Specific SEO strategies worth re-thinking

This is the first-ever recording of Gulo's Web Marketing Insights Podcast. Chris and Zach discuss how the Insights Podcast will tackle topics such as user experience, conversion rate optimization and SEO.

We take aim at a variety of challenges digital marketers face today: 

• What should you do about Google's BERT updates?
• What makes good SEO?
• Upping your backlink game.
• The Conversational Web and key phrases around it.
• What's the cost of doing nothing.

Transcript

spk_0:   0:08
thistles gonna be our agency podcast for talking about solutions that air for results driven marketers and ideas and insights specifically in the vein of, ah, user experience, which were extraordinarily passionate about s CEO, which were also extraordinarily passionate about and conversion optimization, which, um, we're also extraordinarily passionate about and how all these things are connected. We're gonna talk about just our own experience problems, Saul, solutions, insights, and ah, and and and pains that we encounter internally marketing ourselves and externally that we face with some of our clients. What's your biggest? Ah, what's your biggest pain these days in the vein of ah, s e o. You do a lot of S e o ah, you do a lot of content marketing for Gullo as obviously a VP of strategy. Um, what are some of the things that you encounter?

spk_1:   1:15
Yeah, I think Villages. Yeah, I think the two couple things that come to mind on that are for s CEO. And what kind of challenges? Our is number one just understanding where the algorithm sits. And Burke is coming out now. So what will that do? How are our rankings? Um, you know, going to be affected by these things with this sort of perpetual back of your mind. Like this looks great today. But what will it look like tomorrow? Literally tomorrow? Well, with my featured snippet gone, we've seen featured snippets Show up, go away and come back. Um, and I think that's really just sort of the unease off of CEO for me right now. The good news is it depends on what you need the S e o. For if you're an e commerce situation, this is driving every conversion and transaction for your businesses online. That's a much deeper concern than us who are positioning ourselves. And and maybe another organization or association is trying position themselves as a thought leader or providing knowledge to the industry. Having a number one ranking or featured snippet is great, but it isn't as its critical of a piece. So I think that's one thing. But for those that this is critical or that you sort of want to tout where you're at from an SDO perspective just in the back, your mind knowing that it might change on then the other thing is just understanding the right kind of back a link strategy and how important back links really are. We know they're important. We know their major signal. We know all the components of the authorities of the sites that are linking to you what those links look like and how they're worded all matters. But to find the energy and the time for a small business, too. Um, nurture on ongoing back Linc campaign. Regardless, what kind of organization you are, I think, is a real challenge to understand. We've had sites link with rate with minimal back links, but also, those key words have not been super competitive. So for me, what sort of nags at me is what? How do we up our back linked game? How do we help our clients with their back Linc game to make sure that that's pushing everything forward?

spk_0:   3:29
Yeah, and there's just to speak to first the Burt update. Ah, that I believe it's not two weeks ago. Um, there's ah ah. There's a strong reaction from people, digital marketers and ah, other digital agencies. Really, that were like this big, visceral reaction of Oh, no. Oh, no. You know what? When am I gonna fall off the cliff? When am I gonna fall off the cliff and the general take away from, um, me and and and and people I trust in the marketplace, huh? Is that Don't worry about it. Is just keep doing what you're doing and putting out, uh, putting out great content and really trying to speak to your audience and speak specifically about Ah, you know what? What? What? You what? What you do Whether it's, you know, whether that's, ah, an organization talking about nutrition or any commerce Ah, selling nutrition bars or, you know, Ah CPG ah in in sort of like, ah, in in sort of pharmaceuticals like you just you gotta you gotta put out things that speak to your audience and resonate with your audience Because Google is just constantly running the running these little micro test, son, whether or not people are clicking through to your site and whether they're staying there and that ultimately is going to be the gauge of where you sit in your ranking. So yeah, um, so So So that's that's That's ah, that's become my takeaway in the last nine weeks. And e think some of the people that I respect our that's their take away too. Um and ah, good as

spk_1:   5:39
CEO is good as CEO. Right? And if

spk_0:   5:41
you dropped a little

spk_1:   5:42
bit, hang tough, make some modifications based on what you know, perhaps, but it's still the cream still rises to the top of the end of the right. Seems

spk_0:   5:50
right, right, right. And there was a front with some of our clients. There was there was a little bit of Ah, uh, we saw some trends leading up to it. Ah, if we're looking back at historical in the weeks leading up, there were some. There were some dips, and then Burt came out, and, uh, those those things actually came to rise. We saw that with a handful of clients, which was really interesting. You know, it's it's hard. It's hard to understand it. In hindsight, you can see what was happening. But as we're watching it on a day to day basis for a week to week basis, you're like, you know what's changed, what's happening, etcetera. And and you do get a little paranoid. But in hindsight, it was because there was these rollouts were coming out and they were testing the waters, and, you know, Now all of those are continuing to level out a little bit. So, um

spk_1:   6:47
yeah, I know it's a great point, and I think if there's one other thing that I think as far as an educational perspective goes talking with with clients and even looking at it ourselves, um, you know what? And this isn't a new topic. People have been talking about this for a while, but you know what, really are the ramifications to an organization, Um, by having featured snippets by having people also asked by having videos, You know, all the elements that are on this on results page now can actually almost be overwhelming. The knowledge panel etcetera these air keeping people from clicking through the other sites. And how do you strategize your S C O to take advantage of that? So you're not just a victim of it, but you can actually take advantage of it and speak up the chain at your organization to say, Well, our cliques are fewer because of a featured snippet or whatever it might be, but it doesn't ah, and that affects click throughs per se. But the idea that people are still getting the information from us and our authority in the industry or whatever it might be again, we're not talking about transactional e commerce. We're talking about sort of, ah, providing value and thought work and and thought leadership out into the world. Um, they're still getting a lot of their information from us because we're ranking well, but cliques are going down, you know, Um, and when you look at something like the people also ask, um, those convey Very. I was reading something with you Can. I mean, if you start clicking on those, they start expanding. Up to 20 or 30 of those little bars could stop pop popping up once. That's sort of the rabbit hole. You go down. Google's like, Hey, there's a whole bunch of stuff here that you might want to know about right? That's also a part of, like, how What? How important are your H two's with in your primary post to accommodate some of those questions? It doesn't have to necessarily be the title of your posts is what that question has to be. It can be somewhere in your age, too. So just from a copy writing perspective, you, you know, really and it kind of goes back to that idea of the conversational Web as well, where we want more. We want to be in more speaking terms with our readers as opposed to some sort of topical situation. Or maybe feel that more like a newspaper headline. This has to be like asking people the question in written form. So the Google understands what you're trying to answer through your post on. I think that's a little bit of a new Wannsee kind of for a new B SC. Oh, that's a nuance that you wanna consider for

spk_0:   9:28
sure, right, And on eso a couple of things there. I mean, one I want to talk about Ah, the those conversational Web phrases. And if you remember last week we were in a meeting that with a client that there there's there. They're not producing a lot of new content and they're frustrated because you're not expanding their audience and things like that. And, uh, we did, Ah, we did a little bit of we did a little bit of research, and, um, we did some surveying of their current customers. And lo and behold, what? What what came up? How to do. Act yes, remember, right? And And it was, and it was like, Well, so So what's? So there's there's two things. One. There's two things there is. Is targeting your targeting your content too again your audience and answering those questions for your audience, especially in the in the world of, ah, associations. Because you're an authority you need to be. You need to be the provider of of those answers and and you can write content that answers specifically those questions and then to which another thing that you touched on really lightly is, um, is what's the cost of doing nothing. We have another. We have another client. We're working with me where There they just they've completely stagnated because they're not producing more content. And there their their audience is just has been flat for, you know, a year and change. And you look back at the historical data and they haven't They haven't produced anything of value. They're producing this content that's got 10 words on a page, and it's like you're not gonna You're not gonna court anybody with, um, this really like low value content that doesn't answer questions. And so, um s Oh, there's there's there's a lot there and you go back to another thing that you were alluding to is just What's your What's your holistic digital strategy? Write what you know. You exactly. You're not in

spk_1:   11:41
it or you're not. It's not right and javelin. Yeah,

spk_0:   11:43
right, Right, right. And so you do have to have you do have to have some some framework for that. You know, even if it's even if it's like five bullet points on on a white horse, you gotta look at that and tell us a little What are we doing? Yeah, you can only fight so many battles. So, um yeah. So anyway, there's there's a lot there. It's kind of Ah, it's a great conversation. Hi, everybody. Thanks for checking out the podcast today. Go to Google.

spk_1:   12:12
Oh, solutions dot com to learn more about

spk_0:   12:14
us. Subscribe to our newsletter. Also, if you can hit subscribe on our channel here on YouTube, that would be great as well