Feb 23 2024
Navigating The SEO Career Landscape: Degrees, Myths, And Realities via @sejournal, @SEOGoddess

In the dynamic realm of search engine optimization (SEO), my career spans nearly two decades, starting in 2004 when I started working for an agency and just two years later moved to in-house SEO for a large company.

Since then, I’ve held various in-house SEO roles at esteemed organizations, including Classmates.com, Concur, Smartsheet, ADP (usedcars.com), Nordstrom, Groupon, GitHub, and my most recent role at RingCentral – experiences which have deepened my understanding of the field and allowed me to shape SEO within different business contexts.

I began my career as an SEO specialist at the agency; my role involved understanding website optimization, keyword research, and refining on-page and off-page strategies.

When I moved to management, I had to understand how to lead a team properly.

As my journey progressed, transitioning to roles like SEO manager involved overseeing SEO strategies, developing comprehensive plans, educating and leading teams, and ensuring alignment with overarching business goals.

These roles collectively form the backbone of SEO, showcasing its dynamism and emphasizing each position’s indispensable role in driving effective digital marketing strategies.

My journey isn’t that much different from that of many SEO professionals, aside from the fact that some SEO pros may decide to stay with an agency or focus on consulting rather than working for another company.

There are so many avenues one could go down when choosing their career path for SEO, so let me help break it down.

SEO Roles

As someone immersed in the SEO field for many years, I fully understand today’s many diverse SEO roles.

Let’s explore these roles, the average salaries in the US, and advice I have for anyone looking to move into these roles, considering both their nuances and the path ahead for aspiring SEO professionals:

SEO Specialist

Embarking on the SEO journey often starts as a specialist. In this entry-level role, one will dig into the complexities of optimizing websites to boost rankings.

As a specialist, my early days involved conducting keyword research, analyzing website performance, and implementing strategies that enhanced organic visibility for clients.

This foundational role serves as a stepping stone to grasp the fundamentals of digital marketing in both the agency and in-house environments.

  • Salary*: $63,699 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Focus on entry-level content optimization, conducting keyword research, and honing on-page and off-page strategies.
  • Advice: This is a great role to grasp the fundamentals, immerse yourself in various facets of digital marketing, and adapt to evolving trends.

SEO Content Strategist

Transitioning to a content strategist role within SEO reveals the creative side of drafting engaging, search-engine-friendly content.

Most SEO pros in this position are expected to sharpen their writing skills and plan and optimize content calendars based on comprehensive keyword research.

As an SEO content strategist, creating informative and captivating content is paramount to retaining readers and adhering to evolving SEO best practices.

Technical SEO Manager

My background in engineering has allowed me to focus heavily on the technical aspects of SEO. The position as a technical SEO manager requires a solid knowledge of coding, engineering processes, and database management.

The role of a technical SEO professional involves handling site structure, indexing, and resolving intricate technical issues that impact search performance.

Responsibilities extend to collaborating with engineering teams, ensuring effective communication, and mitigating risks associated with technical SEO.

This role requires a unique blend of technical acumen and collaborative skills.

  • Salary*: $99,548 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Tackle technical aspects impacting search performance, focusing on site structure, indexing, and technical troubleshooting.
  • Advice: Understand what goes into the development of a website, including the various coding languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Java, Python, React, Angular, etc.), database connectivity, and server administration, followed by the specifics of what Google expects and recommends for the benefits of SEO. In addition, SEO pros are expected to cultivate collaboration skills and have a solid understanding of using tools like Botify to aid in effective communication with engineers, which is pivotal for project success and seamless cooperation.

Link Building Specialist

As a link building specialist, the focus shifts to acquiring high-quality backlinks to enhance website authority and rankings.

This role demands persistence in building relationships, performing strategic outreach, and executing link-building strategies.

SEO pros interested in pursuing a career focused on off-site SEO must demonstrate the meticulous effort and specialization required in acquiring valuable links, making this role a dynamic and rewarding part of the SEO landscape.

  • Salary*: $63,699 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Acquire high-quality backlinks from relevant sites to enhance website authority, involving relationship-building and strategic outreach.
  • Advice: Develop persistence and relationship-building skills; the role demands time and specialization in acquiring valuable links while avoiding what could be considered spammy links. It would be very detrimental to a link building specialist’s career if they were to get a website banned by Google for using bad practices.

Local SEO Specialist

Optimizing websites for local searches can be a specialized avenue in any SEO journey.

Local SEO specialists manage local citations and Google My Business profiles and ensure consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) data for region-specific platforms.

This role highlights the importance of attention to detail and local nuances for businesses aiming to attract nearby customers.

  • Salary*: $62,852 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Optimize websites for local searches, manage local citations and Google My Business profiles, and ensure NAP data consistency.
  • Advice: Understand the nuances of local SEO; attention to detail and consistency are key for localized online visibility. Learn the various tools available to help manage these listings, such as RenderSEO and Yext.

Ecommerce SEO Product Manager

Working at ecommerce companies brings a unique challenge of its own.

SEO product manager roles require an SEO pro to specialize in optimizing online stores; the focus shifts to product optimization, category pages, site structure, and enhancing user experience.

Balancing SEO knowledge with product management skills becomes essential in navigating this niche, offering both challenges and lucrative opportunities.

  • Salary*: $117,277 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Specialize in optimizing online stores, focusing on product optimization, category pages, and user experience.
  • Advice: Combine SEO knowledge with product management skills; leveling up enhances prospects in this unique and lucrative niche.

SEO Consultant

My role as an SEO consultant involved advising businesses on enhancing online visibility. Analyzing websites, developing customized strategies, and offering guidance on effective SEO became integral.

The SEO consultant role offers relief when I find myself out of work in my in-house roles due to a layoff or if the company culture isn’t a good fit.

While my consulting is a second and infrequent role, many SEO pros decide that consulting is what they prefer to do full-time.

