#seoisaeo Podcast - Expert Interviews At Major Digital Marketing Conferences

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?

Bill Slawski with Jason Barnard at SEOcamp Paris 2019 Bill Slawski talks with Jason Barnard about patents and entities in search since 1999. Patents are really easy (or so says Bill Slawski): 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 Hemingway 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. Along the way, we work back through the history of entities in search, starting 2019 and right back as far as 1998 (Sergueï Brin). This interview / conversation was recorded at 7 am in a bakers shop in Saint Denis near Paris and has an amazing backing track of coffee, bread and the locals chatting in Arabic and watching TV (don’t worry, it doesn’t

Fili Wiese with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Fili Wiese talks with Jason Barnard about pagespeed, sitespeed, lighthouse and HTTP/2. Sitespeed is all about user experience. With some incredible Lighthouse insights, tips and tricks, Fili Wiese makes me go all starry-eyed about Lighthouse (pagespeed 3.0). He follows that up with a few super lessons in HTTP/2, 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 :) Helpful Resources About Google Penalties Website Migration with BingYour Questions Answered About Google Penalties and Their Impact On Websites

Arnout Hellemans with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Arnout Hellemans talks with Jason Barnard about trust-building without links. 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 !

Kate Toon with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Kate Toon talks with Jason Barnard about conversational and conversion copy. 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 !

James Brockbank with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 James Brockbank talks with Jason Barnard about the challenges of digital PR campaigns. 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 to earn what the average Brit earns in a year !

Regine le Roux with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Regine le Roux talks with Jason Barnard about measuring reputation. 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 when the paw paw hits the fan :) Helpful Resources About Regine le Roux Regine le Roux Archives - BizNews.comWe Meet the Founder of Reputations Matter, Regine Le RouxRegine Le Roux Shares Why You Need To Be Proactively Managing Your ReputationCEOwise Words With Regine Le Roux - Each Generation’s Mode of EngagementRepursing Plastic Bags to Put Bread on Hout Bay Tables – Regine le Roux

Kristopher Jones with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Kristopher Jones talks to Jason Barnard about image search. 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.

Jono Alderson with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Jono Alderson talks with Jason Barnard about SEO and AEO in a world without websites. With the SERP increasingly offering solutions to queries, we are facing world where websites are increasingly less important (as it were). Jono Alderson talks extensively about on-SERP SEO, a great continuation of Rand Fishkin’s approach in this episode – communicating across channels, all along the user journey. SEO is the puppeteering of all the channels.Jono Alderson Not a volume game any more, it’s a right-fit and quality game.Jono Alderson Market to everybody and bring them gracefully down the funnelJono Alderson Plus we talk about WordPress, Jono tells me the interview was a Treat (great phrase !)… and right at the end, we discover that SEOisAEO rhymes with Jono ! Jason:SEO is AEO, welcome to the show, Jono: Anderson.Jono:Wow. Amazing, amazing.Jason:It's losing some of its shine.Jono:No, no, it was great.Jason:Lovely to meet you, Jono:. Thank you

Rand Fishkin with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Rand Fishkin talks with Jason Barnard about Digital Marketing Strategy. 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 Fishkin shares some rather good ideas about how to adapt to this new world. Oh, and watch out for the Green Pants. Rand talks about internet marketing, including social, influencers and no-click SERPs – all dressed up as the Four Horsemen. What you'll learn 00:01 Introduction to Rand Fishkin01:02 Discussing "Lost and founder by Rand Fishkin"02:03 Empathy is the most important skill for a marketer 02:47 Why should we be self-aware? 04:26 The Four Horseman of web marketing 05:08 Removal of social media reach 06:56 Google as the second horseman 07:30 Is influencer marketing working?08:35 Web advertising ROI is trending to zero09:35 Levels of traffic and what is most appealing10:16 Building a rap

Joost de Valk with Jason Barnard at YoastCon 2019 Joost de Valk talks with Jason Barnard about Google investing in Wordpress. Why is Google investing in WordPress. For speed? For structure (aka Gutenberg)? For Accelerated Mobile Pages? For PWA? Or just to make the web more Google-shaped? Joost cuts to the chase. Oh, and by the way, “making money is boring” – great stuff, Joost de Valk! What you'll learn 00:01 Introducing Joost de Valk01:56 The importance of funding diversity03:10 How impactful is Google's investment into WordPress?05:49 Speed : Is WordPress too slow?06:56 Why is the inclusion of AMP not possible?09:58 The benefits of PWA11:14 Embracing Gutenberg with its flaws13:15 The auditing of Plugins15:10 Yoast SEOs development16:14 Is WordPress threatened by Google?

Dan Saunders with Jason Barnard at SearchY Paris 2019 Dan Saunders talks with Jason Barnard about focusing on Amazon in AEO. Is Amazon the only place to look for the future of ecommerce? They certainly look to have a big advantage. Dan talks us through SEO and SEA on Amazon today and tomorrow. Looks like we might be underestimating this amazing opportunity.

Will Critchlow with Jason Barnard at SearchY Paris 2019 Will Critchlow talks with Jason Barnard about what to do when your SEO and CRO conflict. Split testing CRO is very common, split testing SEO hardly anyone does it. And even fewer bring the two together. Distilled do! And Will tells us all about why and how… They also mix-n-merge CRO and SEO split testing to help make the best decisions!