Search Engine Journal Show – Details, episodes & analysis

Join us as we look at how your online reputation and local marketing strategies can drive revenue for your business, while avoiding pitfalls along the way.

With guest Raj Nijjer of Edge, we’ll dive into the revenue impacts that your online reputation can have, and why this reputation building should be crucial in your planning.

Join your host Loren Baker, as he and Raj discuss how to avoid wasteful strategies of local marketing and multi-location businesses, plus a couple tips on how a good reputation can help attract and retain top talent.

[01:14] - Raj's Background and Journey to Edge.
[02:44] - Edge's Concept of Employee-Driven Growth and Its Connection to Google Reviews.
[10:34] - How Reviews Contribute to Local SEO.
[11:27] - Customer-Facing End: In-Depth Reviews and Personalization.
[13:24] - Standing Out in Cutthroat Competition: Franchises and Service Businesses.
[14:37] - Motivating Employees and Transparent Recognition Through Reviews.
[20:49] - Reputation Management and Injecting Employee Recognition.
[45:06] - Employee Retention During Challenges Like The COVID-19 Pandemic.

We encourage businesses to amplify positive reviews and learn from the negative reviews. - Raj Nijjer, 5:34

Now not only does the brand win and the business win, but employees can feel great or a person can feel great about the job that they've done. - Raj Nijjer, 9:21

Positive reviews are so important. There's one stat I read on your site…53% of customers won't go to a business rated under four stars. - Loren Baker, 15:21

I think the injection of motivating and recognizing your employees while they're doing this service is something that we're very proud of, because we can see which employees are doing really well. And then you can duplicate that. - Raj Nijjer, 21:44

Our goal is to marry the marketing with operational excellence. You want to hold people accountable, especially if you're rewarding them. - Raj Nijjer, 30:53

I think one thing COVID taught every business owner is employee retention and how hard it's been to find people and when a displacement happens, it really jeopardizes your business if you don't plan it well. So you want to keep your superstars, don't ever lose your superstars. - Raj Nijjer - 41:10

Resources Mentioned:

• Edge

Connect With Raj Nijjer:

Raj is Head of Marketing for Edge, an employee-driven growth platform for service brands. Previously, he was the CMO of Refersion (acquired), and held executive marketing roles at Yotpo and Yext (IPO in 2017). Raj also spent over nine years at Godaddy (IPO in 2015) in leadership roles launching innovative product lines with over ten patents issued and leading to a PE buyout and an IPO.

Raj is also fractional CMO to early and mid-stage technology startups. Raj received his Bachelors of Science degree in International Management and his MBA from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajnijjer/
Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RajNijjer

Connect with Loren Baker:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker
Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker 

Join us as we explore how to prove that SEO matters to resistant stakeholders and C-suite executives, along with ways to combat the external noise affecting the outlook on SEO efforts.

Dan brings his experience as a leading SEO consultant for top companies to this exclusive interview. He and Loren navigate the complexities of the shifting SEO landscape, and how to set realistic expectations in your business. 

They also dig into the potential risks and opportunities of AI in search, and what these drastic changes mean moving forward.

I think oftentimes in a lot of organizations, everyone's time poor, everyone has their own set of KPIs and objectives moving towards that bigger goal, and oftentimes SEO is trickled through. - Dan Taylor, 1:53

I think through that communication system framework, however you want to go around it or phrase it, it's about getting that shared buy-in. - Dan Taylor, 8:24

We have people planning their budgets and their SEO plans already, but with a little bit of a turbulent economy, sometimes it's a little bit of a question mark. - Loren Baker, 1:18

[00:43] - Dan's background and expertise
[01:53] - SEO planning and visibility tips.
[03:18] - Recommendations for visibility in SEO.
[04:14] - Managing expectations with AI.
[07:02] - Addressing SEO performance comparisons.
[08:24] - Effective communication for executive buy-in.
[11:17] - Combatting SEO Misinterpretations.
[15:52] - Personal Touch in Client Interactions.
[26:48] - Adapting SEO to Rich Media in Search Results.
[32:06] - Adaptations in the travel industry.