Either way, providing optimization services to companies neglecting SEO is a great way to make a substantial income.

  • Salary*: $63,298 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Advise businesses on improving online visibility, analyzing websites, developing strategies, and offering SEO guidance.
  • Advice: Gain diverse optimization experience; providing services to companies neglecting SEO can yield rapid improvement.

SEO Account Manager

Anyone interested in an SEO account manager role will experience the dynamic facet of serving as a bridge between clients and staff.

Meeting clients to understand their needs and relaying information for improved optimization efforts is the cornerstone of this position.

Performance-driven account managers could earn additional commissions, adding an incentive-driven layer to the role.

  • Salary*: $68,314 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Serve as a company’s point of contact, meeting clients and relaying information for improved optimization efforts.
  • Advice: Understand industry standards; performance-driven account managers can earn additional commissions, boosting income.

SEO Data Analyst

An SEO data analyst role involves collecting and interpreting website performance and search rankings data.

Using tools like Google Analytics, Semrush, and Botify while obtaining knowledge of running SQL queries provides insights to inform strategic decisions.

This role underlines the significance of data analysis, specifically focusing on SEO-related metrics and their implications.

  • Salary*: $76,575 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Collect and interpret website performance and search rankings data, offering insights for strategic decisions.
  • Advice: Know how to run SQL queries and manipulate data in Excel. Focus on SEO-related data analysis and understanding traffic from various search engines to improve decision-making.

SEO Manager

The majority of my roles in my career have been under the SEO manager title.

Those roles involved overseeing entire SEO strategies, developing comprehensive plans, managing teams, and ensuring alignment with overarching business goals. This mid-to-senior-level management position requires a diverse skill set.

  • Salary*: $74,494 per year (Indeed).
  • Duties: Oversee entire SEO strategy, develop comprehensive plans, manage teams, and ensure alignment with business goals.
  • Advice: Understand what it takes to be a team leader. Nurture your team, build relationships in the organization, and articulate the benefits of what you’re asking to accomplish SEO growth. Management books like StrengthsFinder 2.0: Gallup by Don Clifton and Radical Candor by Kim Scott are great resources for becoming a good leader. If an SEO manager can tap into effective communication and leadership, the senior positions can lead to higher earnings of up to $210,000.

Notes:

The salary for the link building and local specialist roles are the same as that of an SEO specialist, since they tend to be at the same level.

In addition, the SEO product manager’s salary is taken from what a standard product manager makes since the roles are very similar.

Also, note that consultants can make upwards of $200,000 per year or more as they decide what to charge clients and how many clients they choose to take on.

*US National average salary reported by Indeed.com as of January 2024

Is SEO A Good Career Choice? Debunking Myths And Realities

Having navigated the dynamic landscape of SEO for over two decades, I have found that, while choosing a career in SEO has been rewarding, there are many things I would have done differently if I had the chance to do it all over again.

The good part about the SEO career path is that it unfolds across various roles, each offering unique challenges and opportunities for growth.

Starting from entry-level positions to assuming leadership roles like SEO manager, professionals gain a diverse skill set and invaluable experience.

However, it’s crucial to understand that the journey rarely leads to executive positions like director of SEO in larger companies and even more rarely to vice president positions.

The salaries of roles that SEO pros work with (i.e., product managers, engineers, growth managers, etc.) are much higher than what SEO pros usually make. So if it’s money you’re after in an SEO career, then you may be on the wrong path.

Agencies often embrace SEO professionals in executive roles, highlighting the need for a blended approach to SEO strategy involving in-house and agency collaboration. Still, the salaries tend to be less than for in-house roles.

Most SEO professionals should begin their journey as specialists and envision their desired position in 5 to 10 years.

If aspirations lean towards engineering, take the initiative to learn to code and acquire the necessary skills expected of an engineer. Collaborate closely with engineering teams, expressing a keen interest in contributing to their projects to transition to an engineering role.

For those eyeing executive roles in large corporations, strategically plan a career trajectory that navigates beyond SEO and aligns with roles leading to executive positions.

Typically, chief marketing officers (CMOs) have backgrounds in product marketing or growth marketing, progressing from directors to VPs in those domains before making the leap to CMO.

While SEO expertise enhances marketability, transitioning from SEO to these roles can be challenging. Therefore, be prepared to undertake the necessary steps to facilitate a smooth transition when the time comes.

For those contemplating an SEO career, embrace the diverse roles within SEO, each contributing to a robust skill set.

Junior roles provide foundational knowledge, strategists refine creativity and analytical abilities, and managers oversee comprehensive SEO plans.

It’s essential to evaluate personal preferences – whether one aspires to be a specialist excelling in a specific area or climb the ladder to managerial roles.

Be aware that large companies might not offer executive SEO positions, leading to the importance of understanding the industry’s dynamics and considering agency opportunities.

Education In SEO: Unveiling The Reality of Degrees

After spending over two decades submerged in SEO, a formal degree is not a prerequisite for a successful career in SEO.

My journey began with college, where I majored in English and Art History. However, realizing the potential in web design and development, I dropped out to focus on freelance work.

The SEO industry thrives on practical skills and hands-on experience, making degrees less significant.

Numerous online resources and guides offer a wealth of information to aid in mastering SEO techniques. It’s a field where continuous learning is integral, and personal initiative often surpasses the value of formal education.

The insights shared by others resonate with my own experiences. SEO is a realm where proven expertise often outshines academic credentials.

The industry includes individuals with diverse educational backgrounds, from MBAs to those without formal education. What matters most is the ability to adapt, learn, and implement effective strategies.

For aspiring SEO professionals, the key lies in taking the initiative, exploring online resources, and gaining practical experience.

Whether starting a business or pursuing a career, hands-on learning and staying updated with industry trends are the real benchmarks of success. While a degree might be a plus, it’s not mandatory for carving a rewarding path in SEO.

