Experts On The Wire (An SEO Podcast!) – Details, episodes & analysis

Sarah Pokorná, is Digital Marketing Director at Dragon Metrics. She holds degrees in both Psychology and Digital Marketing and has been doing SEO, Marketing and Psychomarketing in corporate roles for 12 years.

As SEOs, I think we spend FAR too much time obsessing over Google ‘Ranking Factors’ (most recently the API leaks) and NOT enough time trying to actually understand and empathize with searchers – the people we are supposedly making content for and trying to win over in the SERPs. 

In this conversation, Sarah brings her unique perspective drawing from her background in psychology to help unpack some of the psychological perspectives searchers have – particularly cognitive biases.

If you want to gain a deeper understanding and get into the minds of the people who search Google – the same people who traffic websites and ultimately drive revenue and business goals for sites and businesses – this episode is definitely worth a listen!

Topics In This Episode:

• Cognitive Biases in Search
• Why were AI Overviews such a miss for Google?
• The importance of fact-checking for SEO content
• Search and Social Impacts on the Nervous System
• How did biases impact how the SEO world reacted to Google’s API Leaks?
• Biases like Confirmation Bias in SEO Case Studies
• Why do overconfident people actually believe they are good at SEO?
• Should Google play a role in preventing misinformation?
• What else can we as SEOs do to understand searchers better?

And much more – listen now!

Related Episodes You Might Like

• 127: Image Optimization, Algorithmic Biases, ADHD & SEO w/Myriam Jessier
• 097: Improve Your SEO With Keyword Psychographics w/Marty Weintraub

Articles, Resources, and Links

• https://www.dragonmetrics.com/confirmation-bias/
• https://www.sarahpresch.com/post/cognitive-biases-in-seo
• Neurodivergents in SEO
• Google API Leak: Sparktoro’s initial post about it
• The Cyber Effect (book about misinformation online)
• GBH’s Video mentioned re: the Title Update and example of Framing
• Giulia Panozzo
• Myriam Jessier
• Petra Kis-Herczegh

Find Sarah Online

• Sarah on LinkedIn
• Sarah on Twitter
• Sarah’s Website

The post 131: Bias in SEO, Overconfident SEO Case Studies, Google’s SERP Struggles w/Sarah Pokorná appeared first on Evolving SEO.

Will Critchlow is the CEO of SearchPilot, an SEO A/B testing company. I invited Will back to Experts on the Wire to discuss the Future of SEO. I feel like things have felt very turbulent and uncertain in the SEO world lately (more than usual!) – because of things like AI/Chat-GPT, changes in how the community engages online, GA4, massive SERP changes from Google, and changes in the economy and world at large post-covid.

I’ve always known Will for having a great perspective on the future of our industry so I wanted to get his take on what the future of SEO holds. Is THIS finally the inflection moment where ‘SEO is dead’? How does he see the next 5-10 years playing out? If it’s not dying, how will it look different? What should SEOs and businesses be doing to future-proof their marketing? How do we all navigate these big changes?

Topics In This Episode Include:

• How is AI affecting informational queries?
• What the ancient steel and iron industry has to do with content
• Is it worth still investing in content marketing?
• How is the eCommerce SEO space changing? Is eCommerce and spending online down or is it growing?
• Challenges for new people entering the SEO space
• And lots more…

Listen Now!

Related Episodes You Might Like

• Surviving SEO in an AI World w/Sara Taher
• SEO Ranking Factors, A/B Testing and the Evolution of SEO w/Will Critchlow

Tools Mentioned

• Chat GPT
• Gemini
• SearchPilot
• Content Aced (50% off – affiliate link)

Articles, Resources, and Links Mentioned

• https://www.perplexity.ai/
• Where Web Users Spend Their Time vs Where Traffic Referrals Originate – Sparktoro
• Google Anti-Trust Trial Documents
• Women in Tech SEO

Find Will Online

• Will on LinkedIn
• Will on Twitter

The post 130: The Future of SEO – Optimism In Uncertain Times w/Will Critchlow appeared first on Evolving SEO.

Tech SEO fans and anyone passionate about the SEO industry, this episode is for you!

My guest for this episode is Jori Ford!

Jori Ford is currently Chief Marketing Officer at FoodBoss, which is a food delivery search comparison engine.

Prior to that, she was Sr. Director of SEO and Content at G2 among many other roles.

