Marketers in Need of Therapy
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Marketers in Need of Therapy
SEO Isn't Dead. It Just Got a Glow Up!
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Is SEO dead? Short answer: absolutely not 😅
But has it changed? Oh yes. And if you're a lone marketer trying to keep up with algorithm updates, AI search and a manager who just wants quick wins, this episode is going to make your life a whole lot easier 💙
This week Emma sits down with Emily Walker, freelance SEO specialist and MINT expert, for a brilliantly entertaining episode 🎙️
Whether you've always found SEO a bit overwhelming or you just want to make sure you're keeping up, Emily makes it feel totally manageable 🤝
Welcome to MIMP, Marketers in Need of Therapy. Yes, we joke that we're marketers in need of therapy, but the team stands for so much more. Training, thought leadership, time-saving tips, tools, a team enabling us to thrive as marketers. So welcome to the MIMP podcast, Emily. It is lovely to have you here. Our first question, as always, is about your career. You're obviously our SEO guru. So tell us how you got to where you are today.
SPEAKER_00Oh, thank you for having me. This is awesome. I've seen previous episodes, so it's just really exciting to be on one. I did marine biology originally, and then um so I've always been interested in patterns, investigating things, experiments, and then um I started working at a uh livestock holding facility, but I couldn't work in their livestock house anymore because of the salt water reactive with my hands. So I moved into their sales office, and that's when I got into helping out with marketing and things. Um, and then I figured, what should I do next? Because I didn't really want to work in the sales office anymore. So I joined a business local to St. Albans that do promotional merchandise, and I pretty much worked in this guy's garage/slash office and learned everything there. So I actually did Google ads social media, SEO content, and a bit of their email marketing at the time. And then I applied to a local agency and then stayed there for about six years, and I learned so much there. Um, and then decided, well, I kind of fell into freelance actually. Thought I'd give it a whirl, and I've really enjoyed it since. So it is something that I find really interesting, and there's been a lot of change lately, which has kept well, uh, I would I want to say on my toes, but more of a squeaky bottom, probably.
SPEAKER_01There's been a lot. I think every marketer feels like that at the moment. Yeah. Yeah, I think uh from my perspective, SEO is the bit that I am like, what's going on here? So how do you, how do you kind of what do you think marketers can do as like the basics right now to even kind of get started with SEO?
SPEAKER_00I think it could can seem really overwhelming because it's it's a little bit of a bottomless pit. If you think about the different elements of SEO, you've got um your technical on-page, off page, and the on-page gets broken down into little segments as well. Um, your backlinking, reporting. So it feels like you have to do everything and be good at everything all at the same time. But I would say keep um your fundamentals in place that are going to have the most impact on the work that you're doing. So, firstly, is your site actually discoverable for search engines and AI tools to actually find it and call it properly? So look at your search console if you don't have that set up already, get that set up. Look at your GA4. Um, if you haven't got that set up, get that set up. Um they're both great free tools. So you can kind of get a baseline of where people are coming from and what pages they're visiting. Um, you can see if there's anything hindering your visibility, because if you're not visible, then you can't get called. So you'll put all this effort into new pages, things like that. Um, but you might not actually get them found properly if you've got anything inhibiting that. So I would say start with those basics first and then collect that data from your GA4 and then really think about your audience. Because if you're caught, if your content is genuinely addressing their problems and what they're looking to find, you're already on the right track. Um, it's all about making it easy for people to understand your content, essentially.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, from an SEO perspective, there is so much noise at the moment, isn't there, from uh AI, algorithm changes, etc. And I think it can be extremely overwhelming. And I think this is the first time now we're seeing that you you aren't, you know, people aren't going to Google. And how has that changed for you? And how how can we can how can marketers change their kind of strategy on that?
