Garrett Sussman, Demand Generation Manager at iPullRank, continues his talk with Erin Sparks as they focus in on subject matter knowledge and meeting user, and client, behavioral needs. We explore the signals clients send when they’re looking elsewhere, and talk about his experience with Agency Ahead. [00:04:59] Garret’s experience in mining subject matter knowledge from clients to flesh out the Buyer’s Journey [00:06:50] The changing user behavior and subsequent content needs [00:09:36] Leverag...
Jul 20, 2021•29 min•Ep 435•Transcript available on Metacast In this week’s news roundup, Erin Sparks and Mordy Oberstein talk about Clubhouse’s partnership with TED, Google’s Pandu Nayak’s roadmap for MUM and a few important perspectives that Google’s John Mueller recently shared. [00:04:10] Clubhouse partners with TED to bring more thought leadership to the platform [00:09:04] The roadmap for MUM [00:19:26] Why some sites rank for unusual keywords [00:27:13] Sometimes SEO isn’t the answer
Jul 14, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Garrett Sussman, Demand Generation Manager at iPullRank, talks to us about his experience in developing tools to help connect agencies to clients and helps us understand the factors of that success. We also discuss the pitfalls of an Agency/Client relationship and when it is best to walk away. Learning the “Love Language” of your client is always the most important aspect. Listen to Segment 1 of our 2 part interview with Garrett on the EDGE. [00:03:43] 100 podcast episodes in a year! How did Gar...
Jul 13, 2021•30 min•Ep 433•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s roundup of News from the EDGE, Erin Sparks and Mordy Oberstein discuss Core Updates, recent opinions from Google’s John Mueller and the future of SEO work. [00:05:39] Google’s July Core Update is rolling out, following a flurry of prior updates throughout June [00:14:57] How long does Mueller think SEO takes for new pages? Loaded question, and “it depends” [00:22:23] Mueller doesn’t foresee SEO becoming obsolete, but thinks the day-to-day executions will evolve...
Jul 07, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast We went through the Bill Slawski-looking glass in this second part of our interview with the Gandalf of SEO. SEO strategy starts with knowledge of the entity you are wanting to market for as well as understanding the gaps that can be exploited. Bill provides a continued history of the entity-understanding journey Google is on, with the recent additions of BERT and Google’s Multitask Unified Model (MUM) rollout. [00:03:29] Patent author sleuthing [00:05:44] Understanding BERT. It’s been around lo...
Jul 06, 2021•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast While Erin’s away, Mordy Oberstein and Carolyn Lyden take the mic and cover four new developments in the Google ecosystem. We cover Fake News sites, journalist bios, FAQs in snippets and, drum roll, the Core Web Vitals algorithm update! [00:05:44] Study asserts a ton of Google’s ad traffic is coming from fake news sites [00:12:14] Google wants to bridge the gap between content and writer [00:17:44] We’re going to start seeing fewer FAQ drop downs in snippets [00:21:31] The Page Experience (Core ...
Jun 22, 2021•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast We speak with one of our favorite minds in search today, Bill Slawski of Go Fish Digital. Bill studies patents the way a librarian studies books. In this interview, we muse about the direction Google is heading and discuss the next evolution of understanding entity relationships. [00:03:59] When Bill got started in patent sleuthing [00:07:27] Tracking the authors of the patents, like authors of good books [00:13:40] Tying it all together: “You shall know a word by the company it keeps” [00:19:20...
Jun 22, 2021•34 min•Ep 429•Transcript available on Metacast Mordy Oberstein, George Nguyen and Jacob Mann host this week’s episode of News From The Edge. They wrestle the mic away from Erin Sparks to talk about Google’s stance on comparing ranking factors, explain creating Web Stories, and cover how Google is demoting libelous content. [00:03:17] Google says to not compare the importance of different ranking factors [00:10:01] Web Stories are here and it’s time to start making your own [00:19:54] Google’s demoting libelous content in an effort to surface...
Jun 15, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, we continue our conversation with Mark Traphagan about metrics that should be more important than rank. We also touch on whether Google even wants to give us clicks anymore, and how we might be wasting time even talking about them as much as we do in SEO. [00:04:44] What are some other metrics that should be more important than just rank? [00:11:25] It’s not about rank, at some point it’s a brand marketing position. [00:14:03] Does Google even want to give you a click? [00:15:02...
Jun 14, 2021•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s roundup of News from the EDGE, Erin Sparks and Wix’s Mordy Oberstein finally (yeah, our studio lost internet) get to cover the digital marketing and SEO news of the week. We dove into a number of items, including: [00:04:28] iContact acquires Moz. We’re saddened by the end of an era. [00:08:39] Google says that they don’t rank website pages differently than blog posts. Really? [00:15:47] June 2021 Core Update has rolled through. Another one is coming in July!...
