting that mixed, that volatility/ranking data mixing in with the November 2023 review update, and that makes it hard to decipher. So the beginning of the November 2023 core update looked to be a little bit more impactful overall, but that needs to be explained or qualified than the October 2023 core update. Check your ranking is what I'm trying to say in a nutshell. And with that, that is this week's snappy news. The best part is, I'm going to drop the fourth wall here. We recorded the main section of the podcast before we actually recorded the news. We're waiting for the last second to see what actually broke in the news, but we're so confident that Barry's going to be the one covering it, that we tease out Barry beforehand. So thank you Barry, for that. Crystal Carter: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Now, speaking of SEO testing, going back full circle to where we all started, there's somebody we used to be following on social media because she's done some pretty nifty things around SEO testing. And she is Maria Amelie White over on Twitter. It's @Maria_Amelie on X/Twitter. We'll link to her profile in the show notes, but Crystal's got a great thing about what she tried doing with Spanglish. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So Maria is an in-house SEO at Kurt Geiger. I'm not jealous at all. But yeah, she's an in-house SEO. She's super smart, super clever. And I was on a discussion with her and she was talking about a fantastic test that she did around SEO and PPC that was around language. So I think her team was advertising in a Spanish language market and also in an English language market. And they found that sometimes some of their Spanish judges shown in the US, for instance, and also in Mexico for instance, where there's a border. But she also said to the team, she was like, "Hey, this is something that I've seen. What about Spanglish?" And they were like, "Oh, I don't know." And she said, "No, we should test Spanglish." And she found that... And a lot of people are searching this way, and if people speak this way where there's sort of areas where people are speaking multiple languages, there's plenty of countries like that, and she found that they got some great results from incorporating Spanglish into their ads. And I think that that's something that Will was talking about as well, is that sometimes it's worth following your instinct as well. So that was something that she knew from lived experience and she was able to apply that, and to test it and to get great results. And I think that with regards to testing, if you've got a hunch, absolutely test your hunch. And she got some great results from that, and that was one of the reasons why I thought of her. She's also super knowledgeable and is really active in the community. Mordy Oberstein: Very active in the community. Writes for Search Engine Land. You can check all of her articles there. Look for her Twitter profile in our show notes, and then read her articles across the web. Thanks, Maria. By the way, Spanglish is a terrible Adam Sandler movie. I'm literally here like, why does Spanglish sound so familiar? This is the third time you mentioned that case to me before. I'm like, "Something's not right." I'm like, "Oh snap, it's an Adam Sandler movie from years ago." Crystal Carter: When you say it's terrible, do you mean that it's terrible within the pantheon of Adam Sandler movies or that it's terrible in full stop? Mordy Oberstein: No. He's got some great movies. Uncut Gems, that's a gem right there. Crystal Carter: I don't know that one. Mordy Oberstein: It's great. Crystal Carter: I mean, Happy Gilmore. I'm there for that one. I'm there for... Oh gosh, there's a few other ones. Mordy Oberstein: The Waterboy? Crystal Carter: Waterboy. It's terrible because I don't think it's one of his best, but I even like Little Nicky. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's the devil one. I barely remember that. Then there was the one where- Crystal Carter: It's like a basketball skit. Mordy Oberstein: ... he adopts a kid. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Big Daddy. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. He's also done some good animated stuff recently. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Crazy Eight Nights. That's a classic in my household. Crystal Carter: There we go. There we go. He's got some good stuff. He's got some good stuff. Mordy Oberstein: He's got great stuff. He did a bunch of stuff like an NBA movie kind of thing, where he's a scout. That was a great movie. All right. All right. I think we're off the rails. No, no. You got one more. Go for it. You've got one more. Just do it. Crystal Carter: I can't think of the words. I can't think. I was just thinking of as far as terrible Adam Sandler movies, there's one where they go camping or something. It's awful. It's got a great cast, but the movie is fundamentally awful. Mordy Oberstein: There was a point in his career where it was kind of hit or miss. And I think lately, he's been consistently awesome. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Thanks, Adam. Well, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episode as we dive into. I'm not telling you, it's a surprise. It's a very special episode. That'll be a live recording from one of SEO's biggest conferences on the planet. That's right. Look for it whenever you consume your podcast or on our SEO Learning over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, @wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Will Critchlow Maria Amelie Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube SearchPilot News: Google Search now supports discussion forum and profile page structured data Google November 2023 core update rollout is now complete Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Will Critchlow Maria Amelie Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube SearchPilot News: Google Search now supports discussion forum and profile page structured data Google November 2023 core update rollout is now complete Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahala, for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already over to the SEO Branding here at Wix. I'm joined by our Head of SEO Communications, the true tried and tested, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: That was a shorter intro than normal. Are you testing out something different? Mordy Oberstein: Because I didn't know how to... The tested part is a part on today's topic, but I didn't know how to tie that into a longer... Crystal Carter: So you're experimenting, are you? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, maybe testing the... Yeah. If you're listening, which one do you like better, when I do a pun tied into the Crystal's title or I just go full on, "The incredible, the fabulous, the amazing, the unparalleled Crystal Carter"? Crystal Carter: Don't know where you get all of the adjectives from. I don't know where they all come from. Literally, I ran out of adjectives years ago. I just do a fire emoji, whatever it is in my fire Emoji. Mordy Oberstein: I officially have diarrhea of the mouth. So it helps. Crystal Carter: That's clinical condition. I hope it's not. I hope you're okay. Mordy Oberstein: You can talk to my wife, ask her. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our monthly SEO newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter, but where you can also create custom widgets that you can use across all the sites that you manage for your clients, or just some of the sites or many of the sites that you manage for your clients. Really, what I'm saying is it's up to you where you want to replicate those custom widgets that you create. And I'm saying you can do it with Wix Studio. Perhaps by the way, you can take two versions of that widget and test each one as today's topic is SEO testing. That's right. We are the Doc Browns of the digital world. And unlike fourth graders everywhere, in SEO, we love tests and testing. We're diving into what you should or shouldn't run with an SEO test, when you should or shouldn't run an SEO test. And how do you run an SEO test if you need a gargantuan amount of data to draw any conclusions. To help us prep for this SEO test in the sky, CEO and founder of SearchPilot, Will Critchlow is set to join us in just a few minutes. We'll also give you a great and classic run through of a tool to help you run some SEO research that kind of touches upon SEO testing in a unique way. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So close your books and keep your eyes on your own damn papers as episode number 64 of the SERP's Up Podcast, which is your conceptions of SEO experimentations to the test. By the way, when I say, "Eyes on your damn own paper," I say that with full conviction as a former teacher, "Eyes on your own damn paper." Crystal Carter: I think that's a really important thing to think about. But although it's strange though, because at school, they're always like, "No, no, no, your own thing, your own thing." But then when you get into the world of work, they're like, "You have to work together." And I'm like, "No, it's mine. It's mine. I know this and they don't. And I should get a gold star." But that's not how life is. You have to share. Mordy Oberstein: I used to always like making jokes that went a little bit, just a little bit over the kids' heads. That's my way of being aggressive. It was a fifth grade, sixth grade class and every year, it was Baltimore City. The whole state rather, makes you do this whole ridiculous testing, set of testing every year. And everyone, it's a whole day of inspectors coming around to see who's doing what and make sure all the rules are being followed. Some kid had his notebook on his desk. I'm like, "Dude, you can't have a notebook on your desk." He's like, "What notebook? Where did that come from?" I'm like, "Oh, it must be the Immaculate Notebook." Anyway, anyway, as the idea of testing children brings up a lot of anxiety for me and the children, we would like to welcome to the show, Will Critchlow. Hey Will, how are you? Will Critchlow: Hey, good to join you. Thanks for having me on the show. Crystal Carter: So absolutely honored. I think when we think of as you're testing, you're the first person I think of- Will Critchlow: Good. Good. Crystal Carter: ... if I'm completely honest. And so yeah, it's a real honor to have you and to have you go through your methods, and talk about how you can get some good results and set some good hypotheses, and set out to get something that's actually actionable out of a test. Will Critchlow: Looking forward to it. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Thank you so much. Mordy Oberstein: So great. Before we get going, Mark is going to mark a quick plug for what you do. Will Critchlow: Yeah. So as you said, I'm founder and CEO at SearchPilot. You can find us at searchpilot.com or at SearchPilot on the social channels. So we focus really at the enterprise end of the market. We make software that helps really big websites test for SEO. And so our customers tend to be in travel, real estate, jobs, E-commerce, those kinds of verticals where you have really huge websites. And our software helps them run SEO tests just like the ones that we're going to talk about today. And out of the back of that, we obviously get a load of learnings, things that we discover, and we try and give some of that back to the community and publish a bunch of tests and test results on our website at searchpilot.com. Crystal Carter: I should highly recommend anybody who's interested in this to visit the SearchPilot case studies folder. They've got it broken down into a lot of different things. So they've got test inconclusive, negative, winning, things like that, and they've always got a control at a variant and they really break down a lot of good examples of how you can test and things you can test. One of the ones that's currently at the top is then, how valuable is unique content for SEO and testing? That is interesting. Will, I can see your eyes lighting up on that. I don't know if you want to jump in on that one. Will Critchlow: Well, the whole area of the site, you're absolutely right. So we basically try to produce the stuff that I wish had existed as content when I was a consultant. And so it all feeds into, we have an email newsletter you can sign up on the case study section and we just send these out every couple of weeks. And they're all coming from these tests that we've run with our customers. And I find it fascinating. I find it fascinating to test myself and figure out if I can work out what's going to have gone on. And yet, specifically things like that one where you're saying we all have the best practices in mind, we all know what Google says, we all know what the soundbites are. And many of us, we can give them conference presentations about this stuff. But when you try and quantify it, it gets really tough to kind of actually say, "Is it worth investing the money that it's going to take to upgrade this particular piece of content or this particular section of the page? Mordy Oberstein: So maybe that's a good place to start, sort of loop in everybody who's listening to this podcast, what is an SEO test exactly and what are you testing? Will Critchlow: Yeah. Great question. So most people can be familiar with conversion rate testing or user experience testing, the kind of thing that you'd run typically with a JavaScript plugin on your website, where you show different versions of a page to different website visitors. And then you see whether the group who saw version A convert better or the group who saw version B convert better. And that's been around for well over a decade now and folks are generally familiar with that kind of technology. We're trying to bring that same level of rigor and statistical approach to the SEO world, which as we all know, we've all been in it for a while, has a history of being less than scientific in some areas. So the kinds of tests that we are talking about when I say SEO tests, we're trying to run these controlled scientific experiments. And unlike a CRO test where you show two versions of the same page to half your users at a time, the way an SEO test works, because you kind of have to think of Googlebot as one visitor, is we take a large site section, so a whole bunch of pages that are in what we call a site section, a group of pages with a similar page template. So think for example, product listing pages on an E-commerce website and we make changes to some of those pages and not to others. So we have a controlled group of pages and a variant group of pages. And all users including Googlebot, see that there's no cloaking, no duplication, all that kind of stuff. And then by looking at the relative performance of the different groups of pages, you can run a bunch of statistics and figure out a confidence interval on the impact of the specific change that you made. And the crucial thing here is that that then allows us to account for all of the confounding variables. So whether it's seasonality, other changes to the website, Google algorithm updates, things your competitors are doing, all these things that mean your analytics moves around all over the place, we're controlling for all of that. And we're saying, "Given all of the stuff that's going on in the outside world, here's the impact of this specific, very small, very specific change to those pages." Crystal Carter: And I think just to break down a couple of those things, so you mentioned a few things showing. So just to catch up anybody who's new to these ideas, so you said showing one set of information to one group and showing another group to another one that's referred to as an AD test. So that's if anybody wants to look up more and more of that. You also talked about controls and variables, and I think that that's a really important thing to dive into a little bit about how you identify the controls. So if you were to think of, I don't know, I'm trying to think of something like a medicine for instance. Normally, if they're testing a new medicine, they'll have a control group which gets a placebo, which is essentially sugar pill. So it changes nothing. They've changed to nothing. So essentially on a website, you're doing something similar where you have one site where you haven't changed anything. Will Critchlow: That's right. So yeah, the control pages are exactly like that. They're the ones where nothing has changed. And so that doesn't of course, mean that traffic stays completely flat on those pages. Right? It can increase or decrease for a million other reasons. But the fact that we know that we didn't do anything to those pages means that we can take that data, apply it to our analysis of what happened to the pages that did change, and we can tease out what happened because we did something versus what happened just because the world changed. Crystal Carter: And you're doing those things at the same time. So let's say over the month of July, so let's say you had the blog, right? Let's say you had the blog and you had one set of things and you're like, "We're not going to change these blogs at all. We're going to change these blogs, so that one is the control group, one is the other, and it happens at the same time." And so just to catch few people up. And presumably, you also have to tell everyone involved in the team not to touch anything on those pages, including devs. Will Critchlow: So actually, there is a lot of coordination and communication needed, which we can kind of get into. But actually, it is okay for that to be site-wide changes to the site in the meantime, as this stuff is happening. Because that all gets taken care of by the control and variant because those changes tend to happen randomly. They don't happen to every page across the control group and the variant group and therefore, they count seasonality or algorithm updates or whatever else, or they happen randomly. It's like this page gets it, that page doesn't. But those pages, some of them will be in the control group and some of them will be in the variant group. So where we are coming from is as I say, we're working on these really big websites and that's where you can get into this really detail-level statistical analysis. Some of our tests, we're calling us statistically confident result of plus 2% of organic traffic, which just disappears into the noise on a small business website, or a typical blog or whatever else. And really, what I'm hoping, and this will again, we'll get deeper into this, what I'm hoping is that the work that we are doing on these big websites by publishing some of that analysis and by deconstructing it and doing the thinking about it, we get to help even those small business owners or those folks who are working on smaller websites. And that's kind of like as I say, I wish that had existed when I was a consultant, kind of paying it forward into that part of the industry as well. Crystal Carter: Well, I think it's so valuable because even 2%, and I know that if you're starting with a small blog, let's say you've got... I don't know, you've got a thousand views a month or something like that and let's say you think 2%, the thing about SEO is it compounds. And I think the other thing is once you learn how to test hypothesis in SEO, then you can grow really quickly. So it might be that you learn how to test that, and then the next time, you can test another thing, and then you're adding and adding and adding. Because I think so often, people will just do something and have no idea what impact they expect it to have, have no idea whether it had any impact. And I think even with small teams, one of the things I've seen, and this is why I wanted to pull up the control thing, is that sometimes they'll be like, "Oh, but we did a PPC change," or "Oh, but we did this, that, and the other change." And I think sometimes with SEO, particularly if you're helping someone with their SEO, you need to be able to evidence that you did the work. Do your tests help with that process? Will Critchlow: So definitely, they do on the kind of sites that we're working with where we get to... Because we're controlling out all that other stuff, so we get to say notwithstanding all these other effects, "Here's the impact of this change." And without going deep into our specialism too much, you get some really quite cool dashboards where you have a list of SEO initiatives and each one has an associated uplift or decrease associated with it and a degree of statistical confidence attached to it. And that's the kind of thing that really helps with broader communication with the business and I mentioned earlier, the lack of scientific rigor is one problem in SEO. I think another one is too many of us historically, have not been great at talking business. I'm guilty of this. I'd love geeking out about robots.txt or whatever it might be, hreflang, the business doesn't speak that language. That's not what the CMO, CFO, whoever else cares about, CEO. And we're trying to bridge that gap and help bring those metrics that the business cares about connected to the effort and the work that folks are putting in as well. Mordy Oberstein: What's a case off the top of your head, that you really saw that come through? You run an SEO test, and then you run through the whole thing and the outcome was, "Hey look, if we did this, your bottom line's going to increase by whatever percent." Will Critchlow: So actually, I don't think it's specifically the case study that you were mentioning, Crystal, but we had a very similar one, testing content quality, which we've had a few really fascinating ones that have led to businesses making specific investments in different areas or not investing in different areas. Because the big thing about this is very contextual. So it depends on your website, your industry, your place in the market, what your competitors are doing. But I remember one case where the team we were working with built a business case to invest in a whole load of high quality freelance written... Basically, bring in a bunch of editors and writers and overhaul a whole site section's worth of content. And they did that with an initial test on, I think it was like a hundred pieces of content, proved the substantial uplift that came from it, quantified it, turned that into business metrics and said, "Look, the cost of doing this is X thousand dollars. The benefit is a bigger number. Should we go for it?" And that definitely helped with that kind of sign off. But the great thing about testing is you see the inverse where we've definitely had cases where folks are like, "Should we do this, run the numbers?" No, probably not. Actually, time and effort and money is better spent elsewhere. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. And running the test, that can save you so much of that hassle between going all the way down. And then people are like, "How come we didn't see? We did all that stuff and how come nothing happened?" And I think the other thing that's really important is that if you have that too many times, you lose some momentum with regards to SEO buy-in and SEO investment and things. So it's really important to- Will Critchlow: Yeah, for sure. So you definitely see it with the executives. Executives get bored of just hearing these pie-in-the-sky numbers that maybe are going to materialize year after year. We also see it in trust between SEO teams and product and engineering teams as well, because a lot of SEO requests are not very exciting engineering requests. It's like, "Hey guys, we want you to change the titles again." And they're like, "I mean, I was hoping to do some machine learning." And there's a disconnect sometimes between the things that the SEO team wants the engineering product team to work on and what's exciting and interesting for an engineering product team to work on. And one of the things that we found is by running these tests, we're able to reduce the number of requests that go to engineering because we're now only asking them to do the good stuff, which might only be 20% of the work that we previously would've asked for to get all of the benefit. And crucially, each ticket that's raised has an uplift associated with it. And so even if it's not the most exciting day at work, it's a rewarding day at work because they know that they've added to the bottom line and- Crystal Carter: Right. And you can get a gold star. Will Critchlow: A gold star, a raise, a bonus, whatever it might be. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. I think also, when you're working with devs, engineering teams, et cetera, it's always great to tell them about those uplifts like, "Hey, remember those title tags we asked you for?" Will Critchlow: Your work did this. Yeah, absolutely. And everybody wants to know their work is meaningful and that it makes a difference to the organization that they're working for. And part of our purpose at SearchPilot, part of it is the kind of SEO-centric. We want to prove the value of SEO for the world's biggest websites, is how we phrase it. But we have another piece, which is about creating great jobs. And that is almost like a layered approach where we're saying, "First of all, we want to have good jobs at SearchPilot," in like a direct sphere of influence. But the next layer out is we want to make the jobs better for the folks that we're interacting with, whether it's our customers, whether it's their colleagues and their stakeholders, whether it's all these different things and we see that coming together. I love it. We occasionally share in our Slack when one of our customers posts a job ad that says, "We are hiring for an SEO manager," and there's a line item that says, "It's going to get to run SEO tests." And we're like, "Yes." That means that folks are going to work at this company because they're going to work with SearchPilot. Crystal Carter: That's awesome. Will Critchlow: If those dots join up, that's what gets me out of bed still, whatever. I'm 18 years into my SEO career now. Mordy Oberstein: Pushing gears just a little bit, if you're let's say the average site, it's not a huge enterprise site and you're looking at let's say both the content on the SearchPilot blog, you're trying to take away some lessons and you're saying, "You know what? Maybe I should run some tests." Can they take away lessons from what you're putting out in terms of the content and can they run some sort of equivalent test even though statistically speaking, they do not have the amount of data that you're working with? Will Critchlow: For sure. So I've been in this boat. Yeah, I've consulted with small organizations. I mean, SearchPilot, our own website in fact, is the kind of site you're talking about. We are not in our own target market. We unfortunately, can't really run these statistically significant SEO tests on our own site. So I feel you. If the folks who are listening, who are in that situation, I have a couple of recommendations. I think the biggest lessons that I've applied in those situations from the work that we are doing at scale is first of all, do read that content. We are putting out these test results that are tested on very large websites. And the fact that they won't apply exactly perfectly in your niche, in your industry on your site, doesn't mean that they're not directionally useful. And so in particular, consuming that it tells you, look, if this is only consistently we're seeing that these kinds of tests are very small uplifts or typically no big impact, that's probably going to not be a massive impact on your site either. So it's a source of inspiration, a source of ideas, source of direction. The second piece I would say is there are things you can do that fall short of a full scientific double-blind controlled, whatever gold standard test that are still valuable. The first of those goes back to what you were saying Crystal, about communication, that a big part of it is communication and documentation. So one of the great things that we have is that every time we roll out a test, we know exactly when it started, we know exactly what we changed, we have that record of... And that could just be an Excel file, right? It does not have to be some kind of sophisticated platform, but knowing what you changed when, why you changed it, what your hypothesis was, why you thought this was a good idea, even just having that list of stuff you did and when and why, that's a huge part of building that business case when the boss comes back or the client comes back and says, "What have you been up to and what was the benefit of that?" It also lets you then do basically, the next best thing to the kind of testing that we're talking about, which is before and after testing, which is to say you can at least look at how things have gone since you made the change, compared to how they were prior to making that change. I was going to say it's the thing I'm most sad about on the GA-III to GA-IV transition, but let's probably not go there, but the loss of the annotations is killing me. Crystal Carter: It's so simple. Will Critchlow: It's so sad. I mean, there's so much that's so sad, but that's so sad. But literally, you can just do the before and after. And you just have to be aware that that can easily be confounded by outside effects. So like your saying Crystal, if somebody releases a major update to your website or you change other things in your advertising or your strategy or whatever, that's going to screw with your data. And I have a presentation, a conference deck that I run through sometimes, which highlights this where I show the before and after data, but we managed to launch right over the time that a Google algorithm update happened. And then two weeks later, it was Thanksgiving or whatever, there was some kind of holiday, and so the traffic goes all over the place. And you're like, you just can't expect to detect a couple of percentage points. You can tell if it's up 20%. You can tell if it's down 20%, but you're not going to be able to tell that kind of fine-grained data. But my argument is that's okay, because if you are in that spot where you were talking about earlier, you're getting a thousand organic visits a month to your blog, an extra two visits a month, that's not what you're getting out of bed for. You're probably better putting that effort into writing a new blog post or connecting with some folks and doing some outreach or whatever it might be doing the thing, rather than doing the micro-level optimizations that can make all the difference in the kind of hyper-competitive big website space. Mordy Oberstein: If you are in that position and you do want to start doing some testing, what might be a good way to say, "Okay, this is not worth my time. I shouldn't bother testing it." Or you know what? This scenario might be worthwhile to run to try something and see maybe it did, maybe it didn't work. What are some, I guess, guidelines around when it might be worth it? Will Critchlow: So I've got some guidelines. I've also got a really specific example of a time when I did this. So as I mentioned on SearchPilot.com, our website isn't big enough to run our own kinds of tests. So what I did for ours was those case studies that we were talking about earlier, I literally downloaded a kind of CSV file of the titles and method descriptions on, however, many it was at the time when I did it, 100, 200. So that kind of order of magnitude and did a manual rewrite of titles and methods. And I think that's worked out well for us. Basically, we'd got in the habit of being quite introspective in how we described those things and I wanted to make them a bit more problem-centric, figuring that folks would be going on Google searching things like, should I put the brand at the beginning or end of my title tags? And so I was like, our title should answer that question or should at least tell you that the answer to that question is in this post. So I just did that kind of quite opinionated, not very scientific rewrite, kept track of when I did it and could see the... Can't quantify exactly, but could see that it was performing better afterwards versus before. So my general rule of thumb is on small sites in particular, the place I would start is things that overlap between ranking signals and display in the search results signal. So title is the place that I would start. Because if you remember before machine learning, our paid search colleagues, almost their whole job was optimizing the advert to get more people to click on it. It was like tons of people's jobs in the industry. But on the SEO side, I feel like folks have massively under-invested in click-through rate. Even if you don't rank better, even if you stay ranky in the position you are already in, you can double, triple your click-through rate by writing a better, more compelling whatever. And the great thing about the title is you might even rank better as well. And so that's why I did start on SearchPilot and that's where I'd recommend folks start if they've got a smaller website. Crystal Carter: Yeah. There's some great case studies. Adding a question mark into a title tag is a case study on SearchPilot and it's like a 5% uplift on that. Will Critchlow: We've got all kinds of little data points. I also would say, if you're in a small business space, trust your intuition as well. Make these things... Just take kind of a customer-centric approach. What's your target market? What are they actually looking for? Are you actually solving their problem or answering their question? When we get deep into this in our enterprise space, we end up running what we call full funnel tests, which is where we get to test SEO performance and conversion rate offer specific change. So you can say this was positive for one, but negative for the other. How are we going to mitigate that problem or whatever? We can get deeper into that. Point being, there can be attention. And in particular, there can be attention... If you're a B2B desk, SearchPilot is a great example, we actually want to appear for things that in-house SEOs at very large websites are searching for. If we write something that gets a whole load of, I don't know, analysts or agencies searching for it, then our traffic stats might increase, but our business metrics aren't going to. And so again, we are running scientific tests on this stuff. If you are at the smaller size, that's where you have to trust the fact that you are the business, you know the business, you know your market, you know the audience, and you have to hone in on those things that are going to appeal to them and are going to work for them. Crystal Carter: And I think also certainly, what I've found, I wonder if you'd also recommend this for smaller businesses, one of the benefits of working at an agency or working with an agency is that agencies are able to test techniques across multiple websites at the same time. And so if you have a small business, and I know a lot of people who recommend having your main site and also having a test site, that's a similar thing or maybe something else where you can sort of test something in a sort of low, low-risk area. Is that something that you would also recommend for smaller businesses, that they also maybe have, particularly if they're SEO nerds, although I guess not everybody who's a business owner is an SEO nerd. Shame, but... Will Critchlow: It's a shame. One day. So where I would come from on that is test sites are useful to the SEO nerds. They're not particularly useful to the business. That's my kind of controversial, maybe controversial position. If I'm in the business owner's shoes, I'm saying, "Let's not waste our time messing around over there. Let's write some more blog posts or produce some more content," or whatever it might be. Where the test bed site is useful in my opinion, is answering questions for nerds like us. And you can get some great conference presentations out of it. We've probably seen Olly Mason's stuff, for example, where he'll do the kind of destructive testing. What happens if I make my site map take 30 seconds to load or whatever? And you're like, you don't want to do that on your money maker. Crystal Carter: No. Will Critchlow: So he's doing that kind of testing where he's saying, "I want to really figure out what happens with Google at these edge cases. If I do something that seems odd or that seems weird, can I poke at the algorithm in specific ways?" And I get answers out of that. I'm glad he's doing that work. I'm also glad none of my customers are doing it on their stuff. And so that is valuable work. And so that's the third kind of testing. So we have the kind of stuff that we are doing, the big kind of controlled experiment. We have the before and after type analysis that we talked about, which doesn't quite reach the threshold for scientific testing, but it's the best you can do in certain situations. And the third kind, which is kind of more like what Olly is often doing, is what I call kind of laboratory testing. So you're taking a completely artificial situation and you're doing something weird and you're saying, "When I poke Google like this, what happens?" And that's like, I know I indexed every page on my site or I tried to use temporary redirects across the whole thing just to see what would happen and... Yeah, but we learn. So like I said, I'm glad other people do those experiments and we can learn from them. In particular, that's where folks run these experiments with made up words. Right? So you make up some words, put them out on domains that have never been indexed before and see if does the link order matter, right? So on one website, you put the links in one order on the menu, and then on the other website, you put them in a different order in the menu and you see which one ranks for this made up nonsense word that nobody's ever searched for before. That's closer to doing science, right? You're kind of saying, Google is this black box and we really want to understand into the minutiae of what's going on. It's not always actionable. It doesn't always turn into, "I should do this on my business website and make more money." So it's interesting. Mordy Oberstein: I mean, I think if you're a business owner, that's kind of the mentality you should be walking away after listening to this podcast. You should always be looking at things, testing things, seeing what's working, what's not working, changing things around when it does make sense. Don't just change things around for the sake of changing things around. Don't change big things around for the sake of changing big things around because that will not end up well for you. But you do want to be in a learning mode and seeing what works, what doesn't work. Sometimes correlation doesn't equal causation, sometimes it does. I'll quote Barry Adams. "Having some data is better than having no data." So work with what you got. Will Critchlow: I think that's particularly true if in the small business world, you do your best to understand what's going on and you use your instinct and you use your understanding of the industry and the market, along with that data. And I think where it's dangerous if we're quoting random quotes at each other, there's that saying about some people use statistics like a drunk uses a lamppost for support, not illumination. And if you go looking for the answer that you think you want to find- Mordy Oberstein: You will find it. Will Critchlow: Especially in a small amount of data, you can find anything you want. You just look on different days, look on different... Keep digging into the data until you find that one thing that backs up the thing you hoped or you wished was true. And my experience at the small business end is that when stuff is good, it moves the needle enough that you can spot it. Right? You start getting more inquiries, you start getting better inquiries. Folks start to set, they'll call you up and they say, "I was reading this thing on your website." And it's that qualitative subjective feedback that layers on top of the stats in the small business world, for me. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, for sure. If people wanted to learn from you, where could they find you? Will Critchlow: So I'm @willcritchlow on all the social places. I have historically, been most active on Twitter, but it's kind of a weird place right now, isn't it? Crystal Carter: It's somewhere with GA-III. Will Critchlow: So sad. So sad. I am on threads. I'm probably most active on a combination of Twitter and LinkedIn still. So yeah, I haven't quite figured out my long-term home, but I'm definitely more about the writing and reading than the taking photos and looking at photos. So I'm more likely to be found on the Twitter and LinkedIn. Crystal Carter: You're not on Instagram? Will Critchlow: I have an Instagram account. I think I have 10 photos on there. The last one was like two years ago. They're mainly pictures of my dog and that kind of stuff these days. Yeah, nobody's getting any SEO insight out of my Instagram. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. But they did see what you ate for dinner though. Will Critchlow: Three years ago. Sure. Mordy Oberstein: That works. Well, thank you so much. Folks, check out the show notes and check out all of links, all the links to Will's various profiles, probably not his Instagram profile. I don't think I'm going to throw that in there. If you really want me to, Will, I will put the Instagram. No? Will Critchlow: I think it's probably for the best that we leave folks to find that themselves if they really want to. Mordy Oberstein: There you go. Thank you so much. Will Critchlow: Thank you. It's been great. Thanks for having me on. Mordy Oberstein: Now, speaking of testing things, one tool that can help you do more than testing, but I also think it can help you do testing, is the Wayback Machine. What is the Wayback Machine? Let's go back and find out as we go tool time on the SERP's Up Podcast. The Wayback Machine is the coolest name for anything on the planet. Well, you will not find it at waybackmachine.com. It's internet Archive. I want you to be aware of this. If you're looking for like, "Hey, the Wayback Machine," I recommend you just Google it, as opposed to putting in wayback.machine.com. I don't know what that will give you. Crystal Carter: No. So the actual address is archive.org/web and that gets lead to- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, Google Wayback Machine. You'll be good to go. That's how I find it. Crystal Carter: Basically, what the Wayback Machine is, and the first time I found out about this, I was like, "Oh my gosh." Mordy Oberstein: Right? Crystal Carter: Wow. Mordy Oberstein: It's amazing. I just showed this to somebody last week and they were, "What? What is this voodoo? What is this magic that you have?" Crystal Carter: Right. Right. So for those of y'all who are civilians in the SEO community, for those of y'all who are deep, deep in the weeds of SEO, the Wayback Machine is this fantastic, incredible archive of over 840 billion web pages saved over time. Some of these for years, and years, and years, and years. If you have a new client who's had a domain for a while, you can go into Wayback Machine and you can see old versions of their website. You can see old versions of certain pages on the website. And I've had this before where I had a client who came to me and we were just doing a migration, but they had recently had another migration a couple of years ago. And two years ago isn't that long in terms of a website migration. So I was able to see what their website not before, not the one that I was looking at now, but before that, what that was, and that can give you some insights into that. What's really great and the reason why it's a great tool for testing and for understanding testing stuff is that if you're looking at the analytics and you're seeing that they used to have this great conversion rate on a particular page or they used to have tons of traffic to a particular page- Mordy Oberstein: What happened? Crystal Carter: What happened, why did it change? Well, you can cross-reference the dates that you see that activity happening, or the ranking or the whatever. And with the Wayback Machine, and you can see... So it says, okay, let's say in 2020, they were ranking really, really well for potato mashers. I don't know why we're mashing potatoes today, but that's what we're doing. Mordy Oberstein: I'm making potato salad for lunch. Crystal Carter: Okay. You're mashing potatoes for potato salad? You're chopping them. You're cubing them. Mordy Oberstein: Okay. So that's the ones I know about potato salad. Crystal Carter: We're cubing the potatoes. We're not using the potato masher for the potato salad. We're mashing potatoes for mashed potatoes. Okay. Anyways, maybe we're doing stuffed mashed potato skins. You mash them, and then you put the skins back in with other tasty treats. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know what that is. Crystal Carter: Okay. I'm distracted. Anyway, okay, so what you do, so you have a potato masher webpage, and let's say it used to convert really, really well in 2020. And now, it's not converting really well or maybe it dropped off a cliff recently. And if someone saying, "We used to do really well with this page. I don't understand," you can go back to 2020 and look at the potato masher page and see what was on that page and maybe it used to have the picture right at the top. And now, it has the picture further down the bottom and you can go, "Okay, well, it seems like this is an issue and we should fix that. It's a fantastic tool for illustrating those kinds of changes. And when you compare it with traffic and when you compare it with activity, it can be really, really useful for helping you to understand things that you can do with the website, things that you used to do with the website, things that maybe you should bring back, things maybe you should burn with fire, whatever you need to do. Mordy Oberstein: It's really great for contextualizing. Essentially, that's what it is. It's a way to contextualize if you have a new client and you want to go back and see. Okay, they have a whole ranking history. I can see the ranking history. What happened? What went on here? For a lot of the things that you're going to look at, particularly the content, you can go back and see what happened. If all of a sudden they changed their content, it's right around the same time as the helpful content let's say, comes out. There you go. That's the first place to start looking. If it's a competitor, what happened? All of a sudden, their rankings are up and what do they do? What happened? What's going on? You can take a look. I've used it to analyze content trends. I recently did this to... There's whole focus on experience in content and rankings using the actual experience. And I went back and looking at a whole bunch of product review sites. Seeing how many times he used the word, our and we two years ago, three years ago, how often they're using our and we now, a lot more now by the way. So for those kinds of things, it's amazing. Crystal Carter: It's really useful. And I think it's also really great when you're looking at your competitors because sometimes if you've got a client for instance, and they're on your vertical and they've said, "We've done this, this, and this, and this website started... We fell behind at this time," you can go and you can look on their competitor's site and say, "Okay, did they have a migration at that time?" And you can say, "Does this website from two years ago still look the same as it does now? Does this website from six months ago still look the same as it does now?" Because you can't really call up the competitors and go, "Hey, can you just tell me your full web history?" They're not going to tell you that. So you can go onto Wayback Machine and you can look that up and it's super, super useful. There's an API that's attached to it as well that can help you to understand. And also, you can see information about... Sometimes you can see things like the site map even on Wayback Machine, which can be useful and you can see different elements of it. It's a super useful tool. Every year, they say, "Would you like to donate money to the Wayback Machine?" And every year, I'm like, "Yeah, you know what? You guys can have a fiber." Because there's been so many times on the Wayback Machine that it has saved my bacon. There's a situation though... I think the one that really stood out for me was I had a client and we did a migration. And suddenly, their pages weren't getting indexed at the same rate. And I was like, "We need these pages indexed. They need to be indexed now. Why aren't they being indexed?" And I compared the new homepage to the old homepage, and the old homepage had a feed of the new content. And the new homepage did not have a feed of the new content. And I was like, "Y'all, do you see this?" Mordy Oberstein: Feed the content. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And they were like, "Oh, okay." So they put the feed on and everything was exactly as I expected it to be. So absolutely, use Wayback Machine to solve issues. It's particularly useful for migrations and it's also useful for trying to fill gaps maybe between what a client knows. Because sometimes, you get a client and they know the full history of the website. Sometimes it's a brand new marketing manager and they have no idea what did or didn't happen before. So yeah, it's really, really useful. Mordy Oberstein: Cool. Go back. See previous versions of web pages. Not all of them show up because if it's a random, random, random page, they didn't archive it, but a lot of the ones that you would think wouldn't be there, are there. And the best part is, you don't need a flux capacitor and going 88 miles an hour in DeLorean to go back in time. You could just go to the Wayback Machine. Now, speaking of the Wayback Machine, I was just looking at somebody recently who was using the Wayback Machine. It was Barry Schwartz using the way- Crystal Carter: Really? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he just had it saved. I'm pretty sure he is using the Wayback Machine to see, and he used it to see changes in Google's guidelines. Crystal Carter: So Barry Schwartz is himself or the- Mordy Oberstein: A Wayback Machine? Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: Are you saying that because his dress and design style, that's what I'm looking for, is not up-to-date? Crystal Carter: Barry, I didn't say that. Okay. What I'm saying is that I've done research on featured snippets. And if you want to, for instance, see research on featured snippets, he's been covering featured snippets the entire time. So for decks and stuff, I very often reference photos that he shared of different things from 2016. This is what a product carousel looked like in 2016, and now I can compare it to what it looks like now. They'll share things from like, "This is what this looked like, this is what an instant answer looked like in 2014. And I can compare it to what it looks like now." Barry Schwartz is an incredible- Mordy Oberstein: It's the way back machine of the SERP. Crystal Carter: Of the SERP, precisely. And it's really useful for understanding, again, if you're thinking about there's traffic changes, why does my traffic change? If you're looking and you're looking at some of the SERP photos of what it said, what it looked like in 2018 versus what it looks like now, then you can say, "Okay, well, that's our future changed." And I have evidence of this, thanks to Barry Schwartz. Mordy Oberstein: What we're basically trying to say is, it's now time for the Snappy news as brought to you by Barry Schwartz. So here's the snappy news. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news this week on trifecta from none other, but Barry Schwartz. This one coming from Search Engine Land. Google Search now supports discussion form and profile page structure data. So basically, Google is on a first person first hand knowledge, first hand experience kick as well they should be. The E for experience in E-A-T being a prime example of this, but Google has said they want to show they haven't made a couple announcements trying to show more first hand knowledge on the SERP. This structured data would allow such content from forums to show up as a rich result. So Google said, "that the functionality allows them to show" first person perspectives on social media platforms, forums, and other communities. By the way, I think Google needs to go beyond social media for this content, which is why I think they're focusing on forums here with the profile page structure data. They know they need to go beyond social media and actually have content specifically generated for this kind of purpose. The "Search Engine Land," the new profile page structure data and markup is for any site where creators, either people or organizations, share first hand perspectives. The markup will help Google highlight the creator's name or social handle, profile photo, follower account, or the popularity of their content in the Google Search results. So if someone on your forum, you want to make sure that they're kind of prominent because Google's going to pull on their profile information. I think forum SEO is going to be a thing. Google is very serious about showing first hand knowledge on the SERP. It's a wider content trend that if Google wants to deal with, I don't know, TikTok, is going to have to do. Google's made a variety of announcements kind of showing that they are going to do that, this being one of them. First hand knowledge, first person knowledge experience is going to be a thing, just like forum content SEO, which I termed I have just coined, is going to be a thing. Next up from Barry Schwartz, this is from Search Engine Roundtable. Google Discover showing older content since follow feature. This was spotted by Glenn Gabe. If you don't know who Glenn Gabe is, please follow Glenn Gabe on Twitter, X, whatever it is. And Glenn basically said that he's noticing more content showing on the Discover feed that is not from the last day or so. So generally speaking, Google Discover shows current event-ish kind of content. So the content is generally very fresh, a couple of hours a day, maybe two days old. Once in a while, it'll sprinkle in a four-day-old post, but Glenn's noticing that he's getting articles that are two months old. I personally noticed that the last month or so, my feed has changed. The topics have sort of opened up a little bit. The type of content that Google shows in my personal Discover feed is opening up a little bit. I wonder if Google is making some more foundational changes to the Discover feed as it tries. Because again, Discover feed is a great place where Google can kind of be a sort of social media-ish kind of content provider. So I wonder if they're going to make some significant changes as time goes along, and wider preferences and content consumption trends change. Okay. Last up from Barry Schwartz, this one from seroundtable.com. Google November 2023 core update rollout is now complete. So as of the time of this recording, the November 2023 review update is still rolling out, but by the time you hear this, it might be done. So check your local news provider, AKA Barry, to see if that is finished. But check your rankings because the core update from the November 2023 core update rather, is done rolling out. I have some fresh Semrush data in my hands. It looks like generally speaking, the November 2023 core update was slightly more comprehensive, powerful, potent, however, you want to volatile, however, you want to phrase it. Then the October 2023 core update is a little bit tricky to pull the data out because you could only look at the really very beginning of the November 2023 core update. Otherwise, you start getting that mixed, that volatility/ranking data mixing in with the November 2023 review update, and that makes it hard to decipher. So the beginning of the November 2023 core update looked to be a little bit more impactful overall, but that needs to be explained or qualified than the October 2023 core update. Check your ranking is what I'm trying to say in a nutshell. And with that, that is this week's snappy news. The best part is, I'm going to drop the fourth wall here. We recorded the main section of the podcast before we actually recorded the news. We're waiting for the last second to see what actually broke in the news, but we're so confident that Barry's going to be the one covering it, that we tease out Barry beforehand. So thank you Barry, for that. Crystal Carter: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Now, speaking of SEO testing, going back full circle to where we all started, there's somebody we used to be following on social media because she's done some pretty nifty things around SEO testing. And she is Maria Amelie White over on Twitter. It's @Maria_Amelie on X/Twitter. We'll link to her profile in the show notes, but Crystal's got a great thing about what she tried doing with Spanglish. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So Maria is an in-house SEO at Kurt Geiger. I'm not jealous at all. But yeah, she's an in-house SEO. She's super smart, super clever. And I was on a discussion with her and she was talking about a fantastic test that she did around SEO and PPC that was around language. So I think her team was advertising in a Spanish language market and also in an English language market. And they found that sometimes some of their Spanish judges shown in the US, for instance, and also in Mexico for instance, where there's a border. But she also said to the team, she was like, "Hey, this is something that I've seen. What about Spanglish?" And they were like, "Oh, I don't know." And she said, "No, we should test Spanglish." And she found that... And a lot of people are searching this way, and if people speak this way where there's sort of areas where people are speaking multiple languages, there's plenty of countries like that, and she found that they got some great results from incorporating Spanglish into their ads. And I think that that's something that Will was talking about as well, is that sometimes it's worth following your instinct as well. So that was something that she knew from lived experience and she was able to apply that, and to test it and to get great results. And I think that with regards to testing, if you've got a hunch, absolutely test your hunch. And she got some great results from that, and that was one of the reasons why I thought of her. She's also super knowledgeable and is really active in the community. Mordy Oberstein: Very active in the community. Writes for Search Engine Land. You can check all of her articles there. Look for her Twitter profile in our show notes, and then read her articles across the web. Thanks, Maria. By the way, Spanglish is a terrible Adam Sandler movie. I'm literally here like, why does Spanglish sound so familiar? This is the third time you mentioned that case to me before. I'm like, "Something's not right." I'm like, "Oh snap, it's an Adam Sandler movie from years ago." Crystal Carter: When you say it's terrible, do you mean that it's terrible within the pantheon of Adam Sandler movies or that it's terrible in full stop? Mordy Oberstein: No. He's got some great movies. Uncut Gems, that's a gem right there. Crystal Carter: I don't know that one. Mordy Oberstein: It's great. Crystal Carter: I mean, Happy Gilmore. I'm there for that one. I'm there for... Oh gosh, there's a few other ones. Mordy Oberstein: The Waterboy? Crystal Carter: Waterboy. It's terrible because I don't think it's one of his best, but I even like Little Nicky. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, that's the devil one. I barely remember that. Then there was the one where- Crystal Carter: It's like a basketball skit. Mordy Oberstein: ... he adopts a kid. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Big Daddy. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. He's also done some good animated stuff recently. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Crazy Eight Nights. That's a classic in my household. Crystal Carter: There we go. There we go. He's got some good stuff. He's got some good stuff. Mordy Oberstein: He's got great stuff. He did a bunch of stuff like an NBA movie kind of thing, where he's a scout. That was a great movie. All right. All right. I think we're off the rails. No, no. You got one more. Go for it. You've got one more. Just do it. Crystal Carter: I can't think of the words. I can't think. I was just thinking of as far as terrible Adam Sandler movies, there's one where they go camping or something. It's awful. It's got a great cast, but the movie is fundamentally awful. Mordy Oberstein: There was a point in his career where it was kind of hit or miss. And I think lately, he's been consistently awesome. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Thanks, Adam. Well, thanks for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episode as we dive into. I'm not telling you, it's a surprise. It's a very special episode. That'll be a live recording from one of SEO's biggest conferences on the planet. That's right. Look for it whenever you consume your podcast or on our SEO Learning over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at, you guessed it, @wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Originally from the US and now living in Germany, Adriana Stein is the CEO and founder of the marketing agency AS Marketing. She leads a team of multi-language SEO experts who develop holistic international marketing strategies for global companies. Adriana Stein CEO and Founder, AS Marketing Originally from the US and now living in Germany, Adriana Stein is the CEO and founder of the marketing agency AS Marketing . She leads a team of multi-language SEO experts who develop holistic international marketing strategies for global companies. Articles & Resources 28 Sept 2023 Can AI perform multilingual SEO translation and localization? 6 Jul 2023 ChatGPT for business-to-business SEO: A 2-star review 2 May 2023 Can AI-generated content work for eCommerce? 4 Apr 2023 An introduction to crawling, indexing, and ranking for SEO 25 Oct 2022 How to approach SEO localization and SEO website translations Resources Adriana Stein SEO blog writing Google Doc template Craft blog articles that give search engines and users what they’re looking for with this SEO template. Adriana Stein SEO landing page copywriting template Ensure your landing page copy is set up to convert and perform well on search with this SEO template. 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

Goodness is an SEO analyst that specializes in technical and on-page SEO for eCommerce brands, helping them improve their organic visibility. She enjoys SEO audits, data analysis, and reading novels. Goodness Azubuogu SEO Analyst at Trek Marketing Goodness is an SEO analyst that specializes in technical and on-page SEO for eCommerce brands, helping them improve their organic visibility. She enjoys SEO audits, data analysis, and reading novels. Articles & Resources 29 Jun 2023 The fundamentals of internal linking for SEO Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

If they measure it, it matters. The SERP’s Up team dive into the One SEO Tool to Rule Them All: Google Search Console. This free Google tool is, by far, the most important tool for site owners to understand how Google values their sites. Mordy and Crystal share their love of Google Search Console and unpack the importance of the platform. Google Search Console gives a wealth of information about your site: from page indexing to Google’s crawl frequency, the impressions that specific pages receive, and most importantly, what issues Google seems to be having with a website. This is the main conduit of communication from Google to the site owner, and trust us - if they measure something in there, it matters. SEOs should pay attention to Video Pages (hint, hint - get them going if you haven’t), Page Experience stats, mobile usability, and more. The team catches up with Lazarina Stoy, data scientist, and SEO, who shares one of her favorite features of GSC, the Links report, which can help troubleshoot internal linking strategies and improper use of anchor text. Back Google Search Console: One SEO tool to rule them all If they measure it, it matters. The SERP’s Up team dive into the One SEO Tool to Rule Them All: Google Search Console. This free Google tool is, by far, the most important tool for site owners to understand how Google values their sites. Mordy and Crystal share their love of Google Search Console and unpack the importance of the platform. Google Search Console gives a wealth of information about your site: from page indexing to Google’s crawl frequency, the impressions that specific pages receive, and most importantly, what issues Google seems to be having with a website. This is the main conduit of communication from Google to the site owner, and trust us - if they measure something in there, it matters. SEOs should pay attention to Video Pages (hint, hint - get them going if you haven’t), Page Experience stats, mobile usability, and more. The team catches up with Lazarina Stoy, data scientist, and SEO, who shares one of her favorite features of GSC, the Links report, which can help troubleshoot internal linking strategies and improper use of anchor text. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 12 | November 9, 2022 | 36 MIN 00:00 / 35:57 This week’s guests Lazarina Stoy Lazarina is an SEO consultant specializing in Data Science and is currently a senior manager at enterprise-level marketing agency Intrepid Digital. As a proponent of SEO automation, Lazarina often speaks at webinars and conferences and creates helpful resources for fellow SEOs to kick off their data science journey. 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 putting 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 our wonderful Head of SEO Communications, the one, the only, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: It's me. Hello, internet people. Hi. Hello, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Hello. You just gave me a recommendation for a show. That's first time you've ever recommended anything to me to... Oh, scratch that. You've made many recommendations to me, not a watching recommendation. So I'm excited. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's good. Mordy Oberstein: How about telling what the audience is. I'm not telling you what it is. Crystal Carter: I really enjoyed it. It was a good show. It had a lot of interesting things and the pace was good. I like a show that moves along and has a lot of pace. Mordy Oberstein: There was a show I was watching with my wife and it was a good show, but they could have wrapped it up in one episode and it was nine. Crystal Carter: Honestly, honestly, when they drag it out. Also, I don't like it when people introduce too many characters at once and too much information. I'm like, "Give me one character and fan out from there." If you give me 12 characters and all of their details straight at once, I cannot cope. But I love an ensemble cast. That's all good. But you need somebody who's like- Mordy Oberstein: Slowly, but surely. Crystal Carter: Yeah, they meet this person. Then you find out about them. Then they meet the next person, you find out about them. If they're like, "This person's here and that person." I'm like, "It's too much. I'm both bored and confused." I don't like it. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like marketers, there's a lot you can take away for your content strategy from what these shows do wrong so much. Crystal Carter: Honestly, do you know, I genuinely, when I'm doing deliverables for SEO projects, I structure them like soap operas. Mordy Oberstein: Oh really? You have people who are in various scandals? Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: Marrying other people. Crystal Carter: Basically, in a soap opera, what will happen is during the season, there'll be one long story that runs in the background, like, who did that mysterious thing, or whose glove was it that was found in wherever? And they'll give you a little bit of that story every time for every episode. But then on every episode, there's also little stories that happen as well, and they will conclude a story on every episode. So every month, you should have something that you definitely finish. And over the course of say, six months of your deliverables, you should have something that you're chipping away at as you go. So it's the big thing that you want to build up to, like building up a content portfolio, or maybe you want to be more competitive on a certain thing. So you chip away at that every month, and it might be a long term project, but you move it forward a little bit every month. Mordy Oberstein: And who says soap operas were worthless, other than me? My grandma used to love them. I'm like, "I don't know what this thing is. This is terrible." But anyway, the SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where traffic thresholds for core web vitals are a thing of the past. Google Search Console not giving you field data that you so desire? Use Wix's speed dashboard. Get field data built off user sessions from multiple browsers. No more guessing what your actual core web vitals are with Wix's site speed dashboard. That is absolutely novel, by the way. And I don't think people appreciate that. Crystal Carter: I love it so much because you want to do better. And with Google Search Console, we're going to talk loads about Google Search Console and you get some fantastic information from it. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic and amazing and wonderful. However, if you are a smaller site, you don't get a lot of that core web vitals information until you reach a certain threshold of traffic. In the meantime, you're just sort of wondering. Mordy Oberstein: Guessing. Crystal Carter: Guessing. Mordy Oberstein: Because the lab data and the field data, the data that Google's giving you, that's simulated to what users actually experience, also known as lab data, is not very close to the actual user experience. Crystal Carter: It's very different. It's very different and it might include you as well. And if you're a small site, then you checking your blog 20 times, let's say you're only getting, I don't know, 70 people coming to that blog, then that's going to be a big portion of the traffic, for instance. So anyway, I'm just saying it's really, really useful if you're trying to make these improvements and also, if you're trying to make these improvements for maybe future traffic that you're going to get. Because if you're like, "We're going to be huge, this blog's going to be amazing, this shop's going to be incredible," you want to make sure that you're able to build and to get off on the right footing. And that report is a great place to start. Mordy Oberstein: And you don't need to use total blocking time is a really bad simulation for FID, which is amazing. They're not similar at all. Anyway, on this show, one tool to rule them all, and it's not the speed dashboard we just mentioned, it's a different tool. Or conversely, you could say if you were stuck on a desert island and you can only bring one tool with you to do your SEO with, which would you bring? The answer of course is Search Console. But why? We'll get into the value of Google Search Console today and what it can provide you with, whether you're a business owner or an SEO or a marketer of any kind. Also, Lazarina Stoy will stop by and share how she extracts value out of Google Search Console. Plus, we'll dive into a little tool from Screaming Frog to help you maximize your Google Search Console prowess. Of course, we'll get into some Snappy News and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness as episode 12 of the SERP's Up podcast is knocking on your audio doors. So much to get into with Search Console. But I think maybe we should sort of explain Search Console a little bit if you're not so familiar with it. Because when you talk about SEO tools, it can get complicated quickly. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So Google Search Console is sometimes abbreviated GSC. If you're on Twitter, if you're online, if you see SEOs chatting with each other, they will talk about Google Search Console like this. Mordy Oberstein: Or just SC. Crystal Carter: SC. Okay, yeah. For the in crowd. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And essentially, what Google Search Console does is it gives you information on how Google is seeing your website. So it's not exactly the same as Google Analytics. Google Analytics will give you information about all of the traffic that's coming through to your website that they can track. So you add a tag to your website and then they will tell you about all of the different channels. So from a marketing point of view, it's absolutely crucial for you to have Google Analytics. Sometimes, SEOs will almost exclusively have access to Google Search Console. But what Google Search Console is really, really good for is understanding how Google is seeing your content, both which rich results you might get and which result is some of those cards. For instance, if you ever Google and you see a recipe card, that's a rich result. If you see a job listing for instance, that's a rich result as well. Product listings, those are also rich results and they show at the top of the SERP. And Google Search Console will tell you about how many of them they are showing and will tell you about which pages they are pulling them from. Google Search Console will also tell you about ranking, where you're ranking on Google. They'll also tell you about which pages are actually in their index. And when we talk about indexing and crawling, Google Search Console will also tell you the difference. So they'll tell you, "We've crawled this page, but we have not put it in any index." And if you don't know what the difference between those two things are, it's essentially like if you were trying to be a pop star musician and you wanted to be top of the charts, you would have to get played on the radio at some point probably. So what being index is like being played on the radio. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be top of the charts, that you're going to have a Billboard Award or that sort of thing, but it means you've been played on the radio, so you registered on their index. If you have not been played on the radio, you can't necessarily be top of the charts first. So you need to make sure that you're indexed and that you're crawled. So just because your crawled doesn't mean that you're indexed, just because your indexed doesn't mean that you rank. Mordy Oberstein: Just because your content doesn't mean you deserve to be indexed because some content shouldn't be indexed. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. So there's a lot of different nuances within that. Google Search Console breaks down all of the different parts of it. We, at Wix, have recently released our Google Search Console URL inspection tool. And as part of that, we've got a great blog on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, which Mordy explains what the tool does. And one of the good things about that is we also put together a list of understanding, within our support tool documents, there's also a list of understanding what those things mean, what the different differentiations mean. So discovered in non-indexed and crawl, but non-indexed, that sort of thing. So dig into those as well. There's also lots of links in that documentation to lots of the Google details as well. So yeah, it can be complicated, but it can also be fairly straightforward. So they try to make sure that the reports are really easy to access for people of all different knowledge abilities. And you can also see lots of things about your links. You can also see lots of things about whether or not you've got security things, whether or not you've had a glitch in your server. You can carry out a very detailed technical SEO audit using Google Search Console almost exclusively if you need to. But one of the limitations of Google Search Consoles, it only tells you what's happening on Google, and it only tells you what's happening on Google organically. So you can't get information on your traffic from Facebook, you can't get information on your traffic from paid. You can't get information on your traffic from other search engines like say Bing or Baidu or whatever it is. So those are the limitations. Bing Webmaster Tools also has something very similar to Google Search Console and it can be interesting to compare the two to see how your site is being crawled. And yeah, it's a great tool. Publication called the State of Technical SEO asked over 800 SEOs, which tools they use for their technical SEO. And 93% of SEOs said they use Google Search Console. So if you want to do better with your SEO, getting into Google Search Console is really important. Mordy Oberstein: Which is what we kind of plan on doing today. But what we're kind of going to do is give you sort of an overview of some of the things that it can do and why it's so valuable. But I think the most important thing for you to do is after listening to this, if you are familiar with Search Console, to play around with it more. And if you're not familiar with Search Console, play around with it because it is kind of intuitive once you poke around a little bit and sort of experiment with what's going on in there. Out of all the tools, I would say Google Analytics, like, whoa, okay, you got to take a step back, you got to really get into it, especially GA4. But Search Console's not that way. A lot of the reporting is pretty straightforward. Some of the more technical things around indexing are not, but you can find good documentation around it. But kind of what you said is really the value of Search Console, that it does everything. It's so comprehensive, it talks to you about how many clicks you're getting. It talks how your pages are performing on Google. It also gives you a more technical analysis. You can look at things like which Google bots are crawling your website and how often are they crawling your website? There's a lot of great data in there and there's data around links and it's all free. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's all free. I think we talk a lot about SEO generally. But if you are not familiar with Google Search Console and you are a Wix user, you have the ability to, within the SEO set of checklists, connect directly to Google Search Console as you set up your Wix website. And this is fantastic. You also have built into the CMS a URL inspection tool that allows you to see information about Google Search Console, about your index ability for individual pages. And that, I think, is testament to how important a team at Wix thinks Google Search Console is and I think it's a testament to how important we think it is for SEO success. So yeah, it's a great tool. And I think that you mentioned that it's fairly accessible and I've had before where people are like, "Oh, Google Search Console, what's so great about that?" And I think sometimes people look at it and they go, "This is really basic information," and it's actually not. It's almost deceptively simple. The way it's presented is pretty straightforward. But you can also get very clear information about which keywords you're actually ranking for, which is really interesting because you might be trying to rank for one thing, but the keywords that you're actually ranking for might be very, very different. So it's worth looking at the keywords that you're ranking for and the keywords that different pages are ranking for. You can also filter by region. So for instance, if you're seeing that you're getting a lot of traffic, but maybe it's not very relevant, you can filter by region and see maybe you're ranking really, really well in another country. I've seen this happen before. Maybe you're ranking it really, really well in a different country, but actually, you serve customers locally. And so you should be looking at the rankings for your country that you're in. So this can happen sometimes when countries share a similar language. So I've seen it where people based in England were ranking in the US and it wasn't that valuable to them because they could only serve clients in the UK. So we had to adjust our Search Console filters so that we were only looking at where we were ranking in the UK. And then we could make better, more actionable SEO strategies. Mordy Oberstein: You can definitely get super complicated with the filters. I implore you to look at the filters, but don't necessarily think it's super complicated either with the filters, there's just basic comparisons you can do. And again, you're seeing things like, okay, so three months ago, how many clicks did I get versus now, how many clicks am I getting? And that's also one of the things you can do great with Search Console. One of the unique things about Search Console is you can see the impressions that you're getting, meaning your pages are showing up on Google, but you're not getting any clicks. Why is that? Perhaps my title tags are just absolutely horrific and I don't know, they just say home for homepage. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Mordy Oberstein: I'm ranking but no one's clicking. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. So that's a really, really interesting one. So people sometimes show impressions. Impressions aren't always great. Sometimes if the impressions you have are for keywords that aren't relevant for your website, then you need to retune your content. And when you're looking at the performance report, you can see total clicks. Total clicks, that's pretty straightforward. Those are themes that people actually clicked on. And your impressions is when somebody entered a query and your content was shown. They might not have clicked on it, but your content was shown after somebody entered a query. The click through rate is essentially one divided by the other. So for every 10 times that your content was shown, one person clicked on it. Is that 10% click through rate? I don't know. That would be really, really high. Mordy Oberstein: Math. It's really high by the way, 10% click through rate. Crystal Carter: That's really high. 10% click through rate is very high. You might have that for one particular query, like maybe for your brand or something like that. And then your average position is the average place where you rank. Mordy Oberstein: You should be careful with that one because it's not exactly accurate and it should give you a general sense of things. By the way, data in general gives you a general sense of things. The numbers are never going to be actually exact, even in Search Console, even though it's Google data. But it does kind of bring up why you sometimes, or best practice would be to use a third party tool for various things. If a queue were to super important to you, you see that you're getting a lot of impression and clicks for it in Search Console, then that's something you might want to track in a rank tracking tool. Because the average rank studies have shown is less than accurate all the time. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I almost never rely on a single data source for a particular bit of information because Google Search Console's obviously getting information from Google. Sometimes with Google Search Console, you don't get the information straight away. So sometimes, you might not see the data, like you might not see yesterday's data straight away. You might have to wait a couple of days before the data comes through, which sometimes if you've got a flash sale or if you've got some very important news that's dropping, then you might want to know where you were ranking on that day. So that can be tricky. But yeah, I would very rarely rely on a single source. Also, this is one of the reasons why I bring up Bing. Bing also gives you information on those things. So for instance, if your ranking suddenly drop in Google Search Console, it's worthwhile checking what your rankings are like on Bing to see if they've changed as well or if they're the same. And again, the other thing about Bing and Google Search Console is that if you're like, "I don't spend a lot of time on Bing," that's okay. When you go to Bing to set up your analytics, you go to Bing Webmaster, I think it's Bing Webmaster Tools, and you can connect to Google Search Console with one click and they will pull through all of the information you have from there into their system. So again, if you see your ranking suddenly change in Google Search Console and they don't change in Bing, then it might be that there was an algorithm update that affected you in Google and didn't affect you in Bing. If you see that they both change really quickly, then it might be that there's a technical issue on your website. Mordy Oberstein: Which again, the tools can help you with because you can check out indexing issues which is by the way, I think it's really important these days. Because I think things that are changing around indexing. I think Google is being a little more choosier about what it decides to index. So a little bit of a myth that every page should be in. No, if there's a page that's not really helpful. Imagine had a page and all it was, was like a sign up button for subscribe to an email, a newsletter. That's not a very useful page. Google's probably not going to index that page and nor should it really be indexed. It's really meant for people who are already on your site to follow through and subscribe to your newsletter, whatever it is. Crystal Carter: Right, absolutely. And I think that you should be very, very much, it's all killer, no filler. You want to make sure that you've got your most important pages indexed. And sometimes, you look in the discover not indexed and you say, "There's a lot of URLs there." Well, look at which ones they are. Sometimes they're UTMs because sometimes those get indexed. Sometimes they're from different campaign ads, sometimes they are category pages that might not necessarily be- Mordy Oberstein: Archive pages. Crystal Carter: Archive pages. Sometimes they're old links from an old URL that Google knows about and they need to know about that so that they can manage the redirect so that they can pay attention to how that traffic flows and the value of those URLs. So for instance, if you had an old domain and you migrated it to, let's say it was HTTP and you migrated it to HTTPS, then those are two different URLs to Google. So they might very well still have in their record the old URL and that will be discovered but not indexed. That's something they know about, but they don't have that in the index because they're indexing the new one. They're doing you a favor. So that's something to think about as well. So look at which ones are discovered and not indexed. If you see something in there that you're like, "Wait a second, that should absolutely be indexed," then there's a couple of things that you can do, and we might talk about that on another podcast. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and don't afraid because you're going to see all these different, crawl but not indexed, discovered but not indexed, all these different statuses. And they might seem confusing, but there's a lot of documentation Google has around them and there's a lot of great resources around what they mean and how to possibly fix them. So if you see them crawl but not indexed, it could be very much that you have a page that's very, very similar. And Google's like, "Well, we already have this page on the index so we're not going to put it there." But for you it's very different. And then a different intent or might be more of a commerce intent or transactional intent rather. So definitely pay attention to what's happening in there because Google, again is getting a little bit choosier. The way I think about it is if Google's better understanding content, it's going to be choosier about what it decides to index or not to index. And as it gets better at doing that, which it has been in more recent times is getting better that, it's going to get choosier and choosier about what gets indexed, which means there could be real issues for you. So don't be afraid of putting your toe into that index kind of stuff and to the page's reports that you have in there inside of Search Console. Research, ask questions, dig into it because it's super important, even though it might seem a little bit daunting to deal with it. Crystal Carter: Yeah, don't be afraid of it and ask for help. The SEO community can be really helpful and there's absolutely opportunities for that. And I think the more signals you can give Google about which pages are most important to you, the better. We've talked about internal linking, for instance. Internal linking is a great signal for telling Google that something is an important page. It's like people sending lots of referrals to someone. If they're getting lots of referrals, then that's going to tell Google that it's an important page. So show them that it's important, don't just assume that they'll figure it out. Show them with links internally, externally, with relevant content, additional schema, lots of things like that. Mordy Oberstein: And we'll put some resource into the show notes that'll help you. If you see a certain status in your Search Console reporting, we'll give you some information and resources that you can use to come up some possible solutions to fix those problems. So check out the show notes. With that, we have a fabulous SEO who's going to share with you how she uses Google Search Console to make well informed SEO decisions, keyword well inform SEO decisions. Here's Lazarina Stoy and how she uses Search Console. Lazarina Stoy: I love Google Search Consult and use it daily. There are so many useful reports there and it's ever changing. From the more recent reports, the video indexing feature is something I use to quickly troubleshoot performance of no indexed videos and ensure that the companies I'm working with appear as expected in all the different search types that they're targeting. I frequently use the page indexation reports as well as the crawl data to identify any changes to crawling behavior and quick fix errors that might be prohibiting pages to appear as expected. These reports can also help signal content issues as well. The enhancements reports are amazing for websites that have structured data implemented because at a glance, I can identify errors as well as the overall effort and strategy implemented, which in turn enables me to better identify opportunities on what can be implemented to enhance the search appearance of websites via featured snippets. Often, not very much used by SEOs, but still a super useful report for anyone that does not have access to SEO tooling is the links report, which can help troubleshoot internal linking strategies and improper use of anchor text. I always recommend this to small website owners to take advantage of. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, Lazarina. A great point, by the way. She brings up the video reporting in there. That's relatively new. And one thing to keep in mind when you're looking at Search Console and using Search Console is that Google's put a lot of emphasis on dev inside of Search Console and they're constantly refining and bringing in new reporting. So keep an eye for new things inside a Search Console, that'll be really helpful. In this case, the video is absolutely super cool if you have a very, very video intensive website. So keep an eye out for what Google's doing. They're doing a great job over there with their development around Search Console. Crystal Carter: And I think particularly, you mentioned the video and she mentions it as well, and I think that one of the other things that's great about Search Console's it tells you what Google cares about. So they add all these features when it's something that they say, if it's not measured, it doesn't matter. That's a thing people say. And if they're measuring it, it means that it matters. So if they've got a whole report all about video, then that tells you that maybe you should have some video on your website. And if you don't have any, then maybe you should consider making some or including some, because with the video report, for instance, it doesn't have to be your YouTube video, it doesn't have to be a YouTube video at all. But if you have a video that's embedded on your page, then Google is able to see it and it can help your content to perform better and it can help you to track better. Google Search Console also lets you filter by the types of media so you can see where images are ranking and things like that, for instance. And Lazarina, one of the reasons why I was really pleased to have her along here is because she does a lot of really interesting things with Google Search Console. Not just the things she talked about, but also some of the reports that she's able to create by combining Google Search Console data with what was Google Data Studio and is now Looker. Mordy Oberstein: Looker, yeah, that's a weird name. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Huh? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. We'll link to the Google Looker dashboard thing, I don't know what you call it now, in the show notes. Crystal Carter: I'm going to look at the Looker. Mordy Oberstein: Let's not get into the branding names. That was bizarre to me. But anyway, hey, who are we to judge, right? It works for them. I'm sure they've done their research for it. Looker is definitely a better name than Google Beta Studio. Crystal Carter: Are you sure? Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I kind of like names that where in the name, you can sort of understand what you're going to get out of it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: With Looker, I kind of feel like, I'm not even going to go there. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Now with that, there are so many, just got to pivot it right out that, there are so many tools that pull in Search Console data. Every SEO tool really does. A few years go ranking tracking tool. Oftentimes, they will let you integrate with Google Search Console through Google Search Console's APIs. You can compare all sorts of ranking data and Search Console data to this data, to that data and to other sorts of the data. As I mentioned before, we integrated with Google's URL inspection tool API to create our site inspection dashboard. So Google's Search Consoles, because it is foundational SEO information, will often be used by various third party SEO tools, which is why we're proud to bring you Tool time by the SERP's UP podcast. This time we're going to Screaming Frog, which itself is a seminal SEO tool and how they pull in Google Search Console's URL inspection API, and what you can do with Screaming Frog. Crystal Carter: Screaming Frog, as you mentioned, is a foundational tool. It's used for technical SEO and it allows you... You can also use it for content as well. But it allows you to do a crawl of your website. It allows you to assess your site map and lots of information like that. I use it with Google Search Console to corroborate data to prioritize what things you need to do, for instance. So within Google Search Console, you can submit your site map and that should form the bulk of what gets crawled and what gets indexed. There are sometimes bits of your website that are not in your site map and they sometimes end up being indexed as well. So one of the things you can do with Screening Frog is you can do a different mode, not the standard crawl, but you can do a list, for instance, and you can submit your site map list and then you can crawl that with the Google Search Console API. And then you can see which things are being indexed from your site map and which things are not being indexed from your site map. And if they're not being indexed, then you can go, "Why isn't this indexed? Should it be in the site map? Should it be indexed? What should we do here?" And so essentially, you can take those little bits of information and you can compare them. Then again, as I say, I very rarely rely on a single thing. But if you're comparing this with the information you get in, say like the Wix URL inspection tool, then you can also see which part of the site it's in, which site map it's in, which folder it's in, and see if there's some commonalities across URLs that are within the same site map or have the same configuration, for instance. But Screaming Frog, like Google Search Console, is something that it can seem both simple and complicated at the same time. Essentially, if you use Screaming Frog, which you can on a free version, you can see 500 URLs. So you can crawl your website, you pump the URL and you press crawl, and then you can get lots of information on your website. And it kind of just looks like a spreadsheet and you really need to click around and dig around. I tweeted ages ago, "Has anyone ever completed Screaming Frog? Because I just keep finding more levels." And it's absolutely true because people do incredible things. And you can also export it to different things. So you can export the data from your from Screening Frog as a CSV, and then you can use it in whatever kind of data, whether you're using Excel or whether you're using Google Sheets, or you can connect it directly to Google Sheets and you can export your data there. And then you can do more SEO analysis or more bulk updates from that. But you can see lots of information about both crawl information and also different parts of your site. So your images, your meta descriptions, whether things are indexable, what status could they have, lots of things like that. Mordy Oberstein: If you're looking at all the pages that Google has actually crawl but not indexed, and you're able to combine them with all the headers are on those pages, you're like, "Wow, okay, there's a pattern here. There's something going," that's good information. Because you could see there's a content issue with those pages. That's probably the reason why Google's crawled them but hasn't decided to index them. So combining information that these tools allow you to do with Search Console data in all sorts of ways can be super helpful to you. Crystal Carter: Super helpful. And I've had it before where I looked at a site and we had a site map, that was fine, and that had loads of URLs in it. And then I ran it through a Screaming Frog with the Spider tool and it only pulled up two URLs. And I was like, "What? What's going on?" And when I ran it through the site map, it was like, "Yeah, you've got all these URLs and they're all 200s," and all that stuff. And I was like, "How come we can't find? Why isn't this?" And essentially, the Spider one is interesting because essentially, it bounces and bounces and bounces and bounces and bounces. If all of your pages are orphans, which is what I found with this one, I did this crawl- Mordy Oberstein: Or maybe there's no link to any other page. Crystal Carter: There's no link to any of the pages. Then basically the crawler won't crawl. Mordy Oberstein: Yep. Crystal Carter: It goes to that one page and goes, "Cool. Awesome." So you need to make sure, so it's worth comparing. And within Screaming Frog, you can compare the two. You can compare your site map and your crawl and you can see where the things are missing, and that's worth thinking about as well. Mordy Oberstein: And again, all these kind of things, it can be a little bit overwhelming. But again, there's a free version of Screaming Frog. It's really simple to run the site. Just play around. Whatever you get out of it, you get out of it and you go back again. And whatever you get of it next time, you get out of it the next time. Slow and steady runs a race, baby steps. Crystal Carter: One thing I will also say about Screaming Frog is that because it's so foundational, there's lots of documentation and lots of SEOs have gone through Screaming Frog and done this, this, that, that and the other. So if there's ever anything you want to find on Screaming Frog and you are not sure, you can Google how to find this on Screaming Frog. There was a blog that I found recently that was like how to do almost everything on Screaming Frog. Their documentation is also very good. And I would say that yeah, if you're stuck on anything, literally just Google it. Don't flounder around for ages. Just Google it and somebody's almost already figured it out. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. You know what else you should be diving into other than Screaming Frog and Google's Search Console, it's the latest and greatest news coming out of the SEO world. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, more reasons to keep an eye on what Google is doing in the e-comm space. If you have to pay attention to one area of Google and what it's up to, e-comm would be it in my honest opinion. Per Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal. Google introduces new search labels for coupons and promo. So in a nutshell, Google made a bunch of announcements related to their on the SERP shopping experience. For example, the zoo functionality to copy a coupon code from a shopping listing, as well as Google's price insights coming to the search results, which by the way is a nifty little feature that lets you see how much the product typically costs. And the product that you're buying, how much does it typically cost? So in other words, you're getting a good idea if you're getting a good deal or not. To me, by the way, this is where Google's shopping experience really shines. They have the power to give you so much data. And for whatever reason ,Amazon just doesn't. So Google making price data insights accessible to me is basically their way of moving in on Amazon's eCommerce dominance. Okay, next up from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Check this out. Links may be less important to the Google search ranking algorithm in the future. I've been saying this for a long time and thank God. Here's what Google said directly. Here's a direct quote from Google's John Mueller, "Well, it's something where I imagine over time the weight on the links at some point will drop off a little bit as we can't figure out a little bit better how the content fits in within the context of the whole web. And to some extent, links will always be something that we care about because we have to find pages somehow. It's like how do you find a page on the web without some reference to it? But my guess is over time, it won't be such a big factor. Sometimes it is today. I think already, that's something that's been changing quite a bit." That again, was Google's direct words, John Mueller's direct words, not mine. Just to give you a kind of conceptual understanding of what he's saying. Links are a secondary signal. Links don't tell you whether the content is actually good or not, or it actually answers a question or it's actually usable, digestible, and awesome for the user. Links are a signal that basically say, "Well, so many people keep linking to this page. It must be awesome. We don't really know, but it must be." The better Google gets actually understanding the content, I put a tweet out about this and it got a lot of comments and controversy because people are still really hung up on links, too hung up on links. We spoke about it on a previous episode of the podcast. I think it was episode 10, so check that out. We'll link to it in the show notes. Links don't tell you how good the actual content is. So if Google's getting better at actually understanding the content, why would they keep so heavily relying on links when they actually understand what the content is saying and therefore, know if it's relevant or awesome, or answers to question is usable and digestible and so forth. So kind of makes sense logically when you think about it. Sorry, link Builders. Anyway, that's been the Snappy News for this week. It's been snappy and it's been news. Anyway, as we wrap this show up, we were wondering who should we have as a follow of the week. Every week we like to bring somebody else for you to follow on social media, typically on Twitter, because the SEO world's core people live on Twitter. And we're wondering who could it be? Who could it be? Who could it be? We really racked our brains on this one and it was hard to find someone who you should follow. We're talking about Search Console and who could it be? Crystal Carter: Oh, man. Mordy Oberstein: It's all about Search Console on Twitter. Crystal Carter: Somebody who talks about- Mordy Oberstein: Somebody who talks about. So maybe somebody who works on the Search Console product over at Google? Crystal Carter: They maybe done some videos on it or something. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe they have done a few videos, maybe even a webinar or an actual live event actually over at Wix, about Search Console. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I don't know. I can't think of anyone like that. Mordy Oberstein: I know, John Mueller. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: No, no. I mean, you should follow John. He was our follow of the week, I think two weeks ago, three weeks ago. This week, we're talking about Daniel Waisberg. Crystal Carter: The fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: The fantastic Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate over a Google who works on Google's own Search Console team. Who better to follow than the search advocate who works on the Search Console team over at Google? It's Daniel Waisberg. Crystal Carter: Daniel Waisberg, who has been at Google for ages working first with the Analytics team and now with Google Search Console. I had a good chat with him at Brighton about all of the new reports and things they keep adding to Google Search Console because they've been refining it a lot this year and it's been really, really great to see all of that. We have some show notes from the Google Search Console webinar that he did with us in the summer, and he talked about some great things there. And yeah, he's a great advocate and he also talked about a few things that I hadn't heard of. There was one that was new to me, which was the question hub from Google, which is actually new to me. He's extremely knowledgeable about search and very much into his data and a great person to follow if you want to know things about Google Search Console. Mordy Oberstein: And a great person overall. Crystal Carter: Yes, he's lovely. We love Daniel. Mordy Oberstein: We do love Daniel. He's family. So check out Daniel Waisberg, @DanielWaisberg on Twitter. That's D-A-N-I-E-L W-A-I-S-B-E-R-G. It's the W-A-I that might confuse you. Crystal Carter: And tell him we sent you. Mordy Oberstein: And tell him you followed him because Crystal and Mordy sent you over. Crystal Carter: Sure he'll love that. Mordy Oberstein: I want keep track. We'll ask him. 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, as we satisfy our need for speed with a look at site performance and SEO. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts, or on our learning hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Lazarina Stoy Daniel Waisberg Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Google Search Console Optimizing your website performance with Search Console How to Automate The URL Inspection API Get to know the Wix Site Inspection tool Search Console Data Template Are links everything SEOs make them out to be? News: Google Introduces New Search Labels For Coupons & Promos Links may be less important to the Google Search ranking algorithm in the future Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Lazarina Stoy Daniel Waisberg Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Google Search Console Optimizing your website performance with Search Console How to Automate The URL Inspection API Get to know the Wix Site Inspection tool Search Console Data Template Are links everything SEOs make them out to be? News: Google Introduces New Search Labels For Coupons & Promos Links may be less important to the Google Search ranking algorithm in the future 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 putting 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 our wonderful Head of SEO Communications, the one, the only, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: It's me. Hello, internet people. Hi. Hello, Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Hello. You just gave me a recommendation for a show. That's first time you've ever recommended anything to me to... Oh, scratch that. You've made many recommendations to me, not a watching recommendation. So I'm excited. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's good. Mordy Oberstein: How about telling what the audience is. I'm not telling you what it is. Crystal Carter: I really enjoyed it. It was a good show. It had a lot of interesting things and the pace was good. I like a show that moves along and has a lot of pace. Mordy Oberstein: There was a show I was watching with my wife and it was a good show, but they could have wrapped it up in one episode and it was nine. Crystal Carter: Honestly, honestly, when they drag it out. Also, I don't like it when people introduce too many characters at once and too much information. I'm like, "Give me one character and fan out from there." If you give me 12 characters and all of their details straight at once, I cannot cope. But I love an ensemble cast. That's all good. But you need somebody who's like- Mordy Oberstein: Slowly, but surely. Crystal Carter: Yeah, they meet this person. Then you find out about them. Then they meet the next person, you find out about them. If they're like, "This person's here and that person." I'm like, "It's too much. I'm both bored and confused." I don't like it. Mordy Oberstein: I feel like marketers, there's a lot you can take away for your content strategy from what these shows do wrong so much. Crystal Carter: Honestly, do you know, I genuinely, when I'm doing deliverables for SEO projects, I structure them like soap operas. Mordy Oberstein: Oh really? You have people who are in various scandals? Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: Marrying other people. Crystal Carter: Basically, in a soap opera, what will happen is during the season, there'll be one long story that runs in the background, like, who did that mysterious thing, or whose glove was it that was found in wherever? And they'll give you a little bit of that story every time for every episode. But then on every episode, there's also little stories that happen as well, and they will conclude a story on every episode. So every month, you should have something that you definitely finish. And over the course of say, six months of your deliverables, you should have something that you're chipping away at as you go. So it's the big thing that you want to build up to, like building up a content portfolio, or maybe you want to be more competitive on a certain thing. So you chip away at that every month, and it might be a long term project, but you move it forward a little bit every month. Mordy Oberstein: And who says soap operas were worthless, other than me? My grandma used to love them. I'm like, "I don't know what this thing is. This is terrible." But anyway, the SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where traffic thresholds for core web vitals are a thing of the past. Google Search Console not giving you field data that you so desire? Use Wix's speed dashboard. Get field data built off user sessions from multiple browsers. No more guessing what your actual core web vitals are with Wix's site speed dashboard. That is absolutely novel, by the way. And I don't think people appreciate that. Crystal Carter: I love it so much because you want to do better. And with Google Search Console, we're going to talk loads about Google Search Console and you get some fantastic information from it. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic and amazing and wonderful. However, if you are a smaller site, you don't get a lot of that core web vitals information until you reach a certain threshold of traffic. In the meantime, you're just sort of wondering. Mordy Oberstein: Guessing. Crystal Carter: Guessing. Mordy Oberstein: Because the lab data and the field data, the data that Google's giving you, that's simulated to what users actually experience, also known as lab data, is not very close to the actual user experience. Crystal Carter: It's very different. It's very different and it might include you as well. And if you're a small site, then you checking your blog 20 times, let's say you're only getting, I don't know, 70 people coming to that blog, then that's going to be a big portion of the traffic, for instance. So anyway, I'm just saying it's really, really useful if you're trying to make these improvements and also, if you're trying to make these improvements for maybe future traffic that you're going to get. Because if you're like, "We're going to be huge, this blog's going to be amazing, this shop's going to be incredible," you want to make sure that you're able to build and to get off on the right footing. And that report is a great place to start. Mordy Oberstein: And you don't need to use total blocking time is a really bad simulation for FID, which is amazing. They're not similar at all. Anyway, on this show, one tool to rule them all, and it's not the speed dashboard we just mentioned, it's a different tool. Or conversely, you could say if you were stuck on a desert island and you can only bring one tool with you to do your SEO with, which would you bring? The answer of course is Search Console. But why? We'll get into the value of Google Search Console today and what it can provide you with, whether you're a business owner or an SEO or a marketer of any kind. Also, Lazarina Stoy will stop by and share how she extracts value out of Google Search Console. Plus, we'll dive into a little tool from Screaming Frog to help you maximize your Google Search Console prowess. Of course, we'll get into some Snappy News and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness as episode 12 of the SERP's Up podcast is knocking on your audio doors. So much to get into with Search Console. But I think maybe we should sort of explain Search Console a little bit if you're not so familiar with it. Because when you talk about SEO tools, it can get complicated quickly. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So Google Search Console is sometimes abbreviated GSC. If you're on Twitter, if you're online, if you see SEOs chatting with each other, they will talk about Google Search Console like this. Mordy Oberstein: Or just SC. Crystal Carter: SC. Okay, yeah. For the in crowd. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And essentially, what Google Search Console does is it gives you information on how Google is seeing your website. So it's not exactly the same as Google Analytics. Google Analytics will give you information about all of the traffic that's coming through to your website that they can track. So you add a tag to your website and then they will tell you about all of the different channels. So from a marketing point of view, it's absolutely crucial for you to have Google Analytics. Sometimes, SEOs will almost exclusively have access to Google Search Console. But what Google Search Console is really, really good for is understanding how Google is seeing your content, both which rich results you might get and which result is some of those cards. For instance, if you ever Google and you see a recipe card, that's a rich result. If you see a job listing for instance, that's a rich result as well. Product listings, those are also rich results and they show at the top of the SERP. And Google Search Console will tell you about how many of them they are showing and will tell you about which pages they are pulling them from. Google Search Console will also tell you about ranking, where you're ranking on Google. They'll also tell you about which pages are actually in their index. And when we talk about indexing and crawling, Google Search Console will also tell you the difference. So they'll tell you, "We've crawled this page, but we have not put it in any index." And if you don't know what the difference between those two things are, it's essentially like if you were trying to be a pop star musician and you wanted to be top of the charts, you would have to get played on the radio at some point probably. So what being index is like being played on the radio. It doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be top of the charts, that you're going to have a Billboard Award or that sort of thing, but it means you've been played on the radio, so you registered on their index. If you have not been played on the radio, you can't necessarily be top of the charts first. So you need to make sure that you're indexed and that you're crawled. So just because your crawled doesn't mean that you're indexed, just because your indexed doesn't mean that you rank. Mordy Oberstein: Just because your content doesn't mean you deserve to be indexed because some content shouldn't be indexed. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. So there's a lot of different nuances within that. Google Search Console breaks down all of the different parts of it. We, at Wix, have recently released our Google Search Console URL inspection tool. And as part of that, we've got a great blog on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, which Mordy explains what the tool does. And one of the good things about that is we also put together a list of understanding, within our support tool documents, there's also a list of understanding what those things mean, what the different differentiations mean. So discovered in non-indexed and crawl, but non-indexed, that sort of thing. So dig into those as well. There's also lots of links in that documentation to lots of the Google details as well. So yeah, it can be complicated, but it can also be fairly straightforward. So they try to make sure that the reports are really easy to access for people of all different knowledge abilities. And you can also see lots of things about your links. You can also see lots of things about whether or not you've got security things, whether or not you've had a glitch in your server. You can carry out a very detailed technical SEO audit using Google Search Console almost exclusively if you need to. But one of the limitations of Google Search Consoles, it only tells you what's happening on Google, and it only tells you what's happening on Google organically. So you can't get information on your traffic from Facebook, you can't get information on your traffic from paid. You can't get information on your traffic from other search engines like say Bing or Baidu or whatever it is. So those are the limitations. Bing Webmaster Tools also has something very similar to Google Search Console and it can be interesting to compare the two to see how your site is being crawled. And yeah, it's a great tool. Publication called the State of Technical SEO asked over 800 SEOs, which tools they use for their technical SEO. And 93% of SEOs said they use Google Search Console. So if you want to do better with your SEO, getting into Google Search Console is really important. Mordy Oberstein: Which is what we kind of plan on doing today. But what we're kind of going to do is give you sort of an overview of some of the things that it can do and why it's so valuable. But I think the most important thing for you to do is after listening to this, if you are familiar with Search Console, to play around with it more. And if you're not familiar with Search Console, play around with it because it is kind of intuitive once you poke around a little bit and sort of experiment with what's going on in there. Out of all the tools, I would say Google Analytics, like, whoa, okay, you got to take a step back, you got to really get into it, especially GA4. But Search Console's not that way. A lot of the reporting is pretty straightforward. Some of the more technical things around indexing are not, but you can find good documentation around it. But kind of what you said is really the value of Search Console, that it does everything. It's so comprehensive, it talks to you about how many clicks you're getting. It talks how your pages are performing on Google. It also gives you a more technical analysis. You can look at things like which Google bots are crawling your website and how often are they crawling your website? There's a lot of great data in there and there's data around links and it's all free. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's all free. I think we talk a lot about SEO generally. But if you are not familiar with Google Search Console and you are a Wix user, you have the ability to, within the SEO set of checklists, connect directly to Google Search Console as you set up your Wix website. And this is fantastic. You also have built into the CMS a URL inspection tool that allows you to see information about Google Search Console, about your index ability for individual pages. And that, I think, is testament to how important a team at Wix thinks Google Search Console is and I think it's a testament to how important we think it is for SEO success. So yeah, it's a great tool. And I think that you mentioned that it's fairly accessible and I've had before where people are like, "Oh, Google Search Console, what's so great about that?" And I think sometimes people look at it and they go, "This is really basic information," and it's actually not. It's almost deceptively simple. The way it's presented is pretty straightforward. But you can also get very clear information about which keywords you're actually ranking for, which is really interesting because you might be trying to rank for one thing, but the keywords that you're actually ranking for might be very, very different. So it's worth looking at the keywords that you're ranking for and the keywords that different pages are ranking for. You can also filter by region. So for instance, if you're seeing that you're getting a lot of traffic, but maybe it's not very relevant, you can filter by region and see maybe you're ranking really, really well in another country. I've seen this happen before. Maybe you're ranking it really, really well in a different country, but actually, you serve customers locally. And so you should be looking at the rankings for your country that you're in. So this can happen sometimes when countries share a similar language. So I've seen it where people based in England were ranking in the US and it wasn't that valuable to them because they could only serve clients in the UK. So we had to adjust our Search Console filters so that we were only looking at where we were ranking in the UK. And then we could make better, more actionable SEO strategies. Mordy Oberstein: You can definitely get super complicated with the filters. I implore you to look at the filters, but don't necessarily think it's super complicated either with the filters, there's just basic comparisons you can do. And again, you're seeing things like, okay, so three months ago, how many clicks did I get versus now, how many clicks am I getting? And that's also one of the things you can do great with Search Console. One of the unique things about Search Console is you can see the impressions that you're getting, meaning your pages are showing up on Google, but you're not getting any clicks. Why is that? Perhaps my title tags are just absolutely horrific and I don't know, they just say home for homepage. Crystal Carter: Right, right. Mordy Oberstein: I'm ranking but no one's clicking. Crystal Carter: Right, exactly. So that's a really, really interesting one. So people sometimes show impressions. Impressions aren't always great. Sometimes if the impressions you have are for keywords that aren't relevant for your website, then you need to retune your content. And when you're looking at the performance report, you can see total clicks. Total clicks, that's pretty straightforward. Those are themes that people actually clicked on. And your impressions is when somebody entered a query and your content was shown. They might not have clicked on it, but your content was shown after somebody entered a query. The click through rate is essentially one divided by the other. So for every 10 times that your content was shown, one person clicked on it. Is that 10% click through rate? I don't know. That would be really, really high. Mordy Oberstein: Math. It's really high by the way, 10% click through rate. Crystal Carter: That's really high. 10% click through rate is very high. You might have that for one particular query, like maybe for your brand or something like that. And then your average position is the average place where you rank. Mordy Oberstein: You should be careful with that one because it's not exactly accurate and it should give you a general sense of things. By the way, data in general gives you a general sense of things. The numbers are never going to be actually exact, even in Search Console, even though it's Google data. But it does kind of bring up why you sometimes, or best practice would be to use a third party tool for various things. If a queue were to super important to you, you see that you're getting a lot of impression and clicks for it in Search Console, then that's something you might want to track in a rank tracking tool. Because the average rank studies have shown is less than accurate all the time. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I almost never rely on a single data source for a particular bit of information because Google Search Console's obviously getting information from Google. Sometimes with Google Search Console, you don't get the information straight away. So sometimes, you might not see the data, like you might not see yesterday's data straight away. You might have to wait a couple of days before the data comes through, which sometimes if you've got a flash sale or if you've got some very important news that's dropping, then you might want to know where you were ranking on that day. So that can be tricky. But yeah, I would very rarely rely on a single source. Also, this is one of the reasons why I bring up Bing. Bing also gives you information on those things. So for instance, if your ranking suddenly drop in Google Search Console, it's worthwhile checking what your rankings are like on Bing to see if they've changed as well or if they're the same. And again, the other thing about Bing and Google Search Console is that if you're like, "I don't spend a lot of time on Bing," that's okay. When you go to Bing to set up your analytics, you go to Bing Webmaster, I think it's Bing Webmaster Tools, and you can connect to Google Search Console with one click and they will pull through all of the information you have from there into their system. So again, if you see your ranking suddenly change in Google Search Console and they don't change in Bing, then it might be that there was an algorithm update that affected you in Google and didn't affect you in Bing. If you see that they both change really quickly, then it might be that there's a technical issue on your website. Mordy Oberstein: Which again, the tools can help you with because you can check out indexing issues which is by the way, I think it's really important these days. Because I think things that are changing around indexing. I think Google is being a little more choosier about what it decides to index. So a little bit of a myth that every page should be in. No, if there's a page that's not really helpful. Imagine had a page and all it was, was like a sign up button for subscribe to an email, a newsletter. That's not a very useful page. Google's probably not going to index that page and nor should it really be indexed. It's really meant for people who are already on your site to follow through and subscribe to your newsletter, whatever it is. Crystal Carter: Right, absolutely. And I think that you should be very, very much, it's all killer, no filler. You want to make sure that you've got your most important pages indexed. And sometimes, you look in the discover not indexed and you say, "There's a lot of URLs there." Well, look at which ones they are. Sometimes they're UTMs because sometimes those get indexed. Sometimes they're from different campaign ads, sometimes they are category pages that might not necessarily be- Mordy Oberstein: Archive pages. Crystal Carter: Archive pages. Sometimes they're old links from an old URL that Google knows about and they need to know about that so that they can manage the redirect so that they can pay attention to how that traffic flows and the value of those URLs. So for instance, if you had an old domain and you migrated it to, let's say it was HTTP and you migrated it to HTTPS, then those are two different URLs to Google. So they might very well still have in their record the old URL and that will be discovered but not indexed. That's something they know about, but they don't have that in the index because they're indexing the new one. They're doing you a favor. So that's something to think about as well. So look at which ones are discovered and not indexed. If you see something in there that you're like, "Wait a second, that should absolutely be indexed," then there's a couple of things that you can do, and we might talk about that on another podcast. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and don't afraid because you're going to see all these different, crawl but not indexed, discovered but not indexed, all these different statuses. And they might seem confusing, but there's a lot of documentation Google has around them and there's a lot of great resources around what they mean and how to possibly fix them. So if you see them crawl but not indexed, it could be very much that you have a page that's very, very similar. And Google's like, "Well, we already have this page on the index so we're not going to put it there." But for you it's very different. And then a different intent or might be more of a commerce intent or transactional intent rather. So definitely pay attention to what's happening in there because Google, again is getting a little bit choosier. The way I think about it is if Google's better understanding content, it's going to be choosier about what it decides to index or not to index. And as it gets better at doing that, which it has been in more recent times is getting better that, it's going to get choosier and choosier about what gets indexed, which means there could be real issues for you. So don't be afraid of putting your toe into that index kind of stuff and to the page's reports that you have in there inside of Search Console. Research, ask questions, dig into it because it's super important, even though it might seem a little bit daunting to deal with it. Crystal Carter: Yeah, don't be afraid of it and ask for help. The SEO community can be really helpful and there's absolutely opportunities for that. And I think the more signals you can give Google about which pages are most important to you, the better. We've talked about internal linking, for instance. Internal linking is a great signal for telling Google that something is an important page. It's like people sending lots of referrals to someone. If they're getting lots of referrals, then that's going to tell Google that it's an important page. So show them that it's important, don't just assume that they'll figure it out. Show them with links internally, externally, with relevant content, additional schema, lots of things like that. Mordy Oberstein: And we'll put some resource into the show notes that'll help you. If you see a certain status in your Search Console reporting, we'll give you some information and resources that you can use to come up some possible solutions to fix those problems. So check out the show notes. With that, we have a fabulous SEO who's going to share with you how she uses Google Search Console to make well informed SEO decisions, keyword well inform SEO decisions. Here's Lazarina Stoy and how she uses Search Console. Lazarina Stoy: I love Google Search Consult and use it daily. There are so many useful reports there and it's ever changing. From the more recent reports, the video indexing feature is something I use to quickly troubleshoot performance of no indexed videos and ensure that the companies I'm working with appear as expected in all the different search types that they're targeting. I frequently use the page indexation reports as well as the crawl data to identify any changes to crawling behavior and quick fix errors that might be prohibiting pages to appear as expected. These reports can also help signal content issues as well. The enhancements reports are amazing for websites that have structured data implemented because at a glance, I can identify errors as well as the overall effort and strategy implemented, which in turn enables me to better identify opportunities on what can be implemented to enhance the search appearance of websites via featured snippets. Often, not very much used by SEOs, but still a super useful report for anyone that does not have access to SEO tooling is the links report, which can help troubleshoot internal linking strategies and improper use of anchor text. I always recommend this to small website owners to take advantage of. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you, Lazarina. A great point, by the way. She brings up the video reporting in there. That's relatively new. And one thing to keep in mind when you're looking at Search Console and using Search Console is that Google's put a lot of emphasis on dev inside of Search Console and they're constantly refining and bringing in new reporting. So keep an eye for new things inside a Search Console, that'll be really helpful. In this case, the video is absolutely super cool if you have a very, very video intensive website. So keep an eye out for what Google's doing. They're doing a great job over there with their development around Search Console. Crystal Carter: And I think particularly, you mentioned the video and she mentions it as well, and I think that one of the other things that's great about Search Console's it tells you what Google cares about. So they add all these features when it's something that they say, if it's not measured, it doesn't matter. That's a thing people say. And if they're measuring it, it means that it matters. So if they've got a whole report all about video, then that tells you that maybe you should have some video on your website. And if you don't have any, then maybe you should consider making some or including some, because with the video report, for instance, it doesn't have to be your YouTube video, it doesn't have to be a YouTube video at all. But if you have a video that's embedded on your page, then Google is able to see it and it can help your content to perform better and it can help you to track better. Google Search Console also lets you filter by the types of media so you can see where images are ranking and things like that, for instance. And Lazarina, one of the reasons why I was really pleased to have her along here is because she does a lot of really interesting things with Google Search Console. Not just the things she talked about, but also some of the reports that she's able to create by combining Google Search Console data with what was Google Data Studio and is now Looker. Mordy Oberstein: Looker, yeah, that's a weird name. Yeah. Crystal Carter: Huh? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. We'll link to the Google Looker dashboard thing, I don't know what you call it now, in the show notes. Crystal Carter: I'm going to look at the Looker. Mordy Oberstein: Let's not get into the branding names. That was bizarre to me. But anyway, hey, who are we to judge, right? It works for them. I'm sure they've done their research for it. Looker is definitely a better name than Google Beta Studio. Crystal Carter: Are you sure? Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: I kind of like names that where in the name, you can sort of understand what you're going to get out of it. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: With Looker, I kind of feel like, I'm not even going to go there. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: Now with that, there are so many, just got to pivot it right out that, there are so many tools that pull in Search Console data. Every SEO tool really does. A few years go ranking tracking tool. Oftentimes, they will let you integrate with Google Search Console through Google Search Console's APIs. You can compare all sorts of ranking data and Search Console data to this data, to that data and to other sorts of the data. As I mentioned before, we integrated with Google's URL inspection tool API to create our site inspection dashboard. So Google's Search Consoles, because it is foundational SEO information, will often be used by various third party SEO tools, which is why we're proud to bring you Tool time by the SERP's UP podcast. This time we're going to Screaming Frog, which itself is a seminal SEO tool and how they pull in Google Search Console's URL inspection API, and what you can do with Screaming Frog. Crystal Carter: Screaming Frog, as you mentioned, is a foundational tool. It's used for technical SEO and it allows you... You can also use it for content as well. But it allows you to do a crawl of your website. It allows you to assess your site map and lots of information like that. I use it with Google Search Console to corroborate data to prioritize what things you need to do, for instance. So within Google Search Console, you can submit your site map and that should form the bulk of what gets crawled and what gets indexed. There are sometimes bits of your website that are not in your site map and they sometimes end up being indexed as well. So one of the things you can do with Screening Frog is you can do a different mode, not the standard crawl, but you can do a list, for instance, and you can submit your site map list and then you can crawl that with the Google Search Console API. And then you can see which things are being indexed from your site map and which things are not being indexed from your site map. And if they're not being indexed, then you can go, "Why isn't this indexed? Should it be in the site map? Should it be indexed? What should we do here?" And so essentially, you can take those little bits of information and you can compare them. Then again, as I say, I very rarely rely on a single thing. But if you're comparing this with the information you get in, say like the Wix URL inspection tool, then you can also see which part of the site it's in, which site map it's in, which folder it's in, and see if there's some commonalities across URLs that are within the same site map or have the same configuration, for instance. But Screaming Frog, like Google Search Console, is something that it can seem both simple and complicated at the same time. Essentially, if you use Screaming Frog, which you can on a free version, you can see 500 URLs. So you can crawl your website, you pump the URL and you press crawl, and then you can get lots of information on your website. And it kind of just looks like a spreadsheet and you really need to click around and dig around. I tweeted ages ago, "Has anyone ever completed Screaming Frog? Because I just keep finding more levels." And it's absolutely true because people do incredible things. And you can also export it to different things. So you can export the data from your from Screening Frog as a CSV, and then you can use it in whatever kind of data, whether you're using Excel or whether you're using Google Sheets, or you can connect it directly to Google Sheets and you can export your data there. And then you can do more SEO analysis or more bulk updates from that. But you can see lots of information about both crawl information and also different parts of your site. So your images, your meta descriptions, whether things are indexable, what status could they have, lots of things like that. Mordy Oberstein: If you're looking at all the pages that Google has actually crawl but not indexed, and you're able to combine them with all the headers are on those pages, you're like, "Wow, okay, there's a pattern here. There's something going," that's good information. Because you could see there's a content issue with those pages. That's probably the reason why Google's crawled them but hasn't decided to index them. So combining information that these tools allow you to do with Search Console data in all sorts of ways can be super helpful to you. Crystal Carter: Super helpful. And I've had it before where I looked at a site and we had a site map, that was fine, and that had loads of URLs in it. And then I ran it through a Screaming Frog with the Spider tool and it only pulled up two URLs. And I was like, "What? What's going on?" And when I ran it through the site map, it was like, "Yeah, you've got all these URLs and they're all 200s," and all that stuff. And I was like, "How come we can't find? Why isn't this?" And essentially, the Spider one is interesting because essentially, it bounces and bounces and bounces and bounces and bounces. If all of your pages are orphans, which is what I found with this one, I did this crawl- Mordy Oberstein: Or maybe there's no link to any other page. Crystal Carter: There's no link to any of the pages. Then basically the crawler won't crawl. Mordy Oberstein: Yep. Crystal Carter: It goes to that one page and goes, "Cool. Awesome." So you need to make sure, so it's worth comparing. And within Screaming Frog, you can compare the two. You can compare your site map and your crawl and you can see where the things are missing, and that's worth thinking about as well. Mordy Oberstein: And again, all these kind of things, it can be a little bit overwhelming. But again, there's a free version of Screaming Frog. It's really simple to run the site. Just play around. Whatever you get out of it, you get out of it and you go back again. And whatever you get of it next time, you get out of it the next time. Slow and steady runs a race, baby steps. Crystal Carter: One thing I will also say about Screaming Frog is that because it's so foundational, there's lots of documentation and lots of SEOs have gone through Screaming Frog and done this, this, that, that and the other. So if there's ever anything you want to find on Screaming Frog and you are not sure, you can Google how to find this on Screaming Frog. There was a blog that I found recently that was like how to do almost everything on Screaming Frog. Their documentation is also very good. And I would say that yeah, if you're stuck on anything, literally just Google it. Don't flounder around for ages. Just Google it and somebody's almost already figured it out. Mordy Oberstein: Exactly. You know what else you should be diving into other than Screaming Frog and Google's Search Console, it's the latest and greatest news coming out of the SEO world. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News, more reasons to keep an eye on what Google is doing in the e-comm space. If you have to pay attention to one area of Google and what it's up to, e-comm would be it in my honest opinion. Per Matt Southern over at Search Engine Journal. Google introduces new search labels for coupons and promo. So in a nutshell, Google made a bunch of announcements related to their on the SERP shopping experience. For example, the zoo functionality to copy a coupon code from a shopping listing, as well as Google's price insights coming to the search results, which by the way is a nifty little feature that lets you see how much the product typically costs. And the product that you're buying, how much does it typically cost? So in other words, you're getting a good idea if you're getting a good deal or not. To me, by the way, this is where Google's shopping experience really shines. They have the power to give you so much data. And for whatever reason ,Amazon just doesn't. So Google making price data insights accessible to me is basically their way of moving in on Amazon's eCommerce dominance. Okay, next up from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Check this out. Links may be less important to the Google search ranking algorithm in the future. I've been saying this for a long time and thank God. Here's what Google said directly. Here's a direct quote from Google's John Mueller, "Well, it's something where I imagine over time the weight on the links at some point will drop off a little bit as we can't figure out a little bit better how the content fits in within the context of the whole web. And to some extent, links will always be something that we care about because we have to find pages somehow. It's like how do you find a page on the web without some reference to it? But my guess is over time, it won't be such a big factor. Sometimes it is today. I think already, that's something that's been changing quite a bit." That again, was Google's direct words, John Mueller's direct words, not mine. Just to give you a kind of conceptual understanding of what he's saying. Links are a secondary signal. Links don't tell you whether the content is actually good or not, or it actually answers a question or it's actually usable, digestible, and awesome for the user. Links are a signal that basically say, "Well, so many people keep linking to this page. It must be awesome. We don't really know, but it must be." The better Google gets actually understanding the content, I put a tweet out about this and it got a lot of comments and controversy because people are still really hung up on links, too hung up on links. We spoke about it on a previous episode of the podcast. I think it was episode 10, so check that out. We'll link to it in the show notes. Links don't tell you how good the actual content is. So if Google's getting better at actually understanding the content, why would they keep so heavily relying on links when they actually understand what the content is saying and therefore, know if it's relevant or awesome, or answers to question is usable and digestible and so forth. So kind of makes sense logically when you think about it. Sorry, link Builders. Anyway, that's been the Snappy News for this week. It's been snappy and it's been news. Anyway, as we wrap this show up, we were wondering who should we have as a follow of the week. Every week we like to bring somebody else for you to follow on social media, typically on Twitter, because the SEO world's core people live on Twitter. And we're wondering who could it be? Who could it be? Who could it be? We really racked our brains on this one and it was hard to find someone who you should follow. We're talking about Search Console and who could it be? Crystal Carter: Oh, man. Mordy Oberstein: It's all about Search Console on Twitter. Crystal Carter: Somebody who talks about- Mordy Oberstein: Somebody who talks about. So maybe somebody who works on the Search Console product over at Google? Crystal Carter: They maybe done some videos on it or something. Mordy Oberstein: Maybe they have done a few videos, maybe even a webinar or an actual live event actually over at Wix, about Search Console. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I don't know. I can't think of anyone like that. Mordy Oberstein: I know, John Mueller. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: No, no. I mean, you should follow John. He was our follow of the week, I think two weeks ago, three weeks ago. This week, we're talking about Daniel Waisberg. Crystal Carter: The fantastic. Mordy Oberstein: The fantastic Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate over a Google who works on Google's own Search Console team. Who better to follow than the search advocate who works on the Search Console team over at Google? It's Daniel Waisberg. Crystal Carter: Daniel Waisberg, who has been at Google for ages working first with the Analytics team and now with Google Search Console. I had a good chat with him at Brighton about all of the new reports and things they keep adding to Google Search Console because they've been refining it a lot this year and it's been really, really great to see all of that. We have some show notes from the Google Search Console webinar that he did with us in the summer, and he talked about some great things there. And yeah, he's a great advocate and he also talked about a few things that I hadn't heard of. There was one that was new to me, which was the question hub from Google, which is actually new to me. He's extremely knowledgeable about search and very much into his data and a great person to follow if you want to know things about Google Search Console. Mordy Oberstein: And a great person overall. Crystal Carter: Yes, he's lovely. We love Daniel. Mordy Oberstein: We do love Daniel. He's family. So check out Daniel Waisberg, @DanielWaisberg on Twitter. That's D-A-N-I-E-L W-A-I-S-B-E-R-G. It's the W-A-I that might confuse you. Crystal Carter: And tell him we sent you. Mordy Oberstein: And tell him you followed him because Crystal and Mordy sent you over. Crystal Carter: Sure he'll love that. Mordy Oberstein: I want keep track. We'll ask him. 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, as we satisfy our need for speed with a look at site performance and SEO. Look for it wherever you consume your podcasts, or on our learning hub at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix Learning Hub at, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . 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Back Blog optimization collaborative Google doc Use this collaborative document to streamline your blog publication process and improve on-page optimization. Get resource Full name* Agency name Business email* I want to receive news and updates from the Wix SEO team. * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix’s Privacy Policy . Get resource Use this Google Doc to: Structure content in a format that search engines understand Collate vital on-page SEO factors like metatags, links and URLs Coordinate feedback from collaborators seamlessly Hand over content for uploading effectively Cover off content distribution considerations before publishing Manage hashtags, newsletter inclusion and CTAs so team members can access them easily Simon Cox Technical SEO Consultant, Cox and Co Creative LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Simon Cox has been building, managing, optimizing, measuring, and taking websites apart since 1995. In-house at a global financial corporate for many years, he now offers freelance SEO consultancy, bakes bread, and crafts technical SEO audits. Find him at simoncox.com . More about this topic Read this post about the benefits of using a template for content publication on the Wix SEO Hub blog for more information. Share this resource Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

In what ways does systematic team collaboration drive success in SEO? Wix’s Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, travels over to Brighton SEO to lead a deep discussion into ‘SEO as a team’ with a group of esteemed panelists. What does task delegation mean to overall team evolution? Learn the processes industry leaders use to move their team along collectively and progress as a whole. In addition, understand how team collaboration has changed overtime with the evolution of Google, and how you can adapt as an SEO. Plus, hear the varying perspectives of panelists on some of the most commonly contested SEO questions. Brighten your day and tune in to this special feature of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast recorded live from Brighton SEO as we discover the roots of team collaboration in SEO! Back Play ball! Why SEO is a team sport - Live from BrightonSEO In what ways does systematic team collaboration drive success in SEO? Wix’s Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, travels over to Brighton SEO to lead a deep discussion into ‘SEO as a team’ with a group of esteemed panelists. What does task delegation mean to overall team evolution? Learn the processes industry leaders use to move their team along collectively and progress as a whole. In addition, understand how team collaboration has changed overtime with the evolution of Google, and how you can adapt as an SEO. Plus, hear the varying perspectives of panelists on some of the most commonly contested SEO questions. Brighten your day and tune in to this special feature of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast recorded live from Brighton SEO as we discover the roots of team collaboration in SEO! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 89 | May 29, 2024 | 64 MIN 00:00 / 1:03:55 This week’s guests Grace Frohlich Grace is a SEO consultant at Brainlabs. She has extensive knowledge and experience in SEO fundamentals, and leads strategic direction for her clients in the ecommerce space. Grace has spoken at SEO conferences, most recently BrightonSEO and SearchLove. Sukhjinder Singh Sukhjinder is a freelance SEO consultant with over 13 years of experience mainly on the agency side as a head of SEO. He's got to work with some great brands on national and international SEO campaigns, and is excited to share his mistakes and successes with you in his talk. Barry Adams Barry Adams has been building and ranking websites since 1998. Through his Polemic Digital consultancy business, he focuses on technical SEO and specialised services for news publishers. Barry counts some of the world’s biggest media brands among his clients including News UK, The Guardian, FOX, Future Publishing, Euronews, and Hearst. He is a regular speaker at conferences and events around the world, delivers annual guest lectures for local universities, and writes an irregular newsletter on SEOforGoogleNews.com. Carmen Dominguez A Spanish expat living in Leeds for 10 years, I have been working in the Digital industry for the past 8 years. While I like all Digital aspects: I have done PR, Paid and Social - I am an SEO girl at heart and I can talk about eCommerce SEO & Google’s Natural Language processing for hours. I have worked at an agency and inhouse and I always thought the best SEO work is done with others. I believe in empathy and trust when managing teams and continuous learning for success. Feminist, believer of equality and a foodie, I would kill for a good espresso! Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We've put together some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand at Wix, and I'm joined by the fabulous, amazing, the incredible Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello everyone. Hello on the internet. Hello Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Hi. Crystal Carter: It's been a minute. Mordy Oberstein: It has been a minute. A lot has happened since we last recorded. Crystal Carter: Yeah, internet land podcast people, it has not been a minute. It's been the same amount of time- Mordy Oberstein: No, it's been a week. Crystal Carter: ... it normally is because we just plan things and stuff. But in real life, it's been a minute. Mordy Oberstein: So much has happened. Yeah, things have happened. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I went to BrightonSEO. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I went to New York. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: The Knicks won three playoff games, lost two. Crystal Carter: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, that's all right. That's all right. But yeah, we've been out in the world meeting people, talking to folks. Mordy Oberstein: I went on vacation. Well, not vacation, like stay-cation and a holiday. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's fine. That's when you get gardening done, that's when somebody gives you a list, they're like, "You know that shelf?" Mordy Oberstein: Gardening, that's where you kill plants, right? Crystal Carter: First you have to buy them. You buy them, and then you just- Mordy Oberstein: And then you kill them. Crystal Carter: ... watch them slowly die. Mordy Oberstein: That's how it goes at my house. You buy the plant and then you kill it. Slowly. A slow death. Crystal Carter: I try. I have a cactus that's clearly… Mordy Oberstein: No, cactus does not count. You don't have to do nothing, it just sits there. Crystal Carter: I didn't do anything and it's dead. Mordy Oberstein: Really? Crystal Carter: It died very, very slowly, but it still looks like a cactus, but I know it's not. I know it's dying. Mordy Oberstein: I have a cactus, a giant cactus. Crystal Carter: Really? Mordy Oberstein: Like a desert cactus. Oh, yeah. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Mordy Oberstein: In the garden, giant cactus. Crystal Carter: That's cool. That's cool. Is it like one of the ones from the cartoons with the arms? Mordy Oberstein: It does. Yeah, it has arms. Crystal Carter: That's nice. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'll send you a picture. Crystal Carter: Cool. Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: Anyway, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our newsletter Searchlight each and every month over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also use Wix Studio to work more efficiently with your team, with real time collaboration technology built right into the editor. Because as we all know, SEO is a team sport. And to help us explore how SEO is indeed a team sport, we took the show on the road to BrightonSEO's UK conference where Crystal sat down with Carmen Dominguez, Sukh Singh, Grace Frohlich, and the other Barry. So we won't have your snappiest of SEO news or you should be following this week on social media, because we were in the flesh, well, Crystal was in the flesh, I was on vacation, at one of the industries most prestigious SEO events of the year, BrightonSEO UK. So move over golf, cycling and non doubles tennis, because SEO is a real sport like baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and curling. On this, the 89th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. I left you speechless. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I don't know how to jump in. I feel like you did everything you... I feel like you like mic dropped. I feel like that's great. That's a great intro. I'm going to be talking for most of it anyway with the guys. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm done. This is all you're going to hear from me for the entire episode because I could not make the conference. Crystal Carter: But it's all good because I think that certainly we as a team do a lot of stuff together. Obviously we plan out the podcast, we do all of that sort of stuff, and I think that the way that you work as a team will inform the SEO that you're able to do, and I certainly think that our approach was there in presence, even if you were not there at the moment. And it was a great conversation. And also shout out to the audience because we were flagship for this, I don't think anybody else is doing this, but if you come to a SERP's Up live broadcast, we might have one of these things that we do, which basically we give the audience paddles and the audience will give us their opinions on some of the questions. And we did this at BrightonSEO in San Diego. Mordy Oberstein: That was great. We went real heavy on the audience interaction. It was a lot of fun. Crystal Carter: It was a lot of fun. And then the people on the squads were asking questions to the audience as well, so some of our panelists were asking questions to the audience as well, which I didn't expect, but was a lot of fun. So it's great to get some feedback on how folks in the audience are feeling about some of the questions as well as some of the great insights from our incredible panel. It was a really, really great panel. Mordy Oberstein: So without further ado, I'll see you in the next episode, because here's that panel. Crystal Carter: Hi everyone. Welcome to this episode of SERP's Up live. This is the live BrightonSEO Spring 2024 edition of the SERP's Up podcast. I'm going to be joined by some incredible guests who you can see on my left and right for the people who are here. And also, members of the audience, we have some paddles there for you, which are basically for a little bit of interaction. So one side, green is yes, purple is no. So if there's any questions and basically you'd be like, I agree, I do not agree, then please make yourselves heard. We found this to be a little bit of fun, so we hope that you enjoy it as well. I'm going to get started by introducing my fantastic panelists who I have harangued to join me today. First up, all the way over on my left is Mr. Barry Adams, the founder of Award-winning agency, Polemic Digital, and he's a specialist SEO consultant for news publishers focusing on technical SEO, editorial SEO. His clients include many, many publishers including The New York Times, The Independent, lots of other folks as well. Thank you so much for joining us today, Barry. Barry Adams: Thank you very much for having me. Crystal Carter: It's always a pleasure. Barry may or may not swear so if you are sensitive to such things, I'm just going to warn you there now. So yeah, thank you for that. Hello. Hi there, David Bain. David Bain: Hey. Crystal Carter: Welcome, welcome. Welcome lots of other people as well. And so our next person that I'm going to be introducing is the incredible Carmen Dominguez who is joining us from Hallam Digital. She's the head of Organic at Hallam. I first met her at the Hallam Organic event, which was a great event that took place in Nottingham, and it was a warm day. Carmen Dominguez: It was. We had free ice cream though. Crystal Carter: It was, it was delightful and very well received. And it was lovely to have her there, and she spoke about some great stuff. And so I thought if we could get Carmen along, that'd be lovely. She has worked for agencies, she's worked in-house and led a team of many people. You've built a team. Carmen Dominguez: 23 last year and 15 this year. There we go. Crystal Carter: Exactly. So she's got great experience in-house and also working agency side, and she's going to be sharing her insights as well. Thank you, Carmen, for joining us. Carmen Dominguez: Thank you. I'm super excited to be here today. Crystal Carter: And next up is Sukh Singh, who is from I Do SEO, and I've met him at BrightonSEO a few times over the last few years. And I was really excited to get Sukh along for this session, because Sukh has a great perspective from having worked as the head of SEO at an agency for many, many years and now working freelance, working with agency partners and other clients as well. So thank you so much for joining us, Sukh. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, thanks for having me. Awesome to be here. Crystal Carter: Thank you. And finally on my left is the amazing Grace Frohlich, fellow Californian, and she is joining us from Brain Labs where she works as an SEO consultant, and is managing clients and managing lots of different projects and has both project management experience and also SEO experience, and is a fantastic speaker and a big fan of The Parent Trap as well. And we are really pleased to have you here today, Grace. Grace Frohlich: Thank you. I'm excited. Looking forward to this. Crystal Carter: Wonderful. And then finally, it's me. My name is Crystal Carter. I am the Head of SEO Communications at Wix. I am currently working there, but I have a lot of experience working in agencies, working alongside agencies, working across teams, and I hope to be able to share those insights. And finally, there is y'all good selves, the folks here for BrightonSEO, thank you so much for joining us and for making the trek, because I timed it and it's about five minutes walk from the front door. So we appreciate you and we appreciate you getting your steps in today to join us. If you are not familiar with the SERP's Up podcast, then I thank you for taking that leap of faith and joining us here. The SERP's Up podcast comes out every Wednesday. We get some fantastic speakers. Barry's contributed, Grace has contributed, we've had lots of people contribute as well, some of the people in this room. And yeah, check it out every Wednesday. We have over 80 episodes now, so if you are a fan of podcasts, go and check out the archive. So the topic that we are covering today is SEO as a team sport. And when I say that, I do not mean this kind of team, though, bless the team from Screaming Frog for showing up for cardiovascular exercise with the annual charity BrightonSEO football match. They did a great job there. But we're more thinking about the way that marketing has become so spread out and includes so many different disciplines and so many different specialisms even within SEO. So you have a space where somebody says, "Oh, you're the SEO, you must know every single thing about image SEO." Or, "You must know every single thing about international SEO," or Google Merchant Center or Local SEO. And it can be very, very fractional and very specific. And so I think that SEO, certainly from my perspective, has become a little bit more of a team sport. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and how that works and what that means for us. On the podcast, we have different sections. One of the sections that we do is a section called Deep Thoughts. Thank you. So when we talk deep thoughts, one of the things we think about is the way that Google is progressing. And essentially just on this slide, so for instance, if you were to think about the way Google, as Google's progressing, I'm sure you've all seen this, that it's not just that you have plain blue links or one sort of SERP experience, but that you have SERP experience that includes lots of different channels, particularly for your organic stuff. So you have your YouTube, you'll also have the social that will show on the SERP, you might also have products. And even on the products, they'll have lots of different pages that show up within that. And then everyone's favorite SEO feature is Reddit. So Reddit is showing up in lots of different ways as well. And this is an evolution of Google. And I would like to ask my illustrious panelists, because I've spoken enough now, how has the way that you collaborate across channels evolved as Google has become much more diversified in its SERP as we see more and more of these SERP features? How has the way that you collaborate across channels, across teams changed? Grace Frohlich: Well, I actually first want to know from the audience, how many of you already have SEO Plus paid or other channel collaboration currently? Green, if yes- Crystal Carter: So there's paddles on the chairs. Grace Frohlich: ... purple with no. A lot of green. Crystal Carter: That is coming about, for the listening audience, that's coming up about 80% yes, is what I would say. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, I mean that's great to see, 'cause we really should be working at least with the paid channel already. Google, it's one SERP. Well, it's two channels, but we should be already collaborating with paid at least if not more channels. Crystal Carter: Right. Absolutely. And I think that for users, certainly, they don't even always know whether or not it's paid and they sometimes can't even tell the difference. So if you're trying to connect with the users, and you're trying to connect with the user journey, that should certainly be a part of it. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, absolutely. Especially with the little sponsored, the little label that's barely noticeable now. I remember when it was very, very obvious in the SERP that, oh, you're clicking an ad, but now it's like... Exactly, a lot of users don't really know what they're clicking on. Barry Adams: I miss the days of a yellow background on the ads. Crystal Carter: And I think certainly with product images, it can be sometimes difficult to tell whether or not it's an ad, or whether or not it's organic. Do you find that across your teams that you're working in paid and organic as well? Carmen Dominguez: Absolutely. And I think one of the impacts of not working together, particularly in brand campaigns is that if PPC is not working, or paid in this case, is not working with organic, they don't understand the impact of putting a little bit more of budget in brand will have in the conversions of organic. So it's not only for the clients and the users, it's also for when you are reporting to your clients the results of your work. If you don't collaborate with paid enough, you can maybe put a lot of effort in organic that in the end doesn't get the results, because paid is doing whatever they want on their own. So it's not only within paid and organic, it's also within all the different sub channels that there is in organic images or SERPs, sorry, the snippets. And it's also within the different type of paid and the different types of organic, which I'll want to talk a little bit more about it before. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I was thinking about in terms of the algorithm changes in the last few years, I think that's forced people to be a bit more multichannel, at least in their thought. And I was thinking of actually promoting Grace's blog posts from a few years ago, the T-shaped marketer being the T being having depth or knowledge in, say SEO for example, being SEO, but also touching on paid search, paid social, PR, et cetera, and recognizing the opportunities to pull in additional traffic where you see, oh, there's more opportunity for paid rather than organic for these keywords might take a bit longer to rank, et cetera. So that together with the algorithm thing and an agency environment, I guess, it just comes, that collaboration comes naturally, I think. Crystal Carter: And do you find that it also has to do with skills like different skillset? Because I certainly know that we are now, within the organic side, really having to think much more about LLMs and AI and how that all works. But paid have been working with AI and, oh, this ad has to learn, although it's machine learning and you just wait for days while it spends money and you have no idea how. And people have been working on that for years. And so I feel like a lot of the skills that people have acquired during that paid space can translate more into how we think about organic as well. Carmen Dominguez: I think it's also the other way around. It plays for both. So I wanted to talk a little bit about skills as well within organic. You cannot have the same person, for example, doing tech then is doing content, even though both need to know a little bit about each other. It's a little bit the same with paid, right? If paid doesn't understand EEAT, for example, and EEAT is purely organic, but EEAT is based on how the user engage with your content. So EEAT should also be applicable for paid in the same way that, for example, paid talk about CTR should also be applicable for organic. So in the end, we are talking about getting so many skills with one person in order to be successful, and it's impossible, which actually goes very well into the conversation that we're talking, that specializing and specializing within a specialization, if that makes sense. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think that when you're thinking about channels and we think about where to specialize in things, which channels do you find are most helpful for growing clients? We've talked a little bit about paid, but are we finding that digital PR, for instance, is as helping with a lot of things? Or are we finding that other elements are helping clients to grow at the moment? Grace Frohlich: I think it's going to be social- Crystal Carter: Social? Grace Frohlich: ... with SEO. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Why do you think that? Grace Frohlich: Well, yeah, I don't have the definitive proof, but from talking with clients and talking cross channely, and strategists within my agency, it's just one of those trends that keeps popping up over and over, basically getting more organic traffic through social. Crystal Carter: Right. I think also there's a question of, with it, you're trying to connect with users and users are on social, and also that with the social thing you get both visibility and you also get clicks, links, et cetera. So there's a potential there. Barry Adams: I think it's not even one specific channel, when I look at how my clients grow their audiences, I work primarily with news publishers, it's all about original reporting and quality of reporting. The news websites that report the news that other websites have first reported are the ones that tend to lose out. Whereas if you're a news publisher that invested in quality investigative journalism and original reporting, you tend to win in the long run. And I think that translates to a lot of other companies as well. If you have a dropshipping e-commerce website, you should have low expectations of long-term success because you're just another middleman. Whereas if you have an original product, you're an original manufacturer or original brand, I think you're probably looking at a healthier future. And I think that's fairly channel independent, be that paid or social or search or email. I think you can always find channels to min/max your growth within the confines of your business. But if your business isn't inherently sound and you don't have a strong brand, I think you should probably change your business. Crystal Carter: So you think that originality is still cutting through in terms of growth? Barry Adams: I see that more and more. I think that's also something that search engines like Google and also organic platforms like Facebook and Instagram, they want to reward originality, they want to reward authenticity. It's hard to do that algorithmically, because it's very much engagement based and you can sort of manipulate engagement figures. But I think they are trying to find ways to measure that and improve that algorithmically so that original brands and quality brands surface more and more, because they realize that's also what our audience wants. The audience wants quality brands and original content and not just rehashed stuff that other websites have done before and maybe worse or better. Crystal Carter: And I think in the space of LLMs, I think it's even more important to be unique in that space in order to see growth. And I don't know if you all wanted to add anything more. Sukhjinder Singh: I was thinking about EEAT bolstering social as well, or social bolstering EEAT. So the experience and authority of the authors and the website as well, and seeing that engagement on social. And also with social being a good research tool, I just saw... Oh God, his name's blanking me now. I'm going to have to comment on it later. Crystal Carter: Steven Bartlett? He's on all the socials. Sukhjinder Singh: No, actually I was at an SEO talk about an hour ago on using TikTok for keyword research in terms of topical research. And then even if the resulting keywords have zero search volume, he did a case study where he still used those keywords and saw an uptick in search console data in impressions and click-throughs, et cetera, even with such volume zero keywords. So I think it's a good tool there. Carmen Dominguez: I'm sorry, go. No, no. I was going to say that I think in the end, everything is related. Right? If you have a good brand, probably you're going to be all over social, and if you are all over social, your users are going to be engaging with you and they're going to end up going back to your website. So I think the whole point of change is not specific areas, it's actually looking at the overall. So we have a good brand, we have to showcase EEAT in every single possible channel, and that is what is going to make you successful. And on that, what you were saying, I also recently did a test on particularly TikTok and Instagram with one of my e-commerce clients, and actually getting lots of links coming from TikTok made all the people clicking on my products. And my products now rank, even though I don't have no longer people coming from TikTok just because the clicks made Google to recognize my products. So it does have an impact being in social, but also my brand now is much better recognized in TikTok as well because of that. So people come from brand much, much often. So I think it's all related into making sure that we do all an organic strategy where we look at all the different channels all at once rather than just single pointing different areas, if that makes sense. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So I think that flows in next to our next session where we're talking about team evolution. So if you're in a space where you are finding, for instance, that TikTok is a really good channel for your brand or that you're getting good traffic from Instagram, for instance, how are you thinking about which skills... How are you thinking about how you're connecting with your team and how you need to evolve your team in order to sit alongside those channels? Are you thinking that you need to maybe get another social media person or maybe work alongside a social media person? Or are you thinking that one person needs to suddenly become an SEO and a social media? Carmen Dominguez: And it's super difficult actually. And one of the things I have done with my team recently is changed the whole structure of it. So in agency, normally we're used to having one SEO person, one technical SEO person, content, digital PR, and they all work in silos even though they work toward the same objective. For me, what I have done is try to make sure that everyone has the basic SEO knowledge of everything, but then they specialize farther away. But they work together in squads, which actually every week they're like, "Okay, I found this issue in the technical SEO that might have an impact in content. I'm not an expert in content. Content person, tell me what you think." And then the content person also knows about EEAT, who collaborates with the social media person to try to elevate EEAT. And then social media also communicates. It's way harder, because it means that you need to be upskilling constantly, right? You cannot just know one thing and that's it. And it means that collaboration needs to be tighter, which is very difficult, particularly if you work remote. So because Google is changing so fast and the SERPs are changing so fast, you need to change as fast. But humans, we are slower, right? So it is difficult. I think we need to change a lot how we collaborate as teams and we need to forget about silos. How do we do that, become a reality, is another thing. And I'm not sure how you feel. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, exactly the same. Yeah. So I was working in an agency up until a year and a half ago, and at that time we did try to bring in processes and loads of opportunities to have these collaborative conversations. And as a freelancer now I can attest to how easy it was to upskill and how that comes in an agency versus now, like I spend way more time reading and stuff, which is great because there's lots more podcasts like this now. But also, you have to work harder as a freelancer to collaborate. But if you're in an agency where you have a team, you've got that immediacy there, which is great. But then what I struggled with was the same thing with you, with communication. So creating enough opportunities like team huddles and all this stuff, but also incentivizing it and saying, "Okay, what are our shared KPIs? And how can we help you guys?" And vice versa. And just getting them bought into the other channels outside of SEO and get them bought into the multichannel collaboration or how it contributes to the global KPIs and the SEO and vice versa. So yeah, I can't quite explain it. I used slides at the time on all this stuff, but basically just getting them bought in and having way more meetings. And then finding out what's the important KPIs to them and what motivates them and getting collaboration that way. Grace Frohlich: Yes, I agree with both of you actually. I actually spoke about this in the Women in Tech SEO conference in March about cross channel with paid, how to get paid and SEO to work together. So if you want to check that out, I think that can be a transferable kind of a process that I talked about. But yeah, everything you just said, getting to know their challenges for the other channel, getting to know what their goals are and KPIs, and aligning with regular meetings. Of course, easier said than done, I can attest to that. But a lot of it... And also don't underestimate building a relationship with the other channel, the people. There's people behind these channels, so that's also really important. Crystal Carter: And I think, can I just, questions from the audience? So if you've seen the little paddles, so green is yes, and it's like purply blue is no. Do you find that you're collaborating with more people who are working outside of your core channel? Yes for green, or purple for no. Wow. I have 100% green y'all, that's 100% yes. I think that's really fascinating and I think that's really, really good to see, especially in the dynamic SERP space that we're working in. Barry, you're working with a lot of clients who are working, like we were talking earlier about the Mail for instance, and they are huge on social, they're huge on lots of different channels. How are you finding, because we're talking about ways that people communicate, how do you find that you keep in the loop or you connected between what's happening in the different spaces? Barry Adams: I’ll tell you almost most of my clients engage me for a very small specific role. And I personally haven't worked in a team for over 10 years, just me and the voices in my head as a freelancer. But I do find it very interesting how it's evolved in who hires me and in the context that they hire me. Where previously when I came in in the early stages of my freelance career, I was sort of like the SEO guy, and everything SEO related I had to take that by the scruff of the neck for that client and do it. Whereas now, a lot of them have very detailed in-house capabilities. They have good editorial SEOs, for example, and they have good technical people who have some SEO knowledge. So when they engage with a freelancer like myself, it's a much more specific skillset and specific project that they need that they don't have or don't want to develop in-house. And for me, that shows how far the industry has already come and how far the specialties with the industry have already come. Especially in news where I work, you have people who are very, very good at, for example, the editorial side of SEO, optimizing articles and site structures. But the technical side is something that they probably don't need hardcore internal capabilities for when you can just once every year or two years get an outsider in to do a sanity check on your website. And that shows to me that they already have the defined roles. It's not enough to be an SEO anymore, you need to be a specific type of SEO. I think as your career progresses in SEO, again the concept of the T-shaped marketer, you even have a T-shape within the T-shape where it becomes a much more narrow T. When I started doing this, I'm old enough to remember when the job title was webmaster. I had that job title for a while and you did everything. You did email, you did social, you did SERPs, you did the whole thing. And then I picked one specialty, SEO, and now within SEO it became technical. And within there it's now news SEO. So I think that's where if you want your career to develop, you sort of have to hang your coat on a specific skillset and discipline. That doesn't mean that's always going to be your career because there's overlaps with other channels and other capabilities that you can develop. I mean, fortunately, search is not going to die anytime soon, no matter how often SEO has been proclaimed deceased. We're still alive and kicking and growing. But I think you sort have to find out what you like doing, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and say, "Right, let's go and try and make this work." Let's become a great analytical SEO or a great tech SEO or a great editorial SEO, and there will always be roles within those specialties that really work for you. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. And I think that within that space, there's always devs. No matter what kind of thing there's always devs. And when we're thinking about this, because I feel like, I don't know, maybe this is just me in my little silo, but I feel like devs are devs and they do deving. And so do you have to explain to them when you're having conversations with devs that are taking into account multichannel traffic, multichannel dependencies, for instance, are you finding that those conversations are changing that you need to give them more context about this is a landing page, not just for SEO, this is a landing page for somebody coming from TikTok or that sort of thing? Are you finding that you're having those conversations? Grace Frohlich: I'm finding that we have to explain to devs less of the importance of SEO, because I think more and more, at least clients, they have a foundational understanding of what it is. So because those clients are like the C-suite and the upper management, they give the devs, okay, these are your goals, your KPIs, and a lot of times they align with SEO KPIs. Carmen Dominguez: Yeah, I was going to say too. Yeah, actually when you asked that question, I was thinking when I said I haven't been in SEO as long as Barry has been, but I remember when I started and I started writing content for websites, it was an eternal fight, constantly, constantly fighting. And now most of the time when you talk to devs, they know that there are certain things that they cannot do. They know that there are SEO areas that they shouldn't take so personally when they get feedback on. And I actually, I'm enjoying very much working with devs recently. Once you are able to understand the basics, I think the key is being able to communicate what you're doing, the changes or what you need to do, and what's the point of a website. It's not just to be there. Once you explain that and you create relationship, because that's very important, I think it's particularly easy. Or I think I found, in recent times, it's easier to work with them. Crystal Carter: Okay. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I was going to second that because I started in 2009 with SEO and working with devs at that point. And I guess fair play on their side, they didn't really know the impact or the value, it wasn't part of their roadmap or KPIs or anything. So I learned from that point how to get to know them, I guess. It comes back to relationship building. And I guess, sounds a bit wishy-washy, but emotional intelligence, trying to figure out, okay, what really motivates you? Trying to figure out the body language. Oh, they didn't like that request. Or at the start of my career, I'd have to create a standards document literally on paper and grade their websites, brand new websites, so there's a website division of my first agency. And then I put it on their desk, and then so immediately they're being like, "Oh, yeah, cool." And then they're just like, whatever. And so you're immediately not their favorite person, and I have to find myself to ingratiate myself to them, go to the pub, whatever, I think, but also figure out, okay, how can I get my stuff signed off and kind of relate it all to them? And I think it's become way easier now with SEO integrations in CMSs, whatever. And also it's a bit more word from Google on what impacts what on the website. So it's way easier, but for me it's always been relationship building and figuring out what motivates them. Crystal Carter: Barry? Barry Adams: Yeah, I have a notorious example where I was presenting my findings in a Zoom call to a client and the lead dev was in the call as well, and he counted me on a specific point, and I was maybe lacking emotional intelligence in my response, and frankly, I was a bit of a dick. Anyway, the call went on and we went through the audit and then the CEO wanted to show me something, so he started sharing his screen. He didn't realize he had a Slack channel open where that lead dev had just messaged him saying, this guy is a dick. I actually still want that on a T-shirt. But he was fair, I was being a dick, but I was also right. But it also taught me something that if you want to get stuff done, don't be a dick. And I think in the past, and sometimes even now, I come across as maybe too forceful and too sure of myself, and sometimes we need to look at the context in which we make these recommendations. 'Cause I am an SEO guy with a big SEO hammer, so for me, everything looks like an SEO nail. But I've learned that there's a lot of other moving pieces in an organization that have very different goals, very different objectives, and you have to weigh these things up. And I think I've gotten better at providing the context of a recommendation where I say, "Well, this would be an ideal scenario for SEO, but it might hurt your commercials," or it might hurt usability, or it might have another impact on another aspect of the website. And I think if you frame recommendations or best practices in that context, you actually end up getting done more often than not, because they realize that you realize there's other stuff happening, but you still make that recommendation knowing that the other stuff is happening. So it's probably worthwhile doing the recommendation, whereas if you just say, "Oh, you need to get this shit done right now," that's just not going to fly. Crystal Carter: And question to the audience, are you finding that working with devs is... So green is easier and blue for not easier? Okay, that's probably like 90% easier. I'm finding that really interesting. There's someone in the audience who's like, "Mm-hmm." So yeah, I think that's really interesting. So yeah, I think that's really interesting. Let's go on to squad goals. So here's the scenario. You need to assemble a squad for a new project. You need to get your crew together. It might be people within your team, it might be freelancers, it might be a co-agency, it might be whoever that you're thinking of. What are the things that you're looking for in a new collaborator, and how do you know that this is the match for you? Is it swipe right or swipe left know? No, it's swipe left? Is that right? Sukhjinder Singh: Right? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I don't do them. Okay. So yeah, Sukh, can we start with you? How do you know that this is a good match, we can collaborate, this is going to be a good setup? Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I'm actually doing this at the moment. So as a freelancer, I'm trying to build a network of people in other channels like I had with the agency setup, and I guess I'm doing my own EEAT evaluation of them. So I'm looking at all of their engagements, so not just on their website to say what they've done, but their recommendations on LinkedIn, see if they're legitimate, and then talking to them and looking at case studies, anything like that, and the work history. It's really revealing, so if they're listening to it... So trying to figure out, because as you know, even when hiring people on the agency side, it's really hard to drill down the people that have got real experience. So trying to do that evaluation and then chatting to them and then just starting with a small project. So something that I can get them to chip in on with a small amount of budget and see how they do. And for me, it's important to see the results, but also their personality and if I can work well with them, and if they're reasonable and flexible to a point. So that's how I do it. Carmen Dominguez: And the personality part for me is very important. Beyond the skills, there are lots of people who are very good skills, and that doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to be working well with them. So for me, being aware of my own personality, I might be a little bit intense just to say, it's my Spanish blood. So when I have an idea, I want to go after the idea, but I know that I need to have someone who calms me down. So having someone that is the contrary of me in my team is going to be better for the project. So I look for that, I look for someone who's a doer because I'm a dreamer. So I want to do this, I want to do it now, everyone focused. I need someone who actually will do it, because then if I don't put the time in to do the thing, then it won't happen. So I need someone who is a realistic, someone who is a doer and someone who also has visibility of everything. So independently of the skill sets that everyone has, which is important, I also need to have all of this. But there are also core attitudes that are very important for me, which is honesty. I prefer someone to tell me, "You are a dickhead, Carmen." Ooh, sorry, I said that word, I realize. But I prefer someone who is honest to me than actually says, "Yes, yes, yes," and nothing comes across. And I judge people on actions and not words, so if someone delivers what they say they do and they tell me this is feasible or not, I'm definitely going to be working with them. So core attitudes and people who have different personalities is, for me, what makes a team work well. Crystal Carter: Amazing. Yeah, I think hiring for complimentary skills for the gaps that you have and also being aware of those gaps that you have gets really important. Carmen Dominguez: Which is actually not that common, doing this self-analysis of, okay, who am I? Because maybe I think I'm perfect, but not really. So being aware of the things that you are good at and you are not as good at, it's very important for you to build a good team. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I agree. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, I agree with those points. I will also say if you're trying to build a team, going back to the football, well, soccer, soccer analogy, you don't want a team full of strikers. And also you don't want a team full of keepers like goalkeepers, so you want to diversify. So I would say choose people with different backgrounds. Don't underestimate the value of diversity when you're choosing a team, because they'll have different perspectives, they'll have different backgrounds, different ways of thinking. So that can only make your team stronger. Crystal Carter: And Barry? Barry Adams: I haven't worked in a team for a very long time, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I think I enjoy that part of it. I've never been a real people person, to be highly honest. I do find the clients that I enjoy working with the most are the ones who, I don't know how to describe that common denominator, but they're all in one way or another, extremely good at their jobs and know exactly what they want from external parties. And I'm grateful that I get to be that external partner. I find it very educational, projects where I learn as much from the client as the client hopefully learns from me. And I think that's hard to select for, either somebody has that passion and is that good at their job or they're not. But there's clients who bring me along whenever they move jobs, they work with one publisher and then a few years later they move to a different publisher and they get to work with them again in a different context. But it's still just a really pleasant collaboration, because you get to know each other's ins and outs and know exactly what they're good at and how you can compliment their skillset. Crystal Carter: Right. Yeah. That's awesome. And I have a question to the squad as well, or to the squad here. Also, if you're in the back, you can come in. There's spaces. There are spaces, it's totally fine. Please do come in. Yeah. So one of the things that we've been finding across our teams is that when we're thinking about these things, one of the things you mentioned, Sukh, was that sometimes when you're trying to hire, it's hard to tell which skills people have. Question to the audience. When you're thinking about either hiring or collaborating or whichever with folks, are you finding that AI, people using AI, is a help or a hindrance? Are you finding that people with AI profiles or you finding that people are having AI in their CVs? Are you finding that help is a help or hindrance? So green for help and blue for hindrance on that. Okay, we got a lot of blue. We're about 50/50 there, so that's very interesting. I think that that goes back to one of the points from Carmen that you'd rather know where somebody's limits are in terms of their skills for sure, rather than somebody faking it until they make it necessarily. We are tight on time, so I'm going to move to the next section, which kind of covers that, which is awkward conversations. So when you're working with partners, also the partners are also teams, Barry. So when you're working with partners, when you're working with clients, when you're working across your team, when you're working as part of a collaborative SEO venture, sometimes there's awkward conversations. Sometimes somebody takes credit for something that you're pretty sure was you, and I get a bit upset about that because I'm like, that's my gold star, thank you very much. Or sometimes you're working with a client and they say, "Hey, we want to bring in this other agency." And you're like, "Who are they?" I can see somebody shaking their head. So actually I saw a little bit of reaction to that, so another question to the audience. Okay, and so the client is on the phone with you and they say, "Hey, I like to get this other agency involved." And green for this is good, or blue for I don't know on that. Okay, that's mostly blue. Okay. One more second. This is George. So that's mostly blue. That's my gut instinct. My gut instinct is why, why do you need somebody else? But yeah, other people in the panel, how do you feel about these conversations when this happens? Sukhjinder Singh: I was trying to think of a good example because yeah, it's difficult. I guess early on in the career, I struggled to figure out how to... I used data basically to say, "Oh, but you can see by the last report like, oh, we're hitting your KPIs," or this, that and the other. And if we're not, I'm like, "Boss, what could we do about this kind of thing?" And then obviously I've learned to look at, so basically always using the KPIs as the goal in the reports and trying to develop that customer relationship where I can tell ahead of time, hopefully, if they're thinking of doing that. And I've been in that situation early in my career a few times where it came down to them deciding between us and the other agency based on maybe trivial things as well. Like, price, obviously not trivial, but other things like, oh, the last two reports had an error on it or something like that. And so I'd always try to plan from that point in advance to say, okay, I'm not going to make any mistakes. And I make sure all the communications are on point and even look out for cues like, oh, you're not happy with this and that, or something bad happened a few times in a row, maybe they're going to look at another agency. And obviously if an email pops up on Google Analytics or something, as a user I always think, oh crap, someone's doing an audit or something. So I try and future-proof that, but if I was confronted with that combo, I'd kind of fall back on the data, but also hopefully use the relationship that we'd built up by that point to say, "Look, what's going on?" I'll be completely honest with you, if you could be honest with me. This didn't go too well. This went okay. Here's our actual strengths and weaknesses. And I learned that from my old boss as well, Ann Stanley, where she was really honest with people to say, oh, this is what we're good at and bad at. And they appreciated that and say, oh, actually we'll stick with you, going back to your point, Carmen, on honesty, like, oh, we actually trust these guys. So maybe they can help us find a good PR person or whatever, 'cause they've got that gap in the team at the moment. So a bit of a long answer on that one. Crystal Carter: No, no. Carmen Dominguez: No, actually, I was going to just... I agree with you 100%. And having been in the client side, so having been a client myself and now working in agency, one of the things that I see as a negative when I see in an agency is when someone try to bullshit me. If you are trying to bullshit me with whatever, I'm going to say another bad word, crap, then the trust is broken. So I think for me, the most important part when building relationship is being able to have the hard conversations at the very beginning. If you don't have the hard conversations, trust breaks. And if trust breaks, you're going to have a competitor coming in. And that is actually your own fault. Sorry for being scared. And I know that it takes guts to be able to have the hard conversations because it's scary, if you are a freelancer particularly, you might even lose the food on your plate. But it's building that relationship, in my opinion, will actually will make your clients defend you, even if you are not meeting the KPI. So always building relationships with trust, even if things go wrong, I think is a way. Because in the end, we're all humans, and if we get attached to people that are honest to us and we are honest to them, then they're going to defend us more. So in the end, it's having a good relationship with people and being human I think is... I don't get scared when they bring other people, even being honest, of course. But yeah, I think that's my recommendation. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Interesting. Grace Frohlich: I think my knee-jerk reaction is why would they bring in someone? Crystal Carter: Right. Grace Frohlich: But at the same time, if you think about it, it's really the client's right to have a second opinion. We do it all the time with doctors, for example, if you want a second opinion from another doctor because your health is on the line. This client's website health is on the line, so yeah, it's their right to bring in a second opinion. So in that sense, I think I'm more okay with it, especially if that other agency proves my point. So it's more of an opportunity to do that. Sukhjinder Singh: That's a good feeling as well. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Barry Adams: I had this exact thing actually happen to me where I was brought in to do a specific piece of work for a client and they told me, "Oh, there's another agency who's also doing the exact same piece of work, so no pressure, Barry." And I was a little bit, like this was a fairly big, well-known agency, and I'm just a freelancer sitting in a dinky office in Belfast. So I was feeling the pressure and I felt a bit like, oh crap, I really need to be on my A-game here. But that actually motivated me to do a really, really good job, which I hope I would've done anyway, to be entirely honest. And it turned out that what that other agency presented and what I presented had slightly different angles and complimented each other really, really well, and gave the client the whole holistic view that they were looking for. So that turned out to be a fantastic project for the client as well as for both the other agency and for me. So yeah, I mean, I suck at awkward conversations in general. I think most of us don't like those. I fully agree with what's said before, honesty is always the best approach there as well. And just try not to shy away from saying the hard things that sometimes need to be said. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easier said than done, but definitely something to think about. Okay, so we're going to move on to another section. In the podcast we sometimes have a fun game I like to play, Fun with People Also Ask. So we can do this with everyone on the audience and also everyone on the panel as well. So this is the first question from People Also Ask, so green for yes and blue for no. Do social links help SEO? We have mostly green. I have some blue. And Google keeps going back and forth being like, oh, it's not a big deal. Yes, it is a big deal. Oh, you're flipping around. Any opinions on this? Barry Adams: Yeah, correlation, not causation. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Anyone else, any two cents on that particular one? Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I'm going to go with the indirectly for the safe bet. I think, okay, long spiel, the visibility of the content and all that. Yeah, the more people see your content, they give you legit links and all that. So, yeah. Crystal Carter: So kind of sort of. Okay. All right. Okay. Here's another one in the same sort of thing. So green for yes, and blue for no. Is social media marketing off-page SEO? It's in the same sort of area. Would you call it the same? People are like, I don't know about this question at all. I've got a lot of blue, there's absolutely no... Interesting. Very, very interesting. Any opinions on that? It's a similar question to the one before, if I'm completely honest. No? Okay. We'll move on. We'll move on. We'll move on. Okay. Okay. People also ask, which is harder, SEO or PPC? So I'm going to go... Oh, we have intakes of breath from the audience here. Okay, so we have green for SEO and blue for PPC. Oh. Carmen Dominguez: I think we're biased. Crystal Carter: We're biased. Let's look- Grace Frohlich: I mean, this looks like a biased audience, right? Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. That's fine. Barry Adams: I actually think advertising is harder than SEO nowadays. Carmen Dominguez: Really? Crystal Carter: What? Barry Adams: I really do think that. Carmen Dominguez: But AI does everything for you in PPC. So... Barry Adams: AI could do everything for you in SEO. Carmen Dominguez: Well, that's true. That's true for an answer. Barry Adams: Yeah. Not in the same end result, everything being quite... Yeah. Carmen Dominguez: Yeah, it's true, it's true. Barry Adams: I think- Crystal Carter: Barry, read the room. Barry Adams: Yeah, I know I'm at BrightonSEO and I'm an SEO guy, but the paid advertising landscape nowadays, I mean, my goodness, the technology stacks and the targeting. I mean, I'm not an ad guy, but I talk to ad people, I'm like, I really don't want that job. I really don't want that job. But they spend more money every year and they get less and less back for it. Whereas with SEO, I think we're still on a growth curve. With advertising, the margins are narrower and narrower and narrower, and it's becoming really, really hard to have success in advertising. Carmen Dominguez: I think there is more pressure as well in PPC. You need to be reporting on a weekly basis. You need to be checking all the data constantly. But I also think that there are lots of people applying the same rules to SEO and PPC these days. So the pressure is coming. It really depends how you look at it. If you do SEO properly, I think it's more difficult, but a little bit chiller, less pressure. Depends. Crystal Carter: Okay. And just to say these are all actual People Also Ask questions, so yeah. Okay. So this is just a little shout-out to the grammatical incorrections, I did it myself, to the grammar that you see in People Also Ask. Is digital PR a SEO? So green for yes, and a blue for no. I got a lot of green. And I would probably say that's like 75-ish with my ballpark sort of thing. I find digital PR really fascinating. There's some really interesting campaigns. I think though it's kind of just campaign marketing, if I'm completely honest. I think it covers the same. Do other people have various- Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, it's definitely, it's its own beast. Because I used to partner with a colleague that did pure content and PR, digital PR, and she was really good at it because there's so many aspects of it. The journalist relationship, knowing what stuff they need in a brief and all that. Finding the story and that loads of data. And just from doing ideation sessions with her and other elements of the team just for ideas out there, she'd be able to structure a story and find it way easier. And so there was a lot of upskilling involved on my part to figure out, okay, how can I build links like this? And it was just a case of, well, to what Barry said before that, know what your strengths are and specialize in that and recognize it in other people. And so that's why I'm trying to partner with digital PRs as well to fill that link building gap. Carmen Dominguez: I mean, I was a digital PR and we did everything with SEO in our heads. So I will say yes, because we were using the SEO strategy to follow and create the links. Obviously, it's beyond just simple SEO, it also depends on how you see SEO. I see digital PR as part of organic and SEO is part of organic, so it depends on your definition of SEO. But I will say it is. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Cool. Okay, so we're moving on to the next one. This is specifically for the live podcast session. This is the one that I like. This is a section. These are again, actual predictive text from Google, and this one is for the predictive text for Can You Learn SEO, which is can you learn SEO by yourself? I know a lot of people... I've got somebody up already. So from the audience, green for yes, blue for no. Very interesting. So that's lots and lots of green. I've got a little bit of no, or a little bit of blue, so I'd probably say that's probably 90-ish percent saying yes. And I think this is interesting. So Barry, you're close to the microphone, so I'm going to come to you. What are the advantages or disadvantages of being a self-taught SEO? Barry Adams: As a self-taught SEO and one who teaches SEO now, I wish there were courses in SEO when I first learned it. The best learning environment that I learned as a self thought SEO was become part of an SEO community where you could ask questions, where there was no stupid questions basically, where you could just ask anything. That for me was a real breakthrough moment when I think I really embraced SEO and really started to learn it. So self-taught, yes, but still self-taught within a community. I think you will need to have people around you to ask these questions. I don't think there's such a thing as a completely self-taught SEO, 'cause you always learn from other people who are willing to share information, answer your questions. And I think if you're an experienced SEO, you should see it as maybe part of your remit to pass that on to others and be generous with your time and your knowledge and allow people to ask those questions, 'cause realistically that's how you learned it as well. Carmen Dominguez: I was going to say I learned by myself, but really it wasn't by myself because I went to the internet, I asked people. I tested things on my own, and I put the results on forums that people replied to me. So really, is it? Yeah, I didn't have a teacher and I didn't learn at university, but I had a whole community, which I think is one of the most beautiful things of the SEO industry is the community that we have. So you can, but it's not on your own. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, the community is great now, because when I started there wasn't really much of that. And also no SEO courses, at university anyway, so I'd have to do a couple of smaller courses. And then mostly learnt in the agency environment. And also, funnily, I was talking to a colleague of mine who didn't go to uni, and we both worked at the first agency I did in 2010. And straight out of college, he just got an internship and doing SEO, and now he's head of a big department and he's doing really well. Didn't have to pay any of his uni fees and all that stuff, and so he saved with all of that, and he just learned on the job. Pretty much what I did, 'cause I did a web design course and I quit web design to do SEO. And I just thought that's a perfect example of being able to learn in that environment as an internship, or if someone just gives you a chance and you just slowly build up your salary according to how much you learn kind of thing. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I don't know if you wanted to jump in on that one. No? That's fine. That's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. Next one. Next one. Next one. Okay. So the next one, this I thought was interesting. So if you type in, what is SEO in, you get a lot of different things. So it's like what is SEO in marketing? What is SEO in business? What is SEO in YouTube? What is SEO in web development? What is SEO in social media? What is SEO in journalism? What is SEO in Etsy? Okay. So my question is is that, do you find that SEO is different in these different spaces, or do you think SEO is SEO? So green for SEO is SEO, and blue for SEO is different in these different spaces. Interesting. Okay. So we have probably 70% people saying that SEO is different in all these different spaces. I think that's really interesting. And I think to the panel, my question is, do you think that clients understand that there are differences in these spaces? Carmen Dominguez: Clients don't understand SEO. So let alone in all the different channels. The amount of times I have to five, because I cannot get them to rank number one in one week is just mental. So no, I don't think they understand the difference, but I also think SEO is SEO. So the point is, you get your content to be visible to users and users engaged with it and that applies to Chat, to YouTube, to Google, to TikTok, to whatever you do. So I think SEO is always the same, but it's done in different ways. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I was thinking about it in terms of the definition of SEO versus an SEO job spec and to see if there's any correlation. And nine times out of 10, because I was looking at job specs, I was like, oh, there's way more things people are asking for versus what you would define as SEO typically. Which is weird because I've always had a problem with SEO as a term, because I thought, well, is it more like organic marketing? But then you can't say organic marketing 'cause then clients aren't aware really what that is, and they think, oh, I'm just going to go with the SEO. So yeah, I think it's something that we're stuck with in terms of a term for lead generation, whatever. But really I think it's way more than what you define as SEO. Grace Frohlich: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really good point. If we're talking about semantics, SEO is just search engines for search engines, right? But as you said, are we talking about organic search or just organic anything? Then yeah, I mean, I think it can be diversified into all these different spaces. Carmen Dominguez: Actually, I'm talking to more about that if anyone wants to come to my talk. It's no SEO. Let's talk about organic. So, self-promotion. Crystal Carter: Carmen, when's your talk? Carmen Dominguez: When? At 3:00. Crystal Carter: Three o'clock, go see Carmen. Carmen Dominguez: I think. Auditorium one. Just find me, I'm the only Carmen, I think. Crystal Carter: Barry, Is SEO, SEO or is SEO different? Barry Adams: I think I agree with what Carmen said earlier. It's still SEO, but the tactics are different. When I do SEO for news websites, you cannot apply the same tactics as you do for e-commerce. But in the end, it is about getting your content in front of an audience that uses an organic search engine. So, yeah. Crystal Carter: Agreed. Agreed. Okay. Finally, we have another section. So I looked up digital marketers needs and Google changed it to digital marketing needs. And it said, digital marketing needs coding, digital marketing needs a degree, digital marketing needs math, digital marketing needs a laptop, which I thought was interesting. Does digital marketing need a degree? And I think this is interesting, 'cause I've heard people say that you cannot be a technical SEO or you can't be an SEO if you don't know HTML or you don't know how to code. I've heard people say you can't be a marketer without a degree, I've heard people say that sort of thing. And so I'm interested in this idea of gatekeeping. So here's a question to the audience and the last question of the day before... And thank you so much for joining us for this session. Do you think there is one way to be a digital marketer? Green for yes and blue for no. That is 100% no. People listening on the internet, there are many ways to become a digital marketer. I have an English literature degree and I've worked in marketing my entire life. And I know somebody else who's a fantastic SEO and his degree is in anthropology. He's amazing. So I think that there's many, many ways to be an SEO, a digital marketer. What are your thoughts on that? Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, my degree was in multimedia computing, so it didn't really specialize in anything. A bit of coding, a bit of 3D, whatever. And then I did web design for four years and then quit, and then there was a credit crunch, and then I changed careers. I thought, let me try something different, no jobs anymore. So yeah, I think... What was I going to say? Yeah, I lost my train of thought. Yeah, learning from scratch. And yeah, I just found my way to SEO. I completely lost my train of thought. Crystal Carter: It's all good. It's all good. Sukhjinder Singh: It's almost finished as well. Crystal Carter: Took a new journey. Carmen Dominguez: I think that I know where you're trying to go. Myself, I am a translator. I'd never studied marketing. I didn't know what marketing was when I got into it, but I knew that what I needed to do is someone to read my content. So I needed, as a translator, I needed someone to read my content. As a journalist, you need someone to read your content. So in the end, that is what you want to do as a digital marketer. You need to convince your user to read your contents, basically. Yes, there is one way to be a digital marketer, which is making sure that you engage with the user and the user comes to you. How do you do that? There are a thousand of other ways to do it, but the clarity is what the purpose of digital marketing, and I think it's always the same. Get your users to come to you. And I guess it doesn't matter where you come from, you can come from computing, you can come from, I don't know, cleaning windows, so long as you know that you need to get your user, you are a digital marketer. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah. Sorry, I was just going to add to that. Yeah, I fell into it from designing websites, and I wanted to know what the websites can do after you produce them, and then also from necessity as well. And I thought, okay, there's a whole different new career that's blowing up. And a few of my mates were doing it outside of uni who did do elements of SEO in their courses. And I thought, let me just try that out. But it's definitely led on from web design and necessity just for me. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, I used to work in fashion in New York, so completely different industry. I did that for about 10 years, and then I just switched one day. I was like, I want to do something else. And here I am. So I know, exactly, marketers can come from anywhere really. I'm reminded of Ratatouille. Anyway, yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah, agreed. Barry Adams: And this is the point where I admit I don't have a degree. I never finished uni. I started working at a call center two years after I started uni and decided that learning that was not for me, was way too hard. Became an IT guy, server management, and somehow found myself managing a server farm that had intranet pages on it. And then because I hacked together my own website, in my spare time, I knew a bit of HTML. My boss asked me, "Can you change what's on the web servers?" And that's how the whole ball just started rolling basically. And I think in the podcast we did a while ago with SERP's Up where we talked about how people get into a career in digital and in SERPs, we discussed this as well. No matter what your skillset is, what your passion is, there is a role for you in digital and in SERPs. If you're analytical, great. If you're not, but you're very creative, great. If you just like writing stuff, great. If you're a total tech nerd, great. There's always a job role that really suits your skillset and that can really give you fulfillment and achievement within your career. So yeah, it doesn't matter where you come from, it's what you do with it really. Crystal Carter: Yes. And on that motivational note, I'd like to thank you all for joining us today for this episode of SERP's Up. Thank you so much for taking part in my little paddle board thing. I really love seeing all the little cards. Have a wonderful, fantastic rest of BrightonSEO. And bonsoir, goodbye. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Grace Frolich Barry Adams Carmen Dominguez Sukhjinder Singh Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube SEO Resource Center BrightonSEO Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Grace Frolich Barry Adams Carmen Dominguez Sukhjinder Singh Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Wix Studio Wix Studio YouTube SEO Resource Center BrightonSEO Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha, mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We've put together some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the Head of SEO Brand at Wix, and I'm joined by the fabulous, amazing, the incredible Head of SEO Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello everyone. Hello on the internet. Hello Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: Hi. Crystal Carter: It's been a minute. Mordy Oberstein: It has been a minute. A lot has happened since we last recorded. Crystal Carter: Yeah, internet land podcast people, it has not been a minute. It's been the same amount of time- Mordy Oberstein: No, it's been a week. Crystal Carter: ... it normally is because we just plan things and stuff. But in real life, it's been a minute. Mordy Oberstein: So much has happened. Yeah, things have happened. Crystal Carter: Yeah. I went to BrightonSEO. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I went to New York. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: The Knicks won three playoff games, lost two. Crystal Carter: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Well, that's all right. That's all right. But yeah, we've been out in the world meeting people, talking to folks. Mordy Oberstein: I went on vacation. Well, not vacation, like stay-cation and a holiday. Crystal Carter: Yeah, that's fine. That's when you get gardening done, that's when somebody gives you a list, they're like, "You know that shelf?" Mordy Oberstein: Gardening, that's where you kill plants, right? Crystal Carter: First you have to buy them. You buy them, and then you just- Mordy Oberstein: And then you kill them. Crystal Carter: ... watch them slowly die. Mordy Oberstein: That's how it goes at my house. You buy the plant and then you kill it. Slowly. A slow death. Crystal Carter: I try. I have a cactus that's clearly… Mordy Oberstein: No, cactus does not count. You don't have to do nothing, it just sits there. Crystal Carter: I didn't do anything and it's dead. Mordy Oberstein: Really? Crystal Carter: It died very, very slowly, but it still looks like a cactus, but I know it's not. I know it's dying. Mordy Oberstein: I have a cactus, a giant cactus. Crystal Carter: Really? Mordy Oberstein: Like a desert cactus. Oh, yeah. Crystal Carter: Oh, okay. Mordy Oberstein: In the garden, giant cactus. Crystal Carter: That's cool. That's cool. Is it like one of the ones from the cartoons with the arms? Mordy Oberstein: It does. Yeah, it has arms. Crystal Carter: That's nice. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. I'll send you a picture. Crystal Carter: Cool. Thanks. Mordy Oberstein: Anyway, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our newsletter Searchlight each and every month over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also use Wix Studio to work more efficiently with your team, with real time collaboration technology built right into the editor. Because as we all know, SEO is a team sport. And to help us explore how SEO is indeed a team sport, we took the show on the road to BrightonSEO's UK conference where Crystal sat down with Carmen Dominguez, Sukh Singh, Grace Frohlich, and the other Barry. So we won't have your snappiest of SEO news or you should be following this week on social media, because we were in the flesh, well, Crystal was in the flesh, I was on vacation, at one of the industries most prestigious SEO events of the year, BrightonSEO UK. So move over golf, cycling and non doubles tennis, because SEO is a real sport like baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and curling. On this, the 89th episode of the SERP's Up podcast. I left you speechless. Crystal Carter: I don't know. I don't know how to jump in. I feel like you did everything you... I feel like you like mic dropped. I feel like that's great. That's a great intro. I'm going to be talking for most of it anyway with the guys. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, I'm done. This is all you're going to hear from me for the entire episode because I could not make the conference. Crystal Carter: But it's all good because I think that certainly we as a team do a lot of stuff together. Obviously we plan out the podcast, we do all of that sort of stuff, and I think that the way that you work as a team will inform the SEO that you're able to do, and I certainly think that our approach was there in presence, even if you were not there at the moment. And it was a great conversation. And also shout out to the audience because we were flagship for this, I don't think anybody else is doing this, but if you come to a SERP's Up live broadcast, we might have one of these things that we do, which basically we give the audience paddles and the audience will give us their opinions on some of the questions. And we did this at BrightonSEO in San Diego. Mordy Oberstein: That was great. We went real heavy on the audience interaction. It was a lot of fun. Crystal Carter: It was a lot of fun. And then the people on the squads were asking questions to the audience as well, so some of our panelists were asking questions to the audience as well, which I didn't expect, but was a lot of fun. So it's great to get some feedback on how folks in the audience are feeling about some of the questions as well as some of the great insights from our incredible panel. It was a really, really great panel. Mordy Oberstein: So without further ado, I'll see you in the next episode, because here's that panel. Crystal Carter: Hi everyone. Welcome to this episode of SERP's Up live. This is the live BrightonSEO Spring 2024 edition of the SERP's Up podcast. I'm going to be joined by some incredible guests who you can see on my left and right for the people who are here. And also, members of the audience, we have some paddles there for you, which are basically for a little bit of interaction. So one side, green is yes, purple is no. So if there's any questions and basically you'd be like, I agree, I do not agree, then please make yourselves heard. We found this to be a little bit of fun, so we hope that you enjoy it as well. I'm going to get started by introducing my fantastic panelists who I have harangued to join me today. First up, all the way over on my left is Mr. Barry Adams, the founder of Award-winning agency, Polemic Digital, and he's a specialist SEO consultant for news publishers focusing on technical SEO, editorial SEO. His clients include many, many publishers including The New York Times, The Independent, lots of other folks as well. Thank you so much for joining us today, Barry. Barry Adams: Thank you very much for having me. Crystal Carter: It's always a pleasure. Barry may or may not swear so if you are sensitive to such things, I'm just going to warn you there now. So yeah, thank you for that. Hello. Hi there, David Bain. David Bain: Hey. Crystal Carter: Welcome, welcome. Welcome lots of other people as well. And so our next person that I'm going to be introducing is the incredible Carmen Dominguez who is joining us from Hallam Digital. She's the head of Organic at Hallam. I first met her at the Hallam Organic event, which was a great event that took place in Nottingham, and it was a warm day. Carmen Dominguez: It was. We had free ice cream though. Crystal Carter: It was, it was delightful and very well received. And it was lovely to have her there, and she spoke about some great stuff. And so I thought if we could get Carmen along, that'd be lovely. She has worked for agencies, she's worked in-house and led a team of many people. You've built a team. Carmen Dominguez: 23 last year and 15 this year. There we go. Crystal Carter: Exactly. So she's got great experience in-house and also working agency side, and she's going to be sharing her insights as well. Thank you, Carmen, for joining us. Carmen Dominguez: Thank you. I'm super excited to be here today. Crystal Carter: And next up is Sukh Singh, who is from I Do SEO, and I've met him at BrightonSEO a few times over the last few years. And I was really excited to get Sukh along for this session, because Sukh has a great perspective from having worked as the head of SEO at an agency for many, many years and now working freelance, working with agency partners and other clients as well. So thank you so much for joining us, Sukh. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, thanks for having me. Awesome to be here. Crystal Carter: Thank you. And finally on my left is the amazing Grace Frohlich, fellow Californian, and she is joining us from Brain Labs where she works as an SEO consultant, and is managing clients and managing lots of different projects and has both project management experience and also SEO experience, and is a fantastic speaker and a big fan of The Parent Trap as well. And we are really pleased to have you here today, Grace. Grace Frohlich: Thank you. I'm excited. Looking forward to this. Crystal Carter: Wonderful. And then finally, it's me. My name is Crystal Carter. I am the Head of SEO Communications at Wix. I am currently working there, but I have a lot of experience working in agencies, working alongside agencies, working across teams, and I hope to be able to share those insights. And finally, there is y'all good selves, the folks here for BrightonSEO, thank you so much for joining us and for making the trek, because I timed it and it's about five minutes walk from the front door. So we appreciate you and we appreciate you getting your steps in today to join us. If you are not familiar with the SERP's Up podcast, then I thank you for taking that leap of faith and joining us here. The SERP's Up podcast comes out every Wednesday. We get some fantastic speakers. Barry's contributed, Grace has contributed, we've had lots of people contribute as well, some of the people in this room. And yeah, check it out every Wednesday. We have over 80 episodes now, so if you are a fan of podcasts, go and check out the archive. So the topic that we are covering today is SEO as a team sport. And when I say that, I do not mean this kind of team, though, bless the team from Screaming Frog for showing up for cardiovascular exercise with the annual charity BrightonSEO football match. They did a great job there. But we're more thinking about the way that marketing has become so spread out and includes so many different disciplines and so many different specialisms even within SEO. So you have a space where somebody says, "Oh, you're the SEO, you must know every single thing about image SEO." Or, "You must know every single thing about international SEO," or Google Merchant Center or Local SEO. And it can be very, very fractional and very specific. And so I think that SEO, certainly from my perspective, has become a little bit more of a team sport. So we're going to talk a little bit about that and how that works and what that means for us. On the podcast, we have different sections. One of the sections that we do is a section called Deep Thoughts. Thank you. So when we talk deep thoughts, one of the things we think about is the way that Google is progressing. And essentially just on this slide, so for instance, if you were to think about the way Google, as Google's progressing, I'm sure you've all seen this, that it's not just that you have plain blue links or one sort of SERP experience, but that you have SERP experience that includes lots of different channels, particularly for your organic stuff. So you have your YouTube, you'll also have the social that will show on the SERP, you might also have products. And even on the products, they'll have lots of different pages that show up within that. And then everyone's favorite SEO feature is Reddit. So Reddit is showing up in lots of different ways as well. And this is an evolution of Google. And I would like to ask my illustrious panelists, because I've spoken enough now, how has the way that you collaborate across channels evolved as Google has become much more diversified in its SERP as we see more and more of these SERP features? How has the way that you collaborate across channels, across teams changed? Grace Frohlich: Well, I actually first want to know from the audience, how many of you already have SEO Plus paid or other channel collaboration currently? Green, if yes- Crystal Carter: So there's paddles on the chairs. Grace Frohlich: ... purple with no. A lot of green. Crystal Carter: That is coming about, for the listening audience, that's coming up about 80% yes, is what I would say. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, I mean that's great to see, 'cause we really should be working at least with the paid channel already. Google, it's one SERP. Well, it's two channels, but we should be already collaborating with paid at least if not more channels. Crystal Carter: Right. Absolutely. And I think that for users, certainly, they don't even always know whether or not it's paid and they sometimes can't even tell the difference. So if you're trying to connect with the users, and you're trying to connect with the user journey, that should certainly be a part of it. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, absolutely. Especially with the little sponsored, the little label that's barely noticeable now. I remember when it was very, very obvious in the SERP that, oh, you're clicking an ad, but now it's like... Exactly, a lot of users don't really know what they're clicking on. Barry Adams: I miss the days of a yellow background on the ads. Crystal Carter: And I think certainly with product images, it can be sometimes difficult to tell whether or not it's an ad, or whether or not it's organic. Do you find that across your teams that you're working in paid and organic as well? Carmen Dominguez: Absolutely. And I think one of the impacts of not working together, particularly in brand campaigns is that if PPC is not working, or paid in this case, is not working with organic, they don't understand the impact of putting a little bit more of budget in brand will have in the conversions of organic. So it's not only for the clients and the users, it's also for when you are reporting to your clients the results of your work. If you don't collaborate with paid enough, you can maybe put a lot of effort in organic that in the end doesn't get the results, because paid is doing whatever they want on their own. So it's not only within paid and organic, it's also within all the different sub channels that there is in organic images or SERPs, sorry, the snippets. And it's also within the different type of paid and the different types of organic, which I'll want to talk a little bit more about it before. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I was thinking about in terms of the algorithm changes in the last few years, I think that's forced people to be a bit more multichannel, at least in their thought. And I was thinking of actually promoting Grace's blog posts from a few years ago, the T-shaped marketer being the T being having depth or knowledge in, say SEO for example, being SEO, but also touching on paid search, paid social, PR, et cetera, and recognizing the opportunities to pull in additional traffic where you see, oh, there's more opportunity for paid rather than organic for these keywords might take a bit longer to rank, et cetera. So that together with the algorithm thing and an agency environment, I guess, it just comes, that collaboration comes naturally, I think. Crystal Carter: And do you find that it also has to do with skills like different skillset? Because I certainly know that we are now, within the organic side, really having to think much more about LLMs and AI and how that all works. But paid have been working with AI and, oh, this ad has to learn, although it's machine learning and you just wait for days while it spends money and you have no idea how. And people have been working on that for years. And so I feel like a lot of the skills that people have acquired during that paid space can translate more into how we think about organic as well. Carmen Dominguez: I think it's also the other way around. It plays for both. So I wanted to talk a little bit about skills as well within organic. You cannot have the same person, for example, doing tech then is doing content, even though both need to know a little bit about each other. It's a little bit the same with paid, right? If paid doesn't understand EEAT, for example, and EEAT is purely organic, but EEAT is based on how the user engage with your content. So EEAT should also be applicable for paid in the same way that, for example, paid talk about CTR should also be applicable for organic. So in the end, we are talking about getting so many skills with one person in order to be successful, and it's impossible, which actually goes very well into the conversation that we're talking, that specializing and specializing within a specialization, if that makes sense. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I think that when you're thinking about channels and we think about where to specialize in things, which channels do you find are most helpful for growing clients? We've talked a little bit about paid, but are we finding that digital PR, for instance, is as helping with a lot of things? Or are we finding that other elements are helping clients to grow at the moment? Grace Frohlich: I think it's going to be social- Crystal Carter: Social? Grace Frohlich: ... with SEO. Crystal Carter: Interesting. Why do you think that? Grace Frohlich: Well, yeah, I don't have the definitive proof, but from talking with clients and talking cross channely, and strategists within my agency, it's just one of those trends that keeps popping up over and over, basically getting more organic traffic through social. Crystal Carter: Right. I think also there's a question of, with it, you're trying to connect with users and users are on social, and also that with the social thing you get both visibility and you also get clicks, links, et cetera. So there's a potential there. Barry Adams: I think it's not even one specific channel, when I look at how my clients grow their audiences, I work primarily with news publishers, it's all about original reporting and quality of reporting. The news websites that report the news that other websites have first reported are the ones that tend to lose out. Whereas if you're a news publisher that invested in quality investigative journalism and original reporting, you tend to win in the long run. And I think that translates to a lot of other companies as well. If you have a dropshipping e-commerce website, you should have low expectations of long-term success because you're just another middleman. Whereas if you have an original product, you're an original manufacturer or original brand, I think you're probably looking at a healthier future. And I think that's fairly channel independent, be that paid or social or search or email. I think you can always find channels to min/max your growth within the confines of your business. But if your business isn't inherently sound and you don't have a strong brand, I think you should probably change your business. Crystal Carter: So you think that originality is still cutting through in terms of growth? Barry Adams: I see that more and more. I think that's also something that search engines like Google and also organic platforms like Facebook and Instagram, they want to reward originality, they want to reward authenticity. It's hard to do that algorithmically, because it's very much engagement based and you can sort of manipulate engagement figures. But I think they are trying to find ways to measure that and improve that algorithmically so that original brands and quality brands surface more and more, because they realize that's also what our audience wants. The audience wants quality brands and original content and not just rehashed stuff that other websites have done before and maybe worse or better. Crystal Carter: And I think in the space of LLMs, I think it's even more important to be unique in that space in order to see growth. And I don't know if you all wanted to add anything more. Sukhjinder Singh: I was thinking about EEAT bolstering social as well, or social bolstering EEAT. So the experience and authority of the authors and the website as well, and seeing that engagement on social. And also with social being a good research tool, I just saw... Oh God, his name's blanking me now. I'm going to have to comment on it later. Crystal Carter: Steven Bartlett? He's on all the socials. Sukhjinder Singh: No, actually I was at an SEO talk about an hour ago on using TikTok for keyword research in terms of topical research. And then even if the resulting keywords have zero search volume, he did a case study where he still used those keywords and saw an uptick in search console data in impressions and click-throughs, et cetera, even with such volume zero keywords. So I think it's a good tool there. Carmen Dominguez: I'm sorry, go. No, no. I was going to say that I think in the end, everything is related. Right? If you have a good brand, probably you're going to be all over social, and if you are all over social, your users are going to be engaging with you and they're going to end up going back to your website. So I think the whole point of change is not specific areas, it's actually looking at the overall. So we have a good brand, we have to showcase EEAT in every single possible channel, and that is what is going to make you successful. And on that, what you were saying, I also recently did a test on particularly TikTok and Instagram with one of my e-commerce clients, and actually getting lots of links coming from TikTok made all the people clicking on my products. And my products now rank, even though I don't have no longer people coming from TikTok just because the clicks made Google to recognize my products. So it does have an impact being in social, but also my brand now is much better recognized in TikTok as well because of that. So people come from brand much, much often. So I think it's all related into making sure that we do all an organic strategy where we look at all the different channels all at once rather than just single pointing different areas, if that makes sense. Crystal Carter: Yeah. So I think that flows in next to our next session where we're talking about team evolution. So if you're in a space where you are finding, for instance, that TikTok is a really good channel for your brand or that you're getting good traffic from Instagram, for instance, how are you thinking about which skills... How are you thinking about how you're connecting with your team and how you need to evolve your team in order to sit alongside those channels? Are you thinking that you need to maybe get another social media person or maybe work alongside a social media person? Or are you thinking that one person needs to suddenly become an SEO and a social media? Carmen Dominguez: And it's super difficult actually. And one of the things I have done with my team recently is changed the whole structure of it. So in agency, normally we're used to having one SEO person, one technical SEO person, content, digital PR, and they all work in silos even though they work toward the same objective. For me, what I have done is try to make sure that everyone has the basic SEO knowledge of everything, but then they specialize farther away. But they work together in squads, which actually every week they're like, "Okay, I found this issue in the technical SEO that might have an impact in content. I'm not an expert in content. Content person, tell me what you think." And then the content person also knows about EEAT, who collaborates with the social media person to try to elevate EEAT. And then social media also communicates. It's way harder, because it means that you need to be upskilling constantly, right? You cannot just know one thing and that's it. And it means that collaboration needs to be tighter, which is very difficult, particularly if you work remote. So because Google is changing so fast and the SERPs are changing so fast, you need to change as fast. But humans, we are slower, right? So it is difficult. I think we need to change a lot how we collaborate as teams and we need to forget about silos. How do we do that, become a reality, is another thing. And I'm not sure how you feel. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, exactly the same. Yeah. So I was working in an agency up until a year and a half ago, and at that time we did try to bring in processes and loads of opportunities to have these collaborative conversations. And as a freelancer now I can attest to how easy it was to upskill and how that comes in an agency versus now, like I spend way more time reading and stuff, which is great because there's lots more podcasts like this now. But also, you have to work harder as a freelancer to collaborate. But if you're in an agency where you have a team, you've got that immediacy there, which is great. But then what I struggled with was the same thing with you, with communication. So creating enough opportunities like team huddles and all this stuff, but also incentivizing it and saying, "Okay, what are our shared KPIs? And how can we help you guys?" And vice versa. And just getting them bought into the other channels outside of SEO and get them bought into the multichannel collaboration or how it contributes to the global KPIs and the SEO and vice versa. So yeah, I can't quite explain it. I used slides at the time on all this stuff, but basically just getting them bought in and having way more meetings. And then finding out what's the important KPIs to them and what motivates them and getting collaboration that way. Grace Frohlich: Yes, I agree with both of you actually. I actually spoke about this in the Women in Tech SEO conference in March about cross channel with paid, how to get paid and SEO to work together. So if you want to check that out, I think that can be a transferable kind of a process that I talked about. But yeah, everything you just said, getting to know their challenges for the other channel, getting to know what their goals are and KPIs, and aligning with regular meetings. Of course, easier said than done, I can attest to that. But a lot of it... And also don't underestimate building a relationship with the other channel, the people. There's people behind these channels, so that's also really important. Crystal Carter: And I think, can I just, questions from the audience? So if you've seen the little paddles, so green is yes, and it's like purply blue is no. Do you find that you're collaborating with more people who are working outside of your core channel? Yes for green, or purple for no. Wow. I have 100% green y'all, that's 100% yes. I think that's really fascinating and I think that's really, really good to see, especially in the dynamic SERP space that we're working in. Barry, you're working with a lot of clients who are working, like we were talking earlier about the Mail for instance, and they are huge on social, they're huge on lots of different channels. How are you finding, because we're talking about ways that people communicate, how do you find that you keep in the loop or you connected between what's happening in the different spaces? Barry Adams: I’ll tell you almost most of my clients engage me for a very small specific role. And I personally haven't worked in a team for over 10 years, just me and the voices in my head as a freelancer. But I do find it very interesting how it's evolved in who hires me and in the context that they hire me. Where previously when I came in in the early stages of my freelance career, I was sort of like the SEO guy, and everything SEO related I had to take that by the scruff of the neck for that client and do it. Whereas now, a lot of them have very detailed in-house capabilities. They have good editorial SEOs, for example, and they have good technical people who have some SEO knowledge. So when they engage with a freelancer like myself, it's a much more specific skillset and specific project that they need that they don't have or don't want to develop in-house. And for me, that shows how far the industry has already come and how far the specialties with the industry have already come. Especially in news where I work, you have people who are very, very good at, for example, the editorial side of SEO, optimizing articles and site structures. But the technical side is something that they probably don't need hardcore internal capabilities for when you can just once every year or two years get an outsider in to do a sanity check on your website. And that shows to me that they already have the defined roles. It's not enough to be an SEO anymore, you need to be a specific type of SEO. I think as your career progresses in SEO, again the concept of the T-shaped marketer, you even have a T-shape within the T-shape where it becomes a much more narrow T. When I started doing this, I'm old enough to remember when the job title was webmaster. I had that job title for a while and you did everything. You did email, you did social, you did SERPs, you did the whole thing. And then I picked one specialty, SEO, and now within SEO it became technical. And within there it's now news SEO. So I think that's where if you want your career to develop, you sort of have to hang your coat on a specific skillset and discipline. That doesn't mean that's always going to be your career because there's overlaps with other channels and other capabilities that you can develop. I mean, fortunately, search is not going to die anytime soon, no matter how often SEO has been proclaimed deceased. We're still alive and kicking and growing. But I think you sort have to find out what you like doing, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and say, "Right, let's go and try and make this work." Let's become a great analytical SEO or a great tech SEO or a great editorial SEO, and there will always be roles within those specialties that really work for you. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. And I think that within that space, there's always devs. No matter what kind of thing there's always devs. And when we're thinking about this, because I feel like, I don't know, maybe this is just me in my little silo, but I feel like devs are devs and they do deving. And so do you have to explain to them when you're having conversations with devs that are taking into account multichannel traffic, multichannel dependencies, for instance, are you finding that those conversations are changing that you need to give them more context about this is a landing page, not just for SEO, this is a landing page for somebody coming from TikTok or that sort of thing? Are you finding that you're having those conversations? Grace Frohlich: I'm finding that we have to explain to devs less of the importance of SEO, because I think more and more, at least clients, they have a foundational understanding of what it is. So because those clients are like the C-suite and the upper management, they give the devs, okay, these are your goals, your KPIs, and a lot of times they align with SEO KPIs. Carmen Dominguez: Yeah, I was going to say too. Yeah, actually when you asked that question, I was thinking when I said I haven't been in SEO as long as Barry has been, but I remember when I started and I started writing content for websites, it was an eternal fight, constantly, constantly fighting. And now most of the time when you talk to devs, they know that there are certain things that they cannot do. They know that there are SEO areas that they shouldn't take so personally when they get feedback on. And I actually, I'm enjoying very much working with devs recently. Once you are able to understand the basics, I think the key is being able to communicate what you're doing, the changes or what you need to do, and what's the point of a website. It's not just to be there. Once you explain that and you create relationship, because that's very important, I think it's particularly easy. Or I think I found, in recent times, it's easier to work with them. Crystal Carter: Okay. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I was going to second that because I started in 2009 with SEO and working with devs at that point. And I guess fair play on their side, they didn't really know the impact or the value, it wasn't part of their roadmap or KPIs or anything. So I learned from that point how to get to know them, I guess. It comes back to relationship building. And I guess, sounds a bit wishy-washy, but emotional intelligence, trying to figure out, okay, what really motivates you? Trying to figure out the body language. Oh, they didn't like that request. Or at the start of my career, I'd have to create a standards document literally on paper and grade their websites, brand new websites, so there's a website division of my first agency. And then I put it on their desk, and then so immediately they're being like, "Oh, yeah, cool." And then they're just like, whatever. And so you're immediately not their favorite person, and I have to find myself to ingratiate myself to them, go to the pub, whatever, I think, but also figure out, okay, how can I get my stuff signed off and kind of relate it all to them? And I think it's become way easier now with SEO integrations in CMSs, whatever. And also it's a bit more word from Google on what impacts what on the website. So it's way easier, but for me it's always been relationship building and figuring out what motivates them. Crystal Carter: Barry? Barry Adams: Yeah, I have a notorious example where I was presenting my findings in a Zoom call to a client and the lead dev was in the call as well, and he counted me on a specific point, and I was maybe lacking emotional intelligence in my response, and frankly, I was a bit of a dick. Anyway, the call went on and we went through the audit and then the CEO wanted to show me something, so he started sharing his screen. He didn't realize he had a Slack channel open where that lead dev had just messaged him saying, this guy is a dick. I actually still want that on a T-shirt. But he was fair, I was being a dick, but I was also right. But it also taught me something that if you want to get stuff done, don't be a dick. And I think in the past, and sometimes even now, I come across as maybe too forceful and too sure of myself, and sometimes we need to look at the context in which we make these recommendations. 'Cause I am an SEO guy with a big SEO hammer, so for me, everything looks like an SEO nail. But I've learned that there's a lot of other moving pieces in an organization that have very different goals, very different objectives, and you have to weigh these things up. And I think I've gotten better at providing the context of a recommendation where I say, "Well, this would be an ideal scenario for SEO, but it might hurt your commercials," or it might hurt usability, or it might have another impact on another aspect of the website. And I think if you frame recommendations or best practices in that context, you actually end up getting done more often than not, because they realize that you realize there's other stuff happening, but you still make that recommendation knowing that the other stuff is happening. So it's probably worthwhile doing the recommendation, whereas if you just say, "Oh, you need to get this shit done right now," that's just not going to fly. Crystal Carter: And question to the audience, are you finding that working with devs is... So green is easier and blue for not easier? Okay, that's probably like 90% easier. I'm finding that really interesting. There's someone in the audience who's like, "Mm-hmm." So yeah, I think that's really interesting. So yeah, I think that's really interesting. Let's go on to squad goals. So here's the scenario. You need to assemble a squad for a new project. You need to get your crew together. It might be people within your team, it might be freelancers, it might be a co-agency, it might be whoever that you're thinking of. What are the things that you're looking for in a new collaborator, and how do you know that this is the match for you? Is it swipe right or swipe left know? No, it's swipe left? Is that right? Sukhjinder Singh: Right? Crystal Carter: I don't know. I don't do them. Okay. So yeah, Sukh, can we start with you? How do you know that this is a good match, we can collaborate, this is going to be a good setup? Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I'm actually doing this at the moment. So as a freelancer, I'm trying to build a network of people in other channels like I had with the agency setup, and I guess I'm doing my own EEAT evaluation of them. So I'm looking at all of their engagements, so not just on their website to say what they've done, but their recommendations on LinkedIn, see if they're legitimate, and then talking to them and looking at case studies, anything like that, and the work history. It's really revealing, so if they're listening to it... So trying to figure out, because as you know, even when hiring people on the agency side, it's really hard to drill down the people that have got real experience. So trying to do that evaluation and then chatting to them and then just starting with a small project. So something that I can get them to chip in on with a small amount of budget and see how they do. And for me, it's important to see the results, but also their personality and if I can work well with them, and if they're reasonable and flexible to a point. So that's how I do it. Carmen Dominguez: And the personality part for me is very important. Beyond the skills, there are lots of people who are very good skills, and that doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to be working well with them. So for me, being aware of my own personality, I might be a little bit intense just to say, it's my Spanish blood. So when I have an idea, I want to go after the idea, but I know that I need to have someone who calms me down. So having someone that is the contrary of me in my team is going to be better for the project. So I look for that, I look for someone who's a doer because I'm a dreamer. So I want to do this, I want to do it now, everyone focused. I need someone who actually will do it, because then if I don't put the time in to do the thing, then it won't happen. So I need someone who is a realistic, someone who is a doer and someone who also has visibility of everything. So independently of the skill sets that everyone has, which is important, I also need to have all of this. But there are also core attitudes that are very important for me, which is honesty. I prefer someone to tell me, "You are a dickhead, Carmen." Ooh, sorry, I said that word, I realize. But I prefer someone who is honest to me than actually says, "Yes, yes, yes," and nothing comes across. And I judge people on actions and not words, so if someone delivers what they say they do and they tell me this is feasible or not, I'm definitely going to be working with them. So core attitudes and people who have different personalities is, for me, what makes a team work well. Crystal Carter: Amazing. Yeah, I think hiring for complimentary skills for the gaps that you have and also being aware of those gaps that you have gets really important. Carmen Dominguez: Which is actually not that common, doing this self-analysis of, okay, who am I? Because maybe I think I'm perfect, but not really. So being aware of the things that you are good at and you are not as good at, it's very important for you to build a good team. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I agree. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, I agree with those points. I will also say if you're trying to build a team, going back to the football, well, soccer, soccer analogy, you don't want a team full of strikers. And also you don't want a team full of keepers like goalkeepers, so you want to diversify. So I would say choose people with different backgrounds. Don't underestimate the value of diversity when you're choosing a team, because they'll have different perspectives, they'll have different backgrounds, different ways of thinking. So that can only make your team stronger. Crystal Carter: And Barry? Barry Adams: I haven't worked in a team for a very long time, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I think I enjoy that part of it. I've never been a real people person, to be highly honest. I do find the clients that I enjoy working with the most are the ones who, I don't know how to describe that common denominator, but they're all in one way or another, extremely good at their jobs and know exactly what they want from external parties. And I'm grateful that I get to be that external partner. I find it very educational, projects where I learn as much from the client as the client hopefully learns from me. And I think that's hard to select for, either somebody has that passion and is that good at their job or they're not. But there's clients who bring me along whenever they move jobs, they work with one publisher and then a few years later they move to a different publisher and they get to work with them again in a different context. But it's still just a really pleasant collaboration, because you get to know each other's ins and outs and know exactly what they're good at and how you can compliment their skillset. Crystal Carter: Right. Yeah. That's awesome. And I have a question to the squad as well, or to the squad here. Also, if you're in the back, you can come in. There's spaces. There are spaces, it's totally fine. Please do come in. Yeah. So one of the things that we've been finding across our teams is that when we're thinking about these things, one of the things you mentioned, Sukh, was that sometimes when you're trying to hire, it's hard to tell which skills people have. Question to the audience. When you're thinking about either hiring or collaborating or whichever with folks, are you finding that AI, people using AI, is a help or a hindrance? Are you finding that people with AI profiles or you finding that people are having AI in their CVs? Are you finding that help is a help or hindrance? So green for help and blue for hindrance on that. Okay, we got a lot of blue. We're about 50/50 there, so that's very interesting. I think that that goes back to one of the points from Carmen that you'd rather know where somebody's limits are in terms of their skills for sure, rather than somebody faking it until they make it necessarily. We are tight on time, so I'm going to move to the next section, which kind of covers that, which is awkward conversations. So when you're working with partners, also the partners are also teams, Barry. So when you're working with partners, when you're working with clients, when you're working across your team, when you're working as part of a collaborative SEO venture, sometimes there's awkward conversations. Sometimes somebody takes credit for something that you're pretty sure was you, and I get a bit upset about that because I'm like, that's my gold star, thank you very much. Or sometimes you're working with a client and they say, "Hey, we want to bring in this other agency." And you're like, "Who are they?" I can see somebody shaking their head. So actually I saw a little bit of reaction to that, so another question to the audience. Okay, and so the client is on the phone with you and they say, "Hey, I like to get this other agency involved." And green for this is good, or blue for I don't know on that. Okay, that's mostly blue. Okay. One more second. This is George. So that's mostly blue. That's my gut instinct. My gut instinct is why, why do you need somebody else? But yeah, other people in the panel, how do you feel about these conversations when this happens? Sukhjinder Singh: I was trying to think of a good example because yeah, it's difficult. I guess early on in the career, I struggled to figure out how to... I used data basically to say, "Oh, but you can see by the last report like, oh, we're hitting your KPIs," or this, that and the other. And if we're not, I'm like, "Boss, what could we do about this kind of thing?" And then obviously I've learned to look at, so basically always using the KPIs as the goal in the reports and trying to develop that customer relationship where I can tell ahead of time, hopefully, if they're thinking of doing that. And I've been in that situation early in my career a few times where it came down to them deciding between us and the other agency based on maybe trivial things as well. Like, price, obviously not trivial, but other things like, oh, the last two reports had an error on it or something like that. And so I'd always try to plan from that point in advance to say, okay, I'm not going to make any mistakes. And I make sure all the communications are on point and even look out for cues like, oh, you're not happy with this and that, or something bad happened a few times in a row, maybe they're going to look at another agency. And obviously if an email pops up on Google Analytics or something, as a user I always think, oh crap, someone's doing an audit or something. So I try and future-proof that, but if I was confronted with that combo, I'd kind of fall back on the data, but also hopefully use the relationship that we'd built up by that point to say, "Look, what's going on?" I'll be completely honest with you, if you could be honest with me. This didn't go too well. This went okay. Here's our actual strengths and weaknesses. And I learned that from my old boss as well, Ann Stanley, where she was really honest with people to say, oh, this is what we're good at and bad at. And they appreciated that and say, oh, actually we'll stick with you, going back to your point, Carmen, on honesty, like, oh, we actually trust these guys. So maybe they can help us find a good PR person or whatever, 'cause they've got that gap in the team at the moment. So a bit of a long answer on that one. Crystal Carter: No, no. Carmen Dominguez: No, actually, I was going to just... I agree with you 100%. And having been in the client side, so having been a client myself and now working in agency, one of the things that I see as a negative when I see in an agency is when someone try to bullshit me. If you are trying to bullshit me with whatever, I'm going to say another bad word, crap, then the trust is broken. So I think for me, the most important part when building relationship is being able to have the hard conversations at the very beginning. If you don't have the hard conversations, trust breaks. And if trust breaks, you're going to have a competitor coming in. And that is actually your own fault. Sorry for being scared. And I know that it takes guts to be able to have the hard conversations because it's scary, if you are a freelancer particularly, you might even lose the food on your plate. But it's building that relationship, in my opinion, will actually will make your clients defend you, even if you are not meeting the KPI. So always building relationships with trust, even if things go wrong, I think is a way. Because in the end, we're all humans, and if we get attached to people that are honest to us and we are honest to them, then they're going to defend us more. So in the end, it's having a good relationship with people and being human I think is... I don't get scared when they bring other people, even being honest, of course. But yeah, I think that's my recommendation. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Interesting. Grace Frohlich: I think my knee-jerk reaction is why would they bring in someone? Crystal Carter: Right. Grace Frohlich: But at the same time, if you think about it, it's really the client's right to have a second opinion. We do it all the time with doctors, for example, if you want a second opinion from another doctor because your health is on the line. This client's website health is on the line, so yeah, it's their right to bring in a second opinion. So in that sense, I think I'm more okay with it, especially if that other agency proves my point. So it's more of an opportunity to do that. Sukhjinder Singh: That's a good feeling as well. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Barry Adams: I had this exact thing actually happen to me where I was brought in to do a specific piece of work for a client and they told me, "Oh, there's another agency who's also doing the exact same piece of work, so no pressure, Barry." And I was a little bit, like this was a fairly big, well-known agency, and I'm just a freelancer sitting in a dinky office in Belfast. So I was feeling the pressure and I felt a bit like, oh crap, I really need to be on my A-game here. But that actually motivated me to do a really, really good job, which I hope I would've done anyway, to be entirely honest. And it turned out that what that other agency presented and what I presented had slightly different angles and complimented each other really, really well, and gave the client the whole holistic view that they were looking for. So that turned out to be a fantastic project for the client as well as for both the other agency and for me. So yeah, I mean, I suck at awkward conversations in general. I think most of us don't like those. I fully agree with what's said before, honesty is always the best approach there as well. And just try not to shy away from saying the hard things that sometimes need to be said. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easier said than done, but definitely something to think about. Okay, so we're going to move on to another section. In the podcast we sometimes have a fun game I like to play, Fun with People Also Ask. So we can do this with everyone on the audience and also everyone on the panel as well. So this is the first question from People Also Ask, so green for yes and blue for no. Do social links help SEO? We have mostly green. I have some blue. And Google keeps going back and forth being like, oh, it's not a big deal. Yes, it is a big deal. Oh, you're flipping around. Any opinions on this? Barry Adams: Yeah, correlation, not causation. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Anyone else, any two cents on that particular one? Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I'm going to go with the indirectly for the safe bet. I think, okay, long spiel, the visibility of the content and all that. Yeah, the more people see your content, they give you legit links and all that. So, yeah. Crystal Carter: So kind of sort of. Okay. All right. Okay. Here's another one in the same sort of thing. So green for yes, and blue for no. Is social media marketing off-page SEO? It's in the same sort of area. Would you call it the same? People are like, I don't know about this question at all. I've got a lot of blue, there's absolutely no... Interesting. Very, very interesting. Any opinions on that? It's a similar question to the one before, if I'm completely honest. No? Okay. We'll move on. We'll move on. We'll move on. Okay. Okay. People also ask, which is harder, SEO or PPC? So I'm going to go... Oh, we have intakes of breath from the audience here. Okay, so we have green for SEO and blue for PPC. Oh. Carmen Dominguez: I think we're biased. Crystal Carter: We're biased. Let's look- Grace Frohlich: I mean, this looks like a biased audience, right? Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. That's fine. Barry Adams: I actually think advertising is harder than SEO nowadays. Carmen Dominguez: Really? Crystal Carter: What? Barry Adams: I really do think that. Carmen Dominguez: But AI does everything for you in PPC. So... Barry Adams: AI could do everything for you in SEO. Carmen Dominguez: Well, that's true. That's true for an answer. Barry Adams: Yeah. Not in the same end result, everything being quite... Yeah. Carmen Dominguez: Yeah, it's true, it's true. Barry Adams: I think- Crystal Carter: Barry, read the room. Barry Adams: Yeah, I know I'm at BrightonSEO and I'm an SEO guy, but the paid advertising landscape nowadays, I mean, my goodness, the technology stacks and the targeting. I mean, I'm not an ad guy, but I talk to ad people, I'm like, I really don't want that job. I really don't want that job. But they spend more money every year and they get less and less back for it. Whereas with SEO, I think we're still on a growth curve. With advertising, the margins are narrower and narrower and narrower, and it's becoming really, really hard to have success in advertising. Carmen Dominguez: I think there is more pressure as well in PPC. You need to be reporting on a weekly basis. You need to be checking all the data constantly. But I also think that there are lots of people applying the same rules to SEO and PPC these days. So the pressure is coming. It really depends how you look at it. If you do SEO properly, I think it's more difficult, but a little bit chiller, less pressure. Depends. Crystal Carter: Okay. And just to say these are all actual People Also Ask questions, so yeah. Okay. So this is just a little shout-out to the grammatical incorrections, I did it myself, to the grammar that you see in People Also Ask. Is digital PR a SEO? So green for yes, and a blue for no. I got a lot of green. And I would probably say that's like 75-ish with my ballpark sort of thing. I find digital PR really fascinating. There's some really interesting campaigns. I think though it's kind of just campaign marketing, if I'm completely honest. I think it covers the same. Do other people have various- Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, it's definitely, it's its own beast. Because I used to partner with a colleague that did pure content and PR, digital PR, and she was really good at it because there's so many aspects of it. The journalist relationship, knowing what stuff they need in a brief and all that. Finding the story and that loads of data. And just from doing ideation sessions with her and other elements of the team just for ideas out there, she'd be able to structure a story and find it way easier. And so there was a lot of upskilling involved on my part to figure out, okay, how can I build links like this? And it was just a case of, well, to what Barry said before that, know what your strengths are and specialize in that and recognize it in other people. And so that's why I'm trying to partner with digital PRs as well to fill that link building gap. Carmen Dominguez: I mean, I was a digital PR and we did everything with SEO in our heads. So I will say yes, because we were using the SEO strategy to follow and create the links. Obviously, it's beyond just simple SEO, it also depends on how you see SEO. I see digital PR as part of organic and SEO is part of organic, so it depends on your definition of SEO. But I will say it is. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah. Crystal Carter: Okay. Okay. Cool. Okay, so we're moving on to the next one. This is specifically for the live podcast session. This is the one that I like. This is a section. These are again, actual predictive text from Google, and this one is for the predictive text for Can You Learn SEO, which is can you learn SEO by yourself? I know a lot of people... I've got somebody up already. So from the audience, green for yes, blue for no. Very interesting. So that's lots and lots of green. I've got a little bit of no, or a little bit of blue, so I'd probably say that's probably 90-ish percent saying yes. And I think this is interesting. So Barry, you're close to the microphone, so I'm going to come to you. What are the advantages or disadvantages of being a self-taught SEO? Barry Adams: As a self-taught SEO and one who teaches SEO now, I wish there were courses in SEO when I first learned it. The best learning environment that I learned as a self thought SEO was become part of an SEO community where you could ask questions, where there was no stupid questions basically, where you could just ask anything. That for me was a real breakthrough moment when I think I really embraced SEO and really started to learn it. So self-taught, yes, but still self-taught within a community. I think you will need to have people around you to ask these questions. I don't think there's such a thing as a completely self-taught SEO, 'cause you always learn from other people who are willing to share information, answer your questions. And I think if you're an experienced SEO, you should see it as maybe part of your remit to pass that on to others and be generous with your time and your knowledge and allow people to ask those questions, 'cause realistically that's how you learned it as well. Carmen Dominguez: I was going to say I learned by myself, but really it wasn't by myself because I went to the internet, I asked people. I tested things on my own, and I put the results on forums that people replied to me. So really, is it? Yeah, I didn't have a teacher and I didn't learn at university, but I had a whole community, which I think is one of the most beautiful things of the SEO industry is the community that we have. So you can, but it's not on your own. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, the community is great now, because when I started there wasn't really much of that. And also no SEO courses, at university anyway, so I'd have to do a couple of smaller courses. And then mostly learnt in the agency environment. And also, funnily, I was talking to a colleague of mine who didn't go to uni, and we both worked at the first agency I did in 2010. And straight out of college, he just got an internship and doing SEO, and now he's head of a big department and he's doing really well. Didn't have to pay any of his uni fees and all that stuff, and so he saved with all of that, and he just learned on the job. Pretty much what I did, 'cause I did a web design course and I quit web design to do SEO. And I just thought that's a perfect example of being able to learn in that environment as an internship, or if someone just gives you a chance and you just slowly build up your salary according to how much you learn kind of thing. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I don't know if you wanted to jump in on that one. No? That's fine. That's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. Next one. Next one. Next one. Okay. So the next one, this I thought was interesting. So if you type in, what is SEO in, you get a lot of different things. So it's like what is SEO in marketing? What is SEO in business? What is SEO in YouTube? What is SEO in web development? What is SEO in social media? What is SEO in journalism? What is SEO in Etsy? Okay. So my question is is that, do you find that SEO is different in these different spaces, or do you think SEO is SEO? So green for SEO is SEO, and blue for SEO is different in these different spaces. Interesting. Okay. So we have probably 70% people saying that SEO is different in all these different spaces. I think that's really interesting. And I think to the panel, my question is, do you think that clients understand that there are differences in these spaces? Carmen Dominguez: Clients don't understand SEO. So let alone in all the different channels. The amount of times I have to five, because I cannot get them to rank number one in one week is just mental. So no, I don't think they understand the difference, but I also think SEO is SEO. So the point is, you get your content to be visible to users and users engaged with it and that applies to Chat, to YouTube, to Google, to TikTok, to whatever you do. So I think SEO is always the same, but it's done in different ways. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, I was thinking about it in terms of the definition of SEO versus an SEO job spec and to see if there's any correlation. And nine times out of 10, because I was looking at job specs, I was like, oh, there's way more things people are asking for versus what you would define as SEO typically. Which is weird because I've always had a problem with SEO as a term, because I thought, well, is it more like organic marketing? But then you can't say organic marketing 'cause then clients aren't aware really what that is, and they think, oh, I'm just going to go with the SEO. So yeah, I think it's something that we're stuck with in terms of a term for lead generation, whatever. But really I think it's way more than what you define as SEO. Grace Frohlich: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really good point. If we're talking about semantics, SEO is just search engines for search engines, right? But as you said, are we talking about organic search or just organic anything? Then yeah, I mean, I think it can be diversified into all these different spaces. Carmen Dominguez: Actually, I'm talking to more about that if anyone wants to come to my talk. It's no SEO. Let's talk about organic. So, self-promotion. Crystal Carter: Carmen, when's your talk? Carmen Dominguez: When? At 3:00. Crystal Carter: Three o'clock, go see Carmen. Carmen Dominguez: I think. Auditorium one. Just find me, I'm the only Carmen, I think. Crystal Carter: Barry, Is SEO, SEO or is SEO different? Barry Adams: I think I agree with what Carmen said earlier. It's still SEO, but the tactics are different. When I do SEO for news websites, you cannot apply the same tactics as you do for e-commerce. But in the end, it is about getting your content in front of an audience that uses an organic search engine. So, yeah. Crystal Carter: Agreed. Agreed. Okay. Finally, we have another section. So I looked up digital marketers needs and Google changed it to digital marketing needs. And it said, digital marketing needs coding, digital marketing needs a degree, digital marketing needs math, digital marketing needs a laptop, which I thought was interesting. Does digital marketing need a degree? And I think this is interesting, 'cause I've heard people say that you cannot be a technical SEO or you can't be an SEO if you don't know HTML or you don't know how to code. I've heard people say you can't be a marketer without a degree, I've heard people say that sort of thing. And so I'm interested in this idea of gatekeeping. So here's a question to the audience and the last question of the day before... And thank you so much for joining us for this session. Do you think there is one way to be a digital marketer? Green for yes and blue for no. That is 100% no. People listening on the internet, there are many ways to become a digital marketer. I have an English literature degree and I've worked in marketing my entire life. And I know somebody else who's a fantastic SEO and his degree is in anthropology. He's amazing. So I think that there's many, many ways to be an SEO, a digital marketer. What are your thoughts on that? Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah, my degree was in multimedia computing, so it didn't really specialize in anything. A bit of coding, a bit of 3D, whatever. And then I did web design for four years and then quit, and then there was a credit crunch, and then I changed careers. I thought, let me try something different, no jobs anymore. So yeah, I think... What was I going to say? Yeah, I lost my train of thought. Yeah, learning from scratch. And yeah, I just found my way to SEO. I completely lost my train of thought. Crystal Carter: It's all good. It's all good. Sukhjinder Singh: It's almost finished as well. Crystal Carter: Took a new journey. Carmen Dominguez: I think that I know where you're trying to go. Myself, I am a translator. I'd never studied marketing. I didn't know what marketing was when I got into it, but I knew that what I needed to do is someone to read my content. So I needed, as a translator, I needed someone to read my content. As a journalist, you need someone to read your content. So in the end, that is what you want to do as a digital marketer. You need to convince your user to read your contents, basically. Yes, there is one way to be a digital marketer, which is making sure that you engage with the user and the user comes to you. How do you do that? There are a thousand of other ways to do it, but the clarity is what the purpose of digital marketing, and I think it's always the same. Get your users to come to you. And I guess it doesn't matter where you come from, you can come from computing, you can come from, I don't know, cleaning windows, so long as you know that you need to get your user, you are a digital marketer. Sukhjinder Singh: Yeah. Sorry, I was just going to add to that. Yeah, I fell into it from designing websites, and I wanted to know what the websites can do after you produce them, and then also from necessity as well. And I thought, okay, there's a whole different new career that's blowing up. And a few of my mates were doing it outside of uni who did do elements of SEO in their courses. And I thought, let me just try that out. But it's definitely led on from web design and necessity just for me. Grace Frohlich: Yeah, I used to work in fashion in New York, so completely different industry. I did that for about 10 years, and then I just switched one day. I was like, I want to do something else. And here I am. So I know, exactly, marketers can come from anywhere really. I'm reminded of Ratatouille. Anyway, yeah. Crystal Carter: Yeah, agreed. Barry Adams: And this is the point where I admit I don't have a degree. I never finished uni. I started working at a call center two years after I started uni and decided that learning that was not for me, was way too hard. Became an IT guy, server management, and somehow found myself managing a server farm that had intranet pages on it. And then because I hacked together my own website, in my spare time, I knew a bit of HTML. My boss asked me, "Can you change what's on the web servers?" And that's how the whole ball just started rolling basically. And I think in the podcast we did a while ago with SERP's Up where we talked about how people get into a career in digital and in SERPs, we discussed this as well. No matter what your skillset is, what your passion is, there is a role for you in digital and in SERPs. If you're analytical, great. If you're not, but you're very creative, great. If you just like writing stuff, great. If you're a total tech nerd, great. There's always a job role that really suits your skillset and that can really give you fulfillment and achievement within your career. So yeah, it doesn't matter where you come from, it's what you do with it really. Crystal Carter: Yes. And on that motivational note, I'd like to thank you all for joining us today for this episode of SERP's Up. Thank you so much for taking part in my little paddle board thing. I really love seeing all the little cards. Have a wonderful, fantastic rest of BrightonSEO. And bonsoir, goodbye. 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