SEO Evolution: How to Win in 2025 With Helpful Content and Topical Authority (with Andrew Ansley) Part 3

In part 3 of my interview with Andrew Ansley, we unpack the evolution of SEO from pre-2022 tactics to today's entity-driven, user-focused strategies. 

Learn why stuffing keywords is dead, how RankBrain and BERT changed the game, and why helpful, structured content (plus user metrics) is the new key to ranking. 

Andrew also demystifies topical authority, shares how to recover if your site’s in the “loser’s bracket,” and offers actionable tips for entrepreneurs and small business owners who want to win with SEO—without burnout.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How Google’s approach to content and ranking has changed since 2018 (and again after 2022)
• What “entity SEO” and “topical authority” mean for your website
• Why user satisfaction and mobile-first indexing matter more than ever
• How to structure content for both users and bots (headers, visuals, and more)
• What it takes to move your site from the “loser’s bracket” to the winner’s bracket

📚 Resources & Mentions:

• 🛠️ Simple and Smart SEO + AI Starter Guide → [coming soon!]
• 📦 The Sustainable Visibility System → [waitlist]

Connect with Andrew Ansley:

• 💬  AI Marketeers Skool 
• 📝  Andrew’s article on Entity SEO 
• 🎥  YouTube

🙌🏽 Listener Action Steps:

1. Subscribe for weekly SEO strategy & visibility tips!

✨ Episode Highlights (Memorable Quotes):

• “Before 2018, Google had not even a pretend understanding of content. What they had was keyword matching... Now, it’s about understanding context and entities.”
• “It’s not about getting someone to stay on your webpage. It’s about satisfying their query so they don’t go back to Google.”

👩🏽‍💻 About Me:

Hi, I’m Crystal Waddell — SEO educator, Shopify seller, and visibility strategist for creative entrepreneurs. On this channel and podcast, I share practical, empowering tools to help you grow sustainably, show up confidently, and build a business that works for you.

Learn more at https://simpleandsmartseo.com

📲 Connect With Crystal:

• Linked

Does SEO feel confusing, overwhelming, or just plain impossible to figure out? You’re not alone. That’s why I created the AI SEO Foundations course, powered by Crystal GPT: your personal AI SEO coach designed for busy, creative business owners like you.

Ditch the overwhelm and discover what SEO can do for your business! Head to SEOin7days.com (with the number 7!) and get started today—let’s make your brand easy to find and impossible to ignore.

Chapters

• 0:00 SEO Evolution: Pre-2022 vs. Now
• 1:50 Understanding Google's RankBrain and BERT
• 2:40 Content Creation for SEO
• 3:55 User Metrics and Mobile-First Indexing
• 6:41 Topical Authority in SEO
• 8:52 Winning with Consistent Content
• 11:16 Resources for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
• 12:19 Joining the AI Marketeers Community

Transcript

Andrew Ansley: It's not about getting someone to stay on your webpage. To satisfy a query. It's about not having them go back to Google.

' cause ultimately, if they were on their search journey.

Did they end that search journey on your site? If it was 10 seconds, I don't care. But did, was it satisfied? Yeah? Cool.

Then that's exactly why you would want to write the answer at the top.

And try to front load all the value. That's how it's working now.

[00:00:29] Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast, where we talk all things brand building SEO.

Helping you connect with your audience, elevate your visibility and grow your business. 

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success. By bringing you insights, stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond. 

Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or SEO enthusiast, this is your place to learn, share, and build a brand that stands out. 

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. And let's dive into [00:01:00] Smarter SEO for your business.

before we hop off, I gotta know how SEO has changed. 

[00:01:06] Andrew Ansley: Oh yeah. Pre 2022. Sure.

If you Google entity SEO, my article on search engine land pops up. So that's like for people who are interested.

I think it's ranks number one right now. So you should be able to find it easily.

But the concept is this.

Before 2018. Google had not even a pretend understanding of content. What they had was keyword matching.

And it was very rudimentary.

What I could do back in the day was. In white text somewhere on the footer. I'm gonna put the word, how to train a pet or a puppy.

If I wanna rank for that. 40 times. I'm gonna stuff the heck out of it. Whatever. Okay. Must be super relevant.

And then Google was like, all right.

We'll prioritize what's at the top of the page. All right. I'll just. Put it hidden somewhere on the top of the page.

[00:01:50] Understanding Google's RankBrain and BERT

[00:01:50] Andrew Ansley: And then in 2018, there was a switch where it switched to semantics. There was a thing called RankBrain. That came out.

RankBrain was an algorithm specifically applied [00:02:00] to the 15% of queries that Google had never seen before. And then there was something called Bert as well.

And that actually is the reason why AI is where it's at now.

Google created I'm not even gonna go into the algorithm.

But it created something called Bert. And it was incredible. It absolutely changed the game. It allowed you to create your own search engines. It allowed like this new flourishing of like computers could understand.

Takes a while for that to develop though.

So in 2022. Maybe a little bit earlier. Could have been as early as 2020. But I started to really notice that the actual quality of content.

