Episodes

Lukasz is a drum and bass DJ… so we discuss how many SEOs were once musicians / in the arts. I discover that Lukasz loves stories and adores metaphors - through which he shares super tips for pushing your SEO (reasonably) easily. Lukasz finds a lovely balance between digging dep, and doing simple things that bring quick results that keep your clients happy. The Snapshot method. Gap Analysis. Lukasz shares his favourite Wordpress plugins. I share Wordlift with him and he goes off to investigate. ...

Starts by gamely answering a question about Javascript. Then suggests how we can get guest blogging opportunities (starting in Bali, of all places!). Network a lot (in real life, not just online), be honest, be frank, be yourself... then once you get the guestblogging flywheel going, you'll be all set. But, despite networking in person and trying too hard to be way too charming, I completely fail to get a link from Joshua... there is a lesson there somewhere (if only I can find it). Are mentions...

Google is a discovery engine that is increasingly pushing out answers. It has 20 years of historical query data to use to be able to predict what we will ask for before we ask. Hannah kindly tells me my horizontal vs vertical theory is a really cool idea. Then expands to a dual algorithm theory and backs it up with lots of solid arguments, including PACRR (a rather boring acronym that is actually REALLY interesting). Stop thinking about algorithms since machine learning means the algorithmic pat...

Brno is the Eindhoven of the Netherlands... or perhaps Steven is getting mixed up... the Czech Republic. Steven's personal site doesn't have any pictures of unicorns but Steven still manages to give it a positive spin. Teaching SEO comes down to providing the basic pieces and then sending the pupil off into the world to master SEO by: doing, trying, making mistakes and learning from them. Steven's advice: Be a critical thinker and you'll pick up the pieces of the SEO puzzle along the way, and ea...

Gianluca gives me my first sing back. Building an international digital strategy starts with understanding your own business. We are not so much doing digital marketing, more marketing in a digital world. Prioritise your territories, then expand your international step by step (territory by territory). Think multi-country, multi-lingual and multi-cultural. Different cultures will often need different content, not just translations. Think about which tourist destinations are popular in Italy vs S...

Google's food is information. It needs to identify, collect, chew, swallow and digest in order to be able to give the answers to users. We look at leveraging Schema.org markup, Dom extraction, semantic triples, tables and lists to prepare Google's food. We meander through a lot of questions and come up with some interesting explanations. Schema markup is like recipes and food items (that analogy doesn't fly for very long). When you rebuild your site, start with thinking about structured data (th...

Learn how to make the most of your Twitter presence. Animated GIFs are old hat that has got a new shine (and they are a lot of fun). Viktoria is capable of sustaining entire conversations with just a series of animated GIFs. Tweeting is like throwing rocks into the sea and expecting to build a mountain. If you want some quick-n-easy visibility, get on some Twitter lists. Spend more time than is healthy in Twitter Chats - apparently that time is an investment, and not a waste of time (oops for me...

Google Ads - the mistakes not to make. Most of which I made. Quality Score is a health indicator and not a KPI. Bid-to-budget ratios, The importance of isolating branded campaigns. Be the best in industry. Big brands are rubbish - they send dumb money at the problem - and there is your opportunity. Navah also sets me straight on Dynamic Search Ads (which I now realise I got over-enthusiastic about). And NEVER let a Border Collie take control of your DSA campaigns cos you will lose money (most bo...

Write less, promote more... build organic traffic, get links, avoid the spike of hope. I learned how i can MUCH better promoting the #SEOisAEO podcast, which is rather cool :p) Outreach is the future (and Alex offers some advice about tools to use). Linkbuilding is and will remain fundamental, but too often overlooked. Watch out Neil Patel, Alex is coming up fast on your shoulder! In terms of content, think about ongoing content - a guide with chapters, for example. Or a podcast ! Also a bit of ...

Judith condenses 10 years of experience in agencies into 20 minutes. Reach, Act, Convert, Engage - touching our customers before, during and after (purchase). The customer is always right, except when they are wrong… and that gives us as an opportunity to helpfully upsell more of our services and make money. Be inspired by others, then do it better! Concrete goals, broad aspirations and KPIs. I look behind the curtain at the Wizard of Oz. Do tech first, then content, then linkbuilding last. Judi...

I learn what Cindy is bitter about, but fail to get her to reveal her age. She also says that mobile indexing meant Google moved from indexing URLs to indexing Fraggles (chunks). And I agree! Being expert in ASO gives you a big advantage in optimising for Fraggles. Lovely discussion about being an old SEO expert as an advantage (luckily for me), the indexing API, Cindy says quite a few words in French, and introduces a new theory about AMP that means there are reasons other than speed to develop...