Jun 10, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast What are the problems when analyzing and acting on data from enterprise-level SEO projects? With hundreds of thousands of pages to deal with, the utilization of machine learning is fastly becoming an essential resource. Mark Traphagen of SEO Clarity gives us his insights into these issues. He also gives us a perspective of what is a good make-up of an enterprise SEO skill set. Happy to have been able to catch up with Mark and have a good solid discussion. [00:06:22] Getting behind the curtain of...
Jun 08, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s roundup of News from the EDGE, Erin Sparks and Wix’s Mordy Oberstein a number of Google moves this week including very interesting jump links on featured snippets that don’t go off of headlines but off of Google reading and placing relevant references to the passages. There’s a brain at work here, folks! [00:06:46] Google Search Console removes the generic Rich Results [00:09:53] Google expands its Google Shopping integrations with eCommerce players [00:13:58] Google’s featured sn...
Jun 04, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Roger Montti shares with the EDGE audience some of his perspectives of the more contentious discussions that SEOs are having in the marketplace of ideas. We dig into what Google is really doing with the SERP and what the challenges are in reporting the larger perspective for the different audiences he serves. A key message in this interview is not to be afraid to put yourself out there. Great takes from a long-time contributor in the field. [00:02:41] The Zero-Click Discussion the realm of ideas...
Jun 04, 2021•35 min•Ep 423•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s roundup of News from the EDGE, Erin Sparks and Wix’s Mordy Oberstein explore the ways MUM may change search behavior, fall in love with the new Google Maps updates and revisit what we think matters when it comes to Core Web Vitals. [00:04:24] Something Special Hanging in our Production Booth [00:05:16] How MUM may change search behavior [00:14:31] Google Maps has some awesome new updates [00:20:36] Core Web Vitals: We don’t need all three
May 26, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this two-part interview, Roger Montti of Search Engine Journal talks about how last year’s pandemic affected SEOs who want to see each other and learn from one another. He and Erin Sparks talk about how new SEOs can’t be afraid to be challenged, Montti’s perspective on CWV and discuss that Wix & Wordpress spat. [00:04:24] Roger’s Publishing History [00:07:03] The Effect The Loss Of Conventions Have Had On The Seo Community. [00:13:08] Don’t Be Afraid To Be Challenged [00:14:19] Core Web Vital...
May 26, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s episode of EDGE of the Web, Erin Sparks and Wix’s Mordy Oberstein unpack the news about YouTube improving Creator Studio, new privacy-focused changes to Google Analytics and Tag Manager, Google’s statement on public blog networks and more. [00:02:47] YouTube is improving Creator Studio [00:12:06] Google Ads has privacy-focused changes coming for Analytics, Tag Manager [00:17:07] Google says link schemes from public blog networks are obvious [00:20:21] Google may be writing (or rew...
May 19, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Andrew “Optimisey” Cock-Starkey continued his discussion with us as we explored his tenants to help businesses do the small but powerful things that improve their websites. Things you can do right now. He clearly demonstrates the care he has towards his own clients and he used his Cambridge meetups to share information with his local business community. We also give the mic to Andrew to go through his run down of the Top 20 SEOS that You Should Follow, but possibly don’t. Andrew exemplifies the ...
May 18, 2021•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s News From The EDGE, host Erin Sparks, Wix’s Mordy Oberstein and EDGE Media Studio’s Creative Director Jacob Mann set expectations for Core Web Vitals, talk about the Moz analysis of GMB’s local justification, and weigh in on Clubhouse. [00:04:26] Core Web Vitals claimed to be a minor tie breaker [00:10:11] Local Justifications give an edge to GMB users [00:16:19] Clubhouse launches on Android, but the hype might be gone [00:21:58] Barry Schwartz #SEOSUPERSHIRT...
May 11, 2021•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Andrew Cock-Starkey (aka Andrew Optimisey) started to hold small conferences at a local college to help inform some of the local businesses of the best standards for digital marketing and search engine optimization. But that small college was Cambridge and you would not believe who came to speak there. Free pizza and beer didn’t hold a candle to the top-level thought leaders sharing their craft. This is our SEO community and Andrew Optimisey may have just shown us how to get together again after...
May 11, 2021•27 min•Ep 417•Transcript available on Metacast Join Erin & Mordy as they unpack how Google’s adding links to featured snippets, the new ability to report indexing issues, Bing’s new shopping feature and our favorite topic, Core Web Vitals. [00:04:25] Comparison shopping on Bing [00:09:08] Report indexing issues on Google Search Console [00:13:24] Elementor updates for Core Web Vitals [00:18:00] Google’s adding links to featured snippets...