The Diverse Paths Of SEO

The potential routes within the SEO career landscape are numerous, starting with opportunities at agencies that provide an excellent learning ground, exposing individuals to various aspects of digital marketing.

Alternatively, one could enter an in-house position at a company where guidance from an experienced SEO professional is crucial.

Freelancing or working as an independent consultant presents another viable option, offering flexibility in the work environment and schedule.

The SEO career path encompasses a spectrum of roles, from entry-level to junior roles, strategists, managers, and senior managers, each with distinctive responsibilities and salary ranges.

Agency

One significant route involves commencing the journey at agencies, which serve as excellent learning grounds.

Working at an agency exposes individuals to various facets of digital marketing, offering a dynamic environment where skills are honed through hands-on experience.

This path allows for a comprehensive understanding of SEO within the broader context of marketing strategies.

In-House

On the other hand, individuals may choose to embark on an in-house position within a company.

The crucial guidance characterizes this path experienced SEO professionals provide in the corporate setting.

The in-house route often entails a deeper integration with the company’s goals and strategies, requiring a specialized skill set tailored to the organization’s needs.

Freelancing

For those inclined towards independence and flexibility, freelancing or working as an independent consultant represents a viable option within the SEO career landscape.

This path allows individuals to shape their work environment and schedules according to personal preferences.

Freelancers have the opportunity to work with a variety of clients, gaining diverse experiences that contribute to their professional growth.

Conclusion

In this exploration of the SEO career landscape, I am reminded of the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of SEO.

From my humble beginnings as a freelance developer optimizing websites to my most recent work as a consultant, each step has presented unique challenges and learning opportunities, adding to my comprehensive grasp of SEO.

These experiences have enriched my understanding of various business environments.

I hope this article helps readers interested in a career in SEO carve out a path for themselves.

More resources: 

Featured Image: New Africa/Shutterstock

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Feb 23 2024
Google Announces Deal To Show More Reddit Content via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google announced a deal with Reddit to gain access to real-time access to all of its content so that Google can show even more Reddit content than it already does and to gain access to all of its content for training models.

The agreement between Google and Reddit is explicit that this will result in increased visibility for Reddit discussions in various Google products, which may include various search surfaces across a range of topics and contexts.

Google’s access to a wider range of Reddit content in a structured format will the ability of language models to understand human conversations and writing styles. AI is increasingly used in search so this could in turn affect how content is understood and ranked in Google search.

Reddit gains access to Google’s Vertex AI platform to improve search and create other  “capabilities” with it. The deal is reported to be worth $60 million dollars per year for Reddit.

Reddit, Google Search And AI

Reddit has become a popular destination for people to have discussions on virtually any topic, making it a such a popular destination for people seeking information that searchers append the word “Reddit” to searches to surface content directly from Reddit and avoid Google’s search results altogether.

Conversations on Reddit are also useful for training large language models because of the diversity of content topics, as a deep source of conversational data written in multiple forms of writing.

Structured Reddit Content

Content that is on the web is said to be unstructured data. Machines need to process unstructured data to remove the irrelevant bits like navigation and extract the main content. It also has to make sense of the upvoted and downvoted content.

Structured data however is data that’s already sorted into its component parts so that there is no ambiguity about the data.

Google now has access to all of that data in real-time and in a structured format that will make it easier for Google to make sense of the information and use it more efficiently, with what Google describes as “enhanced signals” that will help Google to display it in more useful ways.

The announcement by both Google and Reddit state that one of Google’s intentions is to show more content from Reddit.

Google explained how they will use the content:

“Over the years, we’ve seen that people increasingly use Google to search for helpful content on Reddit to find product recommendations, travel advice and much more. We know people find this information useful, so we’re developing ways to make it even easier to access across Google products. This partnership will facilitate more content-forward displays of Reddit information that will make our products more helpful for our users and make it easier to participate in Reddit communities and conversations.”

Another component of the deal mentioned by both Google and Reddit is that the partnership will help people participate in Reddit conversations.

Reddit posted:

“Our work with Google will make it easier for people to find, discover, and engage in content and communities on Reddit that are most relevant to them.”

Read Google’s announcement:

An expanded partnership with Reddit

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Jemastock

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Feb 22 2024
Why Google Seems To Favor Big Brands & Low-Quality Content via @sejournal, @martinibuster

There are many people who are convinced that Google shows a preference for big brands and ranking low quality content, something that many feel has become progressively worse. This may not be a matter of perception, something is going on, nearly everyone has an anecdote of poor quality search results. The possible reasons for it are actually quite surprising.

Google Has Shown Favoritism In The Past

This isn’t the first time that Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) have shown a bias that favored big brand websites. During the early years of Google’s algorithm it was obvious that sites with a lot of PageRank ranked for virtually anything they wanted.

For example, I remember a web design company that built a lot of websites, creating a network of backlinks, raising their PageRank to a remarkable level normally seen only in big corporate sites like IBM. As a consequence they ranked for the two-word keyword phrase, Web Design and virtually every other variant like Web Design + [any state in the USA].

Everyone knew that websites with a PageRank of 10, the highest level shown on Google’s toolbar, practically had a free pass in the SERPs, resulting in big brand sites outranking more relevant webpages. It didn’t go unnoticed when Google eventually adjusted their algorithm to fix this issue.

The point of this anecdote is to point out an instance of where Google’s algorithm unintentionally created a bias that favored big brands.

Here are are other  algorithm biases that publishers exploited:

  • Top 10 posts
  • Longtail “how-to” articles
  • Misspellings
  • Free Widgets in footer that contained links (always free to universities!)

Big Brands And Low Quality Content

There are two things that have been a constant for all of Google’s history:

  • Low quality content
  • Big brands crowding out small independent publishers

Anyone that’s ever searched for a recipe knows that the more general the recipe the lower the quality of recipe that gets ranked. Search for something like cream of chicken soup and the main ingredient for nearly every recipe is two cans of chicken soup.