Understanding how Google makes money, and how its business model is changing will help you do better SEO and build a better strategy for the future. Gennaro reads financial statements and figures that out for us (similar to what Bill Slawski does with patents)… 70% of its revenues come from ads on SERPs - but what makes up the other 30%? Gennaro shares that info with me, then tells me about the Google cemetery, and tells me not to have empathy for tech giants - I should just take advantage of th...

Don't feel guilty or ashamed about building your personal brand. It is important for both you and your company, and will serve you well in everything you do in future. Top tips * Don't rent your "digital brand house"* Get yourself an Adina You'll have to listen to the episode to know what those two tips even mean... but they are gold-dust. Brilliant stuff from Deepak (and Adina by proxy).

Craig has a baby boy with the same accent as his. Craig gets me excited about Facebook (quite an achievement), we agree we should avoid Instagram… and then tells me about the right automation tools to use and the pitfalls to avoid. Basically, he gives me my Social Media strategy for 2019 and tells me what I should be doing in 2020 :) And, apparently he and I connected thanks to a bot. Sounds weird now I write it.

Lemons, solar panels, prams, garden accessories… the topics Laurence likes to talk about are quite varied. According to him, Google is getting increasingly good at identifying authority within specific topics to a very granular degree. Big data is allowing Authoritas to get an inside view. Very enjoyably brilliant from Laurence. Hats off, sir !

Patents are really easy: they identify a problem, they tell you about the prior art used to solve the problem, tell you why that's insufficient, then they provide a solution. We also talk about patent writing styles and the Ernest Hemmingway of patents. We look at Google Maps as a knowledge graph and traffic cop. Onto why many of the best employees moved from Microsoft and Yahoo to Google (the reason is not what I thought). Remembering dates, names and patents is like doing a jigsaw puzzle. Alo...

Sitespeed is all about user experience. With some incredible Lighthouse insights, tips and tricks, Wili makes me go all starry-eyed about Lighthouse (pagespeed 3.0). He follows that up with a few super lessons in HTTP2, and tells me that speed as a ranking factor is an illusion. Also, by the way, Google wants to be a librarian and Fili owes me TWO Lego men :)

A lovely conversation where we cover mentions, links, linkless links, the knowledge graph, brand SERPs and reputation. Sounds like a bit of a mix, but in fact it all makes a lot of sense. Thanks, Arnout !

Batman and Robin, unique selling points, understanding the audience, emotional issues, matching problems to solutions... Kate makes an incredibly good job of clarifying all this Stunningly brilliant !

* Links are like nuclear waste. * Links have less value than before penguin. * PBNs no longer work. * Mentions have no value. * Relevant links are gold Google are simply sending us a red herring by saying that we should stop focussing on links, so says James Brockbank. In this really enjoyable conversation, James shares some great examples of linkbuilding and gives his 6 point list for creating content that will get those valuable links. Oh, and apparently, Kim Kardashian works less than a day...

Régine gives us a great view of how to measure brand (or personal brand) reputation over time. She then enthusiastically encourages us NOT to stick our head in the sand and face up to the realities of our reputation. then goes further and suggest that we share our reputation score (?!) and maintain an ongoing brand reputation strategy that accounts for all the important stakeholders (and not just the clients). Lastly, she insists that we manage our reputation proactively so that we are safe whe...

Pinterest, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Instagram… Visual search is going to be massive, no doubt about that. But who are the players, how do they play, and what is the best action plan to take advantage of this amazing opportunity? Pinterest, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Instagram… Kris sees a semi-browserless world with voice and visual search dominating. But that isn't the end of SEO. But it does change where SEO is going. We go off-topic a few times, but it is all 100% interesting.

With the SERP increasingly offering solutions to queries, we are facing world where websites are increasingly less important (as it were). Jono talks extensively about on-SERP SEO, a great continuation of Rand Fishkin's approach last week - communicating across channels, all along the user journey. Jono quote : SEO is the puppeteering of all the channels. Jono quote : Not a volume game any more, it's a right-fit and quality game. Jono quote : Market to everybody and bring them gracefully down...

Throw your old inbound marketer's playbook out the window. Social is walled in, Google Organic is staying on the SERP, influencers don’t deliver and web advertising trending to zero. Rand shares some rather good ideas about how to adapt to this new world. Oh, and watch out for the Green Pants.