May 04, 2021•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Host Erin Sparks talks to Pedro Dias, Ex-Google and now Head of SEO at Reach PLC, about critical thinking in SEO, his experiences working at Google, and more. [00:04:18] What Pedro experienced at Google during the first large algorithm changes [00:20:00] The path of critical SEO thinking compared to how Google is understanding quality. [00:23:40] What do beginning SEO professionals need to know to start the critical thinking journey? [00:28:39] Should we use the tools we have or something else? ...
May 03, 2021•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Join us as we give our take on the SEO news of the week for you. Grabbing ahold of the headlines, Mordy Oberstein and I spend time giving our two cents on the key things you should be looking at this week. [00:04:06] Google Testing Local Car Inventory [00:09:27] Google’s Scraping Its Q&A Function [00:13:51] Assessing The Impact Of The Product Review Update...
Apr 27, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Host Erin Sparks talks to Pedro Dias, Ex-Google and now Head of SEO at Reach PLC, about how Google views information, what companies should consider holding back and the philosophical challenges of controlling the world’s information. [00:05:37] Pedro was in the thick of the first Panda algorithm rollouts with Google in 2011 [00:07:14] Pedro’s take on Google dominance [00:13:39] Businesses need to do something Google cannot [00:21:25] The philosophical challenges of being both the Vehicle and th...
Apr 27, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast The SEO News to pay attention to this week includes Google’s ability to deal with long-form questions, the postponement of the Core Web Vitals update, and if FLoC will be blocked by default on nearly half of all websites when it rolls out. [00:03:19] Google Has Problems With Long-Form Question Answering A new research paper finds that Google still has issues answering nuanced questions that require complex elaboration. [00:12:19] WordPress Proposal To Block FLoC A new proposal in front of WordPr...
Apr 21, 2021•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast The face of tech has changed and the pie is getting bigger. We talk about Google’s FLOC and how the scene changes as privacy becomes paramount. Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content at Search Engine Land and SMX, also unpacks elitism, the backlash women in tech can face, how you can help, and how the narrative can be reframed to reflect inclusion. [00:04:13] What is FLoC? [00:12:48] Does Google get to decide that they're the arbiter of privacy and data? What do marketers say? [00:15:06] Caro...
Apr 16, 2021•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this week’s episode, we unpack two new updates from Google on their algorithm and Search Console, explore more info on Core Web Vitals and attempt to play nice about that antitrust lawsuit Google’s wrapped up in. [00:03:05 ] Google Announced Product Reviews Algorithm Update We suspect this update is aimed at all those affiliate links that websites are including in their reviews these days. [00:08:00] Google Launches Two Improvements To Search Console They’ve improved comparison modes, which l...
Apr 13, 2021•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ahead of SMX Create (April 13) we have the answer to what narratives are going to be top-of-mind in the SEO community post-pandemic. Carolyn Lyden, Director of Search Content at Search Engine Land and SMX, is on-the-record for dedicating herself towards raising up women and BIPOC business leaders. If a story affects marketers, Search Engine Land is going to tell you about it. [00:03:53] How did the Director of Content for Search Engine Land start in SEO? [00:09:03] Coming into the editorial job ...
Apr 09, 2021•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast We grabbed the top headlines of the week and complained about a couple of google overreaches, in your host’s humble opinion. Here what Erin and Mordy took on: [00:03:24] Company Knowledge Panels Showing Competitors on Google You can imagine some choice words might be said when a business looks at its Google knowledge panel(s) to see “alternatives” included who are competitors. [00:09:23] Expanded FAQs for Google Page Experience and Core Web Vitals Update The Google core web vitals and page exper...
Apr 06, 2021•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ashley Segura, Co-Founder and Operations VP of TopHatSocial, explains how to navigate the challenges of repurposing content in your omnichannel digital strategy. She recommends auditing your content quarterly, explains what you should be looking for and how to use the insights for your next content plan. And if you haven’t started using SlideShare yet, don’t start now. [00:03:43] What is content reuse in content marketing [00:04:58] When should you not repurpose content? [00:08:16] Is there ever...
Apr 05, 2021•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mordy joins Erin to go through some of the digital news on episode 406. [00:03:18] Will the SEMrush IPO Make a Splash? SEMrush went public last week with an IPO, including a total valuation approaching $2 billion. This is the first major IPO of a company that is laser-focused on SEO, not just digital marketing in general. [00:06:06] Hotel Property Promotion Ads Now Available Globally Google has launched its hotel property promotion ads initiative to help users see these ads when searching hotels...
Mar 30, 2021•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