A search for Authentic Mexican Tacos results in recipes with these ingredients:

  • Soy sauce
  • Ground beef
  • “Cooked chicken”
  • Taco shells (from the store!)
  • Beer

Not all recipe SERPs are bad. But some of the more general recipes Google ranks are so simple and basic that a hobo can cook them on a hotplate.

Robin Donovan (Instagram), a cookbook author and online recipe blogger observed:

“I think the problem with google search rankings for recipes these days (post HCU) are much bigger than them being too simple.

The biggest problem is that you get a bunch of Reddit threads or sites with untested user-generated recipes, or scraper sites that are stealing recipes from hardworking bloggers.

In other words, content that is anything but “helpful” if what you want is a tested and well written recipe that you can use to make something delicious.”

Explanations For Why Google’s SERPs Are Broken

It’s hard not to get away from the perception that Google’s rankings for a variety of topics always seem to default to big brand websites and low quality webpages.

Small sites grow to become big brands that dominate the SERPs, it happens. But that’s the thing, even when a small site gets big, it’s now another big brand dominating the SERPs.

Typical explanations for poor SERPs:

  • It’s a conspiracy to increase ad clicks
  • Content itself these days are low quality across the board
  • Google doesn’t have anything else to rank
  • It’s the fault of SEOs
  • Affiliates
  • Poor SERPs is Google’s scheme to drive more ad clicks
  • Google promotes big brands because [insert your conspiracy]

So what’s going on?

People Love Big Brands & Garbage Content

The recent Google anti-trust lawsuit exposed the importance of the Navboost algorithm signals as a major ranking factor. Navboost is an algorithm that interprets user engagement signals to understand what topics a webpage is relevant for, among other things.

The idea of using engagement signals as an indicator of what users expect to see makes sense. After all, Google is user-centric and who better to decide what’s best for users than the users themselves, right?

Well, consider that arguably the the biggest and most important song of 1991, Smells Like Teen Spirt by Nirvana, didn’t make the Billboard top 100 for that year. Michael Bolton and Rod Stewart made the list twice, with Rod Stewart top ranked for a song called “The Motown Song” (anyone remember that one?)

Nirvana didn’t make the charts until the next year…

My opinion, given that we know that user interactions are a strong ranking signal, is that Google’s search rankings follow a similar pattern related to users’ biases.

People tend to choose what they know. It’s called a Familiarity Bias.

Consumers have a habit of choosing things that are familiar over those that are unfamiliar. This preference shows up in product choices that prefer brands, for example.

Behavioral scientist, Jason Hreha, defines Familiarity Bias like this:

“The familiarity bias is a phenomenon in which people tend to prefer familiar options over unfamiliar ones, even when the unfamiliar options may be better. This bias is often explained in terms of cognitive ease, which is the feeling of fluency or ease that people experience when they are processing familiar information. When people encounter familiar options, they are more likely to experience cognitive ease, which can make those options seem more appealing.”

Except for certain queries (like those related to health), I don’t think Google makes an editorial decision to certain kinds of websites, like brands.

Google uses many signals for ranking. But Google is strongly user focused.

I believe it’s possible that strong user preferences can carry a more substantial weight than Reviews System signals. How else to explain why Google seemingly has a bias for big brand websites with fake reviews rank better than honest independent review sites?

It’s not like Google’s algorithms haven’t created poor search results in the past.

  • Google’s Panda algorithm was designed to get rid of a bias for cookie cutter content.
  • The Reviews System is a patch to fix Google’s bias for content that’s about reviews but aren’t necessarily reviews.

If Google has systems for catching low quality sites that their core algorithm would otherwise rank, why do big brands and poor quality content still rank?

I believe the answer is that is what users prefer to see those sites, as indicated by user interaction signals.

The big question to ask is whether Google will continue to rank what users biases and inexperience trigger user satisfaction signals.  Or will Google continue serving the sugar-frosted bon-bons that users crave?

Should Google make the choice to rank quality content at the risk that users find it too hard to understand?

Or should publishers give up and focus on creating for the lowest common denominator like the biggest popstars do?

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Feb 22 2024
7 Strategic SEO Insights & Tactical Tips For 2024 And Beyond via @sejournal, @gregjarboe

I’ve been writing about search engine optimization (SEO) for more than 20 years.

Looking back, I realize actionable SEO insights need to be thoroughly updated in this era of constant change.

Circumstances have always changed quickly, but the pace of AI development in SEO feels harder to keep up with. There are many uncertainties in Search, and not all advice is timeless.

Our ever-growing to-do lists are outstripping our available resources, and so we must be diligent in how we spend the resources we have.

So, what are the top strategic SEO insights and tactical tips you should focus on in 2024 and beyond?

1. Conduct Audience Research As Well As Keyword Research

I’ve been using keyword research tools since 2002. But I started using SparkToro, an audience research tool, in 2020.

With classic keyword research, you learn how many searches a keyword is getting. With SparkToro V2, you also learn about the audience that searches for a keyword, uses words in their bio, or visits a website.

This is a game changer – and it’s arriving at the precise moment when SEO pros need to start creating the kind of user, buyer, marketing, and customer personas that I wrote about before in Customer Personas Can Transform SEO, PPC and Content Marketing.

To get a seat at the big table, SEO professionals must move beyond optimizing their sites, pages, articles, and content for an undifferentiated group of search engine users.

Why? Because one size does not fit all.

Now, digital marketers have been targeting ads at segments of people with specific demographics, intents, and interests for decades.

However, SEO pros seemed satisfied with trying to guess the intent of users based on the words or phrases in their queries.

Who can blame them? Before the arrival of SparkToro, keyword research tools could only tell SEOs pros“what” people searched for, but not “who” they were.

Now, SEOs and content marketers can get surprising insights into the demographics, interests, and information sources that influence their intent.

For example, let’s say that the B2C company or client you work for wants to know who searches for “pasta recipes”?

Well, SparkToro tells you that 119,000 to 151,000 people search for “pasta recipes” each month.