SPEAKER_00So there's definitely a lot of noise for sure, but um the the way I see it is that SEO certainly isn't dead. Lots of people, there's always someone, maybe on a daily basis, being like SEO is dead now. It's it's definitely not dead, but it has evolved like it always has. Google's been introducing new types of organic results, not just the blue links or the positions one to ten since 2014. So this it's always been evolving. I think as SEOs, we haven't been focused on just the blue traditional positions one to ten for quite some time now. So we do have to adapt because it's not so much that SEO is dead or um the way everything have changed, yes, definitely. But the way people search has changed too. You'll see that because so many more people use social media to look up different types of content, people digest video in such a different way now. It's a massive part of people's like everyday um life, whether that be kind of like scrolling or actually looking up something helpful. Um, I think your strategy, your fundamentals still need to be in place because in in AI first search, good AI optimization or GEO, AIO, AEO, whatever you want to call it. Um I always go, oh man, or my head. Whatever you want to call it. Um good AI optimization is really an extension to good SEO optimization. If your basic SEO is not there, then you're gonna struggle uh doing the the AI as well. Um so your strategy doesn't so much need to change drastically. Your SEO strategy and your basic fundamentals still need to be in place. Helpful, useful content is still the goal. Um, what we need to look at now is kind of um where other signals can support our SEO strategies. So I do think it's more of an extension to your SEO than rather thinking them of two different beasts, because then you then you're really thinking you need to have two separate strategies. That's not not the case. Definitely have your your fundamentals in place and then think about where you can support your SEO with these other signals, and what I mean by other signals is off website signals. So, uh, where do AI extract our information from, for example, um say Reddit, YouTube, social media, um, Quora, other other platforms like that, um industry-relevant platforms as well. So, how can all of these opportunities support or SEO? Because we're in a really interesting time now, especially with more video, that's how people digest content now. Um, there's so many more opportunities to create different types of content. So a really helpful, juicy blog can be broken down into so many engaging different formats of content. And you could argue and say that I mean, actually, I think most people were doing that before. It's just maybe there wasn't so much emphasis on it. So I I wouldn't say don't worry about changing your strategy drastically, just um kind of hone in on where you're gonna have the most impact.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, okay. And then for marketers, the um obviously there's a lot around the vanity metrics, and I I've definitely seen in the agency side that I'm working on direct searches have gone down on a website. So when you're presenting that to your manager, what conversations do you have with them to kind of explain? Obviously, it's AI, but it's like we explain to them, and what what other things can we show them instead of that kind of vanity metric so people aren't coming to that website directly from the search as such?
SPEAKER_00So I would definitely have a look into um your mentions in your citation. So if you think about traditional SEO reporting, we were looking at rankings, traffic, conversions. Now we need to kind of shift that to rankings, they are still important for say in a at a secondary level. People usually search first with AI, and then their secondary search or their thereafter could be directly on Google. So it still is playing part of the puzzle. But um measure different metrics such as your citations and your mentions because they're the I guess the performance metrics within the AI space. But the conversions and what matters to the business are still really important to take into account because then you can actually see what value those that level of visibility is having on your business. Um, so GA4 is a really good tool for that, so you can set up um events that would be meaningful to the business. Because I find if you're reporting on traffic or even before what in traditional SEO kind of traffic uh sessions doesn't necessarily mean something to a manager who's got uh needs a slightly different context to know what is working and what isn't. So if you can report on what that has resulted in in terms of engagement with certain CTA buttons, for example, form fills, phone clicks, email clicks, that's gonna put into perspective the work that you're doing. And then you can show the value. It does also give you an opportunity as a lone marketer to tap into other departments because you want to know whether these um marketing leads that are happening on the website are actually translating into business with within, say the sales team, for example, so you can check with them and see how everything's actually lining up from end to end rather than just being isolated within what's just happening on the website. So it's just got to be a little bit deeper.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Okay, fantastic. Right, we're gonna take a moment for your shoes. Yes, please. So if she wanted to show the shoes off. Dopamine deco for the feet.
SPEAKER_00They are fantastic. Thank you. Are they where are they from? They're from Hoff. Um, they're a great brand, very colourful. I would say um, if I could have a Hoff for every day, I would. I like it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, sorry. Okay, we move on. So for a solo marketer with a limited time, limited budget, kind of what are those go-to SEO activities that they can they can be doing to really make an impact?
SPEAKER_00So it depends on the business, but I I think every business should have their Google Business profile set up and optimized and then using every single feature available on there. I think it's a really um undervalued tool. There's so much you can do on it. And from those, it's kind of like your own little social media platform as well, from the post features, but you can have your services on there. If you're a restaurant, you can have your menus, you can have appointment links, you can have so much of information on there. Um and it's also builds credibility, which taps into because it authenticates your business entity, and that taps into um both AI search and and SEO. Um, so I definitely get that down, get that set up and claimed if you haven't already. Um, Search Console GA4, definitely have those in place. Utilize Search Console to the Macs as well. Um, and then I I think if you're if you're lucky enough to have a dev or a web dev in your business, definitely have a good relationship with them. I find if you can have a great relationship with your devs, then you can um you can be a little bit more because it's a total different language, actually. And then um what I find is if I can go to a dev and explain what I'm trying to achieve, then they can go away and think about it and they can tell me whether it's feasible or not, but we can find a good middle ground, and then you can get more tech fixes in place that would be fundamental to the website, would be um uh good for the specific functionality of the website, so you can get a really good middle ground. And some tech fixes can have a really good quick win, for example, um making sure you're crawlable, uh making sure there's nothing hindering that, internal linking, and that could feed into your menu navigations, footer navigations, your content internal links. They're really great quick wins that you can either implement yourself or work with your developer on to make that really helpful. Um, and also easy to navigate. That's one thing that is really um uh important for your website and can have a massive impact. You might have lots of wonderful content, and I have seen this on a site before where they had every page they kind of needed to have on there, but they just weren't accessible from the menu navigation, and it would have made such a difference to their um engagement and conversion rates properly if if they sorted out their navigation. So I think that's really important as well. Um, also just want to add in it's not so much on the website or it feeds into more of an AI tactic is have a think about the off-page platforms or your off-website platforms that you could start to utilize. For example, Reddit, take a little time, maybe do 15 minutes of research to see what other businesses or what other competitors are doing on these platforms so you can kind of see if there's a a gap or an opportunity and to see how you can use those to support your SEO to make it all feed into one big machine.