People will always point out that you can still spam and win. And there's all these black hat haters for this methodology. 

[00:02:40] Content Creation for SEO

[00:02:40] Andrew Ansley: But now, it's not just create good content. But it's create content that is specifically just like humans learn in a specific way.

 Machines learn in a specific way. So this new way is, you have headers. And headers act as like flags that you're setting in the ground for the topic.

Google has a very specific thing. That it wants [00:03:00] you to open up with a specific word. So if it says how to train a puppy, the first sentence should be to train a puppy.

You do this. Very definitive. Fact. This to that. So short sentences to reduce complexity.

Easy grammar to reduce complexity. If you have a header which is indicating something important, make sure you address it really quickly.

And then if you have multiple data formats?

That, contextualizes it further.

So an image visual that's basically just saying the same thing is that header did.

Maybe a table. That's also another like data format.

Schema markup, another data format.

Bold lists, numbered lists. All of these different things. You're trying to unpack things. You're giving examples. You're trying to apply it in different contexts.

All of this now is solidifying the understanding and increasing the confidence in, for Google. What your topic is.

You just have to balance out readability. And balance usefulness. With the user. ' 

[00:03:55] User Metrics and Mobile-First Indexing

[00:03:55] Andrew Ansley: cause ultimately a lot of the algorithm is this is another way it changed by the way, is [00:04:00] user metrics.

And I'll end with the user metric piece 'cause that's actually the most important one.

But so that's the main like entity semantics. Okay, now I can understand content. Alright, last piece is Google, now.

Because of mobile phones, really. So much of the internet now is mobile based.

It's mobile first indexing. Everything is based off of the mobile phone. So Google's actually, and there's lots of code on the web. There's JavaScript, there's HTML, there's CSS, there's, react.

There's all sorts of things. And a lot of code is hard for Google to read.

Because of processing power.

I don't know if you know this.

But Google's actually using our devices to process the internet for us. So when you go to a webpage and it has JavaScript.

It now is. What is that called? Crowdsourcing It. It crowdsources it.

I won't get the exact statistic right, but something like 2% of the world's JavaScript was indexed by Google.

Maybe six years ago.

We're at a hundred percent or something. It's 99% now because it has our phones and anytime it can just use them.

And it that came out because of the [00:05:00] lawsuit. They got sued. Multiple times.

And even though things are redacted, ultimately what we've discovered is.

It has a lot of access to your phone.

It has a lot of access to everything you're doing.

I'll end it with this.

It's not about getting someone to stay on your webpage. To satisfy a query. It's about not having them go back to Google.

' cause ultimately, if they were on their search journey.

Did they end that search journey on your site? If it was 10 seconds, I don't care. But did, was it satisfied? Yeah? Cool.

Then that's exactly why you would want to write the answer at the top.

And try to front load all the value. That's how it's working now.

A ton of user metrics, you, that's why it's make content for users. And then a lot of understanding how to like structure content in a way that just be bots like.

And because there's so much AI content out there now, a lot of this comes down to:

If you're saying the same thing, are you saying it in a way that where they can understand it easier?

Therefore cheaper?

Okay.

Because even little fractions of [00:06:00] cheaper can be billions of dollars of saved money. So as long as you meet minimum thresholds of authority.

Users are liking it. And you're saying almost the same thing as somebody else.

The users like it more and we will say it's cheaper. You win.

And that's what it's down to now is just those elements.

[00:06:15] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so that was a great definition of helpful content too, by the way.

Just a super quick follow up.

 The man that you were speaking with that kind of invented topical authority.

There was a point in the conversation where he mentioned something about if you're in the losers bracket for a site.

I was wondering if you could explain that to just a little bit more.

Because I didn't fully understand like what made a winner. And what made a loser.

In terms of like how to get to the winner's bracket.

[00:06:41] Topical Authority in SEO

[00:06:41] Andrew Ansley: I touched on part of topical authority.

But ultimately it's about consistency and historical metrics.

And I think this is when people, they misapply historical. Context.

They think age domain. That's no. When the algorithm changed, it's no longer just, oh this domain has been around since 1990.

So of [00:07:00] course, they're gonna rank.

It's more about those core algorithm updates. So if people experience those.

I love core algorithm updates. Those are moments where things change. And if you're doing the right things.

Which, if we know how bots, this isn't how just Google understands content.

This is literally just how the science of bots work. That's why we know this works no matter what core algorithm happens.

Is we know that Google has said they prioritize good content. And we know that they, it's trying to shift more to content, 

content 

[00:07:28] Andrew Ansley: content.

And not just on a page level, but the algo leak.

I released something on search engine land.

I read through the 14,000 pieces of a, of the algorithm leak. And I wrote a piece on that.

And there's something called embeddings.

And the idea is, think of it as like a bunch of little dots on a map. 'cause this is how you visualize it, using a tool called TensorFlow.

And you'll have a bunch of little dots that represent a topic.

And if the dots are darker colored. It literally just means that this is how Google sees your site.