The tool also tells you that 45.9% are male, 35.2% are female, 3.3% are nonbinary/other, and 15.6% don’t reveal their gender in their social media bio.

Oh, they also visit websites like SimplyRecipes.com and Food.co, as well as search other keywords like “recipes chicken and peas” and “easy recipes for dinner pasta.”

demographic searching for pasta recipes Screenshot from Sparktoro, February 2024

Or let’s say that the niche audience that your B2B company or client wants to reach is the “VP of Sales.”

accounts with Screenshot from Sparktoro, February 2024

Well, SparkToro tells you that 94,000 people have “vp sales” in their social media bios. The tool also tells you that 71.8% are male, 14.4% are female, 0.8% are binary/other, and 13% don’t reveal their gender in their social media bio.

And they are searching for keywords like “account management in sales” and “sales and territory management.”

Finally, let’s say you’re doing some pro bono work for the Cancer Research Institute (CRI).

You could tell the folks at CRI that 88,000 people visit CancerResearch.org each month – 43.1% are female, 27.4% are male, 11.6% are binary/other, and 18% don’t reveal their gender in the social media bio.

This audience also visits BMJ.com and Science.org, and they search for “cancer cure immunotherapy” and “immunotherapy for treatment of cancer.”

So, you have a pretty good idea about the original, helpful content you should create for them.

how many people visit a cancer websiteScreenshot from Sparktoro, February 2024

Now, let me be clear: Conducting audience research does not replace keyword research.

But it does enable SEOs to avoid the trap of optimizing content for the “average” visitor to their websites. Guess what trying to be all things to all people does to their conversion rates?

2. Analyze The Meaning Of Queries

To return relevant results, Google establishes what users are looking for – the intent behind their queries.

With a better understanding of your target audience, you are now in a stronger position to analyze the meaning of their queries.

It’s worth knowing that Google took over five years to develop language models that decipher how the relatively few words users type into the search box match up to the most useful content available.

It’s worth reading what Google says about how its systems understand the “meaning of your query:”

“If you used words in your query like ‘cooking’ or ‘pictures,’ our systems figure out that showing recipes or images may best match your intent.

If you search in French, most results displayed will be in that language, as it’s likely you want.

Our systems can also recognize many queries have a local intent, so that when you search for ‘pizza,’ you get results about nearby businesses that deliver.”

Google adds:

“If you search for trending keywords, our systems understand that up-to-date information might be more useful than older pages. This means that when you’re searching for sports scores, company earnings or anything related that’s especially new, you’ll see the latest information.”

But don’t focus too closely on the trees, or you’ll lose sight of the forest. Instead, I recommend re-reading an article that I wrote back on December 16, 2020, which was entitled The Future of SEO Lies in the ‘Messy Middle’ of the Purchase Journey.

Or, to save you some time, here’s the strategic SEO insight that Alistair Rennie and Jonny Protheroe, who work on Google’s consumer insights team in Great Britain, shared in their 1,000-word article that was a summary of their team’s 98-page report:

“People look for information about a category’s products and brands, and then weigh all the options. This equates to two different mental modes in the messy middle: exploration, an expansive activity, and evaluation, a reductive activity.

Whatever a person is doing, across a huge array of online sources, such as search engines, social media, aggregators, and review websites, can be classified into one of these two mental modes.”

So, when you analyze the meaning of dozens or hundreds of queries, you can put them into two buckets: Exploration and Evaluation.

market positioningImage from Think With Google, February 2024

3. Create Relevant Content

What will you do with two buckets of queries? Create relevant content for each segment in two different mental modes in the “messy middle” of their purchase journey.

This may involve creating two different pages of content for each kind of user, buyer, marketing, and customer personas that your company or client is targeting.

Now, virtually every SEO pro on the planet knows what Google says about the “relevance of content:”

“The most basic signal that information is relevant is when content contains the same keywords as your search query. For example, with webpages, if those keywords appear on the page, or if they appear in the headings or body of the text, the information might be more relevant.”

And a veritable army of SEO pros know what Google adds about the relevance of content:

“Beyond looking at keywords, our systems also analyze if content is relevant to a query in other ways.

We also use aggregated and anonymized interaction data to assess whether search results are relevant to queries. We transform that data into signals that help our machine-learned systems better estimate relevance.”

But far fewer may be familiar with Avinash Kaushik’s “Excellent Analytics Tip#2: Segment Absolutely Everything.”

He said, “Never report a metric (even God’s favorite KPI) without segmenting it to give deep insights into what that metric is really hiding behind it.”

Now, Avinash posted this guidance to Occam’s Razor back on May 23, 2006.

But just because he shared this guidance years ago doesn’t mean that SEO pros should ignore it today. Some advice is timeless.

Here are some of the benefits you’ll gain by creating relevant content for different segments:

  • Improving the aggregated and anonymized interaction data that Google uses to “assess whether search results are relevant to queries.”
  • Showing senior executives, who often don’t understand all the complexity and magic that goes into creating relevant content, the impact it has on different segments that they do understand.
  • Earning, in Avinash’s words, “a big fat bonus and promotion.”

4. Create Quality Content

SEO professionals have known they needed to create quality content since Google started rolling out the Panda update in February 2011.

Unfortunately, relatively few SEO and content marketing departments have been reorganized to produce quality content for their companies – and even fewer SEO and content marketing agencies have merged to provide quality content to their clients.

Who knows, maybe 2024 will be the year that everyone gets on the same page.

Google’s guidance on the “quality of content” has been fairly consistent for a long time:

“After identifying relevant content, our systems aim to prioritize those that seem most helpful. To do this, they identify signals that can help determine which content demonstrates expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.”

Google adds:

“For example, one of several factors we use to help determine this is understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content. This has often proven to be a good sign that the information is well-trusted.

Aggregated feedback from our Search quality evaluation process is used to further refine how our systems discern the quality of information.”