In addition to her vast SEO, Content, and Marketing experience spanning over 15 years – Jori also has a very extensive Engineering Background as well and is experienced in how search engine algorithms are actually created.

She has been a Speaker for Search Summit, Tech SEO Boost, and SES – and a columnist for Search Engine Watch.

In this episode:

• Demystifying the “Magic” of Google
• Different algos for different industries
• Historical Content Records in Google
• How Brand Search Volume may impact Rankings
• Advanced Crawl Budget and Optimization
• Crawl budget vs Crawl demand
• Conserve vs optimize vs expand crawling
• Why it’s possible for SEOs to be both technical and creative
• Ways to learn SEO
• Problems with SEO income studies
• And lots more!

Listen Now!

Related Episodes You Might Like

• Optimizing Crawl Budget To Improve SEO w/Vanessa Fox
• Rendering, Crawling and Indexing w/Martin Splitt of Google

Show Agenda and Timestamps

• Coming soon!

Tools Mentioned

• Coming soon!

Articles, Resources, and Links Mentioned

• Coming Soon!

Find Jori Online

• Jori on Twitter
• Jori on LinkedIn
• Joriford.com
• Jori’s Search Engine Watch articles

The post 122: Crawl Optimization, How Google Works, SEO Income Studies w/Jori Ford appeared first on Evolving SEO.

This week’s episode features John Mueller, one of only five Webmaster Trends Analysts at Google. Warning though: this episode also gets a little technical and nerdy.

But I wanted to create an episode for you all about AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). This was a really hot topic in the last week, with Google announcing future integration of AMP pages right in normal search results. So I figured, who better to talk to than … someone right from Google!

This episode can serve as an “everything you need to know” about AMP as a good jumping point. So when your boss, client, business partner etc say “hey, I heard about this AMP thing, what is it and should we do it?” you’ll be informed.

John and I also get into some peculiar issues around crawling and “crawl budget”, Podcasting SEO, dates in content and more! So for those of you that might already be up to date on AMP, you can skip ahead about 15 minutes to get to the “fun” stuff

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes.

Links

• Webmaster Trends Analyst
• Google’s Rolling Out AMP
• Do Google Users Understand What AMP Means?
• Google to Expand AMP to Main Mobile Pages
• Search Console
• Googlebot Help
• Google Crawlers Help
• AMP Project
• Search Guidelines for AMP

People

• John Mueller

Agenda

John’s Background

• “I’ve been at Google for almost 9 years.”
• “They asked me if I wanted to come by and visit the office.”
• “As a kid we lived in Alabama and Texas.”
• Webmaster Trends Analysts
• “It’s a pretty small team.”
• “We’re doing SEO on the internal side.”

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

• What is AMP?
• “A lot of people make mobile websites in a way that is essentially a desktop website.”
• “Everything is much, much slower.”
• “It’s an open source project … all are welcome to join.”
• “AMP pages load extremely fast.”

Benefits of AMPs

• “The speed aspect makes a big difference with users.”
• “Conversion rates are usually influenced by faster load times.”
• Content Delivery Networks will be able to take a load off of the servers
• “AMPs are mobile friendly by default.”
• “You can have one site that features AMPs.”

How it works for a smaller site

• “The end project is moving more towards all kinds of content.”
• “Regarding more dynamic content, you may want to wait a bit to see how AMP evolves.”
• “To date, it works best with static content.”
• “AMP is on a per-page basis…you can mix and match.”
• “Think about what will make sense for the user (regarding interlinking, etc.)”

‘AMP’ or ‘AMP friendly’?

• “It’s probably just ‘AMP'”

Establishing AMP

• “Based on the feedback that we get, we’ll probably tweak things.”

How Analytics Work with AMP

• “There is an AMP analytics tag you can use.”

Will People Click on AMP results?

• “We did a lot of tests on how we should label the search results.”
• “There will be a period for people to get used to the AMP label.”

AMP and Click-through Rates

• “There have been studies to show that people click through more …”

Search Console

• AMP error report
• AMP and search analytics (queries, etc)
• “AMP is not a ranking factor.”

Crawling

• “Googlebot has a really good memory.”
• Crawl budget

Googlebot Video Crawling Podcasts?

• “There have been discussions to integrate podcasts better into search.”
• Have transcriptions made of podcast episodes?

Dates on Content

• “From a personal point of view, I love dates on content.”
• “From a search point of view, we do try to pull out a date and determine if it makes sense.”