It’s having sincerity and it's actually having a human touch. - Dan Taylor, 14:40

Essentially that kind of battleground which we previously had in search is sort of being lost. Now it's understanding what the impact of that's going to be, whether or not it's going to be a major impact, minor impact, or if the impact overall is going to be redistributive. - Dan Taylor, 18:19

It's about trying to bring in what unique modifiers we can into the actual product pages themselves...So how can we create a differentiator? It was this concept we had called champion products. - Dan Taylor, 21:03

Resources Mentioned:

• Mirador Local

Connect with Dan Taylor:

Dan Taylor is a recognized SEO professional, having worked with a number of companies in strategically helping them increase their organic market visibility and overcome technical challenges. Having consulted and worked with companies like Cloudflare, Proton, and China Southern Airlines, Dan has been featured in the leading SEO publications, as well as spoken at a number of SEO and marketing conferences in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and online.

Connect on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielrwtaylor/

Follow him on Twitter: https://twitter.com/taylordanrw

Connect with Loren Baker:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker 

Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker 

SEO and Site Migrations: Common Pitfalls To Avoid 

with Arnout Hellemans

Migrations can be time consuming and stressful, even more-so when you don't have company-wide collaboration and alignment, or when you're worried about drops in rankings.

Come learn some myth-busting migration tips shared between our host, Loren Baker, and freelance SEO and analytics consultant, Arnout Hellemans.

Arnout has seen plenty of migrations go bad. Hear actual case studies on what not to do to have better success. Join us for this can't miss episode.

Arnout Hellemans is a freelance SEO and analytics consultant based in Amsterdam but mostly working for clients all over Europe and the US. He just loves solving SEO puzzles. He has been freelancing since 2010 and loves it.

Connect with Arnout Hellemans: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arnouthellemans/

X: https://twitter.com/hellemans

Connect with Loren Baker, Founder of Search Engine Journal:

Follow him on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/lorenbaker 

Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorenbaker

Our host, Loren Baker, is joined by an SEO analyst and expert, Joe Hall of Hall Analysis. Joe shares his insights and everything you need to know about performing a successful SEO audit. What makes a website stand out? Are you – or your clients - making an elaborate effort to make your presence known?

With Joe’s vast experience collaborating with the world’s largest Fortune 500 companies and Silicon Valley Startups, strategy development and in-depth SEO analysis are right up in his alley.

In this episode, Joe enlightens us with often-forgotten SEO auditing issues, like: how to recognize your limitations, having a strategic vs. tactical mindset, establishing best practices, and so much more!

SEO and E-commerce Loren Baker, our host, spoke with Kevin Indig of Shopify, who shared his insights into the challenges of Enterprise SEO and e-commerce with us.

In this episode, we'll learn about Shopify and its features, as well as its benefits and drawbacks and how it helps businesses and startups gain exposure.

If you feel this show gives you the tools to improve your SEO and create brand awareness, make sure to subscribe not to miss any episode. Leave a five-star rating, review, and share to help more entrepreneurs grow their businesses. 

In this episode, our guest is Marty Weintraub. He is the founder of AimClear, a driven Integrated Marketing Agency dominant in customer acquisition and winner of 17 US Search Awards, including 5X most recent Best Integrated Agency. AimClear’s differentiator is the balance of holistic brand-builds, PR, data, and integrated performance marketing.

Frederick Vallaeys joins Loren Baker to talk about PPC and automation trends introduced by the ad engines. Automation is everywhere – but what does it mean for practitioners? Are we being replaced by machines? How can we reskill to remain valuable to our clients/organizations?

Nicky Wake, founder of The Search Awards, joins Search Engine Journal founder Loren Baker to discuss the story of how she got started in the industry awards space, the growth of Search Awards in the U.K. & EU, and the expansion globally into the U.S.

Mark Traphagen, VP Product Marketing & Training at seoClarity, joins Search Engine Journal founder Loren Baker to discuss SEO automation. No longer a luxury add-on, automation is essential. Learn more about Edge SEO (the ability to make site changes “in the cloud” without involving IT or dev) and Cloudflare Workers – and whether this is the future of SEO, at scale.

Loren and Simon will be discussing Simon's SEO journey from the publisher side at AOL (TechCrunch & HuffPo) to his current "marketplace SEO" focus at Trader Interactive and previously with ForRent.com, and then a bit on working with smaller teams to efficiently get the SEO job done. Simon Heseltine is the VP of the award winning Audience Growth at Trader Interactive (Best In-House Team of 2020 at the Global Search Awards)