But SEO pros will want to read What is Google E-E-A-T? How To Demonstrate First-Hand Experience, because “Demonstrating first-hand experience is more important than ever for Google Search rankings.”

So now, after the SEO team identifies a relevant topic, the content marketing team needs to identify a writer with some degree of experience.

This includes first-hand, real-life experience using a product, visiting a place, or interviewing a person who has been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.

Hmmm. That sounds like what journalists did for hundreds of years before Google came along and disintermediated the media.

Although much ink has been spilled on the negative impact of Google on newspapers, what SEO pros and content marketers should focus on is Google’s devastating impact on the trade press.

By and large, trade publications have gone the way of the dodo.

The temptation is to fill the vacuum left by the death of the trade press with low quality product reviews that are cranked out by a bunch of freelance writers or some generative AI tools. Sigh.

First, you should read Google’s advice: Write high quality reviews.

Yes, I know SEO pros now have access to generative AI tools that can create crappy content quickly.

But creating short, unsubstantial, or “thin” content hasn’t been an effective SEO strategy since Google started rolling out the Panda update in February 2011.

So, don’t be penny-wise and pound-foolish. Invest in the time and money to find people who have the E-E-A-T to create quality content.

Then, use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to measure the return on your investment.

And recognize the limitations of using organic search traffic as a key performance indicator (KPI). Although media companies can monetize organic search traffic by serving up ads, most other organizations are trying to raise brand awareness, generate leads, or drive online sales.

That’s why most SEO professionals aren’t likely to get top management’s attention.

But, if you start using GA4 to show that organic search produces more conversions – like purchasing a product or registering for a service – than any other default channel except direct, then you are more likely to get a bigger budget, more staff, and a seat at the big table.

5. Evaluate The Usability Of Webpages

Every SEO pro that I’ve met over the past 20 years knows how to evaluate the usability of webpages.

For any of the new SEO experts that I haven’t met yet, here’s what Google has to say about the usability of webpages:

“Our systems also consider the usability of content. When all things are relatively equal, content that people will find more accessible may perform better.”

Google adds:

“For example, our systems would look at page experience aspects, such as if content is mobile-friendly, so that those on mobile devices can easily view it. Similarly, they look to see if content loads quickly, also important to mobile users.”

Get it? Got it? Good.

6. Comprehend Context And Settings

I learned a long time ago – because my business partner is located on the West Coast, while I’m based on the East Coast – that Google presents different results to different people.

So, SEO professionals need to comprehend context and settings.

Here’s what Google says about context and settings:

“Information such as your location, past Search history, and Search settings all help us to ensure your results are what is most useful and relevant for you in that moment.”

Google adds:

“Search also includes some features that personalize results based on the activity in your Google account. For example, if you search for “events near me” Google may tailor some recommendations to event categories we think you may be interested in.”

Nevertheless, I can’t tell you how many times a student in one of the online classes that I teach is shocked to find what data is saved to their Google account.

If you haven’t checked yourself lately, then go to myaccount.google.com and see for yourself.

Now, take a minute before adjusting what data is saved to your Google account to think about how to apply what you have just learned to SEO best practices.

Yes, most people are vaguely aware that Google uses their country and location to deliver content that’s relevant to their geographic area.

But going back to the article that I wrote on customer personas, do you see why search settings are also an important indicator of which results a specific segment of users is likely to find useful?

This is why one size does not fit all.

That’s why creating two different pages of content for each kind of user, buyer, marketing, and customer personas that your company or client is targeting is probably the most pivotal thing that SEO pros should start doing in 2024.

7. Prepare For The Impending “Searchquake”

The seventh strategic SEO insight and tactical tip for 2024 and beyond is: Prepare for the impending “searchquake.”

A recent post by Jim Yu for the BrightEdge SEO Blog entitled, Preparing for the ‘Searchquake’ that Will Impact Every Industry and Marketer  warned SEO pros, “The field of online search is set for a seismic change in 2024.”

He added,

“The shift to Search Generative Experiences (SGE) is not just Google’s next algorithmic change. It’s the Search engine’s most significant change ever and represents a tectonic change that will impact every industry, company, and marketer.”

The history of Google algorithm updates contains more significant changes than you can shake a stick at, including Panda, Penguin, and Mobilegeddon.

So, why does Yu think SGE will trigger a “searchquake” that will be the most significant change ever?

BrightEdge conducted some research that found 84% of search queries will include generative AI when SGE is fully deployed by Google. Okay, that’s bigger than a breadbox.

But also read Why Google SGE Is Stuck In Google Labs And What’s Next,” because, “Certainly, AI will take a bolder role in search but that day is definitely not today.”

So, What Should SEO Pros Do While The Jury Is Still Out On SGE?

As I did a year ago when I wrote the previous version of this article, let me explain why SEO pros should adopt the 70% Solution.

What’s that?

Ty Kiisel’s article 70% Solution: The Marine Corps Framework for Making Battlefield Decisions, should be required reading for every SEO manager who wants to become the VP of SEO someday.

The Marines teach their young officers what they call the 70% solution.

It could be a good strategy to adopt for making decisions in situations where you don’t have all the information or resources you’d like.

In a perfect world, you’d have all the critical data you need to make informed decisions. But we don’t live in a perfect world.

Nevertheless, if you have 70% of the information you’d like to have, then you can still make good decisions – provided you accept the notion that you may need to adjust and compensate for the critical data you lack as you move forward.

And like battlefield commanders, most SEO managers never have all the resources they need to meet their objectives.

But it can sometimes be enough if you have good people and 70% of what you need. And finding creative solutions to challenges is a hallmark of successful SEO professionals.

Finally, are you 70% confident that your plan will succeed?

In other words, do you feel good about your plan’s success with the information and resources you have?

The Marines believe a well-conceived plan, along with taking the initiative, is more likely to succeed than doing nothing.

