#seoisaeo Podcast - Expert Interviews At Major Digital Marketing Conferences

Lily Ray with Jason Barnard at BrightonSEO April 2019 Lily Ray talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about E-A-T, the how, they why and the what to do! John Bonham, Keith Moon … Lily Ray. Rock drummer icons all :) Lily sets herself apart because a) she is alive and b) she knows boatloads about E-A-T. We discuss August and March updates. I suggest that Google has a slap-and-reward system. Lily politely ignores that, and gives some very encouraging information about E-A-T. Much of it is an easy fix. She then identifies what the constituent parts of building E-A-T really are. I ask for a lot of free advice. And Lily very kindly gives it to me – she is super practical and smart. We now need to be obsessed by Brand SERPs. And even gossip sites can be useful, as can comic sites… as long as they provide useful information. Pure buzz has no long term value. Trust rank is (perhaps) a thing? Then Lily finishes with a wonderful summary of the fundamental point of an SEO’s job.

Robert Gerrish with Jason Barnard at Copycon 2019 Robert Gerrish talks to Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about imposter syndrome. At CopyCon, Robert gave an amazing talk based on the book by Dr Valery Young “the secret thoughts of successful women, why capable people suffer from imposter syndrome and how to thrive in spite of it”. Over 70% of people struggle from imposter syndrome at some point in their working life. And, of course this happens to men and women in any industry. The five types of people who suffer from imposter syndrome (according to Valery Young): perfectionist, superwoman, natural genius, soloist, expert. This is a phenomenally interesting conversation about something that isn’t directly digital marketing but is well worth the listen.

Nils de Moor with Jason Barnard at BrightonSEO April 2019 Nils de Moor talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about SEO on the edge. Why not use Content Delivery Networks to manage some of our tech SEO? And not just the simple static stuff. CDN nodes allow us to intercept the request and adapt the content on the Edge without even going back to the original host. Several use cases: speed, overcoming restrictions of your host platform, A/B testing. Most importantly, it frees the SEO practitioner from some of the shackles that the tech imposes, which is brill. But not without its dangers… it is easy for an SEO changing content on the Edge to mess up big time, so demarcation and chain of commands are vital. And for anyone who knows ‘the Google Tag Manager’ trick of changing HTML on the fly, please note that this is more reliable, better performing, faster, has more use cases… And it gets better and better as the conversation progresses. Getting access logs from the host ever been difficult? You can

Andrea Volpini with Jason Barnard at TakeItOffline Brighton 2019 Andrea Volpini talks with Jason Barnard about the semantic web from 2000 to 2019, and beyond. This conversation packs in a phenomenal amount of fascinating information about linked data, knowledge graphs, Artificial Intelligence (AI), machines… Andrea started working on semantic web technologies back in 2000 – so Andrea has been expecting the web to transition from being page based to being entity based for 20 years (see also Bill Slawski and Sergey Brin). All three have waited patiently for a long time and were starting to get impatient :) I then get unreasonably excited at the mention of Tim Berners Lee and his web of meanings. I find out that AI is hungry for data (as opposed to angry with data, as I had understood after a few beers the previous evening). Building a knowledge graph is a way to transfer the knowledge you have in a specific domain to the world, and in that sense it is much like a webpage. Andrea foolishly mentions the mo

Milosz Krasinski with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Milosz Krasinski talks with Jason Barnard about building links and the unexpected tricks in order to do so. Milosz and I debate the merits of different social media platforms, then how that plays into linkbuilding. Find the right people, the right angle, the right introductions… then adapt your personality to the type of person you are interacting with. There are only three types: salesman (Milosz), maeven (Omi Sido), connector (Anton). Navah Hopkins mentioned dividing people into 3 groups: geeks, nerds and a dork. I overstep the reasonable and suggest that three is the magic number … But then Milosz tells me 7 is the magic number. Or maybe 4. But then again, it might be 3. Turns out which of those 3 (doesn’t that just prove my point ;) is the magic number, it depends the context! As the conversation goes on, Milosz gives me half a dozen stunning tips and tricks for outreach for links – starting with the obvious – authority, sentiment analysis,

Lukasz Zelezny with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Lukasz Zelezny talks with Jason Barnard about the tactics for organic traffic growth. Lukasz is a drum and bass DJ… so we discuss how many digital marketers were once musicians / in the arts. I discover that Lukasz loves stories and adores metaphors – through which he shares super tips for imporving your SEO and increasing organic traffic (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. We both get excited about reducing flowery content – be honest, direct, straight to the answer. And we end with a big fat smiley agree-fest ! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj91l-uqwH4 Lukasz runs an SEO agency in London. Find out more here

Joshua Hardwick with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Joshua Hardwick talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SER Guy) about link building and outreach. 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 worth chasing without links? Not if you want to rank for anything worthwhile, it seems. Hrefs did a study last year – almost a billion pages – and found a straight correlation between links and ranking. Joshua hopes to rerun the study to see if that correlation is less strong a year on. I end with a very stupid question : what is your favourite topic for blog posti

Hannah Thorpe with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Hannah Thorpe talks with Jason Barnard about SEO without traffic: the world of voice search, knowledge graph and brand. 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 path changes at every execution, and there is therefore no specific set of tasks to do since the path is never predictable. She then explains what authority and relevancy are, and how brands can approach a search / discovery world where they are key. Entity as a ranking factor and how to make the most of that insight (clue: much more than SEO)

Steven van Vessum with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Steven van Vessum talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about learning from mistakes. 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 search engine optimisation 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 each individual should put those pieces together in the way that suits them and thus build their own unique “SEO puzzle” in their minds. BUT, after that great start, Steven gets carried away: SEO is like pancakes and SEOs are like children… And some well-known SEOs talk rubbish (no names are mentioned, though – with no editing required :)

Gianluca Fiorelli with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Gianluca Fiorelli talks with Jason Barnard about international digital marketing. Gianluca gives me my first sing back. Building an international digital marketing 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 Spain vs UK, and therefore those that will give the best traction – different for each. Think localisation of a global brand or product, not simply globalisation. It is phenomenally important to take into consideration applicable laws and regulations – Schengen is a great example of this. We get overexcited about href lang in Spanish countries, French countries an

Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Jason Barnard talks about The Google Cookbook - Making Content Easy to Digest 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, since that encourages us to better organise categories, pages, and even Fraggles. I realise that I have been saying that I am a double bass. Alex gives me a taste of my own medicine by asking a question I wasn’t ready for. I wriggle through by quoting Jono Alderson and Cindy Krum – chunks, blocks and Fraggles. I cite so many people, it is starting to feel that I don’t have much to say for myself. Conc

Viktoria Mamatova with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Viktoria Mamatova talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about making your Twitter truly social. 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 !). Fundamentally: stay true to yourself, be enthusiastic and stay relevant … and everything will work out fine. Learn here about the relevance of Twitter Boxes on your Brand SERP.

Navah Hopkins with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Navah Hopkins talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about chasing quality and quality score. 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 border collies ain’t so smart). I get over-enthusiastic about DSA, confused about pipes, and yet (somehow) I strike gold. Lastly, Navah tells us about the three A’s… Automation, audiences and attribution – the key to the future. Then, to cap it all, I get Navah’s name wrong !

Alexandra Tachalova with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Alexandra Tachalova talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about how to not let bad promotion kill your content. 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). Link building 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 cheeky back scratching goes on and I beg for a link from Digital Olympus. I stop the conversation the moment Alex agrees with my analysis of the situation…

Judith Lewis with Jason Barnard at SEOcamp Paris 2019 Judith Lewis talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about creating a killer digital strategy. 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. Judith gets enthusiastic about Amazon, and tells me that we are not selling traffic, selling visibility. Bob’s Polo Shirt Emporium gets a special mention and Judith analyses their performance in search. So if you are listening, Bob, just listen to the end to get some free advice.

Cindy Krum with Jason Barnard at SEOcamp Paris 2019 Cindy Krum talks with Jason Barnard about what fraggles means for mobile-first indexing. 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 AMP version of your site. I call Cindy a genius :) Then she has a bit of a quite delightful rant about Google. Oh, and if you are publisher, Google is trying to put you out of business. Last of all… new version of the outro song – so you HAVE to listen all the way through :)

Gennaro Cuofano with Jason Barnard at SEOcamp Paris 2019 Gennaro Cuofano talks with Jason Barnard about Google's business model. 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 them! And lastly, the 100 billion dollar question – how is Google’s business model going to evolve in the coming years?

Deepak Shukla with Jason Barnard at Digital Olympus 2019 Deepak Shukla talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about building your personal brand. 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 from PearlLemon by proxy). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZcDRSEw18

Craig Campbell with Jason Barnard at SEOcamp Paris 2019 Craig Campbell talks with Jason Barnard about smart social media strategies. 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.

Laurence O'Toole with Jason Barnard at SEOcamp Paris 2019 Laurence O'Toole talks with Jason Barnard about topic clusters. 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 ! Helpful Resources About Topic Clusters Stop Talking about Keyword Intent and Focus on What We Can Implement – Advanced SEO Automation TechniquesGoogle Question Hub – Is it Useful for SEO?