How Many Emails Do You Get a Day

• “I get over ……. a week! “

Google Panda at Holiday Parties?

The post 033: John Mueller On AMP Pages, Crawl Budget, Podcasting SEO appeared first on Evolving SEO.

Today’s episode features a reverse interview – with me! I sat down with Tom Critchlow at the Marriot in Times Square, while I was there for Affiliate Summit as a speaker.

I reveal a LOT to Tom in the interview – including where “Evolving SEO” got it’s name, challenges we face now, how I approach speaking, the growth of this podcast, what it’s like working with my wife Sarah, unexpected outcomes of podcasting  – and a better term I’ve been using secretively (in my head) to describe “S.E.O”.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes!

Links

• Tom Critchlow on Episode 20 of Experts
• University of New Hampshire
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Moz
• SEO Book
• Experts on the Wire
• Podcast Movement
• 37 Signals
• Wistia
• Smart Passive Income
• Dr Sanjiv Chopra on Vitamin D
• Dan’s AMA in Inbound (links to my reply to Ed about health)
• Tom’s post on his consulting work

People

• Dan Shure
• Tom Critchlow
• Jason Holterhaus (Bloomberg News)
• Wil Reynolds
• Rand Fishkin
• Sujan Patel
• Jennifer Slegg
• Dave Gerhardt
• Cyrus Shepard
• Phil Nottingham
• Pat Flynn

Agenda

• “My mother realized I love music when I was three-years old.”
• “I had a Bucket Band group with friends from high school.  It was like a little business.”
• “I would drive 2 hrs. oneway to play an $80 gig.”
• “I started with me literally having no money.”
• “I learned to build a website from scratch.”
• “We can still talk about the industry being … ‘free jazz'”
• “The term ‘SEO’ is terrible.”
• “… We have the real world, the digital world, and a search engine …”
• Search Ecosystem Optimization?
• “SEO is a tool.”
• “What am I about?  Therefore, what’s my business about?”
• “I bought the Evolving domain in December of 2010 and that was the same time I started the LLC.”
• Working with a spouse
• “The podcast has done things I didn’t expect.”
• “90% for me is vitamin D.”
• “I’ve gone through a whole detox program.”
• “A lot of things tie back to your physical health.”
• “It’s a ludicrous idea to separate business from your personal life.”
• “There’s a direct relationship between how you feel about yourself and the work that you do.”
• The Ideal Client

The post 032: The Candid Story Of My Journey From Poor Musician To Evolving SEO appeared first on Evolving SEO.

I feel like today’s show is going to give the listeners of ‘Experts’ a special edge over everyone else on LinkedIn. That’s because my guest today, Viveka von Rosen focuses 100% of her time and energy only on LinkedIn. She even ranks #1 in Google for “LinkedIn Expert” (try it!).

Today, Viveka will teach us why it’s important to be on LinkedIn (and how a poor profile can actually harm you or your business). She gives a full, spontaneous critique of my profile (with actionable takeaways for everyone). And I have not edited it yet so you can see exactly what she is critiquing (but check soon! I will get to updating it!)

She teaches us some secrets to getting the very coveted testimonials – and tons more!

NEW: you can now ask me a question by leaving me a voice message here – and I will answer on an upcoming show!

Listen to this week’s episode now:

Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes

Links

• I’m On Linked In – Now What
• Dan on LinkedIn
• Viveka’s LinkedIn Account
• Viveka on Twitter
• LinkedIn Header Template (please email me – dan@evolvingseo.com – normally a paid tool, Viveka offered this for free to Experts listeners!)
• Linked Into Business
• LinkedIn Sharing Bookmarklet
• LinkedIn Experts Google Plus Community
• Request Recommendations on LinkedIn

People

• Viveka von Rosen
• Jason Alba
• Gary Vaynerchuk
• Steve Dotto
• Con Sweeney

Agenda

Viveka’s background

Why is LinkedIn Important?

Free vs Premium Account

Setting up Profile

• Personalize the URL
• Have a good picture (that resembles you)
• Add a background image
• Put your business phone number above the fold
• Put your email address above the fold
• Add a landing page, unique URL, website, etc
• Add media links (videos, powerpoint presos, podcasts, slideshare preso)

Networking

• “Know your audience.”
• Use Advanced Search option
• Find trends via people who view your profile

“You’re never going to conduct a business deal (just) on LinkedIn.”

Light Touches

LinkedIn Endorsements

• “It’s always better when someone says you’re awesome rather than you saying so.”
• Try to get (at least) two endorsements per skill
• Ask for a recommendation (give the person talking points)

The post 031: Mastering The Power Of LinkedIn w/Viveka von Rosen appeared first on Evolving SEO.

This episode is for anyone that wants to be a better participant in Twitter chats, wants to run their own Twitter chat – or if you simply just love Buffer and want a behind the scenes look at how they run #BufferChat.

My guest, Arielle Tannenbaum has been running #BufferChat for over nine months. With over 300 regular participants, she really knows her stuff and tells us all about the tools, processes and people Buffer uses to keep their Twitter chat running!

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes!

Links

• Buffer
• Buffer Blog
• Arielle’s Website
• Bufferchat
• Looker
• Respond
• Pablo
• Buffer Community on Slack
• TweetChat
• Tchat
• Nurph
• Moz Developer Blog
• Trello
• Dropbox Paper
• Slack
• Lessons for Inbound’s 5x Growth

People

• Arielle Tannenbaum
• Jay Baer
• Sam Mallikarjunan

Agenda

Working with Buffer

• #Bufferchat

Benefits of Hosting a Twitterchat

How to Manage One Company Twitter Account

Using Image Tools and Prescheduling Tweets

Keeping the Chat Organized

Benefit of Posting a Chat Summary

How to Start a Twitterchat

Mistakes People Make While Chatting

Working Remotely

• Benefits
• “It’s great to be in a space where you’re the happiest while doing what you love.”
• “The majority of our communication takes place via Slack.”

Overcoming Shyness in order to Network

Making Introverts Comfortable

The post 030: Chatting About Twitter Chats w/Arielle Tannenbaum of #BufferChat appeared first on Evolving SEO.

There’s probably a lot of us out there that keeps hearing about live streaming video, but we’re not sure how to get started or what to do with it. If you’re one of these people (like I am), now is definitely the time to get involved. Periscope reported to have 10 million users by August of 2015 and that number is surely to have grown. By March of 2016 Periscope had over 200 million broadcasts. It’s really one of the next big waves in social media, that’s just starting to explode.

Personally, I’ve experimented a little with Periscope – so that’s why when the opportunity arose to interview this week’s guest, I was very excited to do so. Alessandra Colaci is the founder of Influence Buzz, a speaker, business and startup consultant and podcaster herself – and has worked with clients like Coke, TJ Maxx and Warner Brothers.

She’s been into live streaming video since the very beginning. In this interview we chat about:

• The differences between Periscope, Facebook Live and Blab.
• How to convince your CEO or boss to get on live video.
• What to do and what content to share.
• How to get people to watch your live streaming content.
• What someone like Rand Fishkin should do with Periscope
• And … I make a confession….

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes!

Links

• Influence Buzz
• Alessandra’s Facebook Page
• Periscope
• Facebook Live
• Wirecast
• Blab
• Dan on Periscope

People

• Alessandra Colaci
• Gary  Vaynerchuk
• Rand Fishkin
• Chalene Johnson
• Bryan Harris
• David Letterman
• Jimmy Kimmel

Agenda

Alessandra’s Background

Live Streaming

• Is it for everyone?
• Overcoming shyness in front of camera
• Preparation
• How long is a ‘good’ broadcast?
• Periscope

In-Platform Engagement Tips

• Participate (via comments) rather than just listen on Periscope
• Mention the benefit of watching in the title of the video

Facebook Live

• Personal vs business page?
• Steps leading to first broadcast
• “Repurposing is huge.”
• The future of Facebook Live
• Split screen = more viewers

Spilling Coffee = Trustworthy?

The post 029: Facebook Live, Periscope & The Power Of Live Streaming Video w/Alessandra Colaci appeared first on Evolving SEO.

Dave recently led a 138X growth in blog traffic for Drift. In today’s episode he’ll tell us how they achieved this growth – and to put that tangibly – it was 198 visits a month in October, and last month they received 27,369 visits to the blog. He’ll tell us why he ignores analytics, how he leveraged cold email outreach … and actually didn’t even have a plan, yet still achieved this growth.

We also chat about how to leverage community sites like Inbound.org and Growth Hackers by self submitting without seeming self-promotional, why most startups suck at PR, why Drift ditched all gated content, and how their Podcast gets over 10,000 downloads a month.