This is why I can confidently share seven strategic insights, bits of critical data, pieces of tactical advice, or search trends that will impact SEO in 2024 and beyond without losing too much sleep over the fact that one or two of them may not be relevant a year from now.

The Marines have given us a framework for making decisions in less-than-ideal circumstances.

That is why you should “Keep Calm and Carry On.”

More resources: 

Featured Image: 3rdtimeluckystudio/Shutterstock

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Feb 21 2024
Google Announces Gemma: Laptop-Friendly Open Source AI via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google released an open source large language model based on the technology used to create Gemini that is powerful yet lightweight, optimized to be used in environments with limited resources like on a laptop or cloud infrastructure.

Gemma can be used to create a chatbot, content generation tool and pretty much anything else that a language model can do. This is the tool that SEOs have been waiting for.

It is released in two versions, one with two billion parameters (2B) and another one with seven billion parameters (7B). The number of parameters indicates the model’s complexity and potential capability. Models with more parameters can achieve a better understanding of language and generate more sophisticated responses, but they also require more resources to train and run.

The purpose of releasing Gemma is to democratize access to state of the art Artificial Intelligence that is trained to be safe and responsible out of the box, with a toolkit to further optimize it for safety.

Gemma By DeepMind

The model is developed to be lightweight and efficient which makes it ideal for getting it into the hands of more end users.

Google’s official announcement noted the following key points:

  • “We’re releasing model weights in two sizes: Gemma 2B and Gemma 7B. Each size is released with pre-trained and instruction-tuned variants.
  • A new Responsible Generative AI Toolkit provides guidance and essential tools for creating safer AI applications with Gemma.
  • We’re providing toolchains for inference and supervised fine-tuning (SFT) across all major frameworks: JAX, PyTorch, and TensorFlow through native Keras 3.0.
  • Ready-to-use Colab and Kaggle notebooks, alongside integration with popular tools such as Hugging Face, MaxText, NVIDIA NeMo and TensorRT-LLM, make it easy to get started with Gemma.
  • Pre-trained and instruction-tuned Gemma models can run on your laptop, workstation, or Google Cloud with easy deployment on Vertex AI and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE).
  • Optimization across multiple AI hardware platforms ensures industry-leading performance, including NVIDIA GPUs and Google Cloud TPUs.
  • Terms of use permit responsible commercial usage and distribution for all organizations, regardless of size.”

Analysis Of Gemma

According to an analysis by an Awni Hannun, a machine learning research scientist at Apple, Gemma is optimized to be highly efficient in a way that makes it suitable for use in low-resource environments.

Hannun observed that Gemma has a vocabulary of 250,000 (250k) tokens versus 32k for comparable models. The importance of that is that Gemma can recognize and process a wider variety of words, allowing it to handle tasks with complex language. His analysis suggests that this extensive vocabulary enhances the model’s versatility across different types of content. He also believes that it may help with math, code and other modalities.

It was also noted that the “embedding weights” are massive (750 million). The embedding weights are a reference to the parameters that help in mapping words to representations of their meanings and relationships.

An important feature he called out is that the embedding weights, which encode detailed information about word meanings and relationships, are used not just in processing input part but also in generating the model’s output. This sharing improves the efficiency of the model by allowing it to better leverage its understanding of language when producing text.

For end users, this means more accurate, relevant, and contextually appropriate responses (content) from the model, which improves its use in conetent generation as well as for chatbots and translations.

He tweeted:

“The vocab is massive compared to other open source models: 250K vs 32k for Mistral 7B

Maybe helps a lot with math / code / other modalities with a heavy tail of symbols.

Also the embedding weights are big (~750M params), so they get shared with the output head.”

In a follow-up tweet he also noted an optimization in training that translates into potentially more accurate and refined model responses, as it enables the model to learn and adapt more effectively during the training phase.

He tweeted:

“The RMS norm weight has a unit offset.

Instead of “x * weight” they do “x * (1 + weight)”.

I assume this is a training optimization. Usually the weight is initialized to 1 but likely they initialize close to 0. Similar to every other parameter.”

He followed up that there are more optimizations in data and training but that those two factors are what especially stood out.

Designed To Be Safe And Responsible

An important key feature is that it is designed from the ground up to be safe which makes it ideal for deploying for use. Training data was filtered to remove personal and sensitive information. Google also used reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF) to train the model for responsible behavior.

It was further debugged with manual re-teaming, automated testing and checked for capabilities for unwanted and dangerous activities.

Google also released a toolkit for helping end-users further improve safety:

“We’re also releasing a new Responsible Generative AI Toolkit together with Gemma to help developers and researchers prioritize building safe and responsible AI applications. The toolkit includes:

  • Safety classification: We provide a novel methodology for building robust safety classifiers with minimal examples.
  • Debugging: A model debugging tool helps you investigate Gemma’s behavior and address potential issues.
  • Guidance: You can access best practices for model builders based on Google’s experience in developing and deploying large language models.”

Read Google’s official announcement:

Gemma: Introducing new state-of-the-art open models

Featured Image by Shutterstock/Photo For Everything

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Feb 21 2024
Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024 via @sejournal, @WixStudio

This post was sponsored by Wix. The opinions expressed in this article are the sponsor’s own.

In the last 18 months, conversations about SEO have been dominated by artificial intelligence.

New ways of working and new user journeys for search visitors have come to the forefront.

In 2024, we can clearly see that there’s a great mix of “old hat” and “new hat” SEO best practices that you can start implementing right now.

To help you keep up with the current SEO best practices, we’ve created a series of:

Why Use SEO Checklists?

Doing SEO is often a bit like conducting a symphony.

There are lots of SEO activities, big and small, taking place across each website, and each SEO task, whether it be on-page or technical, contributes to the larger success of your website.

Just as a conductor has their sheet music, the best consultants and agencies use SEO checklists, templates, cheat sheets, and other project management documents to make sure everything is on track.

