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SEO updates you need to know
Sponsor: Semrush
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Search with Candour podcast
Using AI responsibly in your marketing
Season 4: Episode 61
Jack Chambers Ward welcomes returning guest Sarah McDowell to discuss AI and LLMs and how theyβre responsibly integrating them into their work processes.
Jack & Sarah share AI usage stats, note the split between adopters and non-adopters, and cover concerns including environmental impact, big tech/data issues, hallucinations and fabricated reporting, and the need for clearer disclosure when AI is used.
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This week's solicited tips:
There are two kinds of strategies, my friend
It is WILD the number of SEO practitioners that will provide a detailed SEO strategy after 30min of speaking to a client about their business. Some things I like to consider β¬
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Generally, we start with auditing to find out things like:
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π» How much technical input will we need? Is there anything that will hamper our other efforts? Are we sitting on unrealised potential?
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π What has the client tried before? What is currently working well? What is not working well? What currently exists? At what magnitude?
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πββοΈ What are successful competitors doing differently? At what scale? How far behind at we?
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π― Does our plan complement business objectives? Does it work with the clientβs brand?
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β What resources do we have to execute? What is the budget? What internal resources and skills does the client have? What is the time frame?
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There are a lot of things you won't know going into an engagement and it's likely there are a lot of things your client doesn't know about SEO.
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This area of unknown unknowns is a dangerous place to make decisions from!
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I've never seen so much SEO wasted so badly
Golden rule of SEO:
There is absolutely no 'SEO change' you should do on your site that will make the user experience worse.
None.
No exceptions. πββοΈ
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I'll keep the SEO, you can have the GEO
The biggest 'GEO' levers you can pull are nothing to do with 'chunking' or llms.txt. I get these all the time and I am doing no 'GEO'.
Most people aren't doing fundamentals in a coherent and consistent way.
Unpopular? Yes.
True? Also, yes.
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You have a site beautiful enough to be worth two thousand dollars
How much should a site migration cost? There is actually a pretty easy answer to this, whether you are an SEO or a business owner πΈ
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π While opportunities can present themselves, a 'true' migration is primarily a risk mitigation activity, so think in these terms. You shouldn't invest a larger sum in a site migration than the value of the risk you are mitigating. It makes sense in the same way you wouldn't agree to $5,000 a year insurance on a car that you bought for $1,000.
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βοΈ Quantifying risk can be tricky, but a rule of thumb I apply is applying the chance of the risk happening against the value of the risk. This means if I decide I have $10,000 of value at risk, but there is a 50% chance, I simplify that to a $5,000 risk, as that is what I will lose on average.
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ποΈ At Candour we will conduct risk assessments for migration, which look at dozens of factors to try and calculate the risk. Here are just 3 things we look at that I think are important:
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1οΈβ£ Branded vs unbranded traffic split. In general branded traffic is very difficult to lose, so high percentage of branded traffic makes migrations less risky, whereas reliance on lots of unbranded traffic means it could easily go elsewhere.
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2οΈβ£ Traffic split over # of pages. If 90% of your traffic is landing on your homepage, the complexity and risk of the migration is likely low. If 90% of your traffic is spread over 9,000 pages, there is a lot more that can potentially go wrong.
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3οΈβ£ How closely the new site mirrors the current site. Multiple migrations (URLs, CMS, server, etc) carry a much higher risk than maintaining parity.
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There is a lot to consider, but when you go through these factors you will soon realise that migrations are not a thing to be rushed! π¦
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When you have to disavow, disavow. Don't talk.
I have seen lots of credible evidence from people like Martin McGarry that the disavow file is still effective at fighting particularly brutal link spam. (In almost all cases you shouldn't be touching it though)
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Image shows peaks/troughs in traffic of link spam attacks vs disavows.
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Women to follow in searchβοΈ
Following on from International Women's Day this weekend, I would like to share an unordered and incomplete list of some amazing women in the search space I know that you can follow on LinkedIn:
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π BengΓΌ SarΔ±ca DinΓ§er - analytics and measurement queen
π Giulia Panozzo - applying actual science to search
π chima mmejeπ³οΈβπ - FCDC founder, always lifting others
π Areej AbuAli - Founder of Women in Tech SEO
π Yagmur Simsek - Search 'n' Stuff Founder (among 1000 other things)
π Tamara NovitoviΔ - Knows everything worthwhile on link building
π Shelley Walsh - OG who runs brilliant IMHO YouTube SEO channel
π Dawn Anderson - One of the most knowledge SEOs on IR in the field
π Natalia Witczyk - International expert with recent focus on China
π Aleyda SolΓs - It's Aleyda :D she runs SEOFOMO
π Emina Demiri - Brilliant speaker on ethnical AI use in search
π Eva Mermingi - Founder of Athens SEO (you're going right?)
π Laura Iancu - Apart from fantastic SEO, amazing photographer
π Lily Ray - Consistently great analysis, sense and strategy
π Iva Jovanovic - Heap space/con and Belgrade SEO organiser & 188
π Faezeh Shafiee - Super-experienced content specialist
π Alison Moss - Don't get much more SEO XP than working in igaming
π Gokce Yesilbas - Great speaker doing TR search content on YT
π Jo O'Reilly - Digital PR powerhouse (and SearchNorwich speaker :D)
π Gabi Troxler - Founder of the double-inverted pyramid
π Jo Furnival - The mastermind of the Sitebulb content you see
π Jo Juliana Turnbull - Organiser of many things, including SearchLondon
π Muskan Singh πΈ - Freelance content strategy and writing for B2B SaaS
π Dena Warren - Ecommerce SEO bod and recent SWC guest
π Nikki Pilkington - Antidote for a lot of the SEO space
π Louise Linehan - Ahrefs content and someone I want to see speak!
π Clara Soteras Acosta - News SEO and Discover
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