SPEAKER_01Are you giving us an example? How can Midnight go on there, for example?
SPEAKER_00Oh, so um for on Reddit? Yeah. Yeah, so if you're on Reddit, you there's a lot of conversations on there. You do need to be genuine. I think there's quite a lot of uh, especially with AI tooling and um uh automations, I think people have kind of assumed that they can create lots of accounts and have things automated.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00What I would definitely go on there and see what are people um talking about? Um, there are quite a lot of people having conversations about job loss, um, personal um situations. So I think if you spent just 15 minutes having a look at Reddit and saying, I feel overwhelmed by my marketing, I'm sure you would find quite a lot of people posting and commenting. Um, Mint could have its own thread where you could say, What's overwhelming you? Give us your biggest pain point and we can we can see how we can help. And then you can comment and start conversations. You could have individuals within Mint on there as independent users who can then also um answer or give someone reassurance. It's all about having a genuine uh community on there, genuine conversation um rather than promoting. So there's quite a lot of rules on Reddit. Yeah, okay. Um, depending on the thread. Um so moderators will be looking at say over self-promotion, things like that. But what we would be looking at for Mint is that uh we would look to um actually help people with help a genuinely helpful content that solves that kind of need. I'm sure if you went on there tomorrow or later today, you would find someone um voicing that they're overwhelmed by some specific part of their marketing that you could instantly um help them with.
SPEAKER_01Okay, fantastic. So is Reddit a part of your kind of SEO strategy for most businesses that you work with?
SPEAKER_00It's something that I recommend. I would love to do it more. It's but as you know with social media, it's it's one of those kind of uh, I would say more time-consuming activities. Um, but I I think it's really effective because it's one of the most cited resources that AI use within their um, I guess when they're extracting information, as well as YouTube. YouTube and Reddit, I think, are from what I've seen in the data, the are the top most cited sources and that AI use to um generate answers and pull citations.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. Thank you. So I'm guessing my next question was around about free and affordable tools. So Google My Business, Reddit, YouTube. Is there anything else that you can think of?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. So if you're a loan marketer, um you might have to have a more of a full suite of uh tools. Um so starting off with the free ones, you've got Search Console, Google Business, GA4, uh Bing Webmaster Tools, which is basically Bing's version of uh Search Console. You've also got um AHRF's Webmaster Tools. These are all free, and you can get um tech health updates, uh query insights. Um Bing already has an AI um insight in their data. Google Search Console has it for I haven't seen it live on any UK properties yet, but um it is rolling out at the moment. Um, but then for more affordable kind of full suite tools, SE ranking is a really good one. You've got position tracking in there, audit, um, tech audits or full website audits, backlink checkers. Um it's a full suite, so you've also got social media planning in there, content um management. So that one's a really great one. I think if SEMrush is the slightly more expensive tool, but if you've only got one website to monitor, um it could be more of a business case to spend that chunk of money on that because you where that tool gets really expensive is when you have multiple websites to manage rather than just the one. Um, but it it is a great tool. Um, the database is extensive. Um audit tools, um, Sitebulb, I love, because it's it's pretty affordable. It's like 38 pounds a month or something like that for the desktop version. I use that all the time. But what's great about it is it gives you quite a comprehensive insight into what the issue is, and then you can take that to a developer and say, this has been flagged, this is why it's been flagged, this is what I'm looking to achieve. And then um, they have way more insight to work with. Um, screaming frog is another crawler. Um, uh, but I would say if you know what you're looking for, it's a great tool. It's it's less intuitive than Sightbulb. I tend to use some of them together sometimes. Um waffling now. But um No, you're giving us loads of different insights. I love it, loads of tools you can go research. One tool I really want to use more of, um, and that's called Also Asked. And that's been created by an SEO who's a great person to follow. He tends to kind of debunk a lot of the AI slop that you see on LinkedIn, and he's a real educator as well. So his name's Mark Williamson Cook, and he created this tool called Also Asked, and you basically give your seed keyword. It's brilliant for um generating ideas for content because it's all based around search intent. Um, so it can help you build out a content strategy. So, from this one question, what are other questions that could be asked, other topics that are relatable? So you can create your content cluster, and that's really great for you know building out your content strategy, your topical authority, um, and then um building as much relevant content as you can on your website and on other sources as well. Um, I think that's probably all of them. I would say technology is insane, M ⁇ A. But tools I love because I think it's hard because uh you have to have so many different tools sometimes and that all does stack up. If you can um I liked it, you know, when you buy a really expensive pair of shoes, you've got that cost per wear. I think if you're in a tool every single day, then the cost is fairly worthwhile. If you're paying for a tool and you're only going in there, say once a month, then I would question whether that's a tool you should be spending money on. But I'm in tools every day, so I'd I would say it's worthwhile.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I've I've never thought of my shoes of cost per day. Like per cost per wear.
