Mark writes in, "I am really struggling with the efficacy of search for most businesses. More than ever, the odds are stacked against us. 1) Some search is leaking out through Siri + Alexa 2) Most Google search (51%) is now "kept" by Google 3) You’re irrelevant unless you are in the top 1-3 slots.…
Welcome to 2020 Rewind! In this series, we’re taking a look at the year that was and the wonderful shows and podcasts that had me on as a guest this past year. A fair amount of the time, I’d rather read than listen, but podcasts, live streams, webinars, and videos were how we made media…
Stephanie asks, “Should I be creating content for search engines or people?” With the advent of modern, AI-driven SEO, this is largely the same thing. Transformer-based natural language processing makes writing for people and writing for machines much closer, thanks to the way machines understand and predict. Models like BERT now understand sentences and paragraphs,…
Masha asks, “What does it really mean to be an SEO expert? Considering the depth and breadth of SEO, is it even possible to be an expert on all aspects of SEO?” It depends on how we define SEO itself. SEO, or search engine optimization, is all about optimizing our digital properties to be found…
Tara asks, “With the confirmation of BERT’s role in search ranking as Google DeepRank, could you explain more what this means?” BERT is a model, which is like saying it’s a blender or a frying pan. It’s how BERT is used that impacts our understanding of its SEO impact. BERT is great at: – classification…
Summary In today's episode, I explain how Google's BERT model (now confirmed as part of "Deep Rank") works within the search ranking algorithm and what it means for your SEO strategy. Here's what this means for you. You gain a clear framework for creating content that aligns with what BERT rewards so your pages rank…
Sasha asks, “How do you check if your website is mobile-friendly?” There are four different, easy ways to check: The Mobile Friendly Test for a single URL Search Console for site-wide checks using the mobile usability tests Search Console for site-wide mobile Core Web Vitals Google Chrome Developer Tools to check the UX Watch the…
Elizabeth asks, “What’s the difference between digital PR and traditional PR?” This is in reference to a set of techniques promoted by search engine companies to focus PR outcomes on SEO. In reality, there isn’t and shouldn’t be a difference. If you’re doing public relations well, the outcomes are the same. There shouldn’t be a…
Summary In today's episode, I walk through how to optimize your YouTube videos for search using the actual framework YouTube has published about its recommendation algorithm. Here's what this means for you. You gain a technical and strategic playbook that turns YouTube into a high-performing distribution channel instead of an afterthought. You'll also learn these…
Thomas asks, “Is SEO still accessible to small businesses?” SEO is a high knowledge discipline. That knowledge is largely free, though some of the tools are not. However, it’s not something that’s both high knowledge and high cost, like search engine marketing (SEM) is. SEO requires three kinds of knowledge: domain expertise, audience knowledge, and…