Also discussed in this action packed interview – side-projects, books, bad podcast hosts and “sneezers”.

Dave Gerhardt has worked with companies like Constant Contact, Hubspot and now runs marketing for Drift (a company founded by David Cancel and Elias Torres, former Hubspot execs).

Enjoy!

And please subscribe on iTunes!

Links

• Drift
• Tech in Boston
• HubSpot
• Stop Gating Our Content
• Six Things We Learned About Content Marketing
• How Slack Grew Into a Billion Dollar Company
• Why Most Startups Suck at PR
• Where Do Sneezers Come From?
• Growth Hackers
• Inbound
• SoundCloud
• Seeking Wisdom Podcast
• Fresh Air w/ Terry Gross
• A Side Project Helped Jumpstart My Career
• Recommended Books
• Shoe Dog

People

• Dave Gerhardt
• Seth Godin
• David Cancel
• Elias Torres
• Phil Knight

Agenda

Dave’s background

What is Drift?

Gated Content

• The wrong way to market
• “Make all your content free.”

Content Marketing

• “There wasn’t a plan.”
• Content PR
• Compounding effects

Creation Process

• “We only promote 1-2 pieces at a time.”

Content Promotion

• Cold emailing?
• Posting on communities
• “I started writing-out the content on the forum (rather than just a link).”
• “Self promotion is okay when you’re the one who wrote the post and explain why you’re posting.”

Startups and PR

• “A lot of startups are telling the wrong story.”
• Transparency
• “What’s your story?”

Drift Podcast

• 10,000 downloads per month?
• “Keep a conversation going.”

The post 028: Drift’s 138X Blog Traffic Growth, Ditching Gated Content w/Dave Gerhardt appeared first on Evolving SEO.

When I read Sam’s post “The Hard Choices Behind How Inbound.org Grew 5x” (they now have over 160,000 members) I knew I needed to get Sam on Experts On The Wire.

We dissect many of the elements of their growth, including – why you need to ignore your earliest adopters, keeping a team focused on one thing (only the things you can grow with statistical significance!), how they leveraged SEO, their homepage algorithm – and the secrets behind the “persona” and micro-copy on Inbound (hint: it’s modeled after a real person!)

Enjoy!

And don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes!

Links

• HubSpot
• Inbound
• How Inbound Grew 5x
• Moz
• How Not to F**k Up Your First 90 Days as CMO
• Stack Overflow
• Quora
• How HubSpot Writes Microcopy
• MailChimp Style Guide
• 37 Signals
• Why Medium Works
• My Favorite Sales Email Ever
• How to Sell Better Than Amazon

People

• Sam Mallikarjunan
• Dharmesh Shah
• Rand Fishkin
• Mary Green
• Ed Fry
• Alex Schultz
• Alaura Weaver
• Brian Lenney
• Casey Henry
• Gary Vaynerchuk

Agenda

What is HubSpot Labs?

Inbound.org

• “It started as Dharmesh and Rand’s side project but got too big.”
• How Inbound grew (a lot)
• “We tried to create the Avengers team of the marketing world.”

Growth Tactics

• “Your early adopters will rarely form the core of your future growth.”
• “Velocity indicates value.”
• Featured content
• “Should we allow people to sign-up without Twitter?”

Personas

• The why is more important than the who
• Implicit and explicit data

Measurement

• Statistical significance
• “Let’s get to X number of subscribers before we start doing advanced lead attribution.”
• Build a reliable bank of data

SEO and Inbound.org

• “We’re going to stop building new features and focus on SEO.”
• The Smartest Inbound Marketing Community Online
• Using microcopy
• “Tone/personality of site is modeled after……”
• “Puts happy juice in your brain.”

Depth and Width

• Width of opportunity is a more valuable business practice
• Many ecommerce sites lack the confidence that customers will buy again

Publishing on Outside Sites (LinkedIn Pulse/Medium)

• Focus on building your own sustainable blog/brand

Humor

• Don’t ask, “Does humor work?” but “Does it work with the persona I’m going after?”

Dharmesh Wisdom

• “Focus, focus, focus.”
• “Always solve for the customer.”

The post 027: Growth Marketing Lessons From Inbound.org’s 5x User Growth w/Sam Mallikarjunan appeared first on Evolving SEO.