SPEAKER_00Cost per wear. It's when that's when you treat yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So these these look comfy, these ones, so they're worth they're worth the worth the money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I also like a bargain, so I did get these in the sale. Oh, love that, love that. So I think for marketers as well, the their manager quite often isn't a a marketer, but they're looking for those quick wins. So how do we how do we as marketers sell SEO as an investment long term to our managers?
SPEAKER_00It's a really tricky one. It's a conversation, it's like if you want that summer beach body, you can't expect to go to the gym once and then walk out and it be ready. So and there's that there's that also that comparison. Paid ads stop after you stop paying. But the value from SEO can continue long after that initial investment. So it's it's really important to uh communicate that is the consistency and the irritativeness, which is what makes it so effective. But that was a big word. What did you just say? So irritativeness, is that an actual word? I don't know, I've never heard of it. What does it mean? It's a good question. You know, you just pick a word that seems right to send it. I mean, I love it. I that's that is Emily all over. But uh it's when um so you're you you can't just do it once and then that be it. We're collecting data all the time, and trends shift, things change, um, jargon changes, terminology changes, but so you might your business might change as well. So it's never just done once, you're collecting data all the time, you're seeing low-hanging fruit you can then re-optimize for. So you're always coming back in. It's not that you're redoing, that's not that's not the uh that's sometimes a bit of a misconception, but it's never just done once, it's always progressive, so you're always making little changes and iterations all the time. Yeah, that's hard. But it is difficult from someone who uh just wants the quick win. I would say that there are certain things that could give you quicker wins, but it is really important to communicate that it is a um sus you're aiming for sustainable, healthy growth rather than a quick win. Because talking about SEO being dead, I tell you what does die in this industry is are the shortcuts. The, you know, I'd rather someone spend time and invest on two juicy, really helpful. Pages say per month than go and get 20 AI generated pieces of content just because I think AI has really lowered the bar in terms of creating content, but I wouldn't say the bar's been lowered on quality, so you still need to keep that in mind.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm seeing a lot on the feed at the moment it's starting to look the same. And it is it is more like the charities and the you know, people organising events, but the posters are looking the same, they're all generated with the same font, the same colours, and I'm like, it's it that is you've still got to keep the quality there for sure. So yeah, we're looking for the the summer beach body.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it takes time and it takes effort. Um, but it it's fun to do the information you collect along the way. It makes it it's like solving puzzles constantly, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So you have mentioned so many tools there, which is great. What's your go-to one at the moment?
SPEAKER_00Um Site Bulb, uh the the audit tool I mentioned. I love that tool. Um Search Console, I'm in every single day. Um, GA4, I'm in every single day, and they're free and available, so easy to set up and well, they're so easy to just chuck on and get them configured to get the information I need. Um that that also asked one, I think, is a bit of a game changer when it comes to um working, developing your content strategy. Um, they're probably my favourites at the moment, but um I have to say SE ranking as well, because I use that tool quite a lot um for research and competitive analysis. Um, it's the tool that I have because as a freelancer, I need to look for more affordable choices as well. But the support's really helpful too, and they've they've introduced an AI um uh component to the tool as well. So I think that that's the one thing that's been really challenging, I think, for low marketers as well. Getting the AI visibility has there's been a price tag to that um across quite a lot of tooling. Um it it's I'm still trying to myself trying to get my head around how I can use these tools really effectively. But I think for a full suite, um, I think SC ranking's been really supportive of what I've been trying to do. So I'd say those, those that's gonna amazing.
SPEAKER_01I'm off to do my research on all these tools, love it. Um, and what's the one thing at the moment that's putting you in therapy when it comes to marketing right now?
SPEAKER_00Probably um my own marketing. I haven't um but yeah, that that's probably uh yeah, on the always on the back burner. Um, but I keeping up with what is genuine and what what's what's just hype, that's quite challenging. I think because everything has been evolving at such a rapid pace. People have been jumping out, oh I did this and look at the results. And I follow a specific group of um SEOs that I just know will go to the comments and be like, oh, can you show me the graph six months prior and six months after, please? So and they debunk these things. Um, so I I have a select few of SEOs that I I feel like I'd I follow and um trust there because they're trying and testing things all the time. Um so I think in this in a way they help calm the hype.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I I think the hype's quite um and then also it doesn't feel nice when everybody's like, oh, you must be out of a job in a few years, probably. Yeah, it's never no, it's not nice. No. I'd say that's probably where where the the worry comes in, I suppose.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think as well, people you if you understand the basics, like this, you're still gonna need humans to explain what's going on. Yes, AI has been great, but like people are like, I can get all my social media vision on AI now. Okay, well, it's all gonna look the same, and it's all gonna sound like a little bit like not like it's not you. So if you want to do that, go for it. But you wanna you you you need to stand out.
SPEAKER_00So one of my goals really is to make the SEO seem less overwhelming. Um, just because then if it can make sense as to how it's contributing to a business, then the the value is a no-brainer where that where the value sits, really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Love that. And then for marketers that are on their own, spinning a hundred plates, not really sure what they should be doing next. What one piece of advice would you give them right now, Emily?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, I think they're probably doing better than they think they are. Um, but I d they wear so many hats. One minute you're writing content, or you're briefing a copywriter, you're doing an audit, you're reporting to somebody. Um, I'd say you don't have to know everything and be an expert at everything. One thing you do with with the SEO specifically is you've got to remain curious because um people try and find things because they've got questions or they have problems and they lead to more questions. So you've got to be curious. When it comes to issues, sometimes it's easy to feel like, oh, I'm not really sure. I don't I don't know what that means. I'm probably not going to fix that, or it might be too much effort to fix. Be a little bit curious as to how could you break that fix down into stages? Could you work with a developer to implement that over phases? Could it be a little bit more budget-friendly? I think if you can approach it all with a bit more curiosity, it will be that the little steps will start to show themselves. I think um do some people uh you have you heard that people sometimes are a little bit bitty or a bit big chunky? Oh, tell me more. So some people might think, Oh, I'm gonna go to the gym, I pack my bag and I go to the gym. Whereas if if you're like me, you'll be like, okay, uh what time am I gonna go? What time would I need to finish work to go? What shall I wear? What shoes shall I wear? What is a little bit more than just packing my bag and going. So it gets a bit overwhelming. Okay. So I've just break it down into a few more simple steps, and then it's easier. Like you just break it down into a more manageable. Um So what did you call that? A little bit bitty and a little bit. A little bit bitty or a bit uh this was on an NLP thing. I went, a little bit bitty, or you're a bit chunky. Okay. Yeah. I hate to say it, I think I'm a bit chunky. But I would like to be I would like to be more chunky because I think I would I probably wouldn't break it, break things down into so many tiny steps. Yeah. It's good to do that sometimes when you need to be methodical about something, but when something just needs uh a little bit more than a chunk would would be helpful.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I would say that sometimes the attention to detail is not there with me though, because I'm straight into it. So there maybe needs to be a bit in the middle there.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's uh that's one thing I love about SEOs, the attention to detail is something that is um because once you notice, notice a pattern arising, then I can't quite not I just want to know what what's happening. I think I've I've had that with a few situations lately where I just need to know the answer. I had a um a whole this whole website was interlinking to a non-indexable version of a URL. It just it just basically the site wasn't as crawlable as it could be. It wasn't necessarily harming them, but search engines would be able to just crawl the site and have the indexable information as quicker if I could have this massive fix. And it would have been one fix and it would have fixed it across the whole site. But um it apparently it can't be implemented. I'm like, why the no? And now I was like, I'm gonna go and find out why, because I haven't seen this on another site which is on the same platform. So I just want you've got to be curious.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. I think that is a great bit of advice, be curious. I love that. Fantastic. Well, Emily, honestly, your insights have been absolutely insane. You're so cool as well. Cooler than your shoes. Thank you. Um, thank you for coming on Mint. And Emily is an expert in on Mint, so if you need have any questions or anything, don't hesitate to reach out. Yeah, no, I'd I'd love to help.