The medium of the SEO checklist has evolved from being as simple as a few items scribbled on the back of an envelope to something as complex as a dynamically generated interface within your CMS, offering AI functionality and integration with your favorite tools.

This versatility means that they can be reworked to suit most requirements.

In the sake of versatility, here are three, high-level types of SEO checklists that can help you elevate your brand’s website.

1. SEO Checklists On Shared Documents

If you’ve been in the industry for a while, you’re probably familiar with using a spreadsheet to keep track of SEO progress.

Now, we’re living in the fast lane, with the ability to leverage shared SEO. Easily transferrable, this can be as complex or simple as required.

Downloadable SEO checklists & templatesImage created by Wix, February 2024

2. Dynamic, Real-Time SEO Checklists

Fast forward to a next-generation SEO checklist: The Dynamic SEO Checklist.

A dynamic SEO checklist responds to updates in content in real-time.

This means that anytime a change is made to your website, you get a series of next steps to execute to make your content rank.

Examples Of Real-Time SEO Checklists

Site-level SEO Assistant is one new example of a real-time checklist.

This type of checklist is built directly into your CMS and includes entry points and integrations that allow users to complete tasks in the list.

From setting indexability to connecting to Google Search Console, you can complete important tasks from within the list itself.

With intelligent recommendations and the ability to skip tasks as necessary, this kind of checklist works in tandem with your website.

Built-in functionality like this can help you save time and get the most out of a CMS.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Experience created by Wix, Feburary 2024

3. AI-Powered SEO Checklists

With the assistance of AI, you can get a dynamically generated checklist to help you execute your SEO workload.

Plus, this type of list can also help you carry out within the list itself, simply by using AI inputs.

For instance, the checklist in the Wix SEO Assistant uses a keyword prompt to create AI meta descriptions and title tags for a page.

Once these are generated, you can add and tick them off your list, right in the CMS.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Experience created by Wix, February 2024

Looking at user data, we see that the addition of AI to a checklist can increase usability significantly.

How To Properly Use An SEO Checklist For Success

If you aren’t already using an SEO checklist to manage your workload, we urge you to try any of the above styles of checklist.

Increase Your Agency’s Profitability

If you’re an agency owner or account manager, checklists are particularly efficient because they can be reused and adapted for each client.

This can save time on research and development (R&D) and become part of the corpus of resources you make available to clients and staff.

Checklists for SEO tasks can also assist with more efficient onboarding for new clients and projects, and help you expand your offering and improve client satisfaction.

When managing clients, tools like the Wix Studio Client Kit mean that account managers can upload client checklists, templates, and even video tutorials directly into the dashboard of the CMS.

This means that materials for client success are accessible to everyone working on the site, at all times.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Image created by Wix, February 2024

If you’re managing SEO teams, creating frameworks for SEO account management can help you gain and retain clients for the long term.

Joshua George, founder of Clickslice Agency explains that he developed his SEO project proposal template “after testing 20 different variants of proposals,”  but once he “finally found one which converts the best,” he was able to get better results from client pitches.

Similarly,  freelance SEO, Nick LeRoy, developed a client retention checklist to manage touch points and habits that build client trust.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Image created by Wix, February 2024

Better efficiency for SEO agencies and freelancers means more opportunities to deliver high-value outcomes and increase profitability – a checklist can be an important part of that process.

Make Knowledge More Accessible Across Your Team

Templates and checklists are also a highly accessible way to hand off to juniors and even clients easily.

As well as being designed to help your team accomplish goals, checklists can also serve as a knowledge base to help your team grow. This approach can help you get drive visibility on the SERP.

Top 3 SEO Checklists For On-Page & Technical SEO In 2024Image created by Wix, February 2024

Founder of AS Marketing agency, Adriana Stein, explains that she uses a blog writing template because, “when you use a particular structure, provide helpful information, as well as follow SEO best practices, that gives your content the best possible chance to rank, drive organic traffic, and when scaled out, drive conversions.”With live collaborative documents, teams can adapt lists to changing requirements and ensure that the knowledge base of the team continues to grow, even if account managers change roles.

Improve Quality Assurance

It is often assumed that it is beginner-level SEO specialists who use checklists, but this is not exactly the case.

For more seasoned SEOs, checklists often serve as a means of maintaining the quality of implementation when working with multiple teams and stakeholders. Experienced SEO professionals create checklists to ensure consistency of delivery when handing off day-to-day tasks to other members of their teams.

Ashwin Balakrishnan, Head of Marketing at Optmyzr, explains that for tasks like backlink tracking, he creates templated documents to reduce errors and ensure a consistent level of implementation.

Balakrishnan says that, “transferring knowledge and experience to junior SEOs (especially teammates) goes a lot smoother for everyone when you use checklists and templates. It gives newer SEOs confidence and frameworks to work off, and it allows more seasoned practitioners to review work faster and avoid giving arbitrary feedback.”

This can free up time for senior SEOs to pursue more complex SEO, billable tasks.

So rather than dying a death, the humble SEO checklist has evolved.

What’s Next For SEO Checklists?

Given the wealth of data sets, data feeds, automation, and AI tools available to marketers, the active integration of AI into SEO should only continue. But as well as being able to generate inputs, we are likely to see data-driven, AI-crafted guidance from checklists become more common.

Those who use checklists in the format of Google Sheets and MS Excel will benefit from generative native apps and enhancements in the AI workspace race. Being able to harness scripts, feeds, and add-ons is nothing new, but AI offers new scalability for task completion, offering new opportunities for growth but the value of the SEO checklist is alive and well in 2024.

Download checklists, templates, and toolkits to develop smoother SEO processes and ramp up productivity—on any project.

Wix SEO Resource Center

Image Credits

Featured Image: Image by Wix. Used with permission.

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Feb 20 2024
Google Responds To Evidence Of Reviews Algorithm Bias via @sejournal, @martinibuster

Google responded to a small publisher whose article offered a step by step walkthrough of how big corporