Want to build your brand up? Start a podcast. Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are back to discuss the art of podcasting and how you can leverage podcasts to showcase expertise and drive market traction. Take a behind-the-scenes look with host of the SEO Video Show, Paul Andre de Vera, to discover what it takes to plan and execute a professional podcast. Plus, we look at how the podcast landscape is changing for creators with a host of Strategy Sessions, Andi Jarvis. Learn how to translate podcasting into marketing growth on this week's episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Everything (mostly) that a marketer could want to know about podcasting Want to build your brand up? Start a podcast. Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter are back to discuss the art of podcasting and how you can leverage podcasts to showcase expertise and drive market traction. Take a behind-the-scenes look with host of the SEO Video Show, Paul Andre de Vera, to discover what it takes to plan and execute a professional podcast. Plus, we look at how the podcast landscape is changing for creators with a host of Strategy Sessions, Andi Jarvis. Learn how to translate podcasting into marketing growth on this week's episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 99 | August 7, 2024 | 63 MIN 00:00 / 1:03:23 This week’s guests Katy Powell Paul Andre de Vera is a 15+ year B2B digital marketer who creates engaging, educational, and entertaining video content that ranks. His innovative approach has made "Dre" a sought-after speaker, online educator, and organic growth strategist for B2B companies like SAP and Workday. He's a diehard Raiders fan who lives with his two Yorkies, Buddha and Santo. You'll find "Dre" hosting the livestream SEO Video Show during Friday lunch, which has accumulated over 75k watch hours. He always looks for the next great place to devour a delicious rib-eye steak and occasionally sip a glass of whiskey. Today, you'll find him providing SEO consultation to hyper-growth startups Andi Jarvis Andi is the Founder and Strategy Director of Eximo Marketing, a marketing strategy consultancy based in Belfast and Liverpool. Andi also hosts the Strategy Sessions podcast, a show that interviews some of the best marketers in the world. He holds an MSc in Marketing and the Marketing Week Mini MBA in Marketing. He also runs a fundraising project, Eximo & Friends with Barnardo’s, where marketers volunteer to provide consultations to small businesses in return for a donation to support refugees. You should also know that Andi likes to talk, at length, about: being a dad, his BBQ, rugby league, boxing and cricket Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix and I'm joined by the very vocal, the audiable, the shout it out to the world and tell them what you think head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Like Beyonce says, "Tell everybody. Tell everybody." She says it a lot in that song, "Tell everybody." And like her partner says, "I got 99 problems, but a podcast ain't one." That's right. Mordy Oberstein: I thought you'd say, 99 problems, but talking a lot is not one. Crystal Carter: It's not one. It's definitely not one, like when I was at school. No, it was one of those personality tests. They do the Myers-Briggs tests and things, and they're like, "Crystal talks a lot." I'm like, "Like Kelsa Priess said, water is wet. This is not news." Mordy Oberstein: I took one on the computer and the computer started to fume. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: I'm joking. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, search over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter. But where you can also use Wix Studio and the templates and the advanced design features to give your podcast a home that you can control across the web. As opposed to just using a podcast hosting platform, you should also have a website for your podcast. Anyway, today we're doing a podcast about podcasting for marketing growth with marketers who podcast. As we're pulling back the curtain on this very show by looking at what does and doesn't have to go into production for a podcast, how to manage the ins and outs of a podcast, how to use a podcast to gain market traction, and how to leverage your podcast for your and your client's brands. To show us that it ain't nothing but a podcast thing. Dre is in the house, the host of the SEO Show, Paul Andre De Vera will chat with Crystal in just a few moments. Plus we look at how the podcast landscape is changing with the one only Andi Jarvis. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO News and who you should be following for more awesomeness on social media. So the next time someone tells you to "Shh and be quiet," you tell them "The world isn't a library, it's a podcast, and I'll talk about whatever I want to talk about whenever I want to talk about it," as we help you find your inner voice. No, not your inner voice, but your microphone voice on this, the 99th episode of the SERP's Up Podcast. It's our Wayne Gretzky episode, 99 or our Aaron Judge episode if you like baseball. Crystal Carter: Okay, that's fine. Also, I think I mentioned this when we chatted to Andi as well, but also Agent 99 from Get Smart. Mordy Oberstein: 99's a good number. Crystal Carter: It's good. It's good. 99 Red Balloons, the classic song. Mordy Oberstein: That's classic. Crystal Carter: Bump Ba dum bum bum bum, ba dum, bum bum. Mordy Oberstein: It also means we're one away from our 100th episode and we have a surprise for you for that. Crystal Carter: It's true, it's true. 100 is good innings in cricket because we couldn't cover all the sports, all the sports fall. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know, is there anything... I like bowling? Is anything with 99? No. Crystal Carter: No.- Mordy Oberstein: I was thinking like- Crystal Carter: ... Except for that's bad score. Mordy Oberstein: ... the perfect score is a hundred, but it's 300. Crystal Carter: Definitely 300. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Crystal Carter: And to be honest, I'm a mediocre bowler. I'm very happy if I get three digits, if I'm completely honest. Mordy Oberstein: I'm a terrible bowler. Crystal Carter: My husband was never on a bowling team. I was in a bowling league with my mom and my sister, and my husband has never been in organized bowling of any kind, and yet he always beats me, which makes me upset because he's a non-bowler. It's not fair. It's not okay. Mordy Oberstein: I have a hard time. I think we talked about this at one point. The ball bothers me, it bothers my wrist. It just feels awkward in my hand for some reason. Crystal Carter: I always start off with a heavier one in the the first game, and then I go lighter for the next game and the game after that. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. You really plan out your bowling strategy. Crystal Carter: I get tie ties, I get tired and stuff. I tell you what though, my dad is an epic bowler. When I was a kid, he was my hero because he had, it was like 14 pounds or whatever, and when he would bowl, he would throw it halfway down the lane and then when it hit the pins, it was like, clack, clack, clack, clack. And I was like, this is awesome- Mordy Oberstein: You know you don't want the ball to spin, you want it to glide. And at the very end it's supposed to spin. I saw a video about this. Anyway, I don't know a lot about bowling, but I know a lot about podcasting. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: I've done a few podcasts in my day. Podcasting, before we get into Dre, I just want to say it is a phenomenal, phenomenal medium for you if you're thinking about doing a variety of different things with your business or your client's businesses, podcasting is fabulous. And I'm not saying that because I'm biased towards podcasting, which I am. First off, it's informal and connected, which I think works in today's ecosystem. Like this podcast in case you haven't figured it out, is not exactly a tuxedo. It's more like a baggy pair of jeans. We have a connection, we talk, we're informal, we're chit-chatting. It's a great way to connect in a real way with your audience and not in a very corporate way with your audience, which I think the world is leaning very much against that whole corporate kind of talk. Podcasting is great. You create actual relationships with your guests. There have been people who are my best friends at SEO that I met by doing podcasts and having them on a podcast. You make real connections. That first five minutes and last five minutes of an interview are connection gold. And it's fabulous for positioning yourself. Don't always, and we'll talk about this with Andi, don't always worry about the numbers. Podcasting is a great way to position yourself for getting more leads and getting more clients and whatnot. And it's also much easier to produce, which we'll get into with Dre than it is, I don't know, the ultimate guide to whatever, whatever, whatever, to try to get more traffic. It's just easier to produce. And here's the greatest part, it's repurposable. Audiograms, YouTube video. You can turn it into a blog post. And last but not least, the barrier to entry is higher than you think, but it's also not as high as you think at the same time. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that it's one of those things that with marketing, once you get going, it can become a lot more sort of second nature. I think Dre's been doing his podcast and his show for a long time. You've been podcasting for a very long time. And Andi talks about, it was tricky to get it going in the first instance, but now he's really, really gotten through it and he really goes through it regularly. And I think that it becomes a sort of part of your routine that you're going to connect with your audience and share whatever you're sharing. And I think that one of the other things that I think is great for audiences, and for people who are marketing and who are considering podcasts is that you can make sure that you are connecting with a particular audience at any time. So podcasting is something that can apply to lots of different audiences, whatever your vertical is. And I think that that's something that can be tricky for lots of different verticals. But if you were somebody who was really into pneumatic drills, you can make a podcast and people who are really into that would be really into it. If you were somebody who was really into epidemiology or something, you could do a podcast and then people would be interested in that as well. The numbers on podcasts are incredible across the board, and I think that, like you said, it's not always about numbers, but it is about showing a depth of knowledge. And one of the things that's really... and an interest in knowledge as well. So even if you're not a super, I don't know why I picked pneumatic drilling, but I think I've been thinking about that PN, that silent P in there. Anyway, but if you were interested in that particular topic, and let's say you were a noob, right? Let's say you were just getting started on your journey of becoming, I don't know, an engineer in that field or something, whatever it may be, you can connect with people who are further along in their journey to help you learn about what you're doing and to help your audience learn with you. So it's something where you can come at it from a source of truth and you can use that to both endear yourself to your audience, but also to demonstrate your expertise, whichever audience you're trying to apply to. And that's something that can be really rare. So if you were to start a TikTok channel on the same topic, you would probably have to test that audience and say, is this audience on TikTok? Et cetera, et cetera. But podcasts are something that cut across almost all aspects and almost all demographics. Mordy Oberstein: And it's super easy. It's a great way, as you're doing that to position yourself or your client the same way. Because if you're putting out a blog post or you're putting out whatever you're putting out on social media, sometimes it could be hard to let your brand personality come through. It's super easy on a podcast because your personality literally comes through and you can, by the way, that doesn't mean you have to be your actual self. You could be your podcast self on a podcast. I'm this way on this podcast. I can be very different on a different podcast. It's super easy and it's super visible and it's super transparent, or that's not even the word I'm looking for. I can't find the right word. But it's super distinct and it's super obvious, a way to position your brand, I'll say personality, just super upfront. You don't have to over time start creating a notion with our visual language. It comes out instantaneously. When you're podcasting. Crystal Carter: It can be really useful to connect with people in a way that is low-key. So one of the things that can happen sometimes is that if you're doing a talk and you say hi, I'm so-and-so, and I also host a podcast. So sometimes if you're presenting to people, if you're talking to people, if you're meeting people, then you might say, oh, I've got this blog, read my blog. And maybe people have time to read your blog, maybe they don't have time to read your blog or watch my videos, maybe they have time to do it, maybe they don't. If you say, download this free guide, think maybe they have time to do that, maybe they don't. However, if you say, oh, I've got a podcast, then maybe at some point when they've got 10 minutes while they're doing their working out or they're going for a walk or they're at the airport or whatever it may be, it's really, really low-key. They can sort of flip through and they can get an idea of who you are before they get involved with some of your other aspects of your business or your persona or whatever it may be. And it's something that can be really accessible for people in lots of different ways. And I think that for brands, that's something that is super important because you want to be able to have some access there. I think also from a technical point of view, particularly from an SEO point of view, podcasts have incredible distribution networks built in. So if you were thinking of from a brand point of view, when you have a podcast and if you were to search for the SERP's Up Podcast for instance on Google, and then you were to look at some of the places where the SERP's Up Podcast is, and if you were to leave a review, then you would be able to see that ours shows up on IMDB, it shows up on Google's things, it shows up on Apple, it shows up on Spotify, it shows up on Amazon, it shows up on lots of different things, and there are very few mediums that have that built in. It has a built-in distribution network that allows you to connect with lots of different folks both on the SERP and in the lots of other platforms as well. Mordy Oberstein: And the last thing that I'll say that it is because that's absolutely true, before we hand it over to you and Dre, it does something that brands should be doing more of by default, and that's putting the people who work at the brands out in front. So you're putting actual people that people can actually connect... I'll tell you a story where... I'm not going to say the company where it was, one company I used to work with, they were like, oh, I'm so glad you're there, because until... I had no idea anyone who worked there and I don't know who to connect to, who to ask questions to, who to chat about, whatever it was. Putting people out in front for your brand, again, especially in today's ecosystem, Lily Ray has put out a tweet about this a couple... By the time this comes out a couple of weeks ago, it's like, brands should do this more often. It's really effective, and she's somebody who does that for her brand. Putting people out there is a way for other people to connect with other people, while at the same time connecting with your brand. And by default, you're going to need somebody like myself and Crystal to host the podcast. So you by default need to put somebody at your company out there upfront for people to connect with. That's insanely powerful. With that, let's dive into how you actually go about podcasting, running it, what works, what doesn't work, what you should do, when you shouldn't do as Crystal talks with Dre. Crystal Carter: Oh, thank you so much for joining us. We are so honored to have you on the show. Mordy and I are both huge fans of everything you do online. Paul Andre De Vera: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Crystal. Thank you for having me on again. I mean, it was awesome having you as guests on my own podcast, right? Both you and Mordy were great guests dropping so many knowledge bombs. Great stuff. Crystal Carter: I'll be completely honest. You were like, "Do you want to do the podcast?" And I was like, "Absolutely. Just for the montage." If people aren't familiar with the SEO show and the podcast that Paul does, he does these amazing montages that make you look like the most amazing person. I'm like, "oh my gosh, I want to meet that person." I'm like, "oh, wait, no, that's me." And yeah, I think you have so much fun with your podcast, and I think it really, really shows. Paul Andre De Vera: That's the number one rule that I follow when it comes to podcasting and having guests, is making sure the guest feels like the hero, the superstar. That's how you get them to open up, feel comfortable, and be able to share knowledge that maybe they maybe scared to share. But one of the things that I love doing is when a lot of podcasters ask, "Hey, introduce yourself." I don't like doing that. You know why? Because that makes the guests kind of feel a little like, they kind of may be shy and scared in sharing some of their awards that they've won, and you as the outsider can do that research for them and make them... Sometimes when I introduce someone myself, one of the guests was like, it was Dixon. Dixon goes, "I didn't even know that I did that stuff. I didn't." You find things about someone that they didn't even know that was out there, right? So going the extra mile and making sure that your guest is the hero of the podcast is something that really, really will make it go really well. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that that helps you build on the podcast as well, because I think that one of the things I think that you are really, really good at is elevating the art form, as it were. So if people haven't listened to your show, you add in even before the show starts. You've got the montage that's like the show's happening, it's going to be great, and you add in lots of sound effects and you add in lots of great stuff throughout the show. And I think that that element that you're talking about, that adding in that extra element of research and really hosting the show, really guiding that can really take it to a next level. What other things do you try to bring to really make it feel like a podcast experience? Not just like, oh, you're just listening to a podcast, but this is an experience. Paul Andre De Vera: Yes, definitely. Because right nowadays, we started the podcast, I started this remotely. And a lot of podcasts started by just going on a Zoom and now eventually started in... sometimes... before we were all stuck at home, people actually in person. There was mics in front of each other and you guys that was a podcast and you would actually record in studio. And now that everyone's going back into these elaborate studios and stuff like that, it's time to up level your game if you're going to do some video podcasts. So this is where you come in on upping your production value, whether it's either... obviously Podcast, you need great sound, you need a great mic. You were talking earlier today, let me get closer to my mic because you know the value of how the quality of the sound is, especially in podcasts, that's something can actually even extend out into video because you can watch a pixelated video and have clear sound. You still get value from it. But if you have muffled sound and clear video, you just watch people doing charades or something. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that it's something that can really tell people that you care, that they're taking the time to listen to your podcast. And in terms of the guests and the quality of the experience, it can help you to get better guests. It can help you to get better segments. Have you found that in your experience? Paul Andre De Vera: Oh, yes, yes. When I first started, it was tough getting guests. Getting guests... I got this question all the time, "how do you get your guests on your podcast?" So at first, of course, I connected to my actual network, going out to LinkedIn. People I've actually worked with in the past, SEOs and CEOs of companies that I've actually worked with and being able to tap them first, right? I'll tell you this, I did get rejected when I first started. You'll get rejected. Maybe they took a look at it and we'll pass, we'll pass. But I'll tell you this, a year or two years later, ask them the same again. I didn't mention anything about it from the past. I'm like, Hey, I still would love... I would say something, "I would still love to have you." It's like, "oh, okay. Of course, totally fine. Totally get it." There's that rule where you don't just want, want, want, want. So sometimes you want give back. And now knowing that the production value's the number one thing that actually people will accept my invitations like, wow, you put so much work into it, they want to be a part of it. So that's something... Having that extra touch of production will get you over the top. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's totally true. And I think also that not expecting to set the world on fire in the first couple of episodes I think is really important for expectations. I think there's a lot of people who sort of start a podcast and then it kind of fades away. This first little while can sometimes be tricky to get through. What is the thing that helps you to push through? What would you say to someone who's on the fence as to whether or not this is a good ROI for their investment either as a team or as an individual? Paul Andre De Vera: The best ROI is you're actually investing in yourself by doing this yourself. Obviously there's going to be the whole personal brand aspect and you developing your own personal brand can also uplift a company's brand. But at the same time when you're podcasting, even just for companies, you're really, really having another channel, an avenue where you can actually reach out to. This is something that when they now come on to clients, I'm like, Hey, have you ever thought about podcasting? If it's not something they're doing. Because I'll tell you this, there is some relation when it comes to SEO, right? I mean, you can get your show notes that you can add into that gets ranking. You can distribute your podcast through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and then you get your show notes on there, you get back links back to your site. So there's some SEO value when it comes to podcasting, but at the same time... So that's one value you can prove like, hey, you want to help boost our rankings, let's start on podcasts. But at the same time, you're creating content. Content is currency nowadays. This is something that you want to have. And that's why I also mentioned to you like, Hey, when you're doing recordings like this, I feel like you add the extra layer of video. That video is going to help you repurpose the audio and repurpose the visuals. And again, you can do more cool things in your production, like how I do all the little magic effects on screen, you heard the little chime, but for those who are listening can see on screen, there was a little graphic that went overlay. So adding the extra touch, again, will help you up level your podcast. And then when it comes to ROI, it's like, again, I do see it more as more brand awareness and just being able to get out there. But there's also, when it comes to podcasts and video in particular, you can really, really have a call to action towards the end. And these podcasts where if you're an affiliate marketer, I put affiliate links in these show notes, and I've actually gotten income from that. That's something I actually didn't think, but hey, it's another avenue to include your affiliate links if you're promoting something. And that was another great source of income through podcasting. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think so. And I think that for businesses who are... because there are a lot of branded podcasts, and this is something that you see across, we are a Wix podcast. We are a podcast for Wix, for instance. HubSpot has a whole podcast network. There are lots of brands who are putting a lot of emphasis and a lot of interest in podcasts. And I think that one of the reasons why they're doing that is for the brand visibility. And I think also for the flexibility. What we find certainly is that we are able to talk about topics that are maybe brand new topics that we're sort of exploring. And we find that that's a really interesting way and that people really engage with those new topics. That this is a sort of cutting edge topic. We're still exploring what it is, and we're having a discussion about it. And the expectation is that it's a discussion rather than necessarily, I know every single thing that there is to know about that. And I think that big brands are investing in these things for a lot of reasons. Are you finding that you're seeing more brands interested in getting involved with podcasts in your experience? Paul Andre De Vera: Oh, yes. Definitely seeing more interest. And if not, I'm the one that's going to bring it up to them. So I'm working with a company, I'm like, Hey, hey, I was able to build a brand, a huge brand that gets tons of sponsorships within just a few years. So this is something where you can really, really develop another asset for your company. If that asset's not just building your brand. You have another source of income where depending on the type of business model you have, your podcast can get sponsors and ads from your Google AdSense, whether it's you post on YouTube. And I really, really feel like, I haven't even looked into this, but I know there's podcasting agencies out there that you can actually get into actually more of the audio type of podcast and get advertising in there. And hopefully... And I feel like the ROI in there is pretty good because you know why? I feel the podcasters are authentic. We are two people. We know we are having a conversation. What we're talking about is about our experiences, and it really makes us have that authority within our space of what we're talking about right now. Both of us, we both run... both podcasters. Like you right now, you're running the Wix podcast. I'm here running my own podcast, and we're talking about podcasting… Crystal Carter: Right! Paul Andre De Vera: It's two really experts of what we're doing and we're sharing our experience. There's so much value in that. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. And I think it's a super accessible thing as well, because anyone with ears, or whatever can listen to a podcast. And also there's audio transcripts as well for folks who are hearing impaired as well. So there's lots of ways that you can engage in, and I actually very often read podcast transcripts myself. I don't know that there's many other people like me, but I very often I look at podcasts that way and I find it super valuable. It's also a great place for quotes. So a lot of people talk about EEAT and that sort of thing, and I think that we had an episode about experts, and I think that around brand experts, subject matter experts, for instance, it can sometimes be difficult to get subject matter experts to write all what they're talking about, but podcasts are a much easier ask for those kinds of folks. Have you found that in your travels? Paul Andre De Vera: Yes, yes. I feel the entry into podcasting. Just getting people to talk is so much easier If you're coming on something like this, instead of me having a thought leader write something down, take exactly what I said, make a thought leadership piece out of it. This is something that we also do with... I'm seeing a lot with companies creating customer case studies as a podcast. They're bringing customers in, and I'm working with a company right now where I'm helping edit their podcast by them just having a conversation with one of their customers, and then I'm repurposing it into... well, there's little vertical shorts or an actual clip of the whole podcast, but then again, we're doing video just again, I'm going to keep pushing this. Do video when you're doing podcasting because there's so much more that you can repurpose, right? There's just that extra layer they can add. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah. I've not heard this case study example, but I think that's a really great trend. I think people are getting really creative with it as well. And I think interviews are a classic podcast format, but one of the other things I've seen is the people are doing sort of long reads. So for articles that are really, really long for... you start to see the author reading it and then they put it online as a podcast, and it's really engaging actually. It's really, really engaging. It's like a mini audiobook almost, which I find really interesting. Paul Andre De Vera: I love that. I love that. It kind of goes back to something what I'm doing here as well. I do have a podcast, so I do have the video podcast and the SEO Video Show, which I kind of like promoting more as a show, but I do have the Knowledge Bomb Podcast, right? The SEO Knowledge Bomb Podcast. And this is where it's not a complete copy of what I'm doing. I'm pretty much extracting all the knowledge bombs from one of my shows and then reading it out on a podcast with my voice and it becomes a five-minute podcast saying, Hey, SEO Knowledge Bombs of the Week. It's five minute audio clip of me kind of just summing up of what the knowledge bombs were dropped from my past guests from the previous week. So again, you can really create a podcast out of what you're already doing now. Say, if you want to get inventive, look and see what you're doing now. If you are writing blogs like we mentioned, take your blogs, maybe extract that and read it out and just talk to an audience so people just can hear your voice. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think there's a lot of experimentation that people can do, and I think it's a really interesting landscape. What do you think the future holds for podcasts in the next year or so? Paul Andre De Vera: For the next year, again, I want to see more video podcasts. Like I said, I'm going to keep repeating it. I feel like right now you can already see the transition from say something like Spotify now I'm doing some video on there. So these directories are going to... I want to imagine once we see Apple Podcasts, those becoming starting showing videos. And I feel that that's the direction going there as well. But again, podcasting is something, is an easy way to just get into a channel of being able to show off your knowledge and your expertise and be able to reach out to other people. I started my podcast because I was stuck at home and everyone was stuck at home. I was like, I want to network. This is my way of networking and going out to just talk to people, smart people, and learn from them. That's how you were able to just learn by just talking to people, smart people, smart people like you, Crystal. Crystal Carter: No, you are smart. Paul Andre De Vera: You're smart. Crystal Carter: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It is always, always, always a pleasure, and I hope to see you soon at the next SEO conference. Thank you so much for your time today, Paul, and yeah, thanks for joining us. Paul Andre De Vera: Of course. Of course. Thank you Crystal, and thank you Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: That was super, super insightful chat Crystal. He has so much personality. And again, you see it come through and it builds his own brand, his personal brand, without him even having to say more than 10 words. Crystal Carter: It's something that he really, really utilizes really, really well with his channel. So it works really well for his YouTube channel. It works really well for the podcast. Dre's super nice when you meet him in person as well. And also, also, also, Dre is incredibly smart. Dre has a lot of fun with his podcast and stuff, and he has a lot of fun with his show, but I've been on discussions with him where he gets into some of the more technical stuff that he does, and my guy is incredibly astute at Enterprise SEO, and it is an absolute pleasure to hear him speak on that because he's proper nerd levels of really, really right in the weeds in that and so impressive. And I think that people underestimate the ability to be charismatic in certain spaces and assume that just because you're charismatic in one space that you're not necessarily a complete nerd in another space. Dre is absolutely one of those people. He really, really knows his stuff, and it's great to speak to him. Mordy Oberstein: He's one of my favorites. I am looking forward to seeing him again at some SEO conference in the near future. He was at Brighton San Diego last year. I'm like, "oh, I didn't know he was coming. I wish I would've been able to spend more time with him 'cause he's so sweet." Speaking of another sweet person, we're going to have a little chat with Andi Jarvis about- Crystal Carter: I don't know that anyone's ever called Andi sweet. Mordy Oberstein: Well, I'm saying... Well, I'm not saying that because he's actually sweet. I'm saying that purely for the sake of the transition. Crystal Carter: Which is an important thing that you must master as a podcaster. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. It's like the kung fu of podcasting, the transition. Crystal Carter: Wax on, wax off transition. Mordy Oberstein: Paint the fence transition. So Andi, I apologize for calling you sweet, but we're going to talk with Andi now. Okay, so the podcast game isn't what it used to be, which reminds me of baseball. I always do this. I'm always going to give a baseball reference. So back in the day, you didn't need to be super athletic to be a baseball player. Have you ever seen Babe Ruth? They just showed up after eating an all you can eat buffet down the block. Crystal Carter: Smoking cigarettes in the dugout. Mordy Oberstein: Smoking cigar... Literally, there is a picture of Keith Hernandez and the Mets smoking a cigarette in the dugout during a game like- Crystal Carter: Like spitting out tobacco in the kitchen. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, I'm an athlete. Okay, that was the eighties, and I don't mean the 1880s, like the 1980s. Andi Jarvis: Listen, it was the same in football or soccer. There was a great Brazilian footballer called Socrates, one of the greatest Brazilians of all time. Goes under the radar 'cause he doesn't have a name, but an absolute genius of a football player. And footage exists of him in the early to mid-eighties, walking out at halftime after the halftime break, flicking a cigarette into the crowd and running onto the pitch. But this guy was just... he just ambled around the... he was amazing, but it just wouldn't happen these days. Mordy Oberstein: It's unbelievable, right? But now you're right. So now you can't. Now even the baseball players, they have weightlifting regimes. They do this and they have that, and they have set nap time now. Crystal Carter: They have GPS trackers to monitor their stress rating and what they were doing on the pitch and all that sort of stuff. Andi Jarvis: Can I bore you with a really quick story about why that happened as well? Mordy Oberstein: Surely. Andi Jarvis: Why it happened as well. It's all down to, you remember what? 20, maybe 25 years ago when baseball went on strike and there was a lockout for like a whole month. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, 1994, the Yankees would've won the World Series that year, by the way. So I'm pissed. Crystal Carter: But I mean, who's counting though? Mordy Oberstein: I am. Andi Jarvis: Yeah. Well, okay, so the lockout happened and baseball lost millions of fans. When it came back, TV ratings were through the floor, everything went to (beep), and it's never been proven. But the belief was that when the players came back, the executives of baseball clubs were like, look, we've got to have something to bring the crowds back. The crowds are through the floor, the TV floor. What happened after that lockout, if you remember, was the guy whose name I forget, suddenly went on a home run hitting streak, started hitting the ball- Mordy Oberstein: Mark McGwire. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Andi Jarvis: McGwire, right. And there was somebody else doing it as well. Mordy Oberstein: Sammy Sosa. Crystal Carter: Sammy Sosa. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, right. Okay. Now, I don't know if you remember looking at pictures of them pre-lockout and post-lockout, they got significantly bigger. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Andi Jarvis: And a number of guys in baseball had started juicing. Now, if you start taking steroids and start juicing, you don't just accidentally do that. And the belief was that it was, if not encouraged, the blind eye was turned by the baseball team- Mordy Oberstein: The blind eye was a million percent- Andi Jarvis: ... to allow the guys to bulk up because all they wanted was you start banging the ball out of the stadium and home runs happen, people start coming. But on the back of that, people started realizing maybe we better do it legally, but if I'm bigger and fitter, I can hit the ball further. Mordy Oberstein: That's right. Andi Jarvis: Oh, and I can throw it further. Oh, okay. So it all spun out the back of that where they realized maybe if you are an athlete, it would help. Just don't do drugs. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Yeah. See, by way, I had a Barry Bonds card and a Sammy Sosa before they did steroids, they don't even look like the same person. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, we have a guest here with us. His name is Andi Jarvis, and that's why like baseball, we're going into the great beyond of the nature of podcasting nowadays. Andi, what's going on, man? Welcome to the show. Andi Jarvis: Thank you for having me I hope and thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: I'm just first off flattered that you regaled us with a baseball story and you're not even American. Andi Jarvis: It's my one and only baseball story. I'm sat here in a Canadian, Toronto Raptors T-shirt. I don't even know what sport that is. I've just got family there, so- Crystal Carter: It's basketball. Mordy Oberstein: It used to be basketball. Now it's just crap. But yeah. Crystal Carter: Also in this podcast about podcasting, can I just say that one of the first rules of podcasts is to not stay on topic. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Speaking of not staying on topic, Andi, what are you going to pitch us today? Andi Jarvis: Storytelling and the Strategy Sessions podcast and my marketing services. No, I'm not pitching all of that, but I'm here to talk podcasting coz I have a podcast which is called the Strategy Session. Crystal Carter: And you get some amazing guests on your podcast. I don't know how you convince these people to spend time with you. Mordy Oberstein: I really enjoy that episode that you did with that guest that you had, so-and-so. Crystal Carter: You get some great folks on your podcast. Andi Jarvis: All of them. So weirdly, this is the one thing if you're doing a guest podcast, which you don't have to do, but I find it easy 'cause you talk and you spark off somebody. But people are like, "how'd you get those guests?" I'm like, "genuinely, most of the time I just ask them." "What do you ask them?" I'm like, "will you come on my podcast and we'll talk about these things?" And you'd be amazed how many people go, "okay." Now some people have questions like, who else has done it and what's the commitment and how does it... Not everybody says yes, but I would say 50% of the people I ask say yes. And then once you get some good guests coming on, that can snowball, because the ones who do ask and go, "who else has been on?" You go, "oh, Rory Sutherland, Mark Ritson and Seth Godin." And they're like, "oh, right, okay." Now that's not- Mordy Oberstein: And you're rolling . Andi Jarvis: Yeah, and look, I named celebrities in the marketing industry there, but they're probably 15% of the episodes. And yes, they get bigger listening figures, but I don't want to turn it into kind of a celebrity led podcast, that it's more of an interesting stories about marketing podcast and lessons you can learn. But yeah, those people undoubtedly just help. Definitely. Crystal Carter: But I think that's one of the really interesting things about a podcast is it's a really good opportunity to connect with folks that you might not connect with in another way. So like you said, you've got people like Mark Ritson, you've got people like Seth Godin, Britney Muller, I love Britney. But then you also have people who are up and coming in their careers, people who have a good following, but maybe it's more niche. And so as well as you say, you ask them, how do you find them? Is there a particular criteria that you're looking for that makes you think this person's going to be great for a podcast? Andi Jarvis: Yes. So a lot of the time... I read a lot about marketing, so I sometimes just, I'll read something in Marketing Week, or if I see some awards that look rigorous, 'cause let's be honest, not every awards are rigorous. So if I see some awards that look rigorous, I'll be... sometimes if I've got half an hour, I'm sat at an airport, I'll have a look through who's shortlisted, not necessarily worried about who's won, but who's shortlisted and who's done something that I find really interesting. So sometimes that, look, the big budget thing won, but somebody did this thing that was really interesting and scrappy that nobody else considered. Yeah, that's it. And then just send them a message. LinkedIn's great. Or find their email or just like, Hey, I see you did this thing. Would you be interested in coming on the podcast? Here's a link to the show. Genuinely, we just want to sit and have a chat. And so I do a lot of background research to try and find the right guests. And yeah, that's it really. Mordy Oberstein: Not rocket science, but it's hard work. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, look, it takes time, and I think I pride myself in making things look and seem a little bit off the cuff, and it's all kind of laid back and relaxed, and it's not structured, and that's part of it. But you have to plan to be not structured and you have to put the effort in to find the guest. And some guests are really happy to just go, yeah, look, we're talking about this thing that I know a lot about. Just ask whatever. Other guests are a bit more nervous, and they're like, can you send me the questions? Now, I don't do that because you can always tell a podcast to me when someone's been sent the questions or when... you'll hear them say... you'll ask someone a question, they'll give this amazing answer and the host will go, oh, that's really interesting. Anyway, so next question, but follow up. They've just told you about this huge thing that they did. They won a gold medal for something or other, and you're like, that's really interesting. So tell us about your childhood. No, tell us about the thing they've just said. So I work with the guests. Some guests need a little bit more work than others. Some are just like, yeah, just shoot me a time and we'll do it. Crystal Carter: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey for podcasting? So did you have to learn that skill and is it different now from when you started? Andi Jarvis: It's a bit less chaotic now, I would say. I started in 2020 peak lockdown May 2020, and didn't know what I was doing. What I knew was I knew how to talk to people. I knew how to ask questions I found interesting about marketing. So if you think about this, I work on my own anyway. I was then forced on my own or away from all of the marketers because of COVID lockdown, and it just felt quite isolating. But also, I like to learn and I go to conferences to learn and I talk to people to learn, and I just wasn't getting it from virtual events. But talking to people was really interesting. So I was like, right, a podcast is the way to go. But I was just kind of making it up as I was going along. And there was different segments to the show edited together because one of the things was I had a bit more time, so I wanted to learn how to edit. I was like, right, well, I'm going to learn how to edit different bits into the show. I'm going to have a different guest. I'm going to have different sections, I'm going to do... And what you realize as the world started to reopen again is that that's just a real (beep) ton of work as well. So I streamlined it a little bit and now it's just an interview, minimal editing and get that out. But in terms of the format, and it's still me interviewing someone for 45 minutes to an hour depending on who the guest is, really. Mordy Oberstein: Looking back, it was like three, four years ago already, the pandemic. Do you feel like the ecosystem that you started off in and where you are now, it's a different world for your podcast? The world changed around you kind of thing? Andi Jarvis: Absolutely. And I think the main driver of that is just the changing listening habits. So back in 2020, any idiot with a microphone, I, started a podcast. A lot of those, let's be honest, a lot of people who start a podcast and a lot of you listening go, I'm going to start a podcast about this thing. If you get five episodes in, you've done really, really well and you're miles in front of most people who start a podcast and do one episode. I feel lucky that I started during lockdown because I committed to doing... and I went out publicly and I said on LinkedIn, and I said, on social, 26 episodes, one every two weeks, I'm going to do it for a year. And there's times where it felt like a little bit of a millstone. I'm like, oh God, what have I done? But you get into the rhythm of just making sure you deliver it and you did. And that kind of got me up and running. So what's changed though since then is as radio listening figures have changed and as media habits have changed, the media group certainly in the UK have realized the value of podcasting. So Spotify weren't paying people millions to do podcasts. They were just hosting podcasts. In fact, I don't even think Spotify were hosting podcasts when I started. They bought Anchor, and that's how they do their hosting. If you look at the top charts in the UK now, it's all the same company. So radio stations have podcasts now. So every celebrity, it's an extension of the radio's brand, and all they're interested in is keeping the audience so they can sell advertising or in the BBC's case, just keeping their audience. So it's a different world. And what that means for an amateur bedroom podcaster is that you've got to pay a lot of attention to production values. People would just like, it's a podcast, it's just a guy on his own. If the sound quality went a bit wobbly or your mic starts to kick up, it didn't really matter. But now people are like, every podcast you listen to has professional level audio. So if you are not delivering something similar, people are just like, "this is awful." And just turn off. So you've really got to pay attention to the stuff that you never really bothered with before and get into that side of it a bit more. But look, I still enjoy it and mine's still entirely self-produced 'cause I enjoy that bit of it. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, that point on the radio station, so for example, I listen to a sports podcast every day, it's ESPN's New York Radio Station, one of their shows, they're just repurposing it for podcast form and they lose out to the other New York's radio station in the actual ratings, but they beat them out on the podcast numbers, and the podcast numbers are so significant. They pour a ton of production effort into the podcast, whereas the other radio station completely ignores the podcast. So if you don't think to your point that big players are paying attention to their podcasts, they 100% most definitely are because another channel for them to beat other competitors. Andi Jarvis: Absolutely. And you look at the other thing as well is that celebrities have decided that podcasting now is an extension of their social brand. Now, whether this is what I would call pointless celebrities who are famous for being famous, I'm not a fan of that (beep), or whether it's movie stars or actors or sports people or politicians or whatever, they've realized that declining social audiences and organic reach is a problem. But if you build an audience in a podcast, you have this deeper longer conversation with them. So people are like, "who do you want to hear talking about marketing?" "Andi Jarvis." "Who's that guy? I've never heard of him." Or some idiot who used to do social media because they were on a TV program. Oh, they must know what they're talking about. Not that mine's a social media podcast, but if you want to do a social media podcast, there's probably some idiot who's been on a TV show doing a social media podcast, and you're like, what are you going to learn from them? They literally had 8 million people watching them for 15 nights. That's why they've got a big social media following, not going to help your small business mate. It really isn't. Crystal Carter: When I talk to people who are running smaller podcasts who aren't Joe Rogan, not that I'm chatting to Joe, but people who are running smaller podcasts, they say that their expectations are different. So think the expected outcomes that they plan to get, the ROI that they plan to get from the podcasts are different. Would you agree with that? Would you agree that maybe it's not about getting a million listeners? Andi Jarvis: Yeah, and look, let's be honest, anyone who tells you they don't want a million listeners is lying. Crystal Carter: Right. Okay, I'll take it. Andi Jarvis: But a win is not a million listeners. And I can tell you the top performing, so "performing" in air quotes episodes of my podcast, they're the ones with the celebrity guests on, the Seth Godins, Rory Sutherlands, Mark Ritsons. They are the top three. Yeah, they're the top three. Now, I can also tell you, and that's success apparently, but I podcast because I run a small business. Success to me is my business keeping going and winning more business. I don't think I've ever landed any business because of either any of those episodes. Now, I can point you to many other episodes where people have reached out and got in touch, and went, "I heard you speak to this person. Can we talk about this thing that you talked about?" So the listener figures aren't there, but the money in my bank account tells me they are there. So it's about what is success and being hyper clear on that. But one thing I would say is that there's a real fine line, and there are lots and lots of podcasts in marketing, and I've never bothered to count them, but I was going to say bajillions of podcasts in marketing that are set up by consultants and agencies that are sales podcasts. That are, oh, hi. Who are my ideal clients? Mordy and Crystal, how do I get in front of them? Let's invite them on a podcast. And then they sit on that podcast and sell to them. Let me tell you Crystal about this amazing thing I once did that sort of is right in your sector. And when you're listening to them, you can feel the pitch. And it's like, now, I would say to anyone, I think, I don't how many episodes I've got, I must be nearly 70 episodes now in total, because every season we start the numbering. Must be at 70 episodes now. And if you can hear me sell more than... Sorry, I've sold like I'm going to conferences or I'm doing this event, which unashamedly sell that, but if you listen to me interviewing a guest, point to somewhere you can hear me selling to that person. I don't have people on who I want to sell to. And this to me is top of funnel awareness and getting me out there and having people going, Eximo Marketing, Andi Jarvis, this guy knows his stuff, he understands this thing. That's what this is doing. It's not bottom of the funnel sales. Mordy Oberstein: I always feel that a podcast is really, outside of maybe the Joe Rogans of the world, it's a brand play. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, a hundred percent. Mordy Oberstein: It's a brand positioning play, you're having a constant conversation, you're reinforcing messaging, you're reinforcing that you're an expert, you're reinforcing this and that. It's not necessarily about the numbers, but people do really think it's about the numbers. I was saying before we record, I was at my kid's kindergarten graduation and some neighbor of mine said, "Hey, I heard you do a podcast. I want to get in and do a podcast 'cause I heard it's really easy to get in and do a podcast." I'm like, "yeah, it's pretty easy to do a podcast. You need basically some kind of recorder and you need a voice and you need to talk and you need to record that voice. And then you put it out there, SoundCloud or whatever you want to put it, fine, really easy. But it's not as easy as you think it is to get traction now because it's so saturated. Unless you're talking about some random, random topic, there's so many people doing the same thing that you're doing. You need to find an angle to differentiate yourself." Like this Break the Fourth Wall, this podcast, how do we differentiate this podcast? One is we started doing segments. Most SEO podcasts don't really do segments, and we also pitched it in a way or not pitched it. We positioned it in a way where, hey, if you're really advanced in SEO, you've been doing SEO for a long time, you'll get X value out of it. And if you are looking to break into the SEO world or digital marketing world, you also get y value out of it at the same time. And that's unique. That's a really cool way of positioning a podcast. You need to find some kind of angle because at the end of the day, if it's a branding play, if you don't position it in a unique way, you've lost the value of it. Andi Jarvis: Absolutely. And I think one of the things with that positioning is if I look back early on, it was too broad, but I didn't know what I was doing. I was just making it up. And the next series, series five, which will start in September, will probably be the most narrowly focused of the episodes in the series of them. Not every single episode, because there's a few that I have academics on as well 'cause I think there's a lot you can learn from academics, and so I probably won't be trying to get really niche with them. I actually want to explore the breadth of what they talk about. But one of the key things is maybe narrowing the focus of what we talk about and going a bit deeper on some of the episodes 'cause I think that that's right, is that it goes back to this concept of you needing a hundred fans or whatever it is. I can't remember, is it a thousand fans or a hundred fans, whatever. But if you are niche enough and talking about the right stuff, you don't need a million people listening to it. In fact, you've probably failed if you get a million people listening to it because you are mass market at that point. What you really want is a hundred or 500 or a thousand people who are here to hear what you have to say because they are in that particular sector. That's what you really need to get to. So if you are just talking to the right people, talk to your audience, understand your customers. Marketing basics, who are you talking and why do they care? And make a podcast about that, then you don't need to worry about the listening numbers. You just need to keep delivering that value and delivering that content. Crystal Carter: There's a couple of things that strike me from what you've just said. First of all, you were saying, oh, I'm talking to academics. I find them really interesting. You're like, I read a lot of marketing books, and you've got a lot of authors on your section. You're like, oh, I really want to drill down one of the things that I've read when somebody was like, how should you start a podcast? Or, which topic should you think about? And one of the things, I can't remember where I read it, I wish I could reference it, I'm sorry. But they said that. If it's not a topic that you could talk about a hundred times, like a hundred episodes, then it's probably not a good topic for you. So I know, Andi, that you are a marketing nerd because I know, I've seen your bookshelf, I'm sure behind you is full of all the marketing books. Andi Jarvis: Oh, yeah, I'm a bore. You say nerd, I'm a bore, right? I am. I'm boring in public. Crystal Carter: And I think that that's awesome. I think we get people on the podcast like yourself, other folks where I'm just like, I'm so excited. I cannot believe we got this guest to join us to talk about whatever the topic is. We have people on the podcast to talk about stuff that we wish we knew more about. And it's an incredible opportunity, an incredible privilege to be able to speak to them about that topic. And I think that that is another piece of value that you can add to your listening audience. If they're a niche audience and they're with you and they've been with you for that time, you can also help them to learn about this new thing. You can also help them explore that. You can also go on that journey. And in terms of long tail keywords, it's another great way to explore a long tail topic, like a really niche topic like you were saying, drilling down. It's a really good opportunity for that. Andi Jarvis: When I was 11 years old in school, one of my teachers, Mrs. Colling, what she was called, had a sign on her door, which she used to point to a lot. It said something like, "it's better to remain silent and be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and to remove all doubt." Now to someone who never shut up, she used to point, she'd be like, "Andrew." The reason I bring that up is that, the point you make about can you talk about it for a hundred episodes. If you are not an expert in something, you can probably bluff your way through a blog by reading enough blogs and copying the best bits and rewriting it with a little bit of your tone of voice. Not saying that's how all travel blogs are written, but you've not been to all those places you're writing about. But you can kind of do that. If you have to talk for 30 minutes on a subject and you don't know that subject, you will quite quickly have opened your mouth and be found to be a fool. And if you want to release 10 episodes about that subject, that's 300 minutes. That's five hours of talking about a subject. Can you do that? Now, I would say if someone gave me a microphone and went, listen, we just need to fill this 10 hours of silence. Can you talk about one subject? It would either be boring sports stories or marketing. Either of those two things I could probably talk about at length for about 10 days without stopping. I might even take breath- Mordy Oberstein: And we've covered both of them? Andi Jarvis: ... every now and again. Yeah, listen, I could put both of those two things together. I really could. Mordy Oberstein: It's a great podcast right there, by the way. Crystal Carter: You're speaking Mordy's language here. Could I just say. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Boring sports stories and marketing with Andi Jarvis? Andi Jarvis: Yeah. Like that baseball story I told at the beginning. Now that means the editor has to leave it in on lobby. A boring story I told at the beginning, I love stuff like that. And I could fill time forever, but marketing, people are like, oh, I'm sorry we didn't have time to prepare for this. I was like, I've been preparing my whole life for this. You need me to talk about marketing, pass me that microphone. I am your guy. So have a passion for it and have a knowledge about it. The only caveat to that I would say is if you're going to do something out of passion, so say you, I don't know, you love Crocs or you love, it might be theater, it might be musicals, it might be Taylor Swift, whatever. If you're doing it out of passion, I think the passion carries you, not necessarily the knowledge. But if you're doing it for business, you have to show you're an expert in that field 'cause if you don't show you're an expert in that field, you're going to harm your brand. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of your brand as time ebbs away on us, where can people find your brand and yourself? Andi Jarvis: Yeah, great segue, Mordy. Great segue. So, Andi Jarvis. I spell Andi with an I. so if you just put my name into Google, I appear everywhere. LinkedIn and Instagram and Threads are the places to find me. Unfortunately, I now stay away from Twitter since the Lunatic took over the asylum and don't really use it anymore. But yeah, so you find me. The company's called Eximo Marketing, E-X-I-M-O. So have a look for either of those and you'll find me. I'm also sure there's a link to the Strategy Sessions in the show notes. Is that correct? Mordy Oberstein: Heck yes. Andi Jarvis: Have a listen. I would say, if I can pitch this, so last year for the first time, so season four, I decided to do two mini seasons within the season. I did a Black History Month mini season, which in the UK is October, not February, and I did a Women's History Month, which is built around International Women's Day, so I did that as well. So I did, there was five Tuesdays in October, so I did five episodes with five guests and I did four for Women's History Month. I'm really proud of those miniseries. I'm proud of those nine episodes. They took us into slightly different conversations about different things. Now, I didn't just talk to black marketers about being black. They were just great at what they did and they happened to be black. That's the way the conversations went. But some of those episodes in those two miniseries are my favorites. You can't pick a favorite podcast, right? 'Cause It's like picking your favorite child, but some of those episodes are some of my top three, top five ever that I recorded and just really insightful deep conversations with really, really interesting people. People who I probably wouldn't have met before, some of them you might never have heard of either. If you're just thinking, where do I start listening to this Idiot's podcast? I would go back start of the Black History Month miniseries, started with an episode with a woman called Sherice Anibaba and you could probably see if you watch the video of me just sitting there going and just blown away by every word she says, I'm just hanging on it. Genuinely, she's genuinely amazing, so just start there. If you're going to start somewhere. I know you'll probably start with Seth Gordon, right? But if you're going to start somewhere, I'd got Black History. Mordy Oberstein: I like that by the way, not just a page, but where to start. That's unique. Andi Jarvis: I mean, you can go back to episode one if you like. It might take you, see if you're awake 12 hours a day, I give you ... you a whole week of your entire life doing nothing else other than listening to me on a podcast, which don't do that. Mordy Oberstein: Podcast listening tip, never start with episode one. It's usually those first few episodes. You got to really work out the kinks. I would start at episode 20 or whatever it is. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, definitely. Mordy Oberstein: Well, thanks Andi. Thanks for coming on and Crystal Carter: Thank you so much for joining us. Andi Jarvis: Thank you for having me. It's been a ride as always and lovely to see you both. Mordy Oberstein: Talk to you soon. From one sweet person to another sweet person to Barry, it's time for us to delve into the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Starting off with not news from Barry Schwartz, but from Anu Adegbola over on Search Engine Land, running about, Perplexity launches ad revenue sharing program for publishers. If you might recall, Perplexity got into a little bit of a snafu with various publishers about their content or about the publisher's content being shown in Perplexity without any real attribution and basically saying, "Hey, you took our content you just posted as your own and that's not cool." This seems like it might be atonement for that. There's a new pilot program where if you select publishers like Time, Der Spiegel and Fortune are included, that when their URLs appear within a Perplexity search and there's an ad on that search as well, those publishers will get some of the ad revenue from that ad. Doesn't seem like there's a ton of details about how exactly the program works and what the exact figures are and who exactly is in there. Also, the initial partners. And if this will expand or not expand. But it is really interesting 'cause I guess it's kind of the first real revenue sharing program we've seen, definitely on these AI search engine things, but across the board. There's no revenue sharing program with Google, for example, which I guess is a sore point for publishers, but that's a whole different topic for a whole different podcast. Anyway, on to Barry Schwartz on Search Engine Round Table. This was an interesting one, Barry writes, "Google 'hidden gem stores' search feature." What about it Barry? What Barry is saying is Google's testing a hidden gem store search feature that was spotted by Brody Clark where he was searching for sneakers and there was a little section on the mobile search for Hidden Gem stores, which is not, by the way, part of the Hidden Gems algorithm thing. That's a totally different thing. If you're not familiar with that, you don't need to know about that right now. If you are, just know this is not that. It was basically a little section on the mobile surface that says, Hey, hidden Gem Stores, which seems to imply these might be more niche stores or maybe local stores or whatever where you can buy said sneakers. In this case, it was New Balance, On and Running Warehouse US and Zappos, which are not really hidden gems. I mean, I've heard of New Balance before. And I’ve heard of Zappos before. On, I've heard of them too. Those are nice shoes. It's a really, really cool feature, if Google can refine this and actually get some hidden Gem stores in there. It's just a test, so who knows what it'll be, but if Google can do that or they can get the smaller niche stores in there, that'd be awesome. Okay. Also, from Barry Schwartz, also from Search Engine Roundtable. Google Search ranking volatility bursting at the seams. Barry getting real emotional with the headlines there. There's been an enormous amount of rank volatility being picked up by the various SEO weather tools for a good while now, I don't know, a good over a week, I'm going to say no more than a week, I don't know, 10 days. By the time you listen to this, it might be a full two weeks of high volatility. There's speculation, the speculation coming from me. I'm speculating that this is the storm before the other storm, so Google's Danny Sullivan said relatively recently that there's a core update coming soon, which we don't know what soon means. We covered this in the news a couple of weeks ago. Soon can mean tomorrow, soon can mean three weeks from now, soon can be a month from now. Who knows when soon actually is? But there is a tendency when Google, before Google releases a core algorithm update, two or three weeks before there's generally a period of intense ring volatility. I personally think combining the ring volatility we're seeing here and Danny's statement that maybe this is that ring volatility before the update, which would mean most likely if I'm right, which who knows if I am or not, after this set of ring volatility is completed, figured there's going to be a core algorithm update two or three weeks afterwards on its new our daily new series, which you can find over on the SEO hub and on Barry Schwartz's RustyBrick YouTube channel, Barry, Greg Finn and I have a pool on when Google will launch the next core update. I think I have August 17th, Barry has August 6th and Greg has August 12th. Share your date for when you think Google is going to release a core update 'cause that's fun. I guess one way of dealing with anxiety. Anyway, that's this week's Snappy News. Okay. That's not to say Barry's not sweet 'cause the truth is he's one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet, even though he does not, again, does not want you to know this, but Barry is a very good sweet person. Crystal Carter: Barry's the best. Big shout-out to Barry. Mordy Oberstein: In my category of people who are sweet but don't want to be known as sweet. We've covered two edits that how many on this podcast already? Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people who are nice and grumpy at the same time, which they're some of my favorite people. I used to know a shopkeeper and I would bother them all the time asking for boxes, asking if I could use their dolly because I needed to move something heavy and things like that, and they would always help me, but they were always grumpy about it. They were like, "yeah, it's in the back. Yeah, you're welcome." Mordy Oberstein: For the audio listener, I was pointing to myself the entire time. You know who is sweet and I don't think she would mind being called sweet would be Kristine Schachinger our follow of the week. Kristine is an SEO OG. Would be one for sure. But she's also a podcaster, she hosts the Webcology podcast. Wow. So much Podcasting and SEO. Barry also by the way, has technically a podcast. I should have mentioned that before. The video recaps that he does are also in podcast form, so technically Barry's also a podcaster. Crystal Carter: Everybody's at it. You got to get in there. Mordy Oberstein: Everyone's at it. But Kristine hosts the Webcology podcast. She's spoken at all the SEO conferences. She puts out a lot of great conversation and a lot of great insights about all things SEO over on X. Might it be on other social media platforms also? Crystal Carter: I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: But you should definitely give her a follow on X. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely, and she can get really, really technical. She's got some really great insights and she has a really, really actionable approach to dealing with algorithm updates that I find really interesting. I think there's a lot of theoretical discussions around algorithm updates, which are great, and I think it's interesting to hear from somebody from a more sort of, she takes a very tactical approach as well. I followed it, and it's really interesting. Mordy Oberstein: Very tactical. Yeah. I find her conversations really, really interesting and she is an absolute sweet person. Who we're looking forward to seeing at brightonSEO San Diego in November. So she's @-S-C-H-A-C-H-I-N on X. We'll link to it in the show notes. And it's hard to believe this, but I'm all out of words. I got nothing else to say. Crystal Carter: I don't believe that at all. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's a lie because I got a million other things, but we eventually have to end the podcast at some point. Crystal Carter: Well, but we're just going to keep- Mordy Oberstein: Or not. Crystal Carter: ... we're just going to make another podcast. Mordy Oberstein: We can have an Infinite loop of podcasts that just goes on and on and on and on and on. Crystal Carter: This is the pod that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend. You know what I'm saying? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. We just started singing it, but everybody- Crystal Carter: Not knowing what it was. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And they'll continue singing it forever just because it's the pod that never... yeah, sorry. Mordy Oberstein: There's no greater possible way to end a podcast other than with us singing. It's like, it's like Sonny and Cher. Crystal Carter: Basically. That's exactly what people are thinking. People were like, oh, was that Sonny and Cher? No, no, it was Mordy Crystal. Oh, really? I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised. Mordy Oberstein: I'm going to shave my beard and grow one of those seventies mustaches now. Crystal Carter: Yes, yes, totally. Mordy Oberstein: I should totally do that. Crystal Carter: Definitely worth doing. You could totally do the handlebar thing. Mordy Oberstein: I think I'd freak myself out. 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 a new episode. No, we're back next week with a very special episode, our 100th episode. Look for it not just wherever you consume your podcasts, but look for in other special places. Check out our social media feeds to see where. Too much or not enough? Not enough. Look up Crystal and I on LinkedIn or X and see about the hundredth episode. Looking to learn more about SEO. Check out all the other great content and webinars on 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, please. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Paul Andre De Vera Andi Jarvis Kristine Schachinger Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Rankix Wix App The SEO Video Show Paul Andre De Vera SEO Consulting Eximo Marketing The Strategy Sessions Podcast News: Perplexity launches ad revenue sharing program for publishers Google "Hidden Gem Stores" Search Feature Google Search Ranking Volatility Bursting At The Seams Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Paul Andre De Vera Andi Jarvis Kristine Schachinger Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO Resource Center It's New: Daily SEO News Series Rankix Wix App The SEO Video Show Paul Andre De Vera SEO Consulting Eximo Marketing The Strategy Sessions Podcast News: Perplexity launches ad revenue sharing program for publishers Google "Hidden Gem Stores" Search Feature Google Search Ranking Volatility Bursting At The Seams Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix and I'm joined by the very vocal, the audiable, the shout it out to the world and tell them what you think head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Like Beyonce says, "Tell everybody. Tell everybody." She says it a lot in that song, "Tell everybody." And like her partner says, "I got 99 problems, but a podcast ain't one." That's right. Mordy Oberstein: I thought you'd say, 99 problems, but talking a lot is not one. Crystal Carter: It's not one. It's definitely not one, like when I was at school. No, it was one of those personality tests. They do the Myers-Briggs tests and things, and they're like, "Crystal talks a lot." I'm like, "Like Kelsa Priess said, water is wet. This is not news." Mordy Oberstein: I took one on the computer and the computer started to fume. Crystal Carter: No. Mordy Oberstein: I'm joking. The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, search over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter. But where you can also use Wix Studio and the templates and the advanced design features to give your podcast a home that you can control across the web. As opposed to just using a podcast hosting platform, you should also have a website for your podcast. Anyway, today we're doing a podcast about podcasting for marketing growth with marketers who podcast. As we're pulling back the curtain on this very show by looking at what does and doesn't have to go into production for a podcast, how to manage the ins and outs of a podcast, how to use a podcast to gain market traction, and how to leverage your podcast for your and your client's brands. To show us that it ain't nothing but a podcast thing. Dre is in the house, the host of the SEO Show, Paul Andre De Vera will chat with Crystal in just a few moments. Plus we look at how the podcast landscape is changing with the one only Andi Jarvis. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO News and who you should be following for more awesomeness on social media. So the next time someone tells you to "Shh and be quiet," you tell them "The world isn't a library, it's a podcast, and I'll talk about whatever I want to talk about whenever I want to talk about it," as we help you find your inner voice. No, not your inner voice, but your microphone voice on this, the 99th episode of the SERP's Up Podcast. It's our Wayne Gretzky episode, 99 or our Aaron Judge episode if you like baseball. Crystal Carter: Okay, that's fine. Also, I think I mentioned this when we chatted to Andi as well, but also Agent 99 from Get Smart. Mordy Oberstein: 99's a good number. Crystal Carter: It's good. It's good. 99 Red Balloons, the classic song. Mordy Oberstein: That's classic. Crystal Carter: Bump Ba dum bum bum bum, ba dum, bum bum. Mordy Oberstein: It also means we're one away from our 100th episode and we have a surprise for you for that. Crystal Carter: It's true, it's true. 100 is good innings in cricket because we couldn't cover all the sports, all the sports fall. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know, is there anything... I like bowling? Is anything with 99? No. Crystal Carter: No.- Mordy Oberstein: I was thinking like- Crystal Carter: ... Except for that's bad score. Mordy Oberstein: ... the perfect score is a hundred, but it's 300. Crystal Carter: Definitely 300. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Crystal Carter: And to be honest, I'm a mediocre bowler. I'm very happy if I get three digits, if I'm completely honest. Mordy Oberstein: I'm a terrible bowler. Crystal Carter: My husband was never on a bowling team. I was in a bowling league with my mom and my sister, and my husband has never been in organized bowling of any kind, and yet he always beats me, which makes me upset because he's a non-bowler. It's not fair. It's not okay. Mordy Oberstein: I have a hard time. I think we talked about this at one point. The ball bothers me, it bothers my wrist. It just feels awkward in my hand for some reason. Crystal Carter: I always start off with a heavier one in the the first game, and then I go lighter for the next game and the game after that. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. You really plan out your bowling strategy. Crystal Carter: I get tie ties, I get tired and stuff. I tell you what though, my dad is an epic bowler. When I was a kid, he was my hero because he had, it was like 14 pounds or whatever, and when he would bowl, he would throw it halfway down the lane and then when it hit the pins, it was like, clack, clack, clack, clack. And I was like, this is awesome- Mordy Oberstein: You know you don't want the ball to spin, you want it to glide. And at the very end it's supposed to spin. I saw a video about this. Anyway, I don't know a lot about bowling, but I know a lot about podcasting. Crystal Carter: Yes. Mordy Oberstein: I've done a few podcasts in my day. Podcasting, before we get into Dre, I just want to say it is a phenomenal, phenomenal medium for you if you're thinking about doing a variety of different things with your business or your client's businesses, podcasting is fabulous. And I'm not saying that because I'm biased towards podcasting, which I am. First off, it's informal and connected, which I think works in today's ecosystem. Like this podcast in case you haven't figured it out, is not exactly a tuxedo. It's more like a baggy pair of jeans. We have a connection, we talk, we're informal, we're chit-chatting. It's a great way to connect in a real way with your audience and not in a very corporate way with your audience, which I think the world is leaning very much against that whole corporate kind of talk. Podcasting is great. You create actual relationships with your guests. There have been people who are my best friends at SEO that I met by doing podcasts and having them on a podcast. You make real connections. That first five minutes and last five minutes of an interview are connection gold. And it's fabulous for positioning yourself. Don't always, and we'll talk about this with Andi, don't always worry about the numbers. Podcasting is a great way to position yourself for getting more leads and getting more clients and whatnot. And it's also much easier to produce, which we'll get into with Dre than it is, I don't know, the ultimate guide to whatever, whatever, whatever, to try to get more traffic. It's just easier to produce. And here's the greatest part, it's repurposable. Audiograms, YouTube video. You can turn it into a blog post. And last but not least, the barrier to entry is higher than you think, but it's also not as high as you think at the same time. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that it's one of those things that with marketing, once you get going, it can become a lot more sort of second nature. I think Dre's been doing his podcast and his show for a long time. You've been podcasting for a very long time. And Andi talks about, it was tricky to get it going in the first instance, but now he's really, really gotten through it and he really goes through it regularly. And I think that it becomes a sort of part of your routine that you're going to connect with your audience and share whatever you're sharing. And I think that one of the other things that I think is great for audiences, and for people who are marketing and who are considering podcasts is that you can make sure that you are connecting with a particular audience at any time. So podcasting is something that can apply to lots of different audiences, whatever your vertical is. And I think that that's something that can be tricky for lots of different verticals. But if you were somebody who was really into pneumatic drills, you can make a podcast and people who are really into that would be really into it. If you were somebody who was really into epidemiology or something, you could do a podcast and then people would be interested in that as well. The numbers on podcasts are incredible across the board, and I think that, like you said, it's not always about numbers, but it is about showing a depth of knowledge. And one of the things that's really... and an interest in knowledge as well. So even if you're not a super, I don't know why I picked pneumatic drilling, but I think I've been thinking about that PN, that silent P in there. Anyway, but if you were interested in that particular topic, and let's say you were a noob, right? Let's say you were just getting started on your journey of becoming, I don't know, an engineer in that field or something, whatever it may be, you can connect with people who are further along in their journey to help you learn about what you're doing and to help your audience learn with you. So it's something where you can come at it from a source of truth and you can use that to both endear yourself to your audience, but also to demonstrate your expertise, whichever audience you're trying to apply to. And that's something that can be really rare. So if you were to start a TikTok channel on the same topic, you would probably have to test that audience and say, is this audience on TikTok? Et cetera, et cetera. But podcasts are something that cut across almost all aspects and almost all demographics. Mordy Oberstein: And it's super easy. It's a great way, as you're doing that to position yourself or your client the same way. Because if you're putting out a blog post or you're putting out whatever you're putting out on social media, sometimes it could be hard to let your brand personality come through. It's super easy on a podcast because your personality literally comes through and you can, by the way, that doesn't mean you have to be your actual self. You could be your podcast self on a podcast. I'm this way on this podcast. I can be very different on a different podcast. It's super easy and it's super visible and it's super transparent, or that's not even the word I'm looking for. I can't find the right word. But it's super distinct and it's super obvious, a way to position your brand, I'll say personality, just super upfront. You don't have to over time start creating a notion with our visual language. It comes out instantaneously. When you're podcasting. Crystal Carter: It can be really useful to connect with people in a way that is low-key. So one of the things that can happen sometimes is that if you're doing a talk and you say hi, I'm so-and-so, and I also host a podcast. So sometimes if you're presenting to people, if you're talking to people, if you're meeting people, then you might say, oh, I've got this blog, read my blog. And maybe people have time to read your blog, maybe they don't have time to read your blog or watch my videos, maybe they have time to do it, maybe they don't. If you say, download this free guide, think maybe they have time to do that, maybe they don't. However, if you say, oh, I've got a podcast, then maybe at some point when they've got 10 minutes while they're doing their working out or they're going for a walk or they're at the airport or whatever it may be, it's really, really low-key. They can sort of flip through and they can get an idea of who you are before they get involved with some of your other aspects of your business or your persona or whatever it may be. And it's something that can be really accessible for people in lots of different ways. And I think that for brands, that's something that is super important because you want to be able to have some access there. I think also from a technical point of view, particularly from an SEO point of view, podcasts have incredible distribution networks built in. So if you were thinking of from a brand point of view, when you have a podcast and if you were to search for the SERP's Up Podcast for instance on Google, and then you were to look at some of the places where the SERP's Up Podcast is, and if you were to leave a review, then you would be able to see that ours shows up on IMDB, it shows up on Google's things, it shows up on Apple, it shows up on Spotify, it shows up on Amazon, it shows up on lots of different things, and there are very few mediums that have that built in. It has a built-in distribution network that allows you to connect with lots of different folks both on the SERP and in the lots of other platforms as well. Mordy Oberstein: And the last thing that I'll say that it is because that's absolutely true, before we hand it over to you and Dre, it does something that brands should be doing more of by default, and that's putting the people who work at the brands out in front. So you're putting actual people that people can actually connect... I'll tell you a story where... I'm not going to say the company where it was, one company I used to work with, they were like, oh, I'm so glad you're there, because until... I had no idea anyone who worked there and I don't know who to connect to, who to ask questions to, who to chat about, whatever it was. Putting people out in front for your brand, again, especially in today's ecosystem, Lily Ray has put out a tweet about this a couple... By the time this comes out a couple of weeks ago, it's like, brands should do this more often. It's really effective, and she's somebody who does that for her brand. Putting people out there is a way for other people to connect with other people, while at the same time connecting with your brand. And by default, you're going to need somebody like myself and Crystal to host the podcast. So you by default need to put somebody at your company out there upfront for people to connect with. That's insanely powerful. With that, let's dive into how you actually go about podcasting, running it, what works, what doesn't work, what you should do, when you shouldn't do as Crystal talks with Dre. Crystal Carter: Oh, thank you so much for joining us. We are so honored to have you on the show. Mordy and I are both huge fans of everything you do online. Paul Andre De Vera: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Crystal. Thank you for having me on again. I mean, it was awesome having you as guests on my own podcast, right? Both you and Mordy were great guests dropping so many knowledge bombs. Great stuff. Crystal Carter: I'll be completely honest. You were like, "Do you want to do the podcast?" And I was like, "Absolutely. Just for the montage." If people aren't familiar with the SEO show and the podcast that Paul does, he does these amazing montages that make you look like the most amazing person. I'm like, "oh my gosh, I want to meet that person." I'm like, "oh, wait, no, that's me." And yeah, I think you have so much fun with your podcast, and I think it really, really shows. Paul Andre De Vera: That's the number one rule that I follow when it comes to podcasting and having guests, is making sure the guest feels like the hero, the superstar. That's how you get them to open up, feel comfortable, and be able to share knowledge that maybe they maybe scared to share. But one of the things that I love doing is when a lot of podcasters ask, "Hey, introduce yourself." I don't like doing that. You know why? Because that makes the guests kind of feel a little like, they kind of may be shy and scared in sharing some of their awards that they've won, and you as the outsider can do that research for them and make them... Sometimes when I introduce someone myself, one of the guests was like, it was Dixon. Dixon goes, "I didn't even know that I did that stuff. I didn't." You find things about someone that they didn't even know that was out there, right? So going the extra mile and making sure that your guest is the hero of the podcast is something that really, really will make it go really well. Crystal Carter: Yeah. And I think that that helps you build on the podcast as well, because I think that one of the things I think that you are really, really good at is elevating the art form, as it were. So if people haven't listened to your show, you add in even before the show starts. You've got the montage that's like the show's happening, it's going to be great, and you add in lots of sound effects and you add in lots of great stuff throughout the show. And I think that that element that you're talking about, that adding in that extra element of research and really hosting the show, really guiding that can really take it to a next level. What other things do you try to bring to really make it feel like a podcast experience? Not just like, oh, you're just listening to a podcast, but this is an experience. Paul Andre De Vera: Yes, definitely. Because right nowadays, we started the podcast, I started this remotely. And a lot of podcasts started by just going on a Zoom and now eventually started in... sometimes... before we were all stuck at home, people actually in person. There was mics in front of each other and you guys that was a podcast and you would actually record in studio. And now that everyone's going back into these elaborate studios and stuff like that, it's time to up level your game if you're going to do some video podcasts. So this is where you come in on upping your production value, whether it's either... obviously Podcast, you need great sound, you need a great mic. You were talking earlier today, let me get closer to my mic because you know the value of how the quality of the sound is, especially in podcasts, that's something can actually even extend out into video because you can watch a pixelated video and have clear sound. You still get value from it. But if you have muffled sound and clear video, you just watch people doing charades or something. Crystal Carter: Right. And I think that it's something that can really tell people that you care, that they're taking the time to listen to your podcast. And in terms of the guests and the quality of the experience, it can help you to get better guests. It can help you to get better segments. Have you found that in your experience? Paul Andre De Vera: Oh, yes, yes. When I first started, it was tough getting guests. Getting guests... I got this question all the time, "how do you get your guests on your podcast?" So at first, of course, I connected to my actual network, going out to LinkedIn. People I've actually worked with in the past, SEOs and CEOs of companies that I've actually worked with and being able to tap them first, right? I'll tell you this, I did get rejected when I first started. You'll get rejected. Maybe they took a look at it and we'll pass, we'll pass. But I'll tell you this, a year or two years later, ask them the same again. I didn't mention anything about it from the past. I'm like, Hey, I still would love... I would say something, "I would still love to have you." It's like, "oh, okay. Of course, totally fine. Totally get it." There's that rule where you don't just want, want, want, want. So sometimes you want give back. And now knowing that the production value's the number one thing that actually people will accept my invitations like, wow, you put so much work into it, they want to be a part of it. So that's something... Having that extra touch of production will get you over the top. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's totally true. And I think also that not expecting to set the world on fire in the first couple of episodes I think is really important for expectations. I think there's a lot of people who sort of start a podcast and then it kind of fades away. This first little while can sometimes be tricky to get through. What is the thing that helps you to push through? What would you say to someone who's on the fence as to whether or not this is a good ROI for their investment either as a team or as an individual? Paul Andre De Vera: The best ROI is you're actually investing in yourself by doing this yourself. Obviously there's going to be the whole personal brand aspect and you developing your own personal brand can also uplift a company's brand. But at the same time when you're podcasting, even just for companies, you're really, really having another channel, an avenue where you can actually reach out to. This is something that when they now come on to clients, I'm like, Hey, have you ever thought about podcasting? If it's not something they're doing. Because I'll tell you this, there is some relation when it comes to SEO, right? I mean, you can get your show notes that you can add into that gets ranking. You can distribute your podcast through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and then you get your show notes on there, you get back links back to your site. So there's some SEO value when it comes to podcasting, but at the same time... So that's one value you can prove like, hey, you want to help boost our rankings, let's start on podcasts. But at the same time, you're creating content. Content is currency nowadays. This is something that you want to have. And that's why I also mentioned to you like, Hey, when you're doing recordings like this, I feel like you add the extra layer of video. That video is going to help you repurpose the audio and repurpose the visuals. And again, you can do more cool things in your production, like how I do all the little magic effects on screen, you heard the little chime, but for those who are listening can see on screen, there was a little graphic that went overlay. So adding the extra touch, again, will help you up level your podcast. And then when it comes to ROI, it's like, again, I do see it more as more brand awareness and just being able to get out there. But there's also, when it comes to podcasts and video in particular, you can really, really have a call to action towards the end. And these podcasts where if you're an affiliate marketer, I put affiliate links in these show notes, and I've actually gotten income from that. That's something I actually didn't think, but hey, it's another avenue to include your affiliate links if you're promoting something. And that was another great source of income through podcasting. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think so. And I think that for businesses who are... because there are a lot of branded podcasts, and this is something that you see across, we are a Wix podcast. We are a podcast for Wix, for instance. HubSpot has a whole podcast network. There are lots of brands who are putting a lot of emphasis and a lot of interest in podcasts. And I think that one of the reasons why they're doing that is for the brand visibility. And I think also for the flexibility. What we find certainly is that we are able to talk about topics that are maybe brand new topics that we're sort of exploring. And we find that that's a really interesting way and that people really engage with those new topics. That this is a sort of cutting edge topic. We're still exploring what it is, and we're having a discussion about it. And the expectation is that it's a discussion rather than necessarily, I know every single thing that there is to know about that. And I think that big brands are investing in these things for a lot of reasons. Are you finding that you're seeing more brands interested in getting involved with podcasts in your experience? Paul Andre De Vera: Oh, yes. Definitely seeing more interest. And if not, I'm the one that's going to bring it up to them. So I'm working with a company, I'm like, Hey, hey, I was able to build a brand, a huge brand that gets tons of sponsorships within just a few years. So this is something where you can really, really develop another asset for your company. If that asset's not just building your brand. You have another source of income where depending on the type of business model you have, your podcast can get sponsors and ads from your Google AdSense, whether it's you post on YouTube. And I really, really feel like, I haven't even looked into this, but I know there's podcasting agencies out there that you can actually get into actually more of the audio type of podcast and get advertising in there. And hopefully... And I feel like the ROI in there is pretty good because you know why? I feel the podcasters are authentic. We are two people. We know we are having a conversation. What we're talking about is about our experiences, and it really makes us have that authority within our space of what we're talking about right now. Both of us, we both run... both podcasters. Like you right now, you're running the Wix podcast. I'm here running my own podcast, and we're talking about podcasting… Crystal Carter: Right! Paul Andre De Vera: It's two really experts of what we're doing and we're sharing our experience. There's so much value in that. Crystal Carter: Right. Right. And I think it's a super accessible thing as well, because anyone with ears, or whatever can listen to a podcast. And also there's audio transcripts as well for folks who are hearing impaired as well. So there's lots of ways that you can engage in, and I actually very often read podcast transcripts myself. I don't know that there's many other people like me, but I very often I look at podcasts that way and I find it super valuable. It's also a great place for quotes. So a lot of people talk about EEAT and that sort of thing, and I think that we had an episode about experts, and I think that around brand experts, subject matter experts, for instance, it can sometimes be difficult to get subject matter experts to write all what they're talking about, but podcasts are a much easier ask for those kinds of folks. Have you found that in your travels? Paul Andre De Vera: Yes, yes. I feel the entry into podcasting. Just getting people to talk is so much easier If you're coming on something like this, instead of me having a thought leader write something down, take exactly what I said, make a thought leadership piece out of it. This is something that we also do with... I'm seeing a lot with companies creating customer case studies as a podcast. They're bringing customers in, and I'm working with a company right now where I'm helping edit their podcast by them just having a conversation with one of their customers, and then I'm repurposing it into... well, there's little vertical shorts or an actual clip of the whole podcast, but then again, we're doing video just again, I'm going to keep pushing this. Do video when you're doing podcasting because there's so much more that you can repurpose, right? There's just that extra layer they can add. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah. I've not heard this case study example, but I think that's a really great trend. I think people are getting really creative with it as well. And I think interviews are a classic podcast format, but one of the other things I've seen is the people are doing sort of long reads. So for articles that are really, really long for... you start to see the author reading it and then they put it online as a podcast, and it's really engaging actually. It's really, really engaging. It's like a mini audiobook almost, which I find really interesting. Paul Andre De Vera: I love that. I love that. It kind of goes back to something what I'm doing here as well. I do have a podcast, so I do have the video podcast and the SEO Video Show, which I kind of like promoting more as a show, but I do have the Knowledge Bomb Podcast, right? The SEO Knowledge Bomb Podcast. And this is where it's not a complete copy of what I'm doing. I'm pretty much extracting all the knowledge bombs from one of my shows and then reading it out on a podcast with my voice and it becomes a five-minute podcast saying, Hey, SEO Knowledge Bombs of the Week. It's five minute audio clip of me kind of just summing up of what the knowledge bombs were dropped from my past guests from the previous week. So again, you can really create a podcast out of what you're already doing now. Say, if you want to get inventive, look and see what you're doing now. If you are writing blogs like we mentioned, take your blogs, maybe extract that and read it out and just talk to an audience so people just can hear your voice. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think there's a lot of experimentation that people can do, and I think it's a really interesting landscape. What do you think the future holds for podcasts in the next year or so? Paul Andre De Vera: For the next year, again, I want to see more video podcasts. Like I said, I'm going to keep repeating it. I feel like right now you can already see the transition from say something like Spotify now I'm doing some video on there. So these directories are going to... I want to imagine once we see Apple Podcasts, those becoming starting showing videos. And I feel that that's the direction going there as well. But again, podcasting is something, is an easy way to just get into a channel of being able to show off your knowledge and your expertise and be able to reach out to other people. I started my podcast because I was stuck at home and everyone was stuck at home. I was like, I want to network. This is my way of networking and going out to just talk to people, smart people, and learn from them. That's how you were able to just learn by just talking to people, smart people, smart people like you, Crystal. Crystal Carter: No, you are smart. Paul Andre De Vera: You're smart. Crystal Carter: Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It is always, always, always a pleasure, and I hope to see you soon at the next SEO conference. Thank you so much for your time today, Paul, and yeah, thanks for joining us. Paul Andre De Vera: Of course. Of course. Thank you Crystal, and thank you Mordy. Mordy Oberstein: That was super, super insightful chat Crystal. He has so much personality. And again, you see it come through and it builds his own brand, his personal brand, without him even having to say more than 10 words. Crystal Carter: It's something that he really, really utilizes really, really well with his channel. So it works really well for his YouTube channel. It works really well for the podcast. Dre's super nice when you meet him in person as well. And also, also, also, Dre is incredibly smart. Dre has a lot of fun with his podcast and stuff, and he has a lot of fun with his show, but I've been on discussions with him where he gets into some of the more technical stuff that he does, and my guy is incredibly astute at Enterprise SEO, and it is an absolute pleasure to hear him speak on that because he's proper nerd levels of really, really right in the weeds in that and so impressive. And I think that people underestimate the ability to be charismatic in certain spaces and assume that just because you're charismatic in one space that you're not necessarily a complete nerd in another space. Dre is absolutely one of those people. He really, really knows his stuff, and it's great to speak to him. Mordy Oberstein: He's one of my favorites. I am looking forward to seeing him again at some SEO conference in the near future. He was at Brighton San Diego last year. I'm like, "oh, I didn't know he was coming. I wish I would've been able to spend more time with him 'cause he's so sweet." Speaking of another sweet person, we're going to have a little chat with Andi Jarvis about- Crystal Carter: I don't know that anyone's ever called Andi sweet. Mordy Oberstein: Well, I'm saying... Well, I'm not saying that because he's actually sweet. I'm saying that purely for the sake of the transition. Crystal Carter: Which is an important thing that you must master as a podcaster. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. It's like the kung fu of podcasting, the transition. Crystal Carter: Wax on, wax off transition. Mordy Oberstein: Paint the fence transition. So Andi, I apologize for calling you sweet, but we're going to talk with Andi now. Okay, so the podcast game isn't what it used to be, which reminds me of baseball. I always do this. I'm always going to give a baseball reference. So back in the day, you didn't need to be super athletic to be a baseball player. Have you ever seen Babe Ruth? They just showed up after eating an all you can eat buffet down the block. Crystal Carter: Smoking cigarettes in the dugout. Mordy Oberstein: Smoking cigar... Literally, there is a picture of Keith Hernandez and the Mets smoking a cigarette in the dugout during a game like- Crystal Carter: Like spitting out tobacco in the kitchen. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, I'm an athlete. Okay, that was the eighties, and I don't mean the 1880s, like the 1980s. Andi Jarvis: Listen, it was the same in football or soccer. There was a great Brazilian footballer called Socrates, one of the greatest Brazilians of all time. Goes under the radar 'cause he doesn't have a name, but an absolute genius of a football player. And footage exists of him in the early to mid-eighties, walking out at halftime after the halftime break, flicking a cigarette into the crowd and running onto the pitch. But this guy was just... he just ambled around the... he was amazing, but it just wouldn't happen these days. Mordy Oberstein: It's unbelievable, right? But now you're right. So now you can't. Now even the baseball players, they have weightlifting regimes. They do this and they have that, and they have set nap time now. Crystal Carter: They have GPS trackers to monitor their stress rating and what they were doing on the pitch and all that sort of stuff. Andi Jarvis: Can I bore you with a really quick story about why that happened as well? Mordy Oberstein: Surely. Andi Jarvis: Why it happened as well. It's all down to, you remember what? 20, maybe 25 years ago when baseball went on strike and there was a lockout for like a whole month. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, 1994, the Yankees would've won the World Series that year, by the way. So I'm pissed. Crystal Carter: But I mean, who's counting though? Mordy Oberstein: I am. Andi Jarvis: Yeah. Well, okay, so the lockout happened and baseball lost millions of fans. When it came back, TV ratings were through the floor, everything went to (beep), and it's never been proven. But the belief was that when the players came back, the executives of baseball clubs were like, look, we've got to have something to bring the crowds back. The crowds are through the floor, the TV floor. What happened after that lockout, if you remember, was the guy whose name I forget, suddenly went on a home run hitting streak, started hitting the ball- Mordy Oberstein: Mark McGwire. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Andi Jarvis: McGwire, right. And there was somebody else doing it as well. Mordy Oberstein: Sammy Sosa. Crystal Carter: Sammy Sosa. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, right. Okay. Now, I don't know if you remember looking at pictures of them pre-lockout and post-lockout, they got significantly bigger. Mordy Oberstein: Yes. Andi Jarvis: And a number of guys in baseball had started juicing. Now, if you start taking steroids and start juicing, you don't just accidentally do that. And the belief was that it was, if not encouraged, the blind eye was turned by the baseball team- Mordy Oberstein: The blind eye was a million percent- Andi Jarvis: ... to allow the guys to bulk up because all they wanted was you start banging the ball out of the stadium and home runs happen, people start coming. But on the back of that, people started realizing maybe we better do it legally, but if I'm bigger and fitter, I can hit the ball further. Mordy Oberstein: That's right. Andi Jarvis: Oh, and I can throw it further. Oh, okay. So it all spun out the back of that where they realized maybe if you are an athlete, it would help. Just don't do drugs. Mordy Oberstein: Nice. Yeah. See, by way, I had a Barry Bonds card and a Sammy Sosa before they did steroids, they don't even look like the same person. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, we have a guest here with us. His name is Andi Jarvis, and that's why like baseball, we're going into the great beyond of the nature of podcasting nowadays. Andi, what's going on, man? Welcome to the show. Andi Jarvis: Thank you for having me I hope and thank you for having me. Mordy Oberstein: I'm just first off flattered that you regaled us with a baseball story and you're not even American. Andi Jarvis: It's my one and only baseball story. I'm sat here in a Canadian, Toronto Raptors T-shirt. I don't even know what sport that is. I've just got family there, so- Crystal Carter: It's basketball. Mordy Oberstein: It used to be basketball. Now it's just crap. But yeah. Crystal Carter: Also in this podcast about podcasting, can I just say that one of the first rules of podcasts is to not stay on topic. Mordy Oberstein: Right. Speaking of not staying on topic, Andi, what are you going to pitch us today? Andi Jarvis: Storytelling and the Strategy Sessions podcast and my marketing services. No, I'm not pitching all of that, but I'm here to talk podcasting coz I have a podcast which is called the Strategy Session. Crystal Carter: And you get some amazing guests on your podcast. I don't know how you convince these people to spend time with you. Mordy Oberstein: I really enjoy that episode that you did with that guest that you had, so-and-so. Crystal Carter: You get some great folks on your podcast. Andi Jarvis: All of them. So weirdly, this is the one thing if you're doing a guest podcast, which you don't have to do, but I find it easy 'cause you talk and you spark off somebody. But people are like, "how'd you get those guests?" I'm like, "genuinely, most of the time I just ask them." "What do you ask them?" I'm like, "will you come on my podcast and we'll talk about these things?" And you'd be amazed how many people go, "okay." Now some people have questions like, who else has done it and what's the commitment and how does it... Not everybody says yes, but I would say 50% of the people I ask say yes. And then once you get some good guests coming on, that can snowball, because the ones who do ask and go, "who else has been on?" You go, "oh, Rory Sutherland, Mark Ritson and Seth Godin." And they're like, "oh, right, okay." Now that's not- Mordy Oberstein: And you're rolling . Andi Jarvis: Yeah, and look, I named celebrities in the marketing industry there, but they're probably 15% of the episodes. And yes, they get bigger listening figures, but I don't want to turn it into kind of a celebrity led podcast, that it's more of an interesting stories about marketing podcast and lessons you can learn. But yeah, those people undoubtedly just help. Definitely. Crystal Carter: But I think that's one of the really interesting things about a podcast is it's a really good opportunity to connect with folks that you might not connect with in another way. So like you said, you've got people like Mark Ritson, you've got people like Seth Godin, Britney Muller, I love Britney. But then you also have people who are up and coming in their careers, people who have a good following, but maybe it's more niche. And so as well as you say, you ask them, how do you find them? Is there a particular criteria that you're looking for that makes you think this person's going to be great for a podcast? Andi Jarvis: Yes. So a lot of the time... I read a lot about marketing, so I sometimes just, I'll read something in Marketing Week, or if I see some awards that look rigorous, 'cause let's be honest, not every awards are rigorous. So if I see some awards that look rigorous, I'll be... sometimes if I've got half an hour, I'm sat at an airport, I'll have a look through who's shortlisted, not necessarily worried about who's won, but who's shortlisted and who's done something that I find really interesting. So sometimes that, look, the big budget thing won, but somebody did this thing that was really interesting and scrappy that nobody else considered. Yeah, that's it. And then just send them a message. LinkedIn's great. Or find their email or just like, Hey, I see you did this thing. Would you be interested in coming on the podcast? Here's a link to the show. Genuinely, we just want to sit and have a chat. And so I do a lot of background research to try and find the right guests. And yeah, that's it really. Mordy Oberstein: Not rocket science, but it's hard work. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, look, it takes time, and I think I pride myself in making things look and seem a little bit off the cuff, and it's all kind of laid back and relaxed, and it's not structured, and that's part of it. But you have to plan to be not structured and you have to put the effort in to find the guest. And some guests are really happy to just go, yeah, look, we're talking about this thing that I know a lot about. Just ask whatever. Other guests are a bit more nervous, and they're like, can you send me the questions? Now, I don't do that because you can always tell a podcast to me when someone's been sent the questions or when... you'll hear them say... you'll ask someone a question, they'll give this amazing answer and the host will go, oh, that's really interesting. Anyway, so next question, but follow up. They've just told you about this huge thing that they did. They won a gold medal for something or other, and you're like, that's really interesting. So tell us about your childhood. No, tell us about the thing they've just said. So I work with the guests. Some guests need a little bit more work than others. Some are just like, yeah, just shoot me a time and we'll do it. Crystal Carter: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey for podcasting? So did you have to learn that skill and is it different now from when you started? Andi Jarvis: It's a bit less chaotic now, I would say. I started in 2020 peak lockdown May 2020, and didn't know what I was doing. What I knew was I knew how to talk to people. I knew how to ask questions I found interesting about marketing. So if you think about this, I work on my own anyway. I was then forced on my own or away from all of the marketers because of COVID lockdown, and it just felt quite isolating. But also, I like to learn and I go to conferences to learn and I talk to people to learn, and I just wasn't getting it from virtual events. But talking to people was really interesting. So I was like, right, a podcast is the way to go. But I was just kind of making it up as I was going along. And there was different segments to the show edited together because one of the things was I had a bit more time, so I wanted to learn how to edit. I was like, right, well, I'm going to learn how to edit different bits into the show. I'm going to have a different guest. I'm going to have different sections, I'm going to do... And what you realize as the world started to reopen again is that that's just a real (beep) ton of work as well. So I streamlined it a little bit and now it's just an interview, minimal editing and get that out. But in terms of the format, and it's still me interviewing someone for 45 minutes to an hour depending on who the guest is, really. Mordy Oberstein: Looking back, it was like three, four years ago already, the pandemic. Do you feel like the ecosystem that you started off in and where you are now, it's a different world for your podcast? The world changed around you kind of thing? Andi Jarvis: Absolutely. And I think the main driver of that is just the changing listening habits. So back in 2020, any idiot with a microphone, I, started a podcast. A lot of those, let's be honest, a lot of people who start a podcast and a lot of you listening go, I'm going to start a podcast about this thing. If you get five episodes in, you've done really, really well and you're miles in front of most people who start a podcast and do one episode. I feel lucky that I started during lockdown because I committed to doing... and I went out publicly and I said on LinkedIn, and I said, on social, 26 episodes, one every two weeks, I'm going to do it for a year. And there's times where it felt like a little bit of a millstone. I'm like, oh God, what have I done? But you get into the rhythm of just making sure you deliver it and you did. And that kind of got me up and running. So what's changed though since then is as radio listening figures have changed and as media habits have changed, the media group certainly in the UK have realized the value of podcasting. So Spotify weren't paying people millions to do podcasts. They were just hosting podcasts. In fact, I don't even think Spotify were hosting podcasts when I started. They bought Anchor, and that's how they do their hosting. If you look at the top charts in the UK now, it's all the same company. So radio stations have podcasts now. So every celebrity, it's an extension of the radio's brand, and all they're interested in is keeping the audience so they can sell advertising or in the BBC's case, just keeping their audience. So it's a different world. And what that means for an amateur bedroom podcaster is that you've got to pay a lot of attention to production values. People would just like, it's a podcast, it's just a guy on his own. If the sound quality went a bit wobbly or your mic starts to kick up, it didn't really matter. But now people are like, every podcast you listen to has professional level audio. So if you are not delivering something similar, people are just like, "this is awful." And just turn off. So you've really got to pay attention to the stuff that you never really bothered with before and get into that side of it a bit more. But look, I still enjoy it and mine's still entirely self-produced 'cause I enjoy that bit of it. Mordy Oberstein: By the way, that point on the radio station, so for example, I listen to a sports podcast every day, it's ESPN's New York Radio Station, one of their shows, they're just repurposing it for podcast form and they lose out to the other New York's radio station in the actual ratings, but they beat them out on the podcast numbers, and the podcast numbers are so significant. They pour a ton of production effort into the podcast, whereas the other radio station completely ignores the podcast. So if you don't think to your point that big players are paying attention to their podcasts, they 100% most definitely are because another channel for them to beat other competitors. Andi Jarvis: Absolutely. And you look at the other thing as well is that celebrities have decided that podcasting now is an extension of their social brand. Now, whether this is what I would call pointless celebrities who are famous for being famous, I'm not a fan of that (beep), or whether it's movie stars or actors or sports people or politicians or whatever, they've realized that declining social audiences and organic reach is a problem. But if you build an audience in a podcast, you have this deeper longer conversation with them. So people are like, "who do you want to hear talking about marketing?" "Andi Jarvis." "Who's that guy? I've never heard of him." Or some idiot who used to do social media because they were on a TV program. Oh, they must know what they're talking about. Not that mine's a social media podcast, but if you want to do a social media podcast, there's probably some idiot who's been on a TV show doing a social media podcast, and you're like, what are you going to learn from them? They literally had 8 million people watching them for 15 nights. That's why they've got a big social media following, not going to help your small business mate. It really isn't. Crystal Carter: When I talk to people who are running smaller podcasts who aren't Joe Rogan, not that I'm chatting to Joe, but people who are running smaller podcasts, they say that their expectations are different. So think the expected outcomes that they plan to get, the ROI that they plan to get from the podcasts are different. Would you agree with that? Would you agree that maybe it's not about getting a million listeners? Andi Jarvis: Yeah, and look, let's be honest, anyone who tells you they don't want a million listeners is lying. Crystal Carter: Right. Okay, I'll take it. Andi Jarvis: But a win is not a million listeners. And I can tell you the top performing, so "performing" in air quotes episodes of my podcast, they're the ones with the celebrity guests on, the Seth Godins, Rory Sutherlands, Mark Ritsons. They are the top three. Yeah, they're the top three. Now, I can also tell you, and that's success apparently, but I podcast because I run a small business. Success to me is my business keeping going and winning more business. I don't think I've ever landed any business because of either any of those episodes. Now, I can point you to many other episodes where people have reached out and got in touch, and went, "I heard you speak to this person. Can we talk about this thing that you talked about?" So the listener figures aren't there, but the money in my bank account tells me they are there. So it's about what is success and being hyper clear on that. But one thing I would say is that there's a real fine line, and there are lots and lots of podcasts in marketing, and I've never bothered to count them, but I was going to say bajillions of podcasts in marketing that are set up by consultants and agencies that are sales podcasts. That are, oh, hi. Who are my ideal clients? Mordy and Crystal, how do I get in front of them? Let's invite them on a podcast. And then they sit on that podcast and sell to them. Let me tell you Crystal about this amazing thing I once did that sort of is right in your sector. And when you're listening to them, you can feel the pitch. And it's like, now, I would say to anyone, I think, I don't how many episodes I've got, I must be nearly 70 episodes now in total, because every season we start the numbering. Must be at 70 episodes now. And if you can hear me sell more than... Sorry, I've sold like I'm going to conferences or I'm doing this event, which unashamedly sell that, but if you listen to me interviewing a guest, point to somewhere you can hear me selling to that person. I don't have people on who I want to sell to. And this to me is top of funnel awareness and getting me out there and having people going, Eximo Marketing, Andi Jarvis, this guy knows his stuff, he understands this thing. That's what this is doing. It's not bottom of the funnel sales. Mordy Oberstein: I always feel that a podcast is really, outside of maybe the Joe Rogans of the world, it's a brand play. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, a hundred percent. Mordy Oberstein: It's a brand positioning play, you're having a constant conversation, you're reinforcing messaging, you're reinforcing that you're an expert, you're reinforcing this and that. It's not necessarily about the numbers, but people do really think it's about the numbers. I was saying before we record, I was at my kid's kindergarten graduation and some neighbor of mine said, "Hey, I heard you do a podcast. I want to get in and do a podcast 'cause I heard it's really easy to get in and do a podcast." I'm like, "yeah, it's pretty easy to do a podcast. You need basically some kind of recorder and you need a voice and you need to talk and you need to record that voice. And then you put it out there, SoundCloud or whatever you want to put it, fine, really easy. But it's not as easy as you think it is to get traction now because it's so saturated. Unless you're talking about some random, random topic, there's so many people doing the same thing that you're doing. You need to find an angle to differentiate yourself." Like this Break the Fourth Wall, this podcast, how do we differentiate this podcast? One is we started doing segments. Most SEO podcasts don't really do segments, and we also pitched it in a way or not pitched it. We positioned it in a way where, hey, if you're really advanced in SEO, you've been doing SEO for a long time, you'll get X value out of it. And if you are looking to break into the SEO world or digital marketing world, you also get y value out of it at the same time. And that's unique. That's a really cool way of positioning a podcast. You need to find some kind of angle because at the end of the day, if it's a branding play, if you don't position it in a unique way, you've lost the value of it. Andi Jarvis: Absolutely. And I think one of the things with that positioning is if I look back early on, it was too broad, but I didn't know what I was doing. I was just making it up. And the next series, series five, which will start in September, will probably be the most narrowly focused of the episodes in the series of them. Not every single episode, because there's a few that I have academics on as well 'cause I think there's a lot you can learn from academics, and so I probably won't be trying to get really niche with them. I actually want to explore the breadth of what they talk about. But one of the key things is maybe narrowing the focus of what we talk about and going a bit deeper on some of the episodes 'cause I think that that's right, is that it goes back to this concept of you needing a hundred fans or whatever it is. I can't remember, is it a thousand fans or a hundred fans, whatever. But if you are niche enough and talking about the right stuff, you don't need a million people listening to it. In fact, you've probably failed if you get a million people listening to it because you are mass market at that point. What you really want is a hundred or 500 or a thousand people who are here to hear what you have to say because they are in that particular sector. That's what you really need to get to. So if you are just talking to the right people, talk to your audience, understand your customers. Marketing basics, who are you talking and why do they care? And make a podcast about that, then you don't need to worry about the listening numbers. You just need to keep delivering that value and delivering that content. Crystal Carter: There's a couple of things that strike me from what you've just said. First of all, you were saying, oh, I'm talking to academics. I find them really interesting. You're like, I read a lot of marketing books, and you've got a lot of authors on your section. You're like, oh, I really want to drill down one of the things that I've read when somebody was like, how should you start a podcast? Or, which topic should you think about? And one of the things, I can't remember where I read it, I wish I could reference it, I'm sorry. But they said that. If it's not a topic that you could talk about a hundred times, like a hundred episodes, then it's probably not a good topic for you. So I know, Andi, that you are a marketing nerd because I know, I've seen your bookshelf, I'm sure behind you is full of all the marketing books. Andi Jarvis: Oh, yeah, I'm a bore. You say nerd, I'm a bore, right? I am. I'm boring in public. Crystal Carter: And I think that that's awesome. I think we get people on the podcast like yourself, other folks where I'm just like, I'm so excited. I cannot believe we got this guest to join us to talk about whatever the topic is. We have people on the podcast to talk about stuff that we wish we knew more about. And it's an incredible opportunity, an incredible privilege to be able to speak to them about that topic. And I think that that is another piece of value that you can add to your listening audience. If they're a niche audience and they're with you and they've been with you for that time, you can also help them to learn about this new thing. You can also help them explore that. You can also go on that journey. And in terms of long tail keywords, it's another great way to explore a long tail topic, like a really niche topic like you were saying, drilling down. It's a really good opportunity for that. Andi Jarvis: When I was 11 years old in school, one of my teachers, Mrs. Colling, what she was called, had a sign on her door, which she used to point to a lot. It said something like, "it's better to remain silent and be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and to remove all doubt." Now to someone who never shut up, she used to point, she'd be like, "Andrew." The reason I bring that up is that, the point you make about can you talk about it for a hundred episodes. If you are not an expert in something, you can probably bluff your way through a blog by reading enough blogs and copying the best bits and rewriting it with a little bit of your tone of voice. Not saying that's how all travel blogs are written, but you've not been to all those places you're writing about. But you can kind of do that. If you have to talk for 30 minutes on a subject and you don't know that subject, you will quite quickly have opened your mouth and be found to be a fool. And if you want to release 10 episodes about that subject, that's 300 minutes. That's five hours of talking about a subject. Can you do that? Now, I would say if someone gave me a microphone and went, listen, we just need to fill this 10 hours of silence. Can you talk about one subject? It would either be boring sports stories or marketing. Either of those two things I could probably talk about at length for about 10 days without stopping. I might even take breath- Mordy Oberstein: And we've covered both of them? Andi Jarvis: ... every now and again. Yeah, listen, I could put both of those two things together. I really could. Mordy Oberstein: It's a great podcast right there, by the way. Crystal Carter: You're speaking Mordy's language here. Could I just say. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Boring sports stories and marketing with Andi Jarvis? Andi Jarvis: Yeah. Like that baseball story I told at the beginning. Now that means the editor has to leave it in on lobby. A boring story I told at the beginning, I love stuff like that. And I could fill time forever, but marketing, people are like, oh, I'm sorry we didn't have time to prepare for this. I was like, I've been preparing my whole life for this. You need me to talk about marketing, pass me that microphone. I am your guy. So have a passion for it and have a knowledge about it. The only caveat to that I would say is if you're going to do something out of passion, so say you, I don't know, you love Crocs or you love, it might be theater, it might be musicals, it might be Taylor Swift, whatever. If you're doing it out of passion, I think the passion carries you, not necessarily the knowledge. But if you're doing it for business, you have to show you're an expert in that field 'cause if you don't show you're an expert in that field, you're going to harm your brand. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of your brand as time ebbs away on us, where can people find your brand and yourself? Andi Jarvis: Yeah, great segue, Mordy. Great segue. So, Andi Jarvis. I spell Andi with an I. so if you just put my name into Google, I appear everywhere. LinkedIn and Instagram and Threads are the places to find me. Unfortunately, I now stay away from Twitter since the Lunatic took over the asylum and don't really use it anymore. But yeah, so you find me. The company's called Eximo Marketing, E-X-I-M-O. So have a look for either of those and you'll find me. I'm also sure there's a link to the Strategy Sessions in the show notes. Is that correct? Mordy Oberstein: Heck yes. Andi Jarvis: Have a listen. I would say, if I can pitch this, so last year for the first time, so season four, I decided to do two mini seasons within the season. I did a Black History Month mini season, which in the UK is October, not February, and I did a Women's History Month, which is built around International Women's Day, so I did that as well. So I did, there was five Tuesdays in October, so I did five episodes with five guests and I did four for Women's History Month. I'm really proud of those miniseries. I'm proud of those nine episodes. They took us into slightly different conversations about different things. Now, I didn't just talk to black marketers about being black. They were just great at what they did and they happened to be black. That's the way the conversations went. But some of those episodes in those two miniseries are my favorites. You can't pick a favorite podcast, right? 'Cause It's like picking your favorite child, but some of those episodes are some of my top three, top five ever that I recorded and just really insightful deep conversations with really, really interesting people. People who I probably wouldn't have met before, some of them you might never have heard of either. If you're just thinking, where do I start listening to this Idiot's podcast? I would go back start of the Black History Month miniseries, started with an episode with a woman called Sherice Anibaba and you could probably see if you watch the video of me just sitting there going and just blown away by every word she says, I'm just hanging on it. Genuinely, she's genuinely amazing, so just start there. If you're going to start somewhere. I know you'll probably start with Seth Gordon, right? But if you're going to start somewhere, I'd got Black History. Mordy Oberstein: I like that by the way, not just a page, but where to start. That's unique. Andi Jarvis: I mean, you can go back to episode one if you like. It might take you, see if you're awake 12 hours a day, I give you ... you a whole week of your entire life doing nothing else other than listening to me on a podcast, which don't do that. Mordy Oberstein: Podcast listening tip, never start with episode one. It's usually those first few episodes. You got to really work out the kinks. I would start at episode 20 or whatever it is. Andi Jarvis: Yeah, definitely. Mordy Oberstein: Well, thanks Andi. Thanks for coming on and Crystal Carter: Thank you so much for joining us. Andi Jarvis: Thank you for having me. It's been a ride as always and lovely to see you both. Mordy Oberstein: Talk to you soon. From one sweet person to another sweet person to Barry, it's time for us to delve into the Snappy News. Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Starting off with not news from Barry Schwartz, but from Anu Adegbola over on Search Engine Land, running about, Perplexity launches ad revenue sharing program for publishers. If you might recall, Perplexity got into a little bit of a snafu with various publishers about their content or about the publisher's content being shown in Perplexity without any real attribution and basically saying, "Hey, you took our content you just posted as your own and that's not cool." This seems like it might be atonement for that. There's a new pilot program where if you select publishers like Time, Der Spiegel and Fortune are included, that when their URLs appear within a Perplexity search and there's an ad on that search as well, those publishers will get some of the ad revenue from that ad. Doesn't seem like there's a ton of details about how exactly the program works and what the exact figures are and who exactly is in there. Also, the initial partners. And if this will expand or not expand. But it is really interesting 'cause I guess it's kind of the first real revenue sharing program we've seen, definitely on these AI search engine things, but across the board. There's no revenue sharing program with Google, for example, which I guess is a sore point for publishers, but that's a whole different topic for a whole different podcast. Anyway, on to Barry Schwartz on Search Engine Round Table. This was an interesting one, Barry writes, "Google 'hidden gem stores' search feature." What about it Barry? What Barry is saying is Google's testing a hidden gem store search feature that was spotted by Brody Clark where he was searching for sneakers and there was a little section on the mobile search for Hidden Gem stores, which is not, by the way, part of the Hidden Gems algorithm thing. That's a totally different thing. If you're not familiar with that, you don't need to know about that right now. If you are, just know this is not that. It was basically a little section on the mobile surface that says, Hey, hidden Gem Stores, which seems to imply these might be more niche stores or maybe local stores or whatever where you can buy said sneakers. In this case, it was New Balance, On and Running Warehouse US and Zappos, which are not really hidden gems. I mean, I've heard of New Balance before. And I’ve heard of Zappos before. On, I've heard of them too. Those are nice shoes. It's a really, really cool feature, if Google can refine this and actually get some hidden Gem stores in there. It's just a test, so who knows what it'll be, but if Google can do that or they can get the smaller niche stores in there, that'd be awesome. Okay. Also, from Barry Schwartz, also from Search Engine Roundtable. Google Search ranking volatility bursting at the seams. Barry getting real emotional with the headlines there. There's been an enormous amount of rank volatility being picked up by the various SEO weather tools for a good while now, I don't know, a good over a week, I'm going to say no more than a week, I don't know, 10 days. By the time you listen to this, it might be a full two weeks of high volatility. There's speculation, the speculation coming from me. I'm speculating that this is the storm before the other storm, so Google's Danny Sullivan said relatively recently that there's a core update coming soon, which we don't know what soon means. We covered this in the news a couple of weeks ago. Soon can mean tomorrow, soon can mean three weeks from now, soon can be a month from now. Who knows when soon actually is? But there is a tendency when Google, before Google releases a core algorithm update, two or three weeks before there's generally a period of intense ring volatility. I personally think combining the ring volatility we're seeing here and Danny's statement that maybe this is that ring volatility before the update, which would mean most likely if I'm right, which who knows if I am or not, after this set of ring volatility is completed, figured there's going to be a core algorithm update two or three weeks afterwards on its new our daily new series, which you can find over on the SEO hub and on Barry Schwartz's RustyBrick YouTube channel, Barry, Greg Finn and I have a pool on when Google will launch the next core update. I think I have August 17th, Barry has August 6th and Greg has August 12th. Share your date for when you think Google is going to release a core update 'cause that's fun. I guess one way of dealing with anxiety. Anyway, that's this week's Snappy News. Okay. That's not to say Barry's not sweet 'cause the truth is he's one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet, even though he does not, again, does not want you to know this, but Barry is a very good sweet person. Crystal Carter: Barry's the best. Big shout-out to Barry. Mordy Oberstein: In my category of people who are sweet but don't want to be known as sweet. We've covered two edits that how many on this podcast already? Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people who are nice and grumpy at the same time, which they're some of my favorite people. I used to know a shopkeeper and I would bother them all the time asking for boxes, asking if I could use their dolly because I needed to move something heavy and things like that, and they would always help me, but they were always grumpy about it. They were like, "yeah, it's in the back. Yeah, you're welcome." Mordy Oberstein: For the audio listener, I was pointing to myself the entire time. You know who is sweet and I don't think she would mind being called sweet would be Kristine Schachinger our follow of the week. Kristine is an SEO OG. Would be one for sure. But she's also a podcaster, she hosts the Webcology podcast. Wow. So much Podcasting and SEO. Barry also by the way, has technically a podcast. I should have mentioned that before. The video recaps that he does are also in podcast form, so technically Barry's also a podcaster. Crystal Carter: Everybody's at it. You got to get in there. Mordy Oberstein: Everyone's at it. But Kristine hosts the Webcology podcast. She's spoken at all the SEO conferences. She puts out a lot of great conversation and a lot of great insights about all things SEO over on X. Might it be on other social media platforms also? Crystal Carter: I don't know. Mordy Oberstein: But you should definitely give her a follow on X. Crystal Carter: Yeah, absolutely, and she can get really, really technical. She's got some really great insights and she has a really, really actionable approach to dealing with algorithm updates that I find really interesting. I think there's a lot of theoretical discussions around algorithm updates, which are great, and I think it's interesting to hear from somebody from a more sort of, she takes a very tactical approach as well. I followed it, and it's really interesting. Mordy Oberstein: Very tactical. Yeah. I find her conversations really, really interesting and she is an absolute sweet person. Who we're looking forward to seeing at brightonSEO San Diego in November. So she's @-S-C-H-A-C-H-I-N on X. We'll link to it in the show notes. And it's hard to believe this, but I'm all out of words. I got nothing else to say. Crystal Carter: I don't believe that at all. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's a lie because I got a million other things, but we eventually have to end the podcast at some point. Crystal Carter: Well, but we're just going to keep- Mordy Oberstein: Or not. Crystal Carter: ... we're just going to make another podcast. Mordy Oberstein: We can have an Infinite loop of podcasts that just goes on and on and on and on and on. Crystal Carter: This is the pod that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend. You know what I'm saying? Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. We just started singing it, but everybody- Crystal Carter: Not knowing what it was. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: And they'll continue singing it forever just because it's the pod that never... yeah, sorry. Mordy Oberstein: There's no greater possible way to end a podcast other than with us singing. It's like, it's like Sonny and Cher. Crystal Carter: Basically. That's exactly what people are thinking. People were like, oh, was that Sonny and Cher? No, no, it was Mordy Crystal. Oh, really? I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised. Mordy Oberstein: I'm going to shave my beard and grow one of those seventies mustaches now. Crystal Carter: Yes, yes, totally. Mordy Oberstein: I should totally do that. Crystal Carter: Definitely worth doing. You could totally do the handlebar thing. Mordy Oberstein: I think I'd freak myself out. 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 a new episode. No, we're back next week with a very special episode, our 100th episode. Look for it not just wherever you consume your podcasts, but look for in other special places. Check out our social media feeds to see where. Too much or not enough? Not enough. Look up Crystal and I on LinkedIn or X and see about the hundredth episode. Looking to learn more about SEO. Check out all the other great content and webinars on 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, please. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

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

With so many SEO tasks how do you know where to start first?! Get your (SEO) priorities in order as Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter help you bring order to the chaos with tips on how to prioritize SEO tasks. SEO priorities are not a linear equation and can differ from one SEO to another. Learn how priorities change if you’re an SEO consultant as compared to being at an SEO agency with Nicky LeRoy and Griffen Roer. The team also explores Google's efforts to compete with Amazon in the e-commerce market and the impact of the August 2023 Google Core update, which had a unique rollout and caused significant rank fluctuations. Relax as this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO podcast gives you a healthy look at prioritization of work and goals. Back How to set SEO priorities With so many SEO tasks how do you know where to start first?! Get your (SEO) priorities in order as Wix’s own Mordy Oberstein and Crystal Carter help you bring order to the chaos with tips on how to prioritize SEO tasks. SEO priorities are not a linear equation and can differ from one SEO to another. Learn how priorities change if you’re an SEO consultant as compared to being at an SEO agency with Nicky LeRoy and Griffen Roer. The team also explores Google's efforts to compete with Amazon in the e-commerce market and the impact of the August 2023 Google Core update, which had a unique rollout and caused significant rank fluctuations. Relax as this episode of the SERP’s Up SEO podcast gives you a healthy look at prioritization of work and goals. Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 56 | September 20, 2023 | 45 MIN 00:00 / 45:08 This week’s guests Nick LeRoy Nick LeRoy is a freelance SEO consultant, podcaster, and newsletter author in St. Paul, Minnesota. He specializes in SEO strategy, technical SEO, editorial strategy, and website migrations through his company Nick LeRoy Consulting Nick is the author of the #SEOForLunch newsletter and owner of the boutique job board SEOjobs.com Griffin Roer Griffin Roer is the founder & CEO of Uproer, a search marketing agency that partners with SaaS & Ecommerce companies. He discovered SEO in 2012 during a self-taught web development course and hasn’t looked back. After years of working as an SEO consultant to some of the country’s largest retail and tech brands, Griffin pursued his entrepreneurial calling of starting an agency in 2017. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha! Maholo 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, the Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who knows how to set priorities right, our Head of SEO Communications, the one of the only, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, Mordy Oberstein, the fantastic, incredible, amazing, stupendous, magnificent Mordy Oberstein. Mordy Oberstein: Your nose is growing. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy, who cannot- Mordy Oberstein: If you know, you know. Crystal Carter: ... take a compliment, but is- Mordy Oberstein: No, I don't do compliments well. I have a hard time. Crystal Carter: It's always fun to give Mordy Oberstein a compliment because you can just see him squirming so much. Mordy Oberstein: People are saying nice things about me? Crystal Carter: "Why are they saying them? I must say something. It's ridiculous to deflect from the appreciation that sat befalling me." I would like to encourage everyone who's listening to this podcast to send Mordy Oberstein a compliment on Twitter. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah and CC Barry Schwartz while you're at it. Get two birds with one stone. Crystal Carter: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. That's right. Well, the SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also prioritize your SEO tasks on your blog pages and for your site overall with our SEO Assistant, which literally tells you which tasks are critical, which are high priority, which are medium, and which are low-priority SEO tasks because knowing what to work on and when, it's not always easy. Which is why today, we're helping you understand how to prioritize your SEO tasks. Look how seamless the line about what Wix does and what we're doing today meshed together perfectly. Crystal Carter: It was flawless. Mordy Oberstein: I take compliments on that. I take compliments on my pivots. Crystal Carter: It was very good. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Thank you That's right. Today, we're dealing with the reality that you got to start somewhere. You can't do it all at once. It's not Star Trek. You're not Scotty. You're beyond being a miracle worker. It's not realistic. We're diving into how to set SEO priorities. Are certain SEO tasks actually more important than others? How does limited time and resources factor into SEO prioritization? And how do you know if you are or aren't prioritizing the right SEO task? Also, how does prioritization differ from an SEO agency to an SEO consultancy to an SEO freelancer? We get both sides of the coin as the CEO of Uproer, Griffin Roer, an advocate of all that is SEO freelancing, Nick LeRoy, take SEO prioritization from different corners of the SEO world. Plus, we'll have a look at what different search engines tend to prioritize in their results. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. It's all hands on deck for this code red alert or perhaps merely a yellow alert. Time will tell as episode number 56 of the SERP's Up Podcast helps you set your alerts and your SEO priorities straight. Crystal Carter: There we go. We're just going to get into something and I'm going to start with something a little bit philosophical, a little bit intellectual because we like to go highbrow here on the SERP's Up. Mordy Oberstein: I can't do that. Get it? Crystal Carter: Maybe you could put it on a Play-Doh. I don't know. That's terrible. Anyway, so I'm going to start with something called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If you're not familiar with this, this is something... Yeah, Mordy's very excited about this. This is something that it's essentially a framework on a theory of human motivation. It's created by a guy called Maslow and it talks about psychological stuff and things like that. I would pause it that this also applies to websites and priorities as well. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a simplified version of it, you'll generally see a pyramid and at the base of the pyramid will be physiological needs. Things like whether or not you have air and whether or not you have a good safe environment, food, shelter, et cetera. Then there'll be safety needs like personal security, employment resources, et cetera. Then there'll be things like love and belonging, whether or not you have friendship and family and a sense of connection. Then there'll be things like esteem, whether or not you feel respected and have strength and freedom. Then there's self actualization, so the desire to become more than you currently are or become the most that you can be. This is the sort of general simplified idea of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If you're not familiar with this, I highly recommend checking out because it's something that's really, really interesting for general personal development. You didn't realize that you were listening to a general growth hacking podcast, but here we are. Anyway, now when we talk about websites, I would posit that this also applies. When we're thinking about the physiological needs, this is essentially your baseline. This is stuff like your technical SEO and whether or not things actually work on the page. This might be as technical as whether or not you have site maps and whether or not things are working in terms of your robots at TXT and things like that. If you don't have this stuff working, if your pages are all blocked from crawling for instance, no amount of fantastic SEO content things is going to do anything if all the pages are blocked from crawling. If you're thinking about priorities, always check out making sure that you have the sort of technical nuts and bolts things covered. One of the things we really pride ourselves on Wix is making sure that a lot of that stuff is covered for anybody who creates a Wix website straight off the bat. You also want to think about the sort of things are covered from a business point of view view, so does the website actually do what you need it to do in the first place? For instance. If you have a bricks and mortar business, does it actually tell people how to get to your business? Does it tell people how to phone you? Does it tell people how to connect with you and things like that? Can people actually complete the sale on your e-commerce website? Is that possible? Are they able to do that? That's something to think about that. From a project point of view, this also means thinking about are you able to complete the task in a set amount of time? Do you know how much time you have and are you able to actually complete that task in that amount of time? Because you could have a fantastic audit and do amazing stuff, but if you don't know how much time or what resources you have, then those fundamental physiological sort of actual nuts and bolts things, if you haven't taken care of those, it's very difficult to do anything else. That should be a top priority, is making sure that those things are understood and are working well. Mordy, you're nodding. I don't know if you want to come in on this one before we get into the next one. Mordy Oberstein: No, no, no. You're on a roll. Crystal Carter: Okay, all right. Mordy Oberstein: You're on a roll. I'm good. Thank you for checking in on me. I'm just sitting back and enjoying. Crystal Carter: Checking to make sure that your needs are met. Okay, so then we go into safety needs. Now in terms of safety needs for a website, first of all, there's things like SSL. That's a standard security thing, but there's also making sure that you have things like EEAT. Within EEAT, which stands for expertise, experience- Mordy Oberstein: Experience, yeah, they added the extra E. Crystal Carter: ... authority and trust from Google. They also talk about things, making sure that you're trustworthy. A lot of these things have to do with your trust score. Your website should also have safety needs that have to do with your trustability and how trustworthy you are. Where you have your SSL on your website, that that works, where you have return policies that helps users to know that it's easier for them to enter their credit card details and that it's a secure website for them to enter their credit card details, that they know that you know what you're doing, that you have certificates and that they know that you are an actual place. You have very clear name, address, phone number on your website. I always get a little bit sketched out if I'm on a website and they're trying to sell me something or trying to tell me something and I'm like, "Where are you? Who are you? Who are these people?" Mordy Oberstein: That's why I always have a sticky point with PPC people on the landing page idea of don't have any menu up there, just leave on the landing page to confirm. I want the context. Crystal Carter: Right. I want to know who you are. Who am I even talking to? So making sure You've got those sorts of trust things is also really useful. I've seen this from an SEO point of view and they tend to be pretty quick to implement. Both are pretty straightforward to implement, shall I say. The technical things, it's either broken or it's fixed. It's fairly straightforward to get those things going. The trust elements, particularly on e-commerce, Google will guide you on a lot of those things. If you're signing up to Google Merchant Center, they'll be like, "Well you don't have a return policy. You haven't done this part. We need to know what currency you're selling in. We need to know all of these sorts of stuff." Google will guide you with a lot of those things. So think about that. And also, I always say with PPC, particularly with sensitive verticals, YMYL verticals, they will also guide you on that. If you're trying to do any PPC, look at what they expect for PPC for your vertical. If you're into medical, for instance they'll say "If you want to advertise for medical, you need to have this and this." Even if you're not advertising, you can look at the PPC requirements for that vertical to see what kinds of trust signals they need for that and it's really useful. Then from the love and belonging sort of place, this has to do with brand positioning. Is it clear that you know what's good about you? What are your USPs? What is unique about you? What is valuable about your brand, your product, your team, your service? Making sure that that's very clear. And also, are you able to show that other people think that as well? Are you able to show your reviews that other people also think you're great? Are you involved in different communities and things like that? When we think about an EEAT points of view, this kind of speaks to sort of authority points. We're part of the Better Business Bureau, we are part of this association of marketers or things like that, and all our reviews are five star reviews. That shows that people appreciate us and we say, "Oh this is the thing that's great about our products." So those things, you need to know what those are and you need to convey those things on your website. Then when we get to esteem, this is where your blog can help you shine and your content can really help you shine. Once you've got your technical things sorted out, once you've got all the safety stuff sorted, the trust signals, then you can get into being like, "Yeah, you know what, not only does everybody think I'm great, but I can share that knowledge with you." So I'm confident in my knowledge. I'm confident to be able to share this in a video, to share it in a blog, to share it in an infographic and to share it on social media, things like that. That can bring people to you. By the time they come to you, they already know that it's a safe place, that you know what your brand USPs are, that everything works technically. Then after that, we think of a sort of self-actualization. So all of those things I think are sort of need to have things, and then you have your nice to have stuff. It's like right, okay, we've got a good blog, we've got a good working website, all the trust signals are there and then you can be like how can we stretch? How can we do some really cool stuff now? You can look around and you go, "Well these guys are doing some other stuff and we are not doing that. Could we do that? I think we could because we have all of these skills and all these great things that we can do." You can look at bigger competitors that maybe aren't even in your vertical but are doing something online that's really cool. You could say "We could do that. I think we could start a channel. I think we could create some more stuff." I think that it might sound a little bit philosophical, but actually a good content audit, a good SEO audit for instance, will break things down in this way. You'll say, "What priority is this? High, low, medium. What is the estimated impact? High, low, medium." For instance, on a technical thing like priority, it might be like "Well this is high priority." Your page isn't getting crawled and then you can bring it down in the time estimation. You can say, "If you know what you're doing, this is going to take you 20 minutes to fix." So it's going to have a high impact and it's high priority, so you should probably do that and it can really, really help you to figure things out. I think that thinking about it in the same way that you would think about how you would go forth in improving yourself, improving your life et cetera is really, really good when you're thinking about how to prioritize for your website. Mordy Oberstein: If we can get some music or a sound please, like clapping in applause. I think that's an appropriate time right now. I'll give you a little behind the scenes of this podcast. Sometimes we really sync up exactly where we're going to go, exactly what we're going to do. We kind of really plan it out. Sometimes "I got this, I'll take care of it. You got this, you got that." Crystal got this, and I had no idea what I was really in for today. I will tell you right now, first off, I'm volunteering you for a blog post on the Wix SEO Hub about the maturation process of a website because I feel like this conversation, I've had this conversation before about setting SEO priorities, and what you usually end up talking about is, "Okay, so if your page is not being discovered, if you can't get an index because you edited a no index tag," or whatever-whatever, then that's a foundational priority because that means that all the other things that you eventually want to do, you can't do now. That's a priority. But what you've done here is basically laid out how a website matures over time. How it should mature over time, and how priority really means doing the things that matter for the website at the current state of maturation that you're at right now. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: And that's amazing, and that's where the clapping comes in, and that's where I figured you should write this up, because that was amazing. Crystal Carter: Thank you for the appreciate. I'm feeling some love and belonging right now. I'm feeling like that's really good, and It's really helping my self-esteem and maybe I will actualize that block. I think It's something that I think about as well. It's just sometimes people over-complicate these things, so sometimes they're like, "Oh, all this technical stuff," and I think a lot of people get lost in the jargon of it, but optimization is about making it better. You can't start from where you're not. You have to start from where you are. If you get better that's, great and then you can get better than that, and then you can get better than that, and then you can get better than that. You need to know where you're starting. I think some people get tripped up on some of the technical stuff for instance, and so they just ignore it. But a lot of times you can't. But the good thing about the technical stuff is it's fairly mathematical. Like I said, it's either broken or it's fixed. You can sort of go in and you can fix it, or if you don't know you can ask for help or you can just follow some... I'm sure there'll be somebody who's done a YouTube video or something that's gone into very extensive detail of how to do it and people will very much help you. But yeah, I think don't skip the steps and don't think that you can skip the steps because you do need to cover the steps or find tools that can help you do that so that you can get better and build on all of your work. Mordy Oberstein: This is how it goes with creating, we'll call it content in general, because your website is a piece of content and that content has technical underpinnings you need to address. It has design underpinnings that you need to address, all these kinds of things. I'll tell you, so LinkedIn carousels, I was avoiding them for a long, long time. It seemed like a lot of work. I didn't really have a lot of time. And now I'm starting to do them once in a while and I've noticed, okay I did X, this is not great. I'm looking at what somebody else did now. I'm like "Oh, that's really good." Really, it's a slow process of maturing. Your website is the same thing. You start with something, you have your pages, you have whatever it is, and you're thinking, you know what something doesn't feel right about this. I could probably take this to another level. Let's try this, let's try that and let's try this. Adding all of these things in let's say EEAT, adding a layer of real expertise and authority into the content on your website, that might not happen at the onset. You might write 10 blog posts because you got to get that content out there. You got to start from somewhere and you know what, that's fine and it won't rank. And you know what? That's also fine, because there's no cutoff date on ranking. "Oh, if I don't rank today that I can't rank tomorrow." Crystal Carter: One of the things that's great about SEO and it's the same thing with life is that you can try again. You can try again and you can keep practicing and you can keep improving. You post it now, you post that piece of content and like you said, maybe it doesn't rank, but maybe six months from now you'll have more data about how it's being seen online, maybe you'll have more feedback from people about what they think about it. You'll be able to see where It's sitting in the SERP and things like that. Then you can say, "Okay, now we can take that information and we can make this content better." Or we can take that information and go, "You know what we didn't need that content in the first place." But you have to start, but you need to take the feedback in order to improve. I think that when you're prioritizing, you should prioritize the thing that will get you to the next step. Mordy Oberstein: To the next step. That's exactly it. It is what gets you to the next step. I think that's a mistake people realize. You'll see people will talk about "I'm going to optimize," again, I'll go back to EEAT, "I'm going to optimize for EEAT," even somewhere like Lily Ray who's been doing this for years. You're looking at a cluster of content. You know what this needs to do to go from zero 100. You know the whole process. You've done it a million times before. You're an expert on that. You've got that. If you are an SEO that doesn't say focus on that, or you're a business owner or whoever you are, looking at it, "I'm going to optimize now for EEAT," it's like a one shot deal. It's not going to work. It's, "Okay, I've done this, the pose," I think we should talk about this podcast before "... and I've added X." Come back in three months from now, "You know what, X really wasn't enough. Now let's add Y." It's an ongoing process. SEO is an ongoing process. Looking at what will get me to the next step helps you do SEO the right way because it helps you say, "I'm going to do what I need to do to get to the next step, but I know that's not the last step." Crystal Carter: Right, because It's all rinse and repeat. I think that again, Maslow is good because if we think about the base of the pyramid, the sort of physiological technical leads in the case of a website, those things can change. As you grow, for instance, if you're a nine year old, you're a certain height, so you might need a step stool to reach the top of the cupboard or whatever. As you get older, you're going to get taller. You don't need the step stool, but you might need- Mordy Oberstein: You might need to climb. Just climb. You could be slither up a wall. Crystal Carter: These things will change. Similarly, I've started to wear glasses or whatever and I need those things. These are different things. Just like with your website. Your website doesn't exist in a vacuum, so there might be new SERP features that happen and then suddenly you have different technical needs for your website. It might be that suddenly your audience is way more mobile first and then you have different technical needs. Maybe there's an app that everybody's really, really into or maybe you've developed an app. That means that your website now has different technical needs and then that has knock on effect. So then you have to go back through all of the steps to make sure that they all align with each other. All of these things change. They're not set it and forget. It's like a person. Your website is grows, evolves and exists in an environment that is growing and evolving all of the time. Your priorities may very well change. It doesn't mean that you can't still have a North Star, say that if we talk about the self-actualization part where you really want to be, that can guide you, but how you get there might change a little bit. That's okay. That's okay. Mordy Oberstein: And it's okay that it's not linear, either. You might say, "You know what, I really need a quick win right now. I am struggling. I need a quick win. This might not get me to the next level. It might not be part of my maturation process. But I know it's a quick way." That's fine too. Crystal Carter: I had a client and they had a website, and they did not have time for content. They did not. They were just like, "We don't have time for content. We don't have loads." They had been doing some Facebook stuff, so I was like, "Look, we have some stuff on Facebook. Let's take these Facebook posts, let's adapt them into blogs." Were they the best quality? I'm going, to be honest, they were not the best quality blogs, but this was a website that had no blog and had not posted any blogs ever or hadn't posted any blogs in sort of a year. We took these sorts of mid-level posts that had some information and we added them to the blog. Why? Because we wanted to be able to show the client that with this level of effort we can get this much. And then you can get a proof of concept and they can say, "Oh okay, so that blog that we all know was kind of okay, whatever got this much. What happens if we actually did a good blog on top of that?" Our goal was to get going. I just needed to get some content on there to get going. The goal was to get going. The goal wasn't to set the world on fire and make amazing, amazing, beautiful... The goal was to just get going. We got going and then they were like, "Okay, yeah, I can see the benefit of this," and helped with their self-esteem, their esteem. That meant that we could get investment and buy-in on doing something really good. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, 100%. It's a little bit messy. It's not like a linear kind of thing. It's a little bit messy. There's also resources to consider. Whether you have the resource, whether you don't have the resources, that's going to factor in. You might have a great projection plan maturation process for your website, but it'd be realistic with what you can and what you can't do. You might have to give up on certain things and that's normal. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's normal. It's normal. I'll tell you right now, there's going to be certain benefits to doing things at whatever stage you're at. The important thing is to be aware of the impact and the important thing is to understand what you expect to come out of it so that it can help you to reach next goal and set your priorities based on that. If you're seeing that actually we did some blog and we saw no benefit of any kind and you go, "Okay, maybe this isn't what we need to do right now. Maybe we should invest in something else." If you see the blog and you see some benefit, for instance you're seeing that actually we're being crawled better. Actually, we have more internal links now. Actually, we're seeing some ranking that's happening out of this. Then yeah, that's good. That's a good sign and maybe they should be moved up the priority list for your overall activity. I think It's just important to think about what works for you and in terms of priorities, what will get you to the next step. Joe Hall, I talk about Joe Hall a lot, but he was talking a lot about MozCon last year about priorities and how he'd done this big audit for some folks. He was like, "Oh, we should do this, this and this." And he thought again about it, he was like "Actually, looking at what they need to do, I'm not sure this is the best course of action for them based on what would work best for them and what would..." Because I think sometimes people will do their go-to moves. You'll be like, "Oh, I always do this for everyone. This always works." And sometimes it does, but sometimes it's not always the best fit for them because of all of their other needs and all of their other priorities. So make sure that it aligns with the full flow of who the website is or what the website is at that time and what will get them to where they need to go. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of resources and how you work, and how you prioritize, where you work or who you work for can also impact how you prioritize SEO tasks. Specifically, if you're on the agency side and you're part of a large organizational, wider SEO team or digital marketing team, then you might prioritize SEO tasks in a certain way. If you're a consultant or a freelancer, well you might look at the same client and prioritize differently because based upon how you work. Because of that, we asked the CEO of Uproer, an SEO agency out of Minnesota, Griffin Roer, and Nick LeRoy, famed SEO consultant and a former member of the Wix SEO Advisory Board, how prioritizing your work as an SEO agency differs for prioritizing your work as a freelancer. So same task, same things, but from a different point of view. Here's Griffin and here's Nick together. Nick LeRoy: I know my skill sets. I know what I consider myself good at. I know where I struggle. And it's kind of more of a litmus test of check, check, check. But I also have that layer of does this make me excited? Do I enjoy it? That will go into again, how I set priorities in accepting a client or working, or even trying to pitch something. I know Griffin, you and I are the same. We're not really big into RFPs or having to truly sell ourselves. We would prefer to take a solid referral with kind of a baseline of trust. I think that kind of goes into my priorities as well. It's like if I have to put a lot of effort into trying to secure somewhere versus already being able to establish some trust on day one, that goes a long way on my end. Griffin Roer: There's definitely a difference there because you can look at a project and be like, "Do I have the time and interest to do this?" You can look at a project that is not super exciting and not super maybe challenging or whatever and just be like, "Well, I got some time and I can bang this one out. I'm not going to necessarily love this project, but it's going to help pay the bills." I can make that decision on behalf of myself. Whereas- Nick LeRoy: And price it at a level that will make it exciting. Griffin Roer: Yeah, exactly. I think one consideration on the agency side is I've got to be considerate of peoples' career development, and that might mean projects that I myself might be willing to take on and do and just gut out and be like, "All right, this is just going to help the bottom line." Or just as a freelancer maybe you're like, "Hey, if I do this project, I can get a new set of wheels for my car or something like that," you're kind of equating it to some reward. For me, if I'm going to put a project on somebody's plate, ideally It's going to align with their career progression and it's going to represent the next challenge, the thing they want to take on. If it's something that's going to be more like a step backwards, that makes it harder for us to accept that project. Even if it'd be a nice payday or even if it'd be just something to pad the business a little bit, I think there are some considerations there around career development because I think if an agency were to just take on kind of just un-challenging uninteresting projects all the time that just brought in cash, but didn't really push people, I don't think that agency is going to be really successful in retaining people. Nick LeRoy: Absolutely. Well Griffin, let me ask you a question here. I think building off of what we were just saying as a freelancer, I have the luxury of knowing this is short term. This is kind of a quick win. I schedule that work intentionally for that. It's like "Yeah, I want a new set of wheels. I want to take the kids on a vacation." But I'm being very intentional knowing that it's kind of like a one day payday. I suspect on the agency front you also have to be really cognizant of what type of short-term work you're taking on so that you don't necessarily lose out or have to turn down something that comes in that could be a multi-year or multi-channel engagement, which would obviously be your preferred client. Griffin Roer: Yeah, and obviously probably like you too, we're going to prioritize recurring business over project business any day of the week. There are those project opportunities that kind of come in and you do have to look at that against the overall pipeline and bandwidth of everybody that works at the agency to understand does this make sense? For myself being a leader at a small agency, I think it can be really tempting too for just myself to take on maybe the less than ideal projects, again just to help bring in some additional revenue and pad things and stuff like that. That can be counterproductive in and of itself because I'm expected to do a lot more than just assisting with client work and stuff like that. We've got sales and operations and hiring and just other things happening where my time is more valuable applied to those things versus- Nick LeRoy: Without a doubt. Griffin Roer: ... spending a couple of days working on a project that I was like, "Well this won't be really interesting for anything else, but It'll help the business from a revenue standpoint." I think That's a challenge probably that smaller agencies face moreso than bigger agencies, but it is a reality of trying to balance those competing interests and making sure that what I'm doing is not just in the best interest of myself but in the best interest of the agency at large, which represents 13 people at this point. Nick LeRoy: Absolutely, and I think you nailed on one of the most critical components when we're comparing small agency to freelancer. As a freelancer, I get to be very selfish. Everything is about me. I get to make the choices. All my choices impact me only. There's less risk in that aspect. Whereas when, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but as you had said 13 individuals that need to serve 13 meals every night, so you have to be very conscious of the type of work that you're taking, how do you prioritize it and even who works on what? Mordy Oberstein: Well, thank you so much Nick and Griffin. Ironically, I approached them separately and I knew they both knew each other to answer this question like, "Hey, we'll just do a Zoom call together and we'll answer it together." It's an amazing conversation. There's actually a whole 30 minute piece that they did for them. We have to somehow repurpose it for something because it's amazing conversation that only we have listened to. We feel we need to share that somehow. But also, make sure you follow Griffin Roer. He's more on LinkedIn at @CGriffinRoerJr, a link to his LinkedIn account in the show notes. And follow Nick on Twitter @NickLeRoy, that's @ N-I-C-K-L-E-R-O-Y on Twitter. It is interesting, right? You think, okay, SEO is SEO, but You're going to be able to do different things, focus on different things, work in different ways, prioritize different things, all because of the way you work within your organization, at least on the SEO agency side, or the fact that you don't have an organization because you're a freelancer. It's fascinating to me. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that there is a lot of prioritization that has to do with the sort of ins and outs of an agency and working as a team because very often in an agency you are going to work in lots of different ways. So yeah, it's really interesting to hear the way that they discuss that and how you have to manage all of the bits and wheels and nuts and bolts of all of that. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot that goes into. It's the business side of it all, the billing and the client prioritization and all of that stuff is so different from just being let's say a consultant. Anyway, while we're talking about different situations and different circumstances that help dictate different SEO priorities, there are different things that different search engines prioritize within their results. With that, let's explore what the search engines of the world tend to prioritize differently as we go so many search engines. Mordy Oberstein: Let's take a look at Bing and Google, and let's take a look at how they handle different types of queries differently. Let's take entities to start. I always like looking at entities. I think they're a great way to dive into the mind of a search engine. I Googled, or one case Binged, a search bar is the word I'm looking for. I searched for John Lennon. I typed in John Lennon into Bing and I typed John Lennon into Google, and it's very different. Very, very different. For example, Bing tends for entities, like these kinds of entities and people, tries to push or tends to push the biographical information way harder than Google does. Google will show you, for example, when he was born, it'll give you some YouTube videos, a bunch of images, where you can listen to his music is above the fold. So Spotify and YouTube and Pandora. But Bing is pushing more the early years. It really gives you a great biographical breakdown of the different points of his life. It really tends to focus more on John Lennon as a person versus where Google is looking at it as here's an access or entry points to more various media about John Lennon. I thought that was interesting. Crystal Carter: I think that Google has been doing a lot particularly around the biographical entities here. It's been a very busy space in the last sort of year or so where they started adding- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, they reformatted the whole knowledge panel thing. Crystal Carter: Right. They've added more of... It's more magazine sort of style. There's still the knowledge panel information, but for some people like Beyonce for instance, there's a lot more information around. They even have some quick answers. How old is this person? Or how tall is this person? Or things like that included in some of their search for this. I don't think that Bing has quite gone down that route for the biographical entity. Mordy Oberstein: No, not yet at least, or maybe they never will. Crystal Carter: Right. They have for a few other ones. There's a few sort of destination places where they'll pull things out. For instance, they used to have a SERP for a lion. If you look up what is a lion, you get a very interactive channel. It's got- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's very cool. Crystal Carter: ... pictures from Wikipedia and a map and links within the knowledge panel within the knowledge panel content as well. I think that the overall goal for these things seems to be around just making sure that there's lots of content there. Mordy Oberstein: Right. It's very layered. I've seen this across all the entities. I looked at Aaron Judge, who's a baseball player. By the way, both Bing and Google, when you search for somebody who's in the news, will prioritize news content right away. Search for Aaron Judge. He's a baseball player. It's during baseball season. There's always news about him, and both Google and Bing prioritized news results right at the top. But again, Google kind of gives, like you're saying, kind of like a T-L-D-R. You want to get a real quick overview of who Aaron Judge is? Here. And go explore more. Here's access points to more. Whereas Bing again gives you a timeline of Aaron Judge. He was a rookie here in 2016. He did that in 2021. He did that. It's really trying to give you that layered approach of we want you to walk away really understanding who this person is. Which is ironic in my mind because a lot of SEOs give Google flack about, "Oh, you're taking away clicks to all its information," but Bing really gives you all of that information there. Whereas with Google, I really do have to click somewhere to explore more. Crystal Carter: Right, and I think that Bing will very often add the information from other folks and they will reference it all together at the bottom. They'll reference all of it together. If you look up for instance, the Eiffel Tower, it has lots of facts about the Eiffel Tower and lots of information there. And It's clickable. It comes from somewhere, but it doesn't say it right next to it where it’s from. There's a bit of a balance of giving people lots of information but also making it more streamlined. I think that the entities around sort of multilayered entities are very interesting. So, something like the Eiffel Tower where you can buy tickets to the Eiffel Tower, where there's a Wikipedia page of the Eiffel Tower, and then there's also lots of historical things about the Eiffel Tower. There's a map and things like that. The entity management of that, then managing the knowledge panel I think for that is really interesting because there's so much in the knowledge panel for that. There's so much in the knowledge graph around something like the Eiffel Tower or even someone like Beyonce for instance. It's such a top level query to just enter something like Beyonce or Eiffel Tower or Aaron Judd that we need to have more there. So, it's kind of filtering as well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and it's interesting because they don't always stick to that same paradigm. For example, if you were to search something about like, what did I search for? It's something to do with tires, like how to change a tire on the side of the road. Google just gives you the steps. Here's how you change a tire on the side of the road. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, right? And Bing gives you more context about tires, while it does give you those steps. Bing likes to give you that context. If I search for something like a song, best songs of the 1990s, Bing just gives me the bunch of videos. But Google has a whole carousel of little thumbnails of all the songs from the nineties, like Say My name or Torn. And if you click on the thumbnail, you get a carousel of results that give you more context about that song. They don't always follow the same paradigm. It's interesting to see just from a marketing perspective how Google and Bing both think about their audiences. In some cases Google thinks you know what you do want context and some cases they don't and sometimes those are the opposite cases of where Bing says you want context and Google says, no, you don't. Crystal Carter: I think It's also interesting that they're happy to get some of that context from people that are searching. We think about entities as being very much things and stuff like the Eiffel Tower, or Natalie Umbruglia song, or whatever it may be. But they also cover abstract things. If you look up something like courage, for instance, courage on Bing, there's a poll. There's a pole underneath that to get more context specifically from people. For instance, they're saying, "Which of the following do you think is the most important trait of a courageous person? A, fearlessness B, perseverance, C, self-discipline or decomp compassion." Very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: What about E? Crystal Carter: What is E? What is E? Mordy Oberstein: I haven't thought about it yet. I have no pithy line. Crystal Carter: E is questioning the questions. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. What about skepticism? Crystal Carter: Right. What about that? Mordy Oberstein: What about that? Crystal Carter: It's interesting. For instance, you see the same thing with films and stuff. It'll be like, you've just looked up the Barbie movie, what was your review of the Barbie movie. Barbie movie is also an interesting one because of branded entities, there's a potential option to sort of monetize that space or to change around that space. For instance, the Barbie movie, they changed the SERP, similarly with Wordle. So Wordle has a SERP that is dedicated to specifically to it. I don't know if the Barbie movie thing was paid for thing or if Google's just really into the Barbie movie. It's very interesting, that- Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting. They do that for the World Cup. They do that for the Olympics. They've done things like that for the Super Bowl. The day after the Super Bowl, you search who won the Super Bowl, the fireworks go off. Yeah, Google likes doing that stuff. I think that's Google's branding, "Hey, come here, we're fun." Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Exactly. So they know where those queries are going to be and they know where they can leverage that entity and leverage that sort of brand experience with that entity when It's related to a specific brand. Mordy Oberstein: Now another entity that We're quite fond of over here on the SERP's Up podcast is the entity of SEO News. I love news. I love SEO News. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Do you like shopping? Do you like Google? Do you like data? Do you like Barry Schwartz? Don't answer the last one. Then you'll like this per Barry Schwartz over at SE Round Table, new Google Search Console shows Merchant Center visibility issues and changes. It's new. Google is now showing way more Merchant Center data and it is awesome and it is right inside of Google Search Console. Essentially, there are reports to help you see products that may have become ineligible for appearing in Google shopping. There's also a second part of the report that helps you get your listings more clicks and improve rankings so Google will actually tell you, "Hey, you should add return costs to the listing because that will get you more clicks." This is super important to Google and a super good move for them. Google needs to compete, wants to compete with Amazon. Obviously Amazon is the go-to place for e-commerce, shopping and listings and all that stuff. But by Google providing you with data such as this, it improves the chances that you'll be successful with Google shopping. The more success you have with Google shopping, the more Google can facilitate that success with Google shopping, the more you and people listing products on the internet will be invested in using Google Shopping and the more they can compete with Amazon. Very smart on Google's part. Have a look at the article in the show notes and you'll see a link in the article about how to activate the data. Also from Barry Schwartz, with a little help from a guy named Mordy, this time from Search Engine Land. How the August 2023 Google core update compared to March '23 core updates. The August 2023 core update finished after 16 days, which is a little bit longer than usual, on September 7th. And Barry, with the help of various tool providers dived into the impact of the update on rankings. I had the privilege of working with the Semrush data set to have a look at what the update provided in terms of rankings and it was unique. Usually, there's, a very, very demarcated spike increase in rank fluctuations meaning URLs moving up and down, changing positions all around the Google results pages. This time there wasn't that kind of spike. There was a prolonged period of really high and stably high, consistent that's the word I'm looking for, consistent rank fluctuations for a very long time. The initial spike actually occurred days before the update was officially announced. What to make of that is a great question for another time, but it was a definitely unique sort of rollout. Was the August 2023 core update more powerful and the March 2023 core update? Depends on how you slice it. Looking at peak rank volatility signals, it looks like the August 2023 update was more powerful. But you can't really look at that because rank volatility was already high coming into the update. If you look at what rank or how much rank volatility increased before the update versus during the update, it looks like the March update was perhaps more impactful. If you look at the average change in position, meaning how dramatic were the ranking changes, then the data shows that the August 2023 update was a little bit more impactful than the March 2023 core update. The point is slicing and dicing a core update and determining which one is more powerful is really complex. I have a whole post coming out on the SEMRush blog, so take a look for that when it comes out. I walk you through why analyzing these things are more complicated than it actually is using the August 2023 core update as an example. And that is this week's Snappy News. Always hard to prioritize which stories to cover in the SEO news each week on this podcast because It's snappy, so I can't cover them all. Crystal Carter: You have to prioritize which ones meet your needs. Mordy Oberstein: I try to prioritize which would meet our audience needs. Crystal Carter: Oh, see that's because you're so nice, Mordy. You're so nice and everyone appreciates you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Thank you. The face I'm making now does not say thank you, but I'm saying thank you. You know who I do want to thank though, our Follower of the Week. She's a great friend and a great person, and I feel that we should shout her out loud and clear for everyone to follow over on social media. It is Shelley Walsh. She's the SEO Content Strategist over at Search Engine Journal, and you should follow her on Twitter. She's also on threads, I believe, @TheShelleyWalsh, that's T-H-E-S-H-E-L-L-E-Y-W-A-L-S-H. Link to her profile on the show notes. She's a fantastic person, does a ton for the industry and she has a lot of SEO knowledge. She's an SEO OG. She actually has a series called SEO Pioneers, where you can watch the OGs of SEO talk about how SEO has changed over the last 100 years kind of thing. It does help you kind of prioritize based on what they're saying, what does work, what doesn't work, because what used to work doesn't work anymore kind of thing. I’ve heard that many, many times on this podcast. Shelley Walsh for SEO prioritization and it's a priority for you to follow her on Twitter. Crystal Carter: I cannot recommend it enough. She's a great follow. I followed her recently as well, and my life has been much, much better since. So yes, I highly recommend. Mordy Oberstein: She's super sweet. She was at our Brighton SEO dinner back in the UK, when was that, April? April, right? Crystal Carter: Yes, yes, yes. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. That seems so long ago. Always nice to see her at Brighton SEO. If you do go to Brighton SEO, look for Shelley. She's usually there, I think. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. It's great. It's great. Absolutely great follow. Shout out to Shelley, and shout out to everyone in the SEO Pioneers Group, Mordy Oberstein: John Mueller. Barry Schwartz. I think. If she hasn't had Barry, she should have Barry. We'll. Make that happen, Shelley. All right, well, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into why even SEO pros need a refresher about SEO. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on our Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, at you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Nick LeRoy Griffin Roer Shelly Walsh Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO For Lunch Newsletter SEO Jobs Uproer SEO Agency SEO Pioneers News: New: Google Search Console Shows Merchant Center Visibility Issues & Changes How does the August 2023 Google core update compared to March 2023 core updates Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Mordy Oberstein Crystal Carter Nick LeRoy Griffin Roer Shelly Walsh Resources: Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter SEO For Lunch Newsletter SEO Jobs Uproer SEO Agency SEO Pioneers News: New: Google Search Console Shows Merchant Center Visibility Issues & Changes How does the August 2023 Google core update compared to March 2023 core updates Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha! Maholo 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, the Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by she who knows how to set priorities right, our Head of SEO Communications, the one of the only, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, Mordy Oberstein, the fantastic, incredible, amazing, stupendous, magnificent Mordy Oberstein. Mordy Oberstein: Your nose is growing. Crystal Carter: What? Mordy, who cannot- Mordy Oberstein: If you know, you know. Crystal Carter: ... take a compliment, but is- Mordy Oberstein: No, I don't do compliments well. I have a hard time. Crystal Carter: It's always fun to give Mordy Oberstein a compliment because you can just see him squirming so much. Mordy Oberstein: People are saying nice things about me? Crystal Carter: "Why are they saying them? I must say something. It's ridiculous to deflect from the appreciation that sat befalling me." I would like to encourage everyone who's listening to this podcast to send Mordy Oberstein a compliment on Twitter. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah and CC Barry Schwartz while you're at it. Get two birds with one stone. Crystal Carter: Thank you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. That's right. Well, the SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can not only subscribe to our monthly newsletter, Searchlight, over at wix.com/SEO/learn/newsletter, but where you can also prioritize your SEO tasks on your blog pages and for your site overall with our SEO Assistant, which literally tells you which tasks are critical, which are high priority, which are medium, and which are low-priority SEO tasks because knowing what to work on and when, it's not always easy. Which is why today, we're helping you understand how to prioritize your SEO tasks. Look how seamless the line about what Wix does and what we're doing today meshed together perfectly. Crystal Carter: It was flawless. Mordy Oberstein: I take compliments on that. I take compliments on my pivots. Crystal Carter: It was very good. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Thank you That's right. Today, we're dealing with the reality that you got to start somewhere. You can't do it all at once. It's not Star Trek. You're not Scotty. You're beyond being a miracle worker. It's not realistic. We're diving into how to set SEO priorities. Are certain SEO tasks actually more important than others? How does limited time and resources factor into SEO prioritization? And how do you know if you are or aren't prioritizing the right SEO task? Also, how does prioritization differ from an SEO agency to an SEO consultancy to an SEO freelancer? We get both sides of the coin as the CEO of Uproer, Griffin Roer, an advocate of all that is SEO freelancing, Nick LeRoy, take SEO prioritization from different corners of the SEO world. Plus, we'll have a look at what different search engines tend to prioritize in their results. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. It's all hands on deck for this code red alert or perhaps merely a yellow alert. Time will tell as episode number 56 of the SERP's Up Podcast helps you set your alerts and your SEO priorities straight. Crystal Carter: There we go. We're just going to get into something and I'm going to start with something a little bit philosophical, a little bit intellectual because we like to go highbrow here on the SERP's Up. Mordy Oberstein: I can't do that. Get it? Crystal Carter: Maybe you could put it on a Play-Doh. I don't know. That's terrible. Anyway, so I'm going to start with something called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If you're not familiar with this, this is something... Yeah, Mordy's very excited about this. This is something that it's essentially a framework on a theory of human motivation. It's created by a guy called Maslow and it talks about psychological stuff and things like that. I would pause it that this also applies to websites and priorities as well. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, a simplified version of it, you'll generally see a pyramid and at the base of the pyramid will be physiological needs. Things like whether or not you have air and whether or not you have a good safe environment, food, shelter, et cetera. Then there'll be safety needs like personal security, employment resources, et cetera. Then there'll be things like love and belonging, whether or not you have friendship and family and a sense of connection. Then there'll be things like esteem, whether or not you feel respected and have strength and freedom. Then there's self actualization, so the desire to become more than you currently are or become the most that you can be. This is the sort of general simplified idea of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. If you're not familiar with this, I highly recommend checking out because it's something that's really, really interesting for general personal development. You didn't realize that you were listening to a general growth hacking podcast, but here we are. Anyway, now when we talk about websites, I would posit that this also applies. When we're thinking about the physiological needs, this is essentially your baseline. This is stuff like your technical SEO and whether or not things actually work on the page. This might be as technical as whether or not you have site maps and whether or not things are working in terms of your robots at TXT and things like that. If you don't have this stuff working, if your pages are all blocked from crawling for instance, no amount of fantastic SEO content things is going to do anything if all the pages are blocked from crawling. If you're thinking about priorities, always check out making sure that you have the sort of technical nuts and bolts things covered. One of the things we really pride ourselves on Wix is making sure that a lot of that stuff is covered for anybody who creates a Wix website straight off the bat. You also want to think about the sort of things are covered from a business point of view view, so does the website actually do what you need it to do in the first place? For instance. If you have a bricks and mortar business, does it actually tell people how to get to your business? Does it tell people how to phone you? Does it tell people how to connect with you and things like that? Can people actually complete the sale on your e-commerce website? Is that possible? Are they able to do that? That's something to think about that. From a project point of view, this also means thinking about are you able to complete the task in a set amount of time? Do you know how much time you have and are you able to actually complete that task in that amount of time? Because you could have a fantastic audit and do amazing stuff, but if you don't know how much time or what resources you have, then those fundamental physiological sort of actual nuts and bolts things, if you haven't taken care of those, it's very difficult to do anything else. That should be a top priority, is making sure that those things are understood and are working well. Mordy, you're nodding. I don't know if you want to come in on this one before we get into the next one. Mordy Oberstein: No, no, no. You're on a roll. Crystal Carter: Okay, all right. Mordy Oberstein: You're on a roll. I'm good. Thank you for checking in on me. I'm just sitting back and enjoying. Crystal Carter: Checking to make sure that your needs are met. Okay, so then we go into safety needs. Now in terms of safety needs for a website, first of all, there's things like SSL. That's a standard security thing, but there's also making sure that you have things like EEAT. Within EEAT, which stands for expertise, experience- Mordy Oberstein: Experience, yeah, they added the extra E. Crystal Carter: ... authority and trust from Google. They also talk about things, making sure that you're trustworthy. A lot of these things have to do with your trust score. Your website should also have safety needs that have to do with your trustability and how trustworthy you are. Where you have your SSL on your website, that that works, where you have return policies that helps users to know that it's easier for them to enter their credit card details and that it's a secure website for them to enter their credit card details, that they know that you know what you're doing, that you have certificates and that they know that you are an actual place. You have very clear name, address, phone number on your website. I always get a little bit sketched out if I'm on a website and they're trying to sell me something or trying to tell me something and I'm like, "Where are you? Who are you? Who are these people?" Mordy Oberstein: That's why I always have a sticky point with PPC people on the landing page idea of don't have any menu up there, just leave on the landing page to confirm. I want the context. Crystal Carter: Right. I want to know who you are. Who am I even talking to? So making sure You've got those sorts of trust things is also really useful. I've seen this from an SEO point of view and they tend to be pretty quick to implement. Both are pretty straightforward to implement, shall I say. The technical things, it's either broken or it's fixed. It's fairly straightforward to get those things going. The trust elements, particularly on e-commerce, Google will guide you on a lot of those things. If you're signing up to Google Merchant Center, they'll be like, "Well you don't have a return policy. You haven't done this part. We need to know what currency you're selling in. We need to know all of these sorts of stuff." Google will guide you with a lot of those things. So think about that. And also, I always say with PPC, particularly with sensitive verticals, YMYL verticals, they will also guide you on that. If you're trying to do any PPC, look at what they expect for PPC for your vertical. If you're into medical, for instance they'll say "If you want to advertise for medical, you need to have this and this." Even if you're not advertising, you can look at the PPC requirements for that vertical to see what kinds of trust signals they need for that and it's really useful. Then from the love and belonging sort of place, this has to do with brand positioning. Is it clear that you know what's good about you? What are your USPs? What is unique about you? What is valuable about your brand, your product, your team, your service? Making sure that that's very clear. And also, are you able to show that other people think that as well? Are you able to show your reviews that other people also think you're great? Are you involved in different communities and things like that? When we think about an EEAT points of view, this kind of speaks to sort of authority points. We're part of the Better Business Bureau, we are part of this association of marketers or things like that, and all our reviews are five star reviews. That shows that people appreciate us and we say, "Oh this is the thing that's great about our products." So those things, you need to know what those are and you need to convey those things on your website. Then when we get to esteem, this is where your blog can help you shine and your content can really help you shine. Once you've got your technical things sorted out, once you've got all the safety stuff sorted, the trust signals, then you can get into being like, "Yeah, you know what, not only does everybody think I'm great, but I can share that knowledge with you." So I'm confident in my knowledge. I'm confident to be able to share this in a video, to share it in a blog, to share it in an infographic and to share it on social media, things like that. That can bring people to you. By the time they come to you, they already know that it's a safe place, that you know what your brand USPs are, that everything works technically. Then after that, we think of a sort of self-actualization. So all of those things I think are sort of need to have things, and then you have your nice to have stuff. It's like right, okay, we've got a good blog, we've got a good working website, all the trust signals are there and then you can be like how can we stretch? How can we do some really cool stuff now? You can look around and you go, "Well these guys are doing some other stuff and we are not doing that. Could we do that? I think we could because we have all of these skills and all these great things that we can do." You can look at bigger competitors that maybe aren't even in your vertical but are doing something online that's really cool. You could say "We could do that. I think we could start a channel. I think we could create some more stuff." I think that it might sound a little bit philosophical, but actually a good content audit, a good SEO audit for instance, will break things down in this way. You'll say, "What priority is this? High, low, medium. What is the estimated impact? High, low, medium." For instance, on a technical thing like priority, it might be like "Well this is high priority." Your page isn't getting crawled and then you can bring it down in the time estimation. You can say, "If you know what you're doing, this is going to take you 20 minutes to fix." So it's going to have a high impact and it's high priority, so you should probably do that and it can really, really help you to figure things out. I think that thinking about it in the same way that you would think about how you would go forth in improving yourself, improving your life et cetera is really, really good when you're thinking about how to prioritize for your website. Mordy Oberstein: If we can get some music or a sound please, like clapping in applause. I think that's an appropriate time right now. I'll give you a little behind the scenes of this podcast. Sometimes we really sync up exactly where we're going to go, exactly what we're going to do. We kind of really plan it out. Sometimes "I got this, I'll take care of it. You got this, you got that." Crystal got this, and I had no idea what I was really in for today. I will tell you right now, first off, I'm volunteering you for a blog post on the Wix SEO Hub about the maturation process of a website because I feel like this conversation, I've had this conversation before about setting SEO priorities, and what you usually end up talking about is, "Okay, so if your page is not being discovered, if you can't get an index because you edited a no index tag," or whatever-whatever, then that's a foundational priority because that means that all the other things that you eventually want to do, you can't do now. That's a priority. But what you've done here is basically laid out how a website matures over time. How it should mature over time, and how priority really means doing the things that matter for the website at the current state of maturation that you're at right now. Crystal Carter: Yeah. Yeah. Mordy Oberstein: And that's amazing, and that's where the clapping comes in, and that's where I figured you should write this up, because that was amazing. Crystal Carter: Thank you for the appreciate. I'm feeling some love and belonging right now. I'm feeling like that's really good, and It's really helping my self-esteem and maybe I will actualize that block. I think It's something that I think about as well. It's just sometimes people over-complicate these things, so sometimes they're like, "Oh, all this technical stuff," and I think a lot of people get lost in the jargon of it, but optimization is about making it better. You can't start from where you're not. You have to start from where you are. If you get better that's, great and then you can get better than that, and then you can get better than that, and then you can get better than that. You need to know where you're starting. I think some people get tripped up on some of the technical stuff for instance, and so they just ignore it. But a lot of times you can't. But the good thing about the technical stuff is it's fairly mathematical. Like I said, it's either broken or it's fixed. You can sort of go in and you can fix it, or if you don't know you can ask for help or you can just follow some... I'm sure there'll be somebody who's done a YouTube video or something that's gone into very extensive detail of how to do it and people will very much help you. But yeah, I think don't skip the steps and don't think that you can skip the steps because you do need to cover the steps or find tools that can help you do that so that you can get better and build on all of your work. Mordy Oberstein: This is how it goes with creating, we'll call it content in general, because your website is a piece of content and that content has technical underpinnings you need to address. It has design underpinnings that you need to address, all these kinds of things. I'll tell you, so LinkedIn carousels, I was avoiding them for a long, long time. It seemed like a lot of work. I didn't really have a lot of time. And now I'm starting to do them once in a while and I've noticed, okay I did X, this is not great. I'm looking at what somebody else did now. I'm like "Oh, that's really good." Really, it's a slow process of maturing. Your website is the same thing. You start with something, you have your pages, you have whatever it is, and you're thinking, you know what something doesn't feel right about this. I could probably take this to another level. Let's try this, let's try that and let's try this. Adding all of these things in let's say EEAT, adding a layer of real expertise and authority into the content on your website, that might not happen at the onset. You might write 10 blog posts because you got to get that content out there. You got to start from somewhere and you know what, that's fine and it won't rank. And you know what? That's also fine, because there's no cutoff date on ranking. "Oh, if I don't rank today that I can't rank tomorrow." Crystal Carter: One of the things that's great about SEO and it's the same thing with life is that you can try again. You can try again and you can keep practicing and you can keep improving. You post it now, you post that piece of content and like you said, maybe it doesn't rank, but maybe six months from now you'll have more data about how it's being seen online, maybe you'll have more feedback from people about what they think about it. You'll be able to see where It's sitting in the SERP and things like that. Then you can say, "Okay, now we can take that information and we can make this content better." Or we can take that information and go, "You know what we didn't need that content in the first place." But you have to start, but you need to take the feedback in order to improve. I think that when you're prioritizing, you should prioritize the thing that will get you to the next step. Mordy Oberstein: To the next step. That's exactly it. It is what gets you to the next step. I think that's a mistake people realize. You'll see people will talk about "I'm going to optimize," again, I'll go back to EEAT, "I'm going to optimize for EEAT," even somewhere like Lily Ray who's been doing this for years. You're looking at a cluster of content. You know what this needs to do to go from zero 100. You know the whole process. You've done it a million times before. You're an expert on that. You've got that. If you are an SEO that doesn't say focus on that, or you're a business owner or whoever you are, looking at it, "I'm going to optimize now for EEAT," it's like a one shot deal. It's not going to work. It's, "Okay, I've done this, the pose," I think we should talk about this podcast before "... and I've added X." Come back in three months from now, "You know what, X really wasn't enough. Now let's add Y." It's an ongoing process. SEO is an ongoing process. Looking at what will get me to the next step helps you do SEO the right way because it helps you say, "I'm going to do what I need to do to get to the next step, but I know that's not the last step." Crystal Carter: Right, because It's all rinse and repeat. I think that again, Maslow is good because if we think about the base of the pyramid, the sort of physiological technical leads in the case of a website, those things can change. As you grow, for instance, if you're a nine year old, you're a certain height, so you might need a step stool to reach the top of the cupboard or whatever. As you get older, you're going to get taller. You don't need the step stool, but you might need- Mordy Oberstein: You might need to climb. Just climb. You could be slither up a wall. Crystal Carter: These things will change. Similarly, I've started to wear glasses or whatever and I need those things. These are different things. Just like with your website. Your website doesn't exist in a vacuum, so there might be new SERP features that happen and then suddenly you have different technical needs for your website. It might be that suddenly your audience is way more mobile first and then you have different technical needs. Maybe there's an app that everybody's really, really into or maybe you've developed an app. That means that your website now has different technical needs and then that has knock on effect. So then you have to go back through all of the steps to make sure that they all align with each other. All of these things change. They're not set it and forget. It's like a person. Your website is grows, evolves and exists in an environment that is growing and evolving all of the time. Your priorities may very well change. It doesn't mean that you can't still have a North Star, say that if we talk about the self-actualization part where you really want to be, that can guide you, but how you get there might change a little bit. That's okay. That's okay. Mordy Oberstein: And it's okay that it's not linear, either. You might say, "You know what, I really need a quick win right now. I am struggling. I need a quick win. This might not get me to the next level. It might not be part of my maturation process. But I know it's a quick way." That's fine too. Crystal Carter: I had a client and they had a website, and they did not have time for content. They did not. They were just like, "We don't have time for content. We don't have loads." They had been doing some Facebook stuff, so I was like, "Look, we have some stuff on Facebook. Let's take these Facebook posts, let's adapt them into blogs." Were they the best quality? I'm going, to be honest, they were not the best quality blogs, but this was a website that had no blog and had not posted any blogs ever or hadn't posted any blogs in sort of a year. We took these sorts of mid-level posts that had some information and we added them to the blog. Why? Because we wanted to be able to show the client that with this level of effort we can get this much. And then you can get a proof of concept and they can say, "Oh okay, so that blog that we all know was kind of okay, whatever got this much. What happens if we actually did a good blog on top of that?" Our goal was to get going. I just needed to get some content on there to get going. The goal was to get going. The goal wasn't to set the world on fire and make amazing, amazing, beautiful... The goal was to just get going. We got going and then they were like, "Okay, yeah, I can see the benefit of this," and helped with their self-esteem, their esteem. That meant that we could get investment and buy-in on doing something really good. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, 100%. It's a little bit messy. It's not like a linear kind of thing. It's a little bit messy. There's also resources to consider. Whether you have the resource, whether you don't have the resources, that's going to factor in. You might have a great projection plan maturation process for your website, but it'd be realistic with what you can and what you can't do. You might have to give up on certain things and that's normal. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's normal. It's normal. I'll tell you right now, there's going to be certain benefits to doing things at whatever stage you're at. The important thing is to be aware of the impact and the important thing is to understand what you expect to come out of it so that it can help you to reach next goal and set your priorities based on that. If you're seeing that actually we did some blog and we saw no benefit of any kind and you go, "Okay, maybe this isn't what we need to do right now. Maybe we should invest in something else." If you see the blog and you see some benefit, for instance you're seeing that actually we're being crawled better. Actually, we have more internal links now. Actually, we're seeing some ranking that's happening out of this. Then yeah, that's good. That's a good sign and maybe they should be moved up the priority list for your overall activity. I think It's just important to think about what works for you and in terms of priorities, what will get you to the next step. Joe Hall, I talk about Joe Hall a lot, but he was talking a lot about MozCon last year about priorities and how he'd done this big audit for some folks. He was like, "Oh, we should do this, this and this." And he thought again about it, he was like "Actually, looking at what they need to do, I'm not sure this is the best course of action for them based on what would work best for them and what would..." Because I think sometimes people will do their go-to moves. You'll be like, "Oh, I always do this for everyone. This always works." And sometimes it does, but sometimes it's not always the best fit for them because of all of their other needs and all of their other priorities. So make sure that it aligns with the full flow of who the website is or what the website is at that time and what will get them to where they need to go. Mordy Oberstein: Speaking of resources and how you work, and how you prioritize, where you work or who you work for can also impact how you prioritize SEO tasks. Specifically, if you're on the agency side and you're part of a large organizational, wider SEO team or digital marketing team, then you might prioritize SEO tasks in a certain way. If you're a consultant or a freelancer, well you might look at the same client and prioritize differently because based upon how you work. Because of that, we asked the CEO of Uproer, an SEO agency out of Minnesota, Griffin Roer, and Nick LeRoy, famed SEO consultant and a former member of the Wix SEO Advisory Board, how prioritizing your work as an SEO agency differs for prioritizing your work as a freelancer. So same task, same things, but from a different point of view. Here's Griffin and here's Nick together. Nick LeRoy: I know my skill sets. I know what I consider myself good at. I know where I struggle. And it's kind of more of a litmus test of check, check, check. But I also have that layer of does this make me excited? Do I enjoy it? That will go into again, how I set priorities in accepting a client or working, or even trying to pitch something. I know Griffin, you and I are the same. We're not really big into RFPs or having to truly sell ourselves. We would prefer to take a solid referral with kind of a baseline of trust. I think that kind of goes into my priorities as well. It's like if I have to put a lot of effort into trying to secure somewhere versus already being able to establish some trust on day one, that goes a long way on my end. Griffin Roer: There's definitely a difference there because you can look at a project and be like, "Do I have the time and interest to do this?" You can look at a project that is not super exciting and not super maybe challenging or whatever and just be like, "Well, I got some time and I can bang this one out. I'm not going to necessarily love this project, but it's going to help pay the bills." I can make that decision on behalf of myself. Whereas- Nick LeRoy: And price it at a level that will make it exciting. Griffin Roer: Yeah, exactly. I think one consideration on the agency side is I've got to be considerate of peoples' career development, and that might mean projects that I myself might be willing to take on and do and just gut out and be like, "All right, this is just going to help the bottom line." Or just as a freelancer maybe you're like, "Hey, if I do this project, I can get a new set of wheels for my car or something like that," you're kind of equating it to some reward. For me, if I'm going to put a project on somebody's plate, ideally It's going to align with their career progression and it's going to represent the next challenge, the thing they want to take on. If it's something that's going to be more like a step backwards, that makes it harder for us to accept that project. Even if it'd be a nice payday or even if it'd be just something to pad the business a little bit, I think there are some considerations there around career development because I think if an agency were to just take on kind of just un-challenging uninteresting projects all the time that just brought in cash, but didn't really push people, I don't think that agency is going to be really successful in retaining people. Nick LeRoy: Absolutely. Well Griffin, let me ask you a question here. I think building off of what we were just saying as a freelancer, I have the luxury of knowing this is short term. This is kind of a quick win. I schedule that work intentionally for that. It's like "Yeah, I want a new set of wheels. I want to take the kids on a vacation." But I'm being very intentional knowing that it's kind of like a one day payday. I suspect on the agency front you also have to be really cognizant of what type of short-term work you're taking on so that you don't necessarily lose out or have to turn down something that comes in that could be a multi-year or multi-channel engagement, which would obviously be your preferred client. Griffin Roer: Yeah, and obviously probably like you too, we're going to prioritize recurring business over project business any day of the week. There are those project opportunities that kind of come in and you do have to look at that against the overall pipeline and bandwidth of everybody that works at the agency to understand does this make sense? For myself being a leader at a small agency, I think it can be really tempting too for just myself to take on maybe the less than ideal projects, again just to help bring in some additional revenue and pad things and stuff like that. That can be counterproductive in and of itself because I'm expected to do a lot more than just assisting with client work and stuff like that. We've got sales and operations and hiring and just other things happening where my time is more valuable applied to those things versus- Nick LeRoy: Without a doubt. Griffin Roer: ... spending a couple of days working on a project that I was like, "Well this won't be really interesting for anything else, but It'll help the business from a revenue standpoint." I think That's a challenge probably that smaller agencies face moreso than bigger agencies, but it is a reality of trying to balance those competing interests and making sure that what I'm doing is not just in the best interest of myself but in the best interest of the agency at large, which represents 13 people at this point. Nick LeRoy: Absolutely, and I think you nailed on one of the most critical components when we're comparing small agency to freelancer. As a freelancer, I get to be very selfish. Everything is about me. I get to make the choices. All my choices impact me only. There's less risk in that aspect. Whereas when, and correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but as you had said 13 individuals that need to serve 13 meals every night, so you have to be very conscious of the type of work that you're taking, how do you prioritize it and even who works on what? Mordy Oberstein: Well, thank you so much Nick and Griffin. Ironically, I approached them separately and I knew they both knew each other to answer this question like, "Hey, we'll just do a Zoom call together and we'll answer it together." It's an amazing conversation. There's actually a whole 30 minute piece that they did for them. We have to somehow repurpose it for something because it's amazing conversation that only we have listened to. We feel we need to share that somehow. But also, make sure you follow Griffin Roer. He's more on LinkedIn at @CGriffinRoerJr, a link to his LinkedIn account in the show notes. And follow Nick on Twitter @NickLeRoy, that's @ N-I-C-K-L-E-R-O-Y on Twitter. It is interesting, right? You think, okay, SEO is SEO, but You're going to be able to do different things, focus on different things, work in different ways, prioritize different things, all because of the way you work within your organization, at least on the SEO agency side, or the fact that you don't have an organization because you're a freelancer. It's fascinating to me. Crystal Carter: Yeah, I think that there is a lot of prioritization that has to do with the sort of ins and outs of an agency and working as a team because very often in an agency you are going to work in lots of different ways. So yeah, it's really interesting to hear the way that they discuss that and how you have to manage all of the bits and wheels and nuts and bolts of all of that. Mordy Oberstein: There's a lot that goes into. It's the business side of it all, the billing and the client prioritization and all of that stuff is so different from just being let's say a consultant. Anyway, while we're talking about different situations and different circumstances that help dictate different SEO priorities, there are different things that different search engines prioritize within their results. With that, let's explore what the search engines of the world tend to prioritize differently as we go so many search engines. Mordy Oberstein: Let's take a look at Bing and Google, and let's take a look at how they handle different types of queries differently. Let's take entities to start. I always like looking at entities. I think they're a great way to dive into the mind of a search engine. I Googled, or one case Binged, a search bar is the word I'm looking for. I searched for John Lennon. I typed in John Lennon into Bing and I typed John Lennon into Google, and it's very different. Very, very different. For example, Bing tends for entities, like these kinds of entities and people, tries to push or tends to push the biographical information way harder than Google does. Google will show you, for example, when he was born, it'll give you some YouTube videos, a bunch of images, where you can listen to his music is above the fold. So Spotify and YouTube and Pandora. But Bing is pushing more the early years. It really gives you a great biographical breakdown of the different points of his life. It really tends to focus more on John Lennon as a person versus where Google is looking at it as here's an access or entry points to more various media about John Lennon. I thought that was interesting. Crystal Carter: I think that Google has been doing a lot particularly around the biographical entities here. It's been a very busy space in the last sort of year or so where they started adding- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, they reformatted the whole knowledge panel thing. Crystal Carter: Right. They've added more of... It's more magazine sort of style. There's still the knowledge panel information, but for some people like Beyonce for instance, there's a lot more information around. They even have some quick answers. How old is this person? Or how tall is this person? Or things like that included in some of their search for this. I don't think that Bing has quite gone down that route for the biographical entity. Mordy Oberstein: No, not yet at least, or maybe they never will. Crystal Carter: Right. They have for a few other ones. There's a few sort of destination places where they'll pull things out. For instance, they used to have a SERP for a lion. If you look up what is a lion, you get a very interactive channel. It's got- Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, it's very cool. Crystal Carter: ... pictures from Wikipedia and a map and links within the knowledge panel within the knowledge panel content as well. I think that the overall goal for these things seems to be around just making sure that there's lots of content there. Mordy Oberstein: Right. It's very layered. I've seen this across all the entities. I looked at Aaron Judge, who's a baseball player. By the way, both Bing and Google, when you search for somebody who's in the news, will prioritize news content right away. Search for Aaron Judge. He's a baseball player. It's during baseball season. There's always news about him, and both Google and Bing prioritized news results right at the top. But again, Google kind of gives, like you're saying, kind of like a T-L-D-R. You want to get a real quick overview of who Aaron Judge is? Here. And go explore more. Here's access points to more. Whereas Bing again gives you a timeline of Aaron Judge. He was a rookie here in 2016. He did that in 2021. He did that. It's really trying to give you that layered approach of we want you to walk away really understanding who this person is. Which is ironic in my mind because a lot of SEOs give Google flack about, "Oh, you're taking away clicks to all its information," but Bing really gives you all of that information there. Whereas with Google, I really do have to click somewhere to explore more. Crystal Carter: Right, and I think that Bing will very often add the information from other folks and they will reference it all together at the bottom. They'll reference all of it together. If you look up for instance, the Eiffel Tower, it has lots of facts about the Eiffel Tower and lots of information there. And It's clickable. It comes from somewhere, but it doesn't say it right next to it where it’s from. There's a bit of a balance of giving people lots of information but also making it more streamlined. I think that the entities around sort of multilayered entities are very interesting. So, something like the Eiffel Tower where you can buy tickets to the Eiffel Tower, where there's a Wikipedia page of the Eiffel Tower, and then there's also lots of historical things about the Eiffel Tower. There's a map and things like that. The entity management of that, then managing the knowledge panel I think for that is really interesting because there's so much in the knowledge panel for that. There's so much in the knowledge graph around something like the Eiffel Tower or even someone like Beyonce for instance. It's such a top level query to just enter something like Beyonce or Eiffel Tower or Aaron Judd that we need to have more there. So, it's kind of filtering as well. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah, and it's interesting because they don't always stick to that same paradigm. For example, if you were to search something about like, what did I search for? It's something to do with tires, like how to change a tire on the side of the road. Google just gives you the steps. Here's how you change a tire on the side of the road. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, right? And Bing gives you more context about tires, while it does give you those steps. Bing likes to give you that context. If I search for something like a song, best songs of the 1990s, Bing just gives me the bunch of videos. But Google has a whole carousel of little thumbnails of all the songs from the nineties, like Say My name or Torn. And if you click on the thumbnail, you get a carousel of results that give you more context about that song. They don't always follow the same paradigm. It's interesting to see just from a marketing perspective how Google and Bing both think about their audiences. In some cases Google thinks you know what you do want context and some cases they don't and sometimes those are the opposite cases of where Bing says you want context and Google says, no, you don't. Crystal Carter: I think It's also interesting that they're happy to get some of that context from people that are searching. We think about entities as being very much things and stuff like the Eiffel Tower, or Natalie Umbruglia song, or whatever it may be. But they also cover abstract things. If you look up something like courage, for instance, courage on Bing, there's a poll. There's a pole underneath that to get more context specifically from people. For instance, they're saying, "Which of the following do you think is the most important trait of a courageous person? A, fearlessness B, perseverance, C, self-discipline or decomp compassion." Very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: What about E? Crystal Carter: What is E? What is E? Mordy Oberstein: I haven't thought about it yet. I have no pithy line. Crystal Carter: E is questioning the questions. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. What about skepticism? Crystal Carter: Right. What about that? Mordy Oberstein: What about that? Crystal Carter: It's interesting. For instance, you see the same thing with films and stuff. It'll be like, you've just looked up the Barbie movie, what was your review of the Barbie movie. Barbie movie is also an interesting one because of branded entities, there's a potential option to sort of monetize that space or to change around that space. For instance, the Barbie movie, they changed the SERP, similarly with Wordle. So Wordle has a SERP that is dedicated to specifically to it. I don't know if the Barbie movie thing was paid for thing or if Google's just really into the Barbie movie. It's very interesting, that- Mordy Oberstein: It's interesting. They do that for the World Cup. They do that for the Olympics. They've done things like that for the Super Bowl. The day after the Super Bowl, you search who won the Super Bowl, the fireworks go off. Yeah, Google likes doing that stuff. I think that's Google's branding, "Hey, come here, we're fun." Crystal Carter: Right. Right. Exactly. So they know where those queries are going to be and they know where they can leverage that entity and leverage that sort of brand experience with that entity when It's related to a specific brand. Mordy Oberstein: Now another entity that We're quite fond of over here on the SERP's Up podcast is the entity of SEO News. I love news. I love SEO News. Here's this week's Snappy News. Snappy news, snappy news, snappy news. Do you like shopping? Do you like Google? Do you like data? Do you like Barry Schwartz? Don't answer the last one. Then you'll like this per Barry Schwartz over at SE Round Table, new Google Search Console shows Merchant Center visibility issues and changes. It's new. Google is now showing way more Merchant Center data and it is awesome and it is right inside of Google Search Console. Essentially, there are reports to help you see products that may have become ineligible for appearing in Google shopping. There's also a second part of the report that helps you get your listings more clicks and improve rankings so Google will actually tell you, "Hey, you should add return costs to the listing because that will get you more clicks." This is super important to Google and a super good move for them. Google needs to compete, wants to compete with Amazon. Obviously Amazon is the go-to place for e-commerce, shopping and listings and all that stuff. But by Google providing you with data such as this, it improves the chances that you'll be successful with Google shopping. The more success you have with Google shopping, the more Google can facilitate that success with Google shopping, the more you and people listing products on the internet will be invested in using Google Shopping and the more they can compete with Amazon. Very smart on Google's part. Have a look at the article in the show notes and you'll see a link in the article about how to activate the data. Also from Barry Schwartz, with a little help from a guy named Mordy, this time from Search Engine Land. How the August 2023 Google core update compared to March '23 core updates. The August 2023 core update finished after 16 days, which is a little bit longer than usual, on September 7th. And Barry, with the help of various tool providers dived into the impact of the update on rankings. I had the privilege of working with the Semrush data set to have a look at what the update provided in terms of rankings and it was unique. Usually, there's, a very, very demarcated spike increase in rank fluctuations meaning URLs moving up and down, changing positions all around the Google results pages. This time there wasn't that kind of spike. There was a prolonged period of really high and stably high, consistent that's the word I'm looking for, consistent rank fluctuations for a very long time. The initial spike actually occurred days before the update was officially announced. What to make of that is a great question for another time, but it was a definitely unique sort of rollout. Was the August 2023 core update more powerful and the March 2023 core update? Depends on how you slice it. Looking at peak rank volatility signals, it looks like the August 2023 update was more powerful. But you can't really look at that because rank volatility was already high coming into the update. If you look at what rank or how much rank volatility increased before the update versus during the update, it looks like the March update was perhaps more impactful. If you look at the average change in position, meaning how dramatic were the ranking changes, then the data shows that the August 2023 update was a little bit more impactful than the March 2023 core update. The point is slicing and dicing a core update and determining which one is more powerful is really complex. I have a whole post coming out on the SEMRush blog, so take a look for that when it comes out. I walk you through why analyzing these things are more complicated than it actually is using the August 2023 core update as an example. And that is this week's Snappy News. Always hard to prioritize which stories to cover in the SEO news each week on this podcast because It's snappy, so I can't cover them all. Crystal Carter: You have to prioritize which ones meet your needs. Mordy Oberstein: I try to prioritize which would meet our audience needs. Crystal Carter: Oh, see that's because you're so nice, Mordy. You're so nice and everyone appreciates you. Mordy Oberstein: Thank you. Thank you. The face I'm making now does not say thank you, but I'm saying thank you. You know who I do want to thank though, our Follower of the Week. She's a great friend and a great person, and I feel that we should shout her out loud and clear for everyone to follow over on social media. It is Shelley Walsh. She's the SEO Content Strategist over at Search Engine Journal, and you should follow her on Twitter. She's also on threads, I believe, @TheShelleyWalsh, that's T-H-E-S-H-E-L-L-E-Y-W-A-L-S-H. Link to her profile on the show notes. She's a fantastic person, does a ton for the industry and she has a lot of SEO knowledge. She's an SEO OG. She actually has a series called SEO Pioneers, where you can watch the OGs of SEO talk about how SEO has changed over the last 100 years kind of thing. It does help you kind of prioritize based on what they're saying, what does work, what doesn't work, because what used to work doesn't work anymore kind of thing. I’ve heard that many, many times on this podcast. Shelley Walsh for SEO prioritization and it's a priority for you to follow her on Twitter. Crystal Carter: I cannot recommend it enough. She's a great follow. I followed her recently as well, and my life has been much, much better since. So yes, I highly recommend. Mordy Oberstein: She's super sweet. She was at our Brighton SEO dinner back in the UK, when was that, April? April, right? Crystal Carter: Yes, yes, yes. Mordy Oberstein: Wow. That seems so long ago. Always nice to see her at Brighton SEO. If you do go to Brighton SEO, look for Shelley. She's usually there, I think. Crystal Carter: Yeah, yeah. It's great. It's great. Absolutely great follow. Shout out to Shelley, and shout out to everyone in the SEO Pioneers Group, Mordy Oberstein: John Mueller. Barry Schwartz. I think. If she hasn't had Barry, she should have Barry. We'll. Make that happen, Shelley. All right, well, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry. We're back next week with a new episode as we dive into why even SEO pros need a refresher about SEO. Look forward wherever you consume your podcast or on our Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO? Check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub, at you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. 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With 20+ years of working in digital, from developer to account manager, Sarah works for some of the big-name brands in Australia and several not-for-profit and charity organizations. Her consultancy, Meliorum, works with clients in implementation, reporting, and analysis. Sarah Crooke Analytics Specialist and Owner of Meliorum With 20+ years of working in digital, from developer to account manager, Sarah works for some of the big-name brands in Australia and several not-for-profit and charity organizations. Her consultancy, Meliorum , works with clients in implementation, reporting, and analysis. Articles & Resources 28 May 2025 Trend analysis: How to turn imperfect data into marketing wins 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

Miriam Ellis is a local SEO columnist and consultant. She has been cited as one of the top five most prolific women writers in the SEO industry. Miriam is also an award-winning fine artist and her work can be seen at MiriamEllis.com. Miriam Ellis Local SEO Subject Matter Expert, Moz Miriam Ellis is a local SEO columnist and consultant. She has been cited as one of the top five most prolific women writers in the SEO industry. Miriam is also an award-winning fine artist and her work can be seen at MiriamEllis.com . Articles & Resources 14 Apr 2026 SEO tips for artists who want to reach more patrons 16 Jun 2025 Your About page: Why it isn’t converting customers & how to fix it 13 Feb 2025 Your local SEO career kit: How to develop expertise, decide where to work, and develop your professional profile 5 Dec 2024 Passive vs. Active search marketing: Embrace Google’s modern SERP with old-school strategies 30 Nov 2023 Local SEO for COVID-consciousness 14 Sept 2023 Multi-location local SEO: A framework for organizational success 18 Apr 2023 How local businesses can use low-code solutions for SEO success 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

Aoife McIlraith is owner and MD of Luminosity Digital marketing agency and founder of Searchmastermind.org and Speakerlineup.com. With 22+ years of international marketing expertise, Aoife helps brands get the right content to the right audience at the right time to drive sales. Aoife McIlraith Managing Director, Luminosity Digital Aoife McIlraith is owner and MD of Luminosity Digital marketing agency and founder of Searchmastermind.org and Speakerlineup.com. With 22+ years of international marketing expertise, Aoife helps brands get the right content to the right audience at the right time to drive sales. Articles & Resources 17 May 2024 Judges share how to write a successful industry awards entry Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

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

Looking to get started with your international SEO strategy? Then who better to tune into than the renowned Aleyda Solis. Wix’s Head of SEO Branding, Mordy Oberstein, and Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, dive into the ins and outs of international SEO as the one and only Aleyda Solis guest hosts. Take your content strategy global as Giuseppe Caltabiano, VP of Marketing at Rock Content, offers his "Deep Thoughts" on global content marketing initiatives. Adaptability, strategies, and common mistakes in international SEO & content marketing are uncovered on this week's episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Back Get going with international SEO Looking to get started with your international SEO strategy? Then who better to tune into than the renowned Aleyda Solis. Wix’s Head of SEO Branding, Mordy Oberstein, and Head of SEO Communications, Crystal Carter, dive into the ins and outs of international SEO as the one and only Aleyda Solis guest hosts. Take your content strategy global as Giuseppe Caltabiano, VP of Marketing at Rock Content, offers his "Deep Thoughts" on global content marketing initiatives. Adaptability, strategies, and common mistakes in international SEO & content marketing are uncovered on this week's episode of the SERP’s Up SEO Podcast! Previous Episode Next Episode Episode 40 | May 31, 2023 | 49 MIN 00:00 / 49:23 This week’s guests Aleyda Solis Aleyda Solis is an SEO consultant and founder of Orainti, speaker, and author. She shares the latest news and resources in SEO in the #SEOFOMO newsletter with +25K subscribers and Digital Marketing in #MarketingFOMO, SEO tips in the Crawling Mondays video series, and a free SEO Learning Roadmap called LearningSEO.io. Awarded as the European Search Personality of the Year in 2018 and included as one of the 10 Most Influential SEO Experts of 2022 by List Wire from USA Today, she's also co-founder of Remoters.net, a remote work hub, featuring a free remote job board, tools, guides, and more to empower remote work. Giuseppe Caltabiano Giuseppe is a senior global marketing, brand, and content executive with more than 20 years of experience. Today he leads marketing at Rock Content; he has worked for and advised brands in B2B and B2C and has designed global marketing strategies to successfully support growth of B2B SaaS businesses. Giuseppe is a marketing and storytelling instructor at business schools in London and Milan. He was recognised as one of the most influential European B2B marketers in 2018 and 2019. He has an MBA from Milan’s SDA Bocconi and is trained in M&A at the London Business School. Notes Transcript Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the very international woman of SEO, Head of Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, internet people. Hello, everyone around the world, in all of the different countries and all of the different languages. Bon Jour. Hello, everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Hint! Hint! Well, I didn't do the whole like, the amazing, fantastic ... I only did one. I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's fine. I think you've run out. I think that's it. I think we’re all done. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: It's interesting because when we first joined, people were saying congratulations and I said Thank you a million times and then I moved on to thank you in other languages as well, which is totally up for this podcast. Mordy Oberstein: It is. Crystal Carter: Because we're talking about international SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, spoiler, spoiler. Before we get to that, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can now subscribe to our new monthly newsletter, Searchlight, where you get full coverage of the SEO world with tips, updates, and links to great SEO content from the Wix SEO hub. The same Wix, by the way, that automatically adds HF link to your pages as part of a wider multilingual offering. Of course, you can add custom texts and to the head element as well. Why am I telling you this? Well, Crystal already told you. Because today we're talking about international SEO. Crystal Carter: Worldwide. Mordy Oberstein: Worldwide. Forget going mobile, today we're going global. Well, don't forget going mobile. We're diving into the ins and outs of international SEO with special guest host, a leader of all the SEOs herself. Aleyda Solis will stop by to share about how to get started, international SEO and what you need to know, what to focus on, what not to focus on, and common mistakes and miss from the world of international SEO. Plus, we have a special deep thought for you today as Rock Content's own Giuseppe Caltabiano shares his thoughts on building a global content strategy and of course with the snappies of SEO News for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So [foreign language 00:02:21] and welcome as episode number 40 of the SERP's Up podcast is here to help show you that an SEO, it's a small world after all. Crystal Carter: I wasn't really expecting that reference, but it was entirely worth it. Yes, we're super, super excited to have Aleyda here, Aleyda, the queen of SEO, of all SEO but particularly fantastic at international SEO. I remember using the tool that Aleyda had on her website for HF link back in the day. It's still awesome, so do check that out and it's incredibly useful. So amazingly pleased to have Aleyda here talking about this incredible, super useful, really valuable topic. Mordy Oberstein: So if you have a website and you're trying to grow your business beyond just the region where you exist now you're going to need international SEO, which is kind of complicated. Which is why, if aliens were to come to Earth and say to all the SEOs, take us to your leader, we would take them to Aleyda. With that, here's Aleyda. Hi Aleyda. Aleyda Solis: Hello Mordy. How are you? Hello, crystal. You're too kind and oh my God, Mordy, if this SEO thing goes ever to hell because of AI or whatever, you can definitely become a radio announcer because I am so, so very impressed. Mordy Oberstein: I've always wanted to be a baseball color commentator. That's like my dream job, outside of SEO. Aleyda Solis: You can tell. Mordy Oberstein: I’ll bring Glenn Gabe with me. We'll do it together. Aleyda Solis: You totally should, isn't it? I mean, why not? Mordy please and you can launch definitely- Mordy Oberstein: I already have too many podcasts going on. I don't know if I can handle another. Aleyda Solis: Please. And you can launch our Wix website too. Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Really quickly. That's good point. Before we get going in this, we need to do some plugging. There's learning.io, there's the SEOFOMO newsletter, which I freaking love because I don't have time to scour the internet for good SEO resources. So you do it for me. Crystal Carter: It's amazing. Aleyda Solis: Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. No, I'm so very happy that it's read, that it's useful. Learningseo.io, by the way, is getting a refresh look in the following weeks and I'm very excited about that. And yes, hopefully with this I help people to clarify the most... On one hand, the most common doubts about SEO, which I get asked all the time, so I just refer them to the website on one hand. And then on the other hand, with SEOFOMO, it's interesting because the other day, I think it was Cindy Crum, who did this poll over Twitter about why was the reason or main reasons why SEOs had imposter syndrome. Crystal Carter: Yes, I saw that. Aleyda Solis: And one of the top reasons that got most votes was like the fear of missing out. So I can definitely see the how SEO promo definitely address that particular problem, which I have to say I am totally there. That is the reason of why I launch it in the first place. And I can also definitely see how in recent months because of AI, this new launches and the race of search engine engines to trying to be the first ones and all of these updates that Google is right now launching and conflating many, many times. So important to keep up. Mordy Oberstein: And it's so hard. There's so many updates Crystal Carter: And I think particularly one of the things that can be a challenge for somebody who's working across international markets is not only do you have to keep up with it for the general SEO, but you also have to keep up with it for international SEO. And you also have to keep up with it for all the different versions of the same website that you might have and making sure that all of those things work all together. So yeah, it can be a big challenge and we are so appreciative to you for making the effort to help with that. It's incredibly valuable. Mordy Oberstein: Since we're talking about international SEO, what's the first thing you think our audience should know about international SEO before anything else? Aleyda Solis: Yes. Well, the number one thing probably, because I think that that is the main mistake or assumption that many people do when they want to go international, is that it's not only about hreflang annotations, I mean hreflang annotations is a method, is a mechanism. It's a configuration that is helpful to specify and inform Google that we have other versions of our website pages that can be in different languages or the same or different languages targeting other countries. However, is not the only way to specify that. There are many signals that will take into account and it is a must to align them all because at the end of the day, it's the consistency and alignment of all of the signals that will let go realize that, oh yes, this is not a duplication of product A page, but it's actually product A page targeted to the UK, while you have already your version for the US. So it is fundamental that we are all aware about this different signals and it's just not about just hreflang annotations and that's it. And I believe that all the potentially most common issue that I see, most common problem, that I have clients, even larger enterprises, that you will think that they have all of these resources in the world. But at the end of the day, there are always restrictions and always limits of what you can do in your time and where it makes sense to allocate resources to. It's this problem when they end up having too many international versions when you launch a lot because you want to target abroad. Somebody has told you that, oh, there's opportunity to grow, launch in Spanish, in Italian, launch to the UK in English, you already know the language. So you launched the UK to Australia, et cetera. And then you realize you cannot maintain, you cannot support all of these different websites and then all of a sudden it's like, oh yes, I understand that. Then they learn that they need to localize their... Even if it is in the same language, their version for the UK, because they may be sell sneakers in the US and all of a sudden they realize that they are not called sneakers in the UK, but they are called trainers for example, or runners or whatever. So they need to optimize the content accordingly, but they don't have the resources. So it is fundamental to well initially assess the different international markets that actually makes sense for your business. What is the search potential? What is the search demand? If it is worth it for you? The market will be able to generate at some point enough traffic for you to have successful conversions and a successful ROI? And from an investment standpoint, it's something also doable for you? If you have the capacity to localize the content, if you have the capacity to translate it, if it is a market that speak a completely different language, for example. And then be able to give the, let's say a good support for users coming from those countries too, because it's not only like a one-off type of investment too. So all of the things, I believe that these two areas of let's say misunderstanding and I'll say that these are the most to, let's say, think or understand or when starting. And based on that to be able to start with the proper process of yes audience research, keyword research, completion research, to then establish the best web structure to use to tackle the different markets. And start with those markets where there's a much higher potential with less competition, et cetera, et cetera. Crystal Carter: So you talked a lot about assessing whether or not the market's worth it, the ROI from a sort of a monetary point of view, but also the capacity within your team. In the past, I've used PPC as a sort of little bit of a litmus test there because you can sort of do a quick PPC test and see did we get any bites. And if not, then we'll turn the PPC off and come back. I don't know if there's other tools or other things you would recommend for testing a market. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean I believe with the most forward is assessing the search volume of the queries, of the top queries that are search of your relevant topic, to describe your product or your services or your content. And then you can do a topological market type of assessment and say, okay, if I end up even getting at some point in a year, like 10% of this potential search volume and traffic and with my current conversion rate, how many conversions and is this going to be ROI positive at that point? But the point of the PPC campaign, I think is very smart to do, especially when there are markets that might look to be very big. But again, it depends on the context and depends on your offering. Because the markets that, for example, like Brazil or India are huge or Indonesia, these are huge market. However, they also have a different type of, let's say capacity of an online investment or buying online their type of behavior and capacity to buying things because of how much they earned et cetera, it's different than in the US or in Europe. For example, I have clients that there might be getting more traffic from a few Latin American markets like Mexico, that is a big, big market. But because of the type of offering or product or sophistication and also price point, most of the conversions happen in Spain. In their case like 60% of the search potential or traffic, but the conversions and revenue is much higher. So it's not only a purely search potential, but also the behavior, the sophistication, the price point. So for that PPC is 100% a very small way to do it. Just launching your top products. Actually, this is also another misunderstanding, right? Thinking that you need to go all in. No, you can launch a pilot project with your homepage and your top three, top five products, those that you have identified that have a higher search potential in that market. And then, yeah, a PPC campaign landing page is well optimized to see what is the buying behavior, the buying journey, and the conversion rate that you get and if it's ROI positive or not, and it's aligned to your expectations or not. Crystal Carter: And I think there's so much there around the cultural understandings as well. So you talked about market capabilities and things like that. I either worked with a client who did a lot of stuff in the... It was a health test and they were working in the UK. They also wanted to do stuff in South Africa because it was a really good market for them. And they were like, we want to put a video on the page. And the team we were working with in South Africa was like, we have the most expensive mobile data in the world. Do not put a video on the page because no one will watch it, for instance. And so I think understanding some of those cultural machinations can be such a big, big player. Aleyda Solis: It's interesting that you mentioned that, because also it's not only about... And I think that in SEO, purely in SEO, we tend to think about how to maximize the signals to the Googlebot at the end and yes, the Googlebot tries to, let's say, simulate the experience of the user. But at the end of the day, depending on the location and depending on the context of what particular product or information or not, users will have their own, let's say, bias or cultural bias. So for example, I have this company right now in France and their offering has to do a lot about healthcare or fitness type of products. And because health, there's a universal search system in France, so they use the French users, visitors, people, they are very used to see whatever health information in with the .Fr ccTLD. So anything that is not in the .Fr ccTLD and it has to do about health, they double question it, if it is really for them and if it's really worthy and if it is really reliable, because they are so used that it is a national thing. So in their case, they were very well optimized, very well ranking already for their core terms, but their conversions and the click rate of the SERPs, you could tell that they were poorer, the ones that should be expected for those positions. So the solution here beyond and before they grow much further is to, okay, let's start doing a few tests with a .Fr ccTLD and if the tests are successful, we will need to migrate. And this is something crazy that for 99% of the cases or scenarios, I will say, are you crazy? Why are you going to migrate just because of this? Migration is the worst case scenario that some of the higher efforts type of actions in SEO. But this one of those edge cases that we can see that from a business standpoint, it actually will make a lot of sense for them in the future. So it is now or never pretty much to assess that. Mordy Oberstein: How do you get ahead of that as opposed to realizing after the fact? Do you have a process? How do you find whether it be something like culturally like that or it's like we don't call sneakers, sneakers, we call them runners, whatever it is. I'm from New York, so we call soda, soda, we're from Brooklyn, it's soda or whatever. If you're from Michigan, it's called pop. I know that because I'm from the US. But if you're coming from say England and you want to target the Michigan soda population, you better call it pop. How do you get ahead of that? Aleyda Solis: The best way to do it is with good old keyword research, competition research, analysis research. Also the more localized, the more granular it can be, the best it will be of course, because there might be variations in the different terms depending on the specific location. And many, many services or products are not launched at a national level either, even if we're targeting countries. So some things might make sense more than others and they change a lot based on the context or industry. It also depends a lot on the, let's say, on your particular business model too. So for example SaaS, you might think about all SaaS have... There are the same type of product, the same business models. So they will tend to have the same type of international targeting and it's not the case. So for example, if you are an accounting SaaS software, it does make sense for you and you can go and take a look at a lot of accounting softwares out there. They will tend to be country targeted. Not because you search necessarily about accounting software or accounting systems in different ways. In English for example, in across the different English-speaking countries, no, but because their offering actually changes for country because their tax solution or accounting solution is integrated with local banking and local taxing and different type of rules and conditions depending on the country taxing and accounting laws. However, if we go to other type of SaaS like productivity SaaS or product management SaaS, you can see that in this other type of offering, most of them are language targeted because most of project management tools are called in the same way, independently of the country. In English for example, you call project management software in the UK, in the US, in Australia. And they're offering, their personality won't change. It's changes is trivial. It's like the pricing and they can change that dynamically and it's not such a big change that is worth it to create different type of versions. So you can see that there's a very... From red it doesn't changes it all to green. It doesn't change to nothing or there's a midpoint that it changes just a bit, but it doesn't compensate to create country versions. And the best way to assess that is really to do very granular keyword competition research. See which are the websites ranking for your top queries in that particular location that you want to run for and see which are the terms that are actually used of those best ranking ones, see how they address and what is their offering, what is their web structure are their ccTLDs? Are they subdomains, subdirectories and how they are explaining, describing, wording the product or the service and take that as an input to assess further. Mordy Oberstein: And that's a really good point about laws, because I think it's multiple times where the laws of Pacific region around them say... I think one of the case I was looking at was car insurance. The laws in different countries around car insurance will create different needs within the market and totally different queries that are now relevant, that won't be relevant in other markets. Let me ask you another question though. What if you're targeting, let's say a country like Belgium, where it's not just, okay, they have different laws, let's say England. It's in the country itself, they speak different languages. Aleyda Solis: Yeah, 100%. It's the same with Canada, right? English and French too. And there are quite a few countries like that. Well, it depends on really the search volume and the search potential that each one of these languages have, right? In the case of Belgium for example, most of the searches are the most popular languages will be French and then also Flemish, which is very, very like Dutch. But again, it's like, okay, again, your capacity where most of the searches for your product are happening in French or in Flemish and based on that to prioritize accordingly. Because indeed, so for example, in Spain actually, you can take that to the very extreme and it might not necessarily be worthy. Spanish is the language that everybody knows internationally about Spain. But the original languages are very well used regionally too. So in Catalonia it's Catalan. I live in the Basque Country actually in Spain and the Basque language is completely different to anything else out there. And then the Galician language. So I mean you can go very granular if you want, but again, this is not about being let's say politically correct or being super granular because of course that will be the ideal work, whatever. But we don't have unlimited resources. What we really want is that this new versions generate money, generate sales, generate traffic, and these are ROI positives. So at the end of the day, just think about what are the languages that your audience in that country are actually searching for your products on services. And here, coincidentally again, speaking about car rentals, is one of those sectors or businesses where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain for your website because of the target market, the audience. These are a lot of international travelers, holiday makers, whatever, coming here, renting cars. So there is a non-trivial search volume about hiring cars in Barcelona, renting cars in Madrid. Actually that is another edge case where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain, in France, in non-speaking English countries, 100%. Crystal Carter: I think it can get very complicated, but I think it's worthwhile because I think it demonstrates trust. So we have a great article from Adriana Stein talking about translation versus localization. And I think that when people can see that... And again, it's worthwhile. So for instance, if you were a hyper-local business that was in the Basque Country and was serving people for traditional Basque Country activities or something like that, it would make sense for you to connect with them in that language. And if you're searching on the SERP and you see that that's written in that language and they know the terms that are related to the thing, then you go, okay, these people know what they're talking about, they actually know what's going on. This isn't somebody who just pressed a button to translate this. They actually know they actually care. And I think that that can be really useful. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean if you do really have the capacity and the resources and if it is an important market for you, you should totally go ahead. And if it is a minimum effort too, you should definitely go ahead and do the extra mile and personalize because that can make a complete difference for it. So for example, in my case, I was back in the day, I am originally from Nicaragua. When I was living still in Nicaragua and Nicaragua is such a small country, it's also a poor country. So we were so very used to get all of this marketing actions in TV even or in Billboard or whatever, that we're so obviously not targeted at Nicaragua because we actually speak, like the way that we word things in Spanish is like in Argentina, like with the dos. So we put an accent at the end of each, pretty much conjugation and the verbs. And we don't say two, we say dos. And we had a lot of these billboards and TV ads and whatever with the two and we were like, oh, this was just generic ads for all Latin American people, whatever is not for us. But then it made all, little by little you could tell that they were making more efforts toward things to change things. And it was a minimum thing really pretty much to change up a couple of wordings. The rest was exactly the same, but at least they took care and this is actually really for us. The engagement and I think the connection with the brand or the offering increase. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I've heard SEOs talk about some of the communities where you get sort of hybrid languages. So there was somebody who was from Mexico and she was from the north of Mexico. Ms. Marie White actually was talking about this and she's from the north of Mexico and she was like, we need Spanglish. And they were like, what? She was like, people on the border of the United States and Mexico, everybody speaks Spanglish. And so they started adding in some of that into some of their copy and they started to get a lot of good response from that because also people have phones where they're searching both in English and in Spanish. And this is going to happen in lots of places where there's people who speak multiple languages. I don't know if you have any tips or any examples from sort of hybrid searches and adapting for that. Aleyda Solis: So for example, again, it depends a lot on the industry, but the industry, that can be crazy. Speaking about car rental, car rental in Spanish, you can say in so many different ways. So this is one industry that if you are for in, it really needs to be very well localized, especially because also a lot of the queries are also with location, connected with location, with your current city or the city where you want to go. And you can call “carro”, “coche”, just three terms for the same thing, for car. And the same also where the property... I have had quite a lot of clients across different countries in the property market. And for apartment in Spanish you can call it [foreign language 00:24:35]. So three different ways again for the same thing. And well, it's the same in the UK and the US flats and apartment. But in Spanish I think that because there are so many different countries that have it as a native language, there's so many different correct ways to say it. So especially for this very localized services and products, car rental, property, it's very, very worthy to go very granular, double check and validate how they are the right way or the relevant way to call it in that particular market. Because it's definitely going to change not only the name of the locations or the countries, but the term too, very likely. Crystal Carter: Can I ask you one question about attending technical? So sometimes when I worked on the international SEO campaigns or international SEO projects. I've seen it where sometimes Google can't figure out which one is the main one, even when you canonicalize it. And I don't know if you've seen that and if you have any sort of recommendations for how to address that particular challenge. Aleyda Solis: Yes, thank you very much for asking that. Actually, I think that this scenarios happen when you have a very, very established powerful, popular original version that you had... Usually the US one, that then it perform a little bit also like the global one for a while. And then you have, let's say a UK version or an Indian version, they are also in the same language. However, well they target their own audience. And in those particular scenarios we may see that the copy might be very, very similar because it actually makes sense because in that particular context, the product, the service is actually searched with the same terms. And in general the behavior of the user connecting to them, it's very similar. And so it's harder for Google to understand which is the right version. Even if you implement hreflang, remember that hreflang is one of many signals. So for those particular scenarios, what I highly, highly recommend to do to help Google further, is to add the name of the country in the metadata, add the name of the country or the location or the offices in case you have offices or subsidiaries or partners within the copy. The information that you are targeting those particular markets, personalize the message. So whatever examples or testimonials or information, give additional signals that, oh, this is for India, this is for the UK. And also a typical mistake that I see websites doing all the time is that in the country picker that the menu, the global menu that you may have, many of these are JavaScript generated, they are not crawlable. The links are always going to the homepage of the alternate version. Know your product A page should cross-link to your product A page in India, to your product A page in the US, in the UK. So the product A page in the US that has millions of backlinks can pass that link popularity accordingly to the product page of other countries. Rather than product page in other countries never be able to rank or not showing enough popularity to rule and not ranking because of that, right? So I believe that good crosslinking is critical. Localizing everything, every single signal that you can give to Google. This is especially important when you are targeting different countries with the same language. As examples of indeed like how your product make the life easier for relevant audience within that country. All these additional signals also help a lot. And of course hreflang notations, correct canonicalization too, in each one of these pages, that is also important. And if you have the capacity to promote within the relevant country to attract backlinks of local specific websites that will point to that particular country web version, the best will be, because many, many times the US slash global version was the one that existed before. All of the backlinks from India are still pointing also only to the US and the UK point to the US one rather than the relevant version. So little by little like that, you are able to give the right signals for Google to run the relevant version of the website. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great way to put it. You're helping Google. It's really complicated. I think they have a really hard time as somebody who lives in a non-English speaking country, but only searches for the most part in English. I get all sorts of cross results all the time. Google really does sometimes have a really hard time figuring it out. I've worked on sites where they're showing the wrong page and it was completely on Google's end to understand what was what. Aleyda Solis: Google thinks that I am a British living in Spain. I am all the time shown ads. And in Google discover too, recommend reads for British in Spain because I guess that's because they identified that a lot of British expat here or live in Spain by the way, that since I am searching in English so much, I should be a British living in Spain. Mordy Oberstein: The opposite I have. I only search in English basically, and Google discover will show me stuff in Hebrew now. I never search, I don't know what I'm looking at. Don't show that to me. But I'm getting used to knowledge panels- Aleyda Solis: Opportunity for you to learn Hebrew. Mordy Oberstein: Nati, Head of SEO, he gives me a hard time about knowing Hebrew well enough. So I think it's him behind the scenes pushing Google to let me learn more Hebrew. Aleyda Solis: 100%. Mordy Oberstein: It's a conspiracy. Aleyda, thank you so much for coming on. Don't forget to follow Aleyda on Twitter, on LinkedIn. Aleyda Solis: If you're not following Aleyda Solis. Mordy Oberstein: If you're not already, it's @aleyda on Twitter. We'll link to your profile in the show notes. And of course it's learningseo.io and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to the SEOFOMO and now the marketing FOMO newsletters. Aleyda Solis: Just reached a thousand subscribers a week ago and I'm actually preparing it for this Wix edition too. I'm so very excited too. Because in SEO we are also sometimes too isolated focusing on it. And there's so much happening in other markets, in other channels of marketing by the way. And we can learn a lot from them and leverage, learn to leverage them and to, yeah... That's definitely interesting. Crystal Carter: As well as Crawling Mondays as well as remoters.net. Aleyda Solis: Oh right. Crystal Carter: As well as Remoters.net SEO. So yes. Mordy Oberstein: Aleyda, thank you for everything you do for the community. Aleyda Solis: No, thank you for the opportunity to share with you and everything what you do too. Really appreciate it. Mordy Oberstein: So one of the things that Aleyda touched on, which as a content person and as an expat myself kind of irks me about international strategies, that sometimes you don't fully appreciate how hard it is to actually localize the content to best align, not with the GEO’s language, but with the cultural idiosyncrasies and so forth. So we thought we get a serious expert on content to share their thoughts on building an international content strategy so that Crystal and I could offer you a very, very special version of a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Except this time it's not a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Let's get into what Giuseppe had to say first. Take it away, Giuseppe. Giuseppe Caltabiano: Well thank you for having me first of all. That's a very good question. Now let me say, despite the pandemic, my passion for traveling has not changed. In a way, it has been a constant of my life, whether I was on road for business or pleasure. The reason why I'm saying this is that travel really fueled my passion for global marketing, specifically for global content marketing. My travels have given me a better understanding of the world. But the reality is, when I launched my first new global content marketing program for Schneider Electric, that was 10 years ago. I thought I knew the world, but when you have to develop content for different geographies, well it feels like you have never stepped outside your front door, while I've always covered international or global roles. I remember, my first global content marketing journey started 10 years ago, when my team and I began defining Schneider Electric IT division global content strategy. Our goals were two fold: Lead Gen, first of all, marketing opportunities and secondly, increased brand awareness. Now after defining our strategy, we spent eight months preparing for the global launch through multiple pilots. We learned an incredible amount from our success and mistakes. And then one year later I replicated the same model with global clients when I moved to NewsCred, which is now part of Optimizely, at the beginning of 2017 and then later in Contently in 2019. Now the issue I found in most of the cases is that content marketers just try to replicate at global level what they have done in some cases with some success at central or local level. Well that's a big mistake. The thing is that global content marketing is not just content marketing deployed across multiple countries. Enterprise will need to plan, find the right balance between global and local. They have to pilot and then scale at global level. If they fail at one of these steps, of course usually they may fail with the full program. I think there are three main steps global marketers need to follow in order to design a proper content marketing strategy. First of all, finding the optimal balance between central and local. Now in most of the regions, I mean take Asia or Europe for example, there are thousands of countries and languages. It's simply unrealistic to make the same content work for each individual market. For this reason, creating content centrally and allowing countries to fill the gaps may represent a good solution. I've been working with both organizations, centralized and decentralized. Some organization have a very unclear understanding of local markets, which is the reason why involvement of countries or regions in content planning is really key. The role of central teams may shift of course as the program progress. In the early stages of the program, the flow of information is very outwards with the central team leading content production and strategy. And then as global content program flourish and progress, the emphasis on the central team shift to providing guidance and building local content skills and competencies. The second step is establishing local editorial board. While of course the central editorial team will generate content, a global level local editorial board have to be placed. And I mean this is really a key. In each country or on geography to manage proper planning and distribution, the local editorial board will agree with the central team on target personas. They lead the decision for distribution, content distribution, they contract local vendors and so on and so forth. The third and final point is piloting your content market strategy. The thing is piloting means starting small. Large enterprises are running pilot programs across geographies. It's a common practice, great ideas often receive resistance. You need to start small, test if your strategy is working, get results, and then finally create a proper business case, in order to allow a global content marketing program. In a global content marketing model, you ideally need to set up the pilot program as a test in one of two countries and usually no more than two different languages if possible. And then you run the pilot program with a full integration with the existing marketing technologies. And finally, of course if it's successful, you may roll out your program to the other geographies. I realize that this is probably super simplification, but it may give you a good overview of what to do in order to create a global content marketing program. Mordy Oberstein: So I don't know where to start with it, because Giuseppe makes a bunch of really, really, really, really good points. But I guess let's talk about a point that I feel I personally probably gloss over all the time in talking about global content strategies, is that the fact that you have to balance the global with the local. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, entirely. It's something that is really, really important. And I think that it applies to lots of elements of international SEO and even regional SEO. Even if you think about the United States for instance, there's different laws in different states, there's different realities. February in Florida is very different from February in New Hampshire for instance. So there are definitely things to consider about which products to put out, which content to put out, what makes sense, where all of these things are really important. Mordy Oberstein: The same thing with local SEO also. You might have a local presence, you might also have a more international presence or a national presence. So balancing this out is really, really important. Because you don't want to go all in on the global and then ignore the fact you also have a local presence or cannibalize a local presence with your global presence. You really have to think about what pages should exist. It's really about planning. What pages should exist, where do they exist on the domain, what are they trying to do? Where are they trying to target? And how do we keep what they're trying to do somewhat separate from each other. Crystal Carter: There's a section where he discussed planning and some of the work that's gone into planning. He was saying they spent eight months planning a particular campaign and that can take a lot of time. So these things should be well thought out and should take all of the things into account. Because of course it's important to have a global presence. If you think of a company like IKEA for instance, IKEA has global things and actually IKEA's approach to marketing tends to be fairly universal worldwide. But that's a distinct strategy that they've taken, which is really very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: It works for them. Crystal Carter: It works for them. Mordy Oberstein: I'm not sure it works for others. Crystal Carter: Exactly. But they will understand that. Even I know that... We recently had an IKEA open near us and they ran a specific hyper-local campaign launching the store. And I know that they have general activities there, but the global brand will impact the local brand and vice versa. So it's really important to make sure that they line up. But that also that if part of your brand is making sure that you care about your customers, making sure that it's very clear that you are respectful of your customers, then respecting the local cultural elements is really, really important. And localizing appropriately will help you to demonstrate that. Mordy Oberstein: Which goes to what Aleyda was saying about the advertisement she would see growing up and really speaks to what Giuseppe was talking about, and just another amazing point, in that there's really no way around having a local expert. Giuseppe was talking about they have a board and that local board offers feedback on the overall global camp. How much do you want to automate, especially in the world of AI and ChatGPT. But in general, how much do you want to try to automate or try to template from the global strategy into the local areas, you can't. You have to have somebody who understands what that region's all about, what works, what doesn't work, the interest, the way of talking, all the idiosyncrasies of that region. There's no way around knowing that other than you having some actual integration into that community, which means you need a local expert Crystal Carter: Indeed. And there's idioms that will make people feel more warmly towards your brand. There are particular celebrations or particular things that are important milestones. So for instance, in the Mediterranean you see a lot of these things with the blue eye for instance. That's something that means good luck or prosperity and things like that. If you have the same symbol and somewhere else it would be less recognized. And there are things that visually, for instance, would be really, really recognizable. And that's something to think about as well. And these are things like you said, that you can't get from a bot necessarily. You have to have humans there. Adriana Stein is someone who has worked with us on some localizing projects and she wrote an article on translation versus localization. And she gets into a lot of these details. She talks about the direct translation from English to German of beating around the bush for instance, which... He did the direct translation, it doesn't convey the same sentiment as if you do a localized translation of their idiom for that same sort of thing. And what you want is the sentiment. You want the sentiment of that statement rather than the direct translation because it's an idiom. Mordy Oberstein: And you have cultural biases and there's no way around them. I'll give you a great example. I think I might have talked about it in the podcast at one point, but growing up every day, I used to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I moved to Israel, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at work one day and someone's like, what's that? I'm like, peanut butter and jelly. And they're like, what is that? They do not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Blew my mind, to this day, absolutely blows my mind. It is the go-to sandwich in America. To this day, I still eat them, because they're so delicious. Crystal Carter: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are suitable for every meal. Mordy Oberstein: Every meal and in between meals, all meals. Crystal Carter: Anytime you eat- Mordy Oberstein: You can live on them. Crystal Carter: You can live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They're quality, quality. Mordy Oberstein: We do not eat them where I currently live. And if you were talking about them, it would be like you if you're trying to target that or if you're using it as a reference and whatever it is, it would be lost because it is not the same thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah, entirely. And I think these are things that you have to get. And I think that it takes... One of the reasons why it takes so long to plan for a sort of global SEO or marketing campaign, is that you have to take those things into account. You have to make sure that you have good experts for wherever you're based. Wix is, we work in 17 different languages and we work in lots of different spaces. Someone that we work with in Japan is someone called Titone. He's fantastic, he's amazing, he's incredible. And we worked with the team at Faber as well to do some SEO webinars. We didn't think like, oh, we should swat in and do the SEO webinar ourselves. From a remote team, we got local experts to help us with that and to help us engage in, because for instance, with search in Japan, for instance, the way that the web is structured is slightly different because they have different kinds of writing. So this is really important to think about. And so there's going to be people who have more experience in that and more experience of the way that the people use the web and the different search engines that they use and the different things that will come up first for that particular audience. And you have to think about the people on your team who are genuine experts and you have to make sure that you build up those relationships. And that takes time. And also I think it's important, particularly from a content point of view, to think about how you get traction an at what point, how much of a foothold you need to have in a market in order to get some traction in a market. Especially if your team isn't specifically based there, but you're trying to connect with an audience in a different place. You have to sort of figure out how much content do we need? What investment do we need? And Aleyda talked about this as well, what investment do you need in order to be able to serve those customers well? And I think that these can take time, but hopefully it's worth it, if that's a market that's good for you. Mordy Oberstein: Now speaking of time, do you know what time it is? Crystal Carter: What time is it? What time is it? Mordy Oberstein: Snappy News. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's here. I mean, snappy news, snappy news, snappy news, but oh my God, it's here. Google has opened its Search Generative Experience, SGE. Two select folks on the wait list, yours truly, not among them. I can't even get on the wait list? Something about it not being open to my account, I don't know. Personal grumblings aside, we got our first look at what Google's Search Generative Experience is going to look like. Follow me here for a second. Danny Goodwin at Search Engine Land covered Barry Schwartz and his covering of his initial experience with the SGE. Barry got access to the SGE or the Search Generative Experience, but had to go offline for a few days. So Danny covered Barry covering the SGE. We'll link to the article in the show notes, because there're already heap of examples and you should definitely look at them. Just looking at it myself, I just want to say, don't panic. It looks like there are plenty of organic link placements all throughout the experience. Mike King from iPullRank, who did a whole webinar with us on AI and SEO, he said quote, "it's basically an interactive feature snippet, but it doesn't feel as threatening to organic search traffic as the original demos made it feel." Good news. All right, who wants some more big news? Yeah, Google held its marketing live event and friend of the show who join us talking about SCOM PPC over at Cypress North, Greg Finn did an amazing job covering all of the updates that Google announced to its ad platform and beyond. Check that out in the show notes as well over at Search Engine Land. Some takeaways, they're personal. When I took a look at the keynote, one of the things I took away was a Google talks about how people search and how it's changing, how they're looking at longer queries and how they're more conversational, what they're looking for, and they're looking for more specific things than ever before. People are being far more specific when they search. Some might say not new. Old, not new. I agree it's not new, but I feel like now this is an official part of the conversation that we as SEOs, the content marketers, the content creators need to get on board with. Also ads will be in the Search Generative Experience, the SGE or as I'm just going to call it the AI box. When Google announced the SGE or the AI box at Google I/O 2023, it made it seem the ads would be above the box itself, not part of the actual Search Generative Experience. But at Marketing Live, they show that yes, it's going to be right there in that whole SGE ecosystem. Also, say goodbye to Google Merchant Center and say hello to Google Merchant Center NEXT. It's next level because it will take a lot of the techier parts of connecting to Google Merchant Center out of the equation by pulling information straight from your site into the Merchant Center feed. Next, well, nothing is next because that's this week's snappy news. And well, that was the news. How newsy was it? So Newsy. Always so newsy. Which brings us to our follow of the week as the episode ebbs away and this week our follow of the week as we're going international SEO is none other than Veruska Anconitano. Crystal Carter: Veruska is fantastic. She's a member of Women in Tech SEO. She's an amazing international SEO- Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: What's this? Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: A contributor to the hub, which I was just going to get to. Yeah, she's a- Mordy Oberstein: Sorry for jumping the gun. Crystal Carter: She's multilingual. And yeah, she wrote an article called Why Cultural Relevance is Key to International SEO Success, and it's absolutely fantastic. So yeah, she speaks many languages and she talks a lot about the different elements that come into play when you're thinking about engaging with international markets that are not just some of the technical SEO elements that can be easy to implement, relatively speaking. But some of the cultural elements in, we're thinking about cultural identity and how that impacts search and what people search for and how people search. It's a great article. She's a great follow. She's also an expert on Rome, so I knew someone who was going to Rome and I tagged her and she was like, oh, let me tell you all of the places that you should eat. Mordy Oberstein: And her Twitter account is really informative. She had a post on skyscraper content the other day that kind of made me laugh. There's a lot of really good content in her feed. It's not just one of these accounts where you're going to file but not really getting SEO value out of it. It's a definite value in the SEO knowledge itself. So it's @LaCuochina on Twitter. We'll link to Veruska's profile in the show notes. But definitely give her a follow. Which means our episode is now over. Crystal Carter: Finito. Mordy Oberstein: Finito. Ooh, very good. Crystal Carter: Finn. Mordy Oberstein: Finn. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, hasta la vista. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know how to say the end in any other language. Crystal Carter: S ayonara! Mordy Oberstein: Sure. Adios. That's really goodbye, not the end. Anyway, thanks for joining us on this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us, not to worry, we're back next week with the brand new episodes. We dive into how to build a content strategy SEO and beyond. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Aleyda Solis Giuseppe Caltabiano Veruska Anconitano Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Aleyda Solis International SEO Consultant Orainti SEO Learning SEO SEO FOMO Newsletter Rock Content Guide to International SEO Culture Relevance & International SEO How to approach SEO localization and SEO website translations News: Hands-on with Google’s new Search Generative Experience Google Marketing Live 2023: Everything you need to know Notes Hosts, Guests, & Featured People: Crystal Carter Mordy Oberstein Aleyda Solis Giuseppe Caltabiano Veruska Anconitano Resources: SERP's Up Podcast Wix SEO Learning Hub Searchlight SEO Newsletter Aleyda Solis International SEO Consultant Orainti SEO Learning SEO SEO FOMO Newsletter Rock Content Guide to International SEO Culture Relevance & International SEO How to approach SEO localization and SEO website translations News: Hands-on with Google’s new Search Generative Experience Google Marketing Live 2023: Everything you need to know Transcript Mordy Oberstein: It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha. Mahalo for joining the SERP's Up podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Branding here at Wix, and I'm joined by the very international woman of SEO, Head of Communications here at Wix, Crystal Carter. Crystal Carter: Hello, internet people. Hello, everyone around the world, in all of the different countries and all of the different languages. Bon Jour. Hello, everyone. Mordy Oberstein: Hint! Hint! Well, I didn't do the whole like, the amazing, fantastic ... I only did one. I'm sorry. Crystal Carter: Yeah, it's fine. I think you've run out. I think that's it. I think we’re all done. Mordy Oberstein: Yeah. Crystal Carter: It's interesting because when we first joined, people were saying congratulations and I said Thank you a million times and then I moved on to thank you in other languages as well, which is totally up for this podcast. Mordy Oberstein: It is. Crystal Carter: Because we're talking about international SEO. Mordy Oberstein: Oh, spoiler, spoiler. Before we get to that, the SERP's Up podcast is brought to you by Wix where you can now subscribe to our new monthly newsletter, Searchlight, where you get full coverage of the SEO world with tips, updates, and links to great SEO content from the Wix SEO hub. The same Wix, by the way, that automatically adds HF link to your pages as part of a wider multilingual offering. Of course, you can add custom texts and to the head element as well. Why am I telling you this? Well, Crystal already told you. Because today we're talking about international SEO. Crystal Carter: Worldwide. Mordy Oberstein: Worldwide. Forget going mobile, today we're going global. Well, don't forget going mobile. We're diving into the ins and outs of international SEO with special guest host, a leader of all the SEOs herself. Aleyda Solis will stop by to share about how to get started, international SEO and what you need to know, what to focus on, what not to focus on, and common mistakes and miss from the world of international SEO. Plus, we have a special deep thought for you today as Rock Content's own Giuseppe Caltabiano shares his thoughts on building a global content strategy and of course with the snappies of SEO News for you and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So [foreign language 00:02:21] and welcome as episode number 40 of the SERP's Up podcast is here to help show you that an SEO, it's a small world after all. Crystal Carter: I wasn't really expecting that reference, but it was entirely worth it. Yes, we're super, super excited to have Aleyda here, Aleyda, the queen of SEO, of all SEO but particularly fantastic at international SEO. I remember using the tool that Aleyda had on her website for HF link back in the day. It's still awesome, so do check that out and it's incredibly useful. So amazingly pleased to have Aleyda here talking about this incredible, super useful, really valuable topic. Mordy Oberstein: So if you have a website and you're trying to grow your business beyond just the region where you exist now you're going to need international SEO, which is kind of complicated. Which is why, if aliens were to come to Earth and say to all the SEOs, take us to your leader, we would take them to Aleyda. With that, here's Aleyda. Hi Aleyda. Aleyda Solis: Hello Mordy. How are you? Hello, crystal. You're too kind and oh my God, Mordy, if this SEO thing goes ever to hell because of AI or whatever, you can definitely become a radio announcer because I am so, so very impressed. Mordy Oberstein: I've always wanted to be a baseball color commentator. That's like my dream job, outside of SEO. Aleyda Solis: You can tell. Mordy Oberstein: I’ll bring Glenn Gabe with me. We'll do it together. Aleyda Solis: You totally should, isn't it? I mean, why not? Mordy please and you can launch definitely- Mordy Oberstein: I already have too many podcasts going on. I don't know if I can handle another. Aleyda Solis: Please. And you can launch our Wix website too. Mordy Oberstein: That's true. Really quickly. That's good point. Before we get going in this, we need to do some plugging. There's learning.io, there's the SEOFOMO newsletter, which I freaking love because I don't have time to scour the internet for good SEO resources. So you do it for me. Crystal Carter: It's amazing. Aleyda Solis: Well, you're welcome. You're welcome. No, I'm so very happy that it's read, that it's useful. Learningseo.io, by the way, is getting a refresh look in the following weeks and I'm very excited about that. And yes, hopefully with this I help people to clarify the most... On one hand, the most common doubts about SEO, which I get asked all the time, so I just refer them to the website on one hand. And then on the other hand, with SEOFOMO, it's interesting because the other day, I think it was Cindy Crum, who did this poll over Twitter about why was the reason or main reasons why SEOs had imposter syndrome. Crystal Carter: Yes, I saw that. Aleyda Solis: And one of the top reasons that got most votes was like the fear of missing out. So I can definitely see the how SEO promo definitely address that particular problem, which I have to say I am totally there. That is the reason of why I launch it in the first place. And I can also definitely see how in recent months because of AI, this new launches and the race of search engine engines to trying to be the first ones and all of these updates that Google is right now launching and conflating many, many times. So important to keep up. Mordy Oberstein: And it's so hard. There's so many updates Crystal Carter: And I think particularly one of the things that can be a challenge for somebody who's working across international markets is not only do you have to keep up with it for the general SEO, but you also have to keep up with it for international SEO. And you also have to keep up with it for all the different versions of the same website that you might have and making sure that all of those things work all together. So yeah, it can be a big challenge and we are so appreciative to you for making the effort to help with that. It's incredibly valuable. Mordy Oberstein: Since we're talking about international SEO, what's the first thing you think our audience should know about international SEO before anything else? Aleyda Solis: Yes. Well, the number one thing probably, because I think that that is the main mistake or assumption that many people do when they want to go international, is that it's not only about hreflang annotations, I mean hreflang annotations is a method, is a mechanism. It's a configuration that is helpful to specify and inform Google that we have other versions of our website pages that can be in different languages or the same or different languages targeting other countries. However, is not the only way to specify that. There are many signals that will take into account and it is a must to align them all because at the end of the day, it's the consistency and alignment of all of the signals that will let go realize that, oh yes, this is not a duplication of product A page, but it's actually product A page targeted to the UK, while you have already your version for the US. So it is fundamental that we are all aware about this different signals and it's just not about just hreflang annotations and that's it. And I believe that all the potentially most common issue that I see, most common problem, that I have clients, even larger enterprises, that you will think that they have all of these resources in the world. But at the end of the day, there are always restrictions and always limits of what you can do in your time and where it makes sense to allocate resources to. It's this problem when they end up having too many international versions when you launch a lot because you want to target abroad. Somebody has told you that, oh, there's opportunity to grow, launch in Spanish, in Italian, launch to the UK in English, you already know the language. So you launched the UK to Australia, et cetera. And then you realize you cannot maintain, you cannot support all of these different websites and then all of a sudden it's like, oh yes, I understand that. Then they learn that they need to localize their... Even if it is in the same language, their version for the UK, because they may be sell sneakers in the US and all of a sudden they realize that they are not called sneakers in the UK, but they are called trainers for example, or runners or whatever. So they need to optimize the content accordingly, but they don't have the resources. So it is fundamental to well initially assess the different international markets that actually makes sense for your business. What is the search potential? What is the search demand? If it is worth it for you? The market will be able to generate at some point enough traffic for you to have successful conversions and a successful ROI? And from an investment standpoint, it's something also doable for you? If you have the capacity to localize the content, if you have the capacity to translate it, if it is a market that speak a completely different language, for example. And then be able to give the, let's say a good support for users coming from those countries too, because it's not only like a one-off type of investment too. So all of the things, I believe that these two areas of let's say misunderstanding and I'll say that these are the most to, let's say, think or understand or when starting. And based on that to be able to start with the proper process of yes audience research, keyword research, completion research, to then establish the best web structure to use to tackle the different markets. And start with those markets where there's a much higher potential with less competition, et cetera, et cetera. Crystal Carter: So you talked a lot about assessing whether or not the market's worth it, the ROI from a sort of a monetary point of view, but also the capacity within your team. In the past, I've used PPC as a sort of little bit of a litmus test there because you can sort of do a quick PPC test and see did we get any bites. And if not, then we'll turn the PPC off and come back. I don't know if there's other tools or other things you would recommend for testing a market. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean I believe with the most forward is assessing the search volume of the queries, of the top queries that are search of your relevant topic, to describe your product or your services or your content. And then you can do a topological market type of assessment and say, okay, if I end up even getting at some point in a year, like 10% of this potential search volume and traffic and with my current conversion rate, how many conversions and is this going to be ROI positive at that point? But the point of the PPC campaign, I think is very smart to do, especially when there are markets that might look to be very big. But again, it depends on the context and depends on your offering. Because the markets that, for example, like Brazil or India are huge or Indonesia, these are huge market. However, they also have a different type of, let's say capacity of an online investment or buying online their type of behavior and capacity to buying things because of how much they earned et cetera, it's different than in the US or in Europe. For example, I have clients that there might be getting more traffic from a few Latin American markets like Mexico, that is a big, big market. But because of the type of offering or product or sophistication and also price point, most of the conversions happen in Spain. In their case like 60% of the search potential or traffic, but the conversions and revenue is much higher. So it's not only a purely search potential, but also the behavior, the sophistication, the price point. So for that PPC is 100% a very small way to do it. Just launching your top products. Actually, this is also another misunderstanding, right? Thinking that you need to go all in. No, you can launch a pilot project with your homepage and your top three, top five products, those that you have identified that have a higher search potential in that market. And then, yeah, a PPC campaign landing page is well optimized to see what is the buying behavior, the buying journey, and the conversion rate that you get and if it's ROI positive or not, and it's aligned to your expectations or not. Crystal Carter: And I think there's so much there around the cultural understandings as well. So you talked about market capabilities and things like that. I either worked with a client who did a lot of stuff in the... It was a health test and they were working in the UK. They also wanted to do stuff in South Africa because it was a really good market for them. And they were like, we want to put a video on the page. And the team we were working with in South Africa was like, we have the most expensive mobile data in the world. Do not put a video on the page because no one will watch it, for instance. And so I think understanding some of those cultural machinations can be such a big, big player. Aleyda Solis: It's interesting that you mentioned that, because also it's not only about... And I think that in SEO, purely in SEO, we tend to think about how to maximize the signals to the Googlebot at the end and yes, the Googlebot tries to, let's say, simulate the experience of the user. But at the end of the day, depending on the location and depending on the context of what particular product or information or not, users will have their own, let's say, bias or cultural bias. So for example, I have this company right now in France and their offering has to do a lot about healthcare or fitness type of products. And because health, there's a universal search system in France, so they use the French users, visitors, people, they are very used to see whatever health information in with the .Fr ccTLD. So anything that is not in the .Fr ccTLD and it has to do about health, they double question it, if it is really for them and if it's really worthy and if it is really reliable, because they are so used that it is a national thing. So in their case, they were very well optimized, very well ranking already for their core terms, but their conversions and the click rate of the SERPs, you could tell that they were poorer, the ones that should be expected for those positions. So the solution here beyond and before they grow much further is to, okay, let's start doing a few tests with a .Fr ccTLD and if the tests are successful, we will need to migrate. And this is something crazy that for 99% of the cases or scenarios, I will say, are you crazy? Why are you going to migrate just because of this? Migration is the worst case scenario that some of the higher efforts type of actions in SEO. But this one of those edge cases that we can see that from a business standpoint, it actually will make a lot of sense for them in the future. So it is now or never pretty much to assess that. Mordy Oberstein: How do you get ahead of that as opposed to realizing after the fact? Do you have a process? How do you find whether it be something like culturally like that or it's like we don't call sneakers, sneakers, we call them runners, whatever it is. I'm from New York, so we call soda, soda, we're from Brooklyn, it's soda or whatever. If you're from Michigan, it's called pop. I know that because I'm from the US. But if you're coming from say England and you want to target the Michigan soda population, you better call it pop. How do you get ahead of that? Aleyda Solis: The best way to do it is with good old keyword research, competition research, analysis research. Also the more localized, the more granular it can be, the best it will be of course, because there might be variations in the different terms depending on the specific location. And many, many services or products are not launched at a national level either, even if we're targeting countries. So some things might make sense more than others and they change a lot based on the context or industry. It also depends a lot on the, let's say, on your particular business model too. So for example SaaS, you might think about all SaaS have... There are the same type of product, the same business models. So they will tend to have the same type of international targeting and it's not the case. So for example, if you are an accounting SaaS software, it does make sense for you and you can go and take a look at a lot of accounting softwares out there. They will tend to be country targeted. Not because you search necessarily about accounting software or accounting systems in different ways. In English for example, in across the different English-speaking countries, no, but because their offering actually changes for country because their tax solution or accounting solution is integrated with local banking and local taxing and different type of rules and conditions depending on the country taxing and accounting laws. However, if we go to other type of SaaS like productivity SaaS or product management SaaS, you can see that in this other type of offering, most of them are language targeted because most of project management tools are called in the same way, independently of the country. In English for example, you call project management software in the UK, in the US, in Australia. And they're offering, their personality won't change. It's changes is trivial. It's like the pricing and they can change that dynamically and it's not such a big change that is worth it to create different type of versions. So you can see that there's a very... From red it doesn't changes it all to green. It doesn't change to nothing or there's a midpoint that it changes just a bit, but it doesn't compensate to create country versions. And the best way to assess that is really to do very granular keyword competition research. See which are the websites ranking for your top queries in that particular location that you want to run for and see which are the terms that are actually used of those best ranking ones, see how they address and what is their offering, what is their web structure are their ccTLDs? Are they subdomains, subdirectories and how they are explaining, describing, wording the product or the service and take that as an input to assess further. Mordy Oberstein: And that's a really good point about laws, because I think it's multiple times where the laws of Pacific region around them say... I think one of the case I was looking at was car insurance. The laws in different countries around car insurance will create different needs within the market and totally different queries that are now relevant, that won't be relevant in other markets. Let me ask you another question though. What if you're targeting, let's say a country like Belgium, where it's not just, okay, they have different laws, let's say England. It's in the country itself, they speak different languages. Aleyda Solis: Yeah, 100%. It's the same with Canada, right? English and French too. And there are quite a few countries like that. Well, it depends on really the search volume and the search potential that each one of these languages have, right? In the case of Belgium for example, most of the searches are the most popular languages will be French and then also Flemish, which is very, very like Dutch. But again, it's like, okay, again, your capacity where most of the searches for your product are happening in French or in Flemish and based on that to prioritize accordingly. Because indeed, so for example, in Spain actually, you can take that to the very extreme and it might not necessarily be worthy. Spanish is the language that everybody knows internationally about Spain. But the original languages are very well used regionally too. So in Catalonia it's Catalan. I live in the Basque Country actually in Spain and the Basque language is completely different to anything else out there. And then the Galician language. So I mean you can go very granular if you want, but again, this is not about being let's say politically correct or being super granular because of course that will be the ideal work, whatever. But we don't have unlimited resources. What we really want is that this new versions generate money, generate sales, generate traffic, and these are ROI positives. So at the end of the day, just think about what are the languages that your audience in that country are actually searching for your products on services. And here, coincidentally again, speaking about car rentals, is one of those sectors or businesses where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain for your website because of the target market, the audience. These are a lot of international travelers, holiday makers, whatever, coming here, renting cars. So there is a non-trivial search volume about hiring cars in Barcelona, renting cars in Madrid. Actually that is another edge case where it actually makes sense to enable an English version in Spain, in France, in non-speaking English countries, 100%. Crystal Carter: I think it can get very complicated, but I think it's worthwhile because I think it demonstrates trust. So we have a great article from Adriana Stein talking about translation versus localization. And I think that when people can see that... And again, it's worthwhile. So for instance, if you were a hyper-local business that was in the Basque Country and was serving people for traditional Basque Country activities or something like that, it would make sense for you to connect with them in that language. And if you're searching on the SERP and you see that that's written in that language and they know the terms that are related to the thing, then you go, okay, these people know what they're talking about, they actually know what's going on. This isn't somebody who just pressed a button to translate this. They actually know they actually care. And I think that that can be really useful. Aleyda Solis: 100%. I mean if you do really have the capacity and the resources and if it is an important market for you, you should totally go ahead. And if it is a minimum effort too, you should definitely go ahead and do the extra mile and personalize because that can make a complete difference for it. So for example, in my case, I was back in the day, I am originally from Nicaragua. When I was living still in Nicaragua and Nicaragua is such a small country, it's also a poor country. So we were so very used to get all of this marketing actions in TV even or in Billboard or whatever, that we're so obviously not targeted at Nicaragua because we actually speak, like the way that we word things in Spanish is like in Argentina, like with the dos. So we put an accent at the end of each, pretty much conjugation and the verbs. And we don't say two, we say dos. And we had a lot of these billboards and TV ads and whatever with the two and we were like, oh, this was just generic ads for all Latin American people, whatever is not for us. But then it made all, little by little you could tell that they were making more efforts toward things to change things. And it was a minimum thing really pretty much to change up a couple of wordings. The rest was exactly the same, but at least they took care and this is actually really for us. The engagement and I think the connection with the brand or the offering increase. Crystal Carter: Absolutely. I've heard SEOs talk about some of the communities where you get sort of hybrid languages. So there was somebody who was from Mexico and she was from the north of Mexico. Ms. Marie White actually was talking about this and she's from the north of Mexico and she was like, we need Spanglish. And they were like, what? She was like, people on the border of the United States and Mexico, everybody speaks Spanglish. And so they started adding in some of that into some of their copy and they started to get a lot of good response from that because also people have phones where they're searching both in English and in Spanish. And this is going to happen in lots of places where there's people who speak multiple languages. I don't know if you have any tips or any examples from sort of hybrid searches and adapting for that. Aleyda Solis: So for example, again, it depends a lot on the industry, but the industry, that can be crazy. Speaking about car rental, car rental in Spanish, you can say in so many different ways. So this is one industry that if you are for in, it really needs to be very well localized, especially because also a lot of the queries are also with location, connected with location, with your current city or the city where you want to go. And you can call “carro”, “coche”, just three terms for the same thing, for car. And the same also where the property... I have had quite a lot of clients across different countries in the property market. And for apartment in Spanish you can call it [foreign language 00:24:35]. So three different ways again for the same thing. And well, it's the same in the UK and the US flats and apartment. But in Spanish I think that because there are so many different countries that have it as a native language, there's so many different correct ways to say it. So especially for this very localized services and products, car rental, property, it's very, very worthy to go very granular, double check and validate how they are the right way or the relevant way to call it in that particular market. Because it's definitely going to change not only the name of the locations or the countries, but the term too, very likely. Crystal Carter: Can I ask you one question about attending technical? So sometimes when I worked on the international SEO campaigns or international SEO projects. I've seen it where sometimes Google can't figure out which one is the main one, even when you canonicalize it. And I don't know if you've seen that and if you have any sort of recommendations for how to address that particular challenge. Aleyda Solis: Yes, thank you very much for asking that. Actually, I think that this scenarios happen when you have a very, very established powerful, popular original version that you had... Usually the US one, that then it perform a little bit also like the global one for a while. And then you have, let's say a UK version or an Indian version, they are also in the same language. However, well they target their own audience. And in those particular scenarios we may see that the copy might be very, very similar because it actually makes sense because in that particular context, the product, the service is actually searched with the same terms. And in general the behavior of the user connecting to them, it's very similar. And so it's harder for Google to understand which is the right version. Even if you implement hreflang, remember that hreflang is one of many signals. So for those particular scenarios, what I highly, highly recommend to do to help Google further, is to add the name of the country in the metadata, add the name of the country or the location or the offices in case you have offices or subsidiaries or partners within the copy. The information that you are targeting those particular markets, personalize the message. So whatever examples or testimonials or information, give additional signals that, oh, this is for India, this is for the UK. And also a typical mistake that I see websites doing all the time is that in the country picker that the menu, the global menu that you may have, many of these are JavaScript generated, they are not crawlable. The links are always going to the homepage of the alternate version. Know your product A page should cross-link to your product A page in India, to your product A page in the US, in the UK. So the product A page in the US that has millions of backlinks can pass that link popularity accordingly to the product page of other countries. Rather than product page in other countries never be able to rank or not showing enough popularity to rule and not ranking because of that, right? So I believe that good crosslinking is critical. Localizing everything, every single signal that you can give to Google. This is especially important when you are targeting different countries with the same language. As examples of indeed like how your product make the life easier for relevant audience within that country. All these additional signals also help a lot. And of course hreflang notations, correct canonicalization too, in each one of these pages, that is also important. And if you have the capacity to promote within the relevant country to attract backlinks of local specific websites that will point to that particular country web version, the best will be, because many, many times the US slash global version was the one that existed before. All of the backlinks from India are still pointing also only to the US and the UK point to the US one rather than the relevant version. So little by little like that, you are able to give the right signals for Google to run the relevant version of the website. Mordy Oberstein: That's a great way to put it. You're helping Google. It's really complicated. I think they have a really hard time as somebody who lives in a non-English speaking country, but only searches for the most part in English. I get all sorts of cross results all the time. Google really does sometimes have a really hard time figuring it out. I've worked on sites where they're showing the wrong page and it was completely on Google's end to understand what was what. Aleyda Solis: Google thinks that I am a British living in Spain. I am all the time shown ads. And in Google discover too, recommend reads for British in Spain because I guess that's because they identified that a lot of British expat here or live in Spain by the way, that since I am searching in English so much, I should be a British living in Spain. Mordy Oberstein: The opposite I have. I only search in English basically, and Google discover will show me stuff in Hebrew now. I never search, I don't know what I'm looking at. Don't show that to me. But I'm getting used to knowledge panels- Aleyda Solis: Opportunity for you to learn Hebrew. Mordy Oberstein: Nati, Head of SEO, he gives me a hard time about knowing Hebrew well enough. So I think it's him behind the scenes pushing Google to let me learn more Hebrew. Aleyda Solis: 100%. Mordy Oberstein: It's a conspiracy. Aleyda, thank you so much for coming on. Don't forget to follow Aleyda on Twitter, on LinkedIn. Aleyda Solis: If you're not following Aleyda Solis. Mordy Oberstein: If you're not already, it's @aleyda on Twitter. We'll link to your profile in the show notes. And of course it's learningseo.io and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to the SEOFOMO and now the marketing FOMO newsletters. Aleyda Solis: Just reached a thousand subscribers a week ago and I'm actually preparing it for this Wix edition too. I'm so very excited too. Because in SEO we are also sometimes too isolated focusing on it. And there's so much happening in other markets, in other channels of marketing by the way. And we can learn a lot from them and leverage, learn to leverage them and to, yeah... That's definitely interesting. Crystal Carter: As well as Crawling Mondays as well as remoters.net. Aleyda Solis: Oh right. Crystal Carter: As well as Remoters.net SEO. So yes. Mordy Oberstein: Aleyda, thank you for everything you do for the community. Aleyda Solis: No, thank you for the opportunity to share with you and everything what you do too. Really appreciate it. Mordy Oberstein: So one of the things that Aleyda touched on, which as a content person and as an expat myself kind of irks me about international strategies, that sometimes you don't fully appreciate how hard it is to actually localize the content to best align, not with the GEO’s language, but with the cultural idiosyncrasies and so forth. So we thought we get a serious expert on content to share their thoughts on building an international content strategy so that Crystal and I could offer you a very, very special version of a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Except this time it's not a deep thought with Crystal and Mordy. Let's get into what Giuseppe had to say first. Take it away, Giuseppe. Giuseppe Caltabiano: Well thank you for having me first of all. That's a very good question. Now let me say, despite the pandemic, my passion for traveling has not changed. In a way, it has been a constant of my life, whether I was on road for business or pleasure. The reason why I'm saying this is that travel really fueled my passion for global marketing, specifically for global content marketing. My travels have given me a better understanding of the world. But the reality is, when I launched my first new global content marketing program for Schneider Electric, that was 10 years ago. I thought I knew the world, but when you have to develop content for different geographies, well it feels like you have never stepped outside your front door, while I've always covered international or global roles. I remember, my first global content marketing journey started 10 years ago, when my team and I began defining Schneider Electric IT division global content strategy. Our goals were two fold: Lead Gen, first of all, marketing opportunities and secondly, increased brand awareness. Now after defining our strategy, we spent eight months preparing for the global launch through multiple pilots. We learned an incredible amount from our success and mistakes. And then one year later I replicated the same model with global clients when I moved to NewsCred, which is now part of Optimizely, at the beginning of 2017 and then later in Contently in 2019. Now the issue I found in most of the cases is that content marketers just try to replicate at global level what they have done in some cases with some success at central or local level. Well that's a big mistake. The thing is that global content marketing is not just content marketing deployed across multiple countries. Enterprise will need to plan, find the right balance between global and local. They have to pilot and then scale at global level. If they fail at one of these steps, of course usually they may fail with the full program. I think there are three main steps global marketers need to follow in order to design a proper content marketing strategy. First of all, finding the optimal balance between central and local. Now in most of the regions, I mean take Asia or Europe for example, there are thousands of countries and languages. It's simply unrealistic to make the same content work for each individual market. For this reason, creating content centrally and allowing countries to fill the gaps may represent a good solution. I've been working with both organizations, centralized and decentralized. Some organization have a very unclear understanding of local markets, which is the reason why involvement of countries or regions in content planning is really key. The role of central teams may shift of course as the program progress. In the early stages of the program, the flow of information is very outwards with the central team leading content production and strategy. And then as global content program flourish and progress, the emphasis on the central team shift to providing guidance and building local content skills and competencies. The second step is establishing local editorial board. While of course the central editorial team will generate content, a global level local editorial board have to be placed. And I mean this is really a key. In each country or on geography to manage proper planning and distribution, the local editorial board will agree with the central team on target personas. They lead the decision for distribution, content distribution, they contract local vendors and so on and so forth. The third and final point is piloting your content market strategy. The thing is piloting means starting small. Large enterprises are running pilot programs across geographies. It's a common practice, great ideas often receive resistance. You need to start small, test if your strategy is working, get results, and then finally create a proper business case, in order to allow a global content marketing program. In a global content marketing model, you ideally need to set up the pilot program as a test in one of two countries and usually no more than two different languages if possible. And then you run the pilot program with a full integration with the existing marketing technologies. And finally, of course if it's successful, you may roll out your program to the other geographies. I realize that this is probably super simplification, but it may give you a good overview of what to do in order to create a global content marketing program. Mordy Oberstein: So I don't know where to start with it, because Giuseppe makes a bunch of really, really, really, really good points. But I guess let's talk about a point that I feel I personally probably gloss over all the time in talking about global content strategies, is that the fact that you have to balance the global with the local. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, entirely. It's something that is really, really important. And I think that it applies to lots of elements of international SEO and even regional SEO. Even if you think about the United States for instance, there's different laws in different states, there's different realities. February in Florida is very different from February in New Hampshire for instance. So there are definitely things to consider about which products to put out, which content to put out, what makes sense, where all of these things are really important. Mordy Oberstein: The same thing with local SEO also. You might have a local presence, you might also have a more international presence or a national presence. So balancing this out is really, really important. Because you don't want to go all in on the global and then ignore the fact you also have a local presence or cannibalize a local presence with your global presence. You really have to think about what pages should exist. It's really about planning. What pages should exist, where do they exist on the domain, what are they trying to do? Where are they trying to target? And how do we keep what they're trying to do somewhat separate from each other. Crystal Carter: There's a section where he discussed planning and some of the work that's gone into planning. He was saying they spent eight months planning a particular campaign and that can take a lot of time. So these things should be well thought out and should take all of the things into account. Because of course it's important to have a global presence. If you think of a company like IKEA for instance, IKEA has global things and actually IKEA's approach to marketing tends to be fairly universal worldwide. But that's a distinct strategy that they've taken, which is really very interesting. Mordy Oberstein: It works for them. Crystal Carter: It works for them. Mordy Oberstein: I'm not sure it works for others. Crystal Carter: Exactly. But they will understand that. Even I know that... We recently had an IKEA open near us and they ran a specific hyper-local campaign launching the store. And I know that they have general activities there, but the global brand will impact the local brand and vice versa. So it's really important to make sure that they line up. But that also that if part of your brand is making sure that you care about your customers, making sure that it's very clear that you are respectful of your customers, then respecting the local cultural elements is really, really important. And localizing appropriately will help you to demonstrate that. Mordy Oberstein: Which goes to what Aleyda was saying about the advertisement she would see growing up and really speaks to what Giuseppe was talking about, and just another amazing point, in that there's really no way around having a local expert. Giuseppe was talking about they have a board and that local board offers feedback on the overall global camp. How much do you want to automate, especially in the world of AI and ChatGPT. But in general, how much do you want to try to automate or try to template from the global strategy into the local areas, you can't. You have to have somebody who understands what that region's all about, what works, what doesn't work, the interest, the way of talking, all the idiosyncrasies of that region. There's no way around knowing that other than you having some actual integration into that community, which means you need a local expert Crystal Carter: Indeed. And there's idioms that will make people feel more warmly towards your brand. There are particular celebrations or particular things that are important milestones. So for instance, in the Mediterranean you see a lot of these things with the blue eye for instance. That's something that means good luck or prosperity and things like that. If you have the same symbol and somewhere else it would be less recognized. And there are things that visually, for instance, would be really, really recognizable. And that's something to think about as well. And these are things like you said, that you can't get from a bot necessarily. You have to have humans there. Adriana Stein is someone who has worked with us on some localizing projects and she wrote an article on translation versus localization. And she gets into a lot of these details. She talks about the direct translation from English to German of beating around the bush for instance, which... He did the direct translation, it doesn't convey the same sentiment as if you do a localized translation of their idiom for that same sort of thing. And what you want is the sentiment. You want the sentiment of that statement rather than the direct translation because it's an idiom. Mordy Oberstein: And you have cultural biases and there's no way around them. I'll give you a great example. I think I might have talked about it in the podcast at one point, but growing up every day, I used to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I moved to Israel, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at work one day and someone's like, what's that? I'm like, peanut butter and jelly. And they're like, what is that? They do not eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Blew my mind, to this day, absolutely blows my mind. It is the go-to sandwich in America. To this day, I still eat them, because they're so delicious. Crystal Carter: Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are suitable for every meal. Mordy Oberstein: Every meal and in between meals, all meals. Crystal Carter: Anytime you eat- Mordy Oberstein: You can live on them. Crystal Carter: You can live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. They're quality, quality. Mordy Oberstein: We do not eat them where I currently live. And if you were talking about them, it would be like you if you're trying to target that or if you're using it as a reference and whatever it is, it would be lost because it is not the same thing. Crystal Carter: Yeah, entirely. And I think these are things that you have to get. And I think that it takes... One of the reasons why it takes so long to plan for a sort of global SEO or marketing campaign, is that you have to take those things into account. You have to make sure that you have good experts for wherever you're based. Wix is, we work in 17 different languages and we work in lots of different spaces. Someone that we work with in Japan is someone called Titone. He's fantastic, he's amazing, he's incredible. And we worked with the team at Faber as well to do some SEO webinars. We didn't think like, oh, we should swat in and do the SEO webinar ourselves. From a remote team, we got local experts to help us with that and to help us engage in, because for instance, with search in Japan, for instance, the way that the web is structured is slightly different because they have different kinds of writing. So this is really important to think about. And so there's going to be people who have more experience in that and more experience of the way that the people use the web and the different search engines that they use and the different things that will come up first for that particular audience. And you have to think about the people on your team who are genuine experts and you have to make sure that you build up those relationships. And that takes time. And also I think it's important, particularly from a content point of view, to think about how you get traction an at what point, how much of a foothold you need to have in a market in order to get some traction in a market. Especially if your team isn't specifically based there, but you're trying to connect with an audience in a different place. You have to sort of figure out how much content do we need? What investment do we need? And Aleyda talked about this as well, what investment do you need in order to be able to serve those customers well? And I think that these can take time, but hopefully it's worth it, if that's a market that's good for you. Mordy Oberstein: Now speaking of time, do you know what time it is? Crystal Carter: What time is it? What time is it? Mordy Oberstein: Snappy News. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's here. I mean, snappy news, snappy news, snappy news, but oh my God, it's here. Google has opened its Search Generative Experience, SGE. Two select folks on the wait list, yours truly, not among them. I can't even get on the wait list? Something about it not being open to my account, I don't know. Personal grumblings aside, we got our first look at what Google's Search Generative Experience is going to look like. Follow me here for a second. Danny Goodwin at Search Engine Land covered Barry Schwartz and his covering of his initial experience with the SGE. Barry got access to the SGE or the Search Generative Experience, but had to go offline for a few days. So Danny covered Barry covering the SGE. We'll link to the article in the show notes, because there're already heap of examples and you should definitely look at them. Just looking at it myself, I just want to say, don't panic. It looks like there are plenty of organic link placements all throughout the experience. Mike King from iPullRank, who did a whole webinar with us on AI and SEO, he said quote, "it's basically an interactive feature snippet, but it doesn't feel as threatening to organic search traffic as the original demos made it feel." Good news. All right, who wants some more big news? Yeah, Google held its marketing live event and friend of the show who join us talking about SCOM PPC over at Cypress North, Greg Finn did an amazing job covering all of the updates that Google announced to its ad platform and beyond. Check that out in the show notes as well over at Search Engine Land. Some takeaways, they're personal. When I took a look at the keynote, one of the things I took away was a Google talks about how people search and how it's changing, how they're looking at longer queries and how they're more conversational, what they're looking for, and they're looking for more specific things than ever before. People are being far more specific when they search. Some might say not new. Old, not new. I agree it's not new, but I feel like now this is an official part of the conversation that we as SEOs, the content marketers, the content creators need to get on board with. Also ads will be in the Search Generative Experience, the SGE or as I'm just going to call it the AI box. When Google announced the SGE or the AI box at Google I/O 2023, it made it seem the ads would be above the box itself, not part of the actual Search Generative Experience. But at Marketing Live, they show that yes, it's going to be right there in that whole SGE ecosystem. Also, say goodbye to Google Merchant Center and say hello to Google Merchant Center NEXT. It's next level because it will take a lot of the techier parts of connecting to Google Merchant Center out of the equation by pulling information straight from your site into the Merchant Center feed. Next, well, nothing is next because that's this week's snappy news. And well, that was the news. How newsy was it? So Newsy. Always so newsy. Which brings us to our follow of the week as the episode ebbs away and this week our follow of the week as we're going international SEO is none other than Veruska Anconitano. Crystal Carter: Veruska is fantastic. She's a member of Women in Tech SEO. She's an amazing international SEO- Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: What's this? Mordy Oberstein: Contributor to the hub. Crystal Carter: A contributor to the hub, which I was just going to get to. Yeah, she's a- Mordy Oberstein: Sorry for jumping the gun. Crystal Carter: She's multilingual. And yeah, she wrote an article called Why Cultural Relevance is Key to International SEO Success, and it's absolutely fantastic. So yeah, she speaks many languages and she talks a lot about the different elements that come into play when you're thinking about engaging with international markets that are not just some of the technical SEO elements that can be easy to implement, relatively speaking. But some of the cultural elements in, we're thinking about cultural identity and how that impacts search and what people search for and how people search. It's a great article. She's a great follow. She's also an expert on Rome, so I knew someone who was going to Rome and I tagged her and she was like, oh, let me tell you all of the places that you should eat. Mordy Oberstein: And her Twitter account is really informative. She had a post on skyscraper content the other day that kind of made me laugh. There's a lot of really good content in her feed. It's not just one of these accounts where you're going to file but not really getting SEO value out of it. It's a definite value in the SEO knowledge itself. So it's @LaCuochina on Twitter. We'll link to Veruska's profile in the show notes. But definitely give her a follow. Which means our episode is now over. Crystal Carter: Finito. Mordy Oberstein: Finito. Ooh, very good. Crystal Carter: Finn. Mordy Oberstein: Finn. Crystal Carter: Absolutely, hasta la vista. Mordy Oberstein: I don't know how to say the end in any other language. Crystal Carter: S ayonara! Mordy Oberstein: Sure. Adios. That's really goodbye, not the end. Anyway, thanks for joining us on this SERP's Up podcast. Already going to miss us, not to worry, we're back next week with the brand new episodes. We dive into how to build a content strategy SEO and beyond. Look for wherever you consume your podcast or on SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars on the Wix SEO Learning Hub at you guessed it, wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO. Related episodes Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . 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Thomas Haynes is a digital marketer with 16 years’ experience in SEO and digital strategy. He is currently Director of Strategy at Optix Solutions in Exeter, Devon. Thomas Haynes Director of Strategy, Optix Solutions Thomas Haynes is a digital marketer with 16 years’ experience in SEO and digital strategy. He is currently Director of Strategy at Optix Solutions in Exeter, Devon. Resources Thomas Haynes SEO cheat sheet for web designers An SEO checklist to help web designers create with SEO in mind. Get more SEO insights right to your inbox * * By submitting this form, you agree to the Wix Terms of Use and acknowledge that Wix will treat your data in accordance with Wix's Privacy Policy . Subscribe Subscribe to our newsletter and stay on the pulse of SEO

Back Yearly client goal planner Monitor the progress you make with clients and highlight achievements that can help you further your own career. 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 planner to: Help you outline and plan your career goals for the year Identify useful benchmarks for success across your client portfolio Highlight achievements that can help you in your career Crystal Carter Head of SEO Communications, Wix LinkedIn Facebook X Instagram Crystal Carter is an SEO & digital marketing professional whose previous clients include Disney, McDonalds, and Tomy. She hosts SEO webinars and podcasts and her work has been featured at Google Search Central, BrightonSEO, Moz, Lumar (DeepCrawl), Semrush, and more. More about this topic Read this article on setting and tracking SMART goals 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

Yana Raduzky is an SEO expert at Wix, setting up a robust SEO infrastructure and built-in solutions. Previously, she led organic growth for eCommerce, media tech companies and educated teams on SEO best practices. Yana enjoys long walks, furniture assembly and SEO audits. Yana Arad Raduzky Senior SEO expert, Wix Yana Raduzky is an SEO expert at Wix, setting up a robust SEO infrastructure and built-in solutions. Previously, she led organic growth for eCommerce, media & tech companies and educated teams on SEO best practices. Yana enjoys long walks, furniture assembly and SEO audits. Articles & Resources 28 Mar 2023 Effective SEO strategies for cybersecurity companies 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