It means that, they're clustered like this, tightly instead of just like these could be [00:08:00] individual nodes, right of topics.

This, my whole fist being like 50 topics.

And creating a very dense web of this, they've covered the topic.

Versus a site that does this.

Who's gonna win? It's this site. That's gonna win. And that's what Google's looking for.

So you become a winner by: you have to avoid cannibalization.

Which means writing things using different URLs to target something that Google just wants to be a single URL.

But, you create these topics and you need to bridge them together using internal links. And basically saying, this is how they segue together.

This context to this context. And you just keep on creating that. So if you have 30 articles.

Korey talks about three things.

You can go deeper, faster, wider. Those are the three things you can do. So you can cover a wider range.

You can go just with a single cluster, like maybe 20, 30 articles. And go much deeper. And process it much better. And then you can just like continually process faster.

[00:08:52] Winning with Consistent Content

[00:08:52] Andrew Ansley: but you become a winner ultimately by over time, every three month segment.

You are measuring positively.

Where you don't have these these [00:09:00] negatives. And the longer you push back that negativity, whatever you are, whatever smack down you experience.

Whatever Google didn't like about you. The more you can have that positive stuff.

I would say generally I haven't seen a site need longer than a year. So you have three to four algorithm updates.

Which is three nine months to 12 months. You can totally change. A site around. And the site's identity and all that stuff. But ultimately, this is the sucky thing.

Especially with the revolving door of agencies.

So much of what's happening is actually.

Okay, once we hit that core algorithm update. And maybe say, let's say the agency left, right? And they were doing everything great.

Then there was a core algorithm update.

And maybe the agency was there for just long enough where now it takes off. And the company's I don't even need an agency.

Skip two, six months. A lot of us have experienced this. A lot of business owners.

Oh, why is it going down?

You no longer have the historical metrics anymore.

Like we've now measured another core algorithm update, one or two.

And that's no longer [00:10:00] happening and that's why you're dipping.

Even if you hired another agency, they might. Actually be decent.

But still not doing as good.

And you're gonna experience an abnormal drop.

Just because of that quality, that success that you were like, labeled as, there's a reshifting that happens.

So that's what, how you get like recategorized. Is you have to, write good content in the way that I described.

You have to maintain it over time. You have to target the right things.

And you have to have good user metrics scores. And you could do that by all sorts of things. You could do multimedia content in your content.

You could build a tool. Calculators in the mortgage industry.

This is how they did it. But try to satisfy it. I tell people that basically the way to do this now is think about could chat GPT give this to them?

What is different about my website? Can I give them something that chat, GPT alone can't.

That's gonna mean I need images. I need tools.

I, there's more required now to win.

Local SEO is almost entirely a joke to me.

It's like a black hat heaven. You can just like [00:11:00] game the algorithm pretty easily.

But yeah. Hopefully that answers it.

I'm not as good as Koray.

So I'm not gonna be able to know the exact way to do this. But he can just he treats Google like a, it's this instrument. He just can do whatever with it and knows how to play every note.

It's amazing.

[00:11:13] Crystal Waddell: I love your breakdown, so I appreciate that very much. 

[00:11:16] Resources for Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners

[00:11:16] Crystal Waddell: Now, for the listeners of this podcast in my audience.

Who would be a good fit for, what you do? Or is there a specific place that you'd like to send people who are listening right now?

Especially entrepreneurs and small business owners?

[00:11:30] Andrew Ansley: Yeah, so I think the best spot is probably. My Skool group.

If you are interested in AI at all.

There's a lot of things where you don't need to pay a monthly subscription for anymore.

I think you just need to understand that as long as you have the proper frameworks. And use what I showed with Claude.

You could probably cut a couple AI tools out of the budget.

You might still want one. But ultimately, I think people who want that kind of thing, yeah, go to my Skool group.

That's why I have templates. I'm not trying to like reinvent the wheel. What I want is I've [00:12:00] done the work.

I have 25 different ways of doing copywriting. There's the PAS. There's the BAB. There's AIDA. There's the C. There's the one plus four.

There's the story method.

There's all these different methods.

And as long as you have those templates, you just put plug 'em into the AI and say,

Hey, use this template.

I like that version. 

[00:12:19] Joining the AI Marketeers Community

[00:12:19] Andrew Ansley: maybe I'll try this version.

So Skool and it's AI marketeers. Lemme see if I have the right url. It's it is skool.com/masterclass marketing. So school with a "k". S-K-O-O-L, masterclass marketing.

And otherwise you can follow me on YouTube.

You can follow me on Facebook. That's probably the best places to, to follow me.

[00:12:39] Crystal Waddell: Okay, awesome.

I will definitely put all of those links in the show notes, so if that's something that you're interested in, you can find links directly to those places and resources below.

So Andrew, thank you very much for joining me today on the simple smart SEO show.

I know I feel smarter and just more encouraged with what's going on in the world of ai.

And I [00:13:00] really appreciate you coming to chat with us today.

[00:13:02] Andrew Ansley: Of course. Thanks for having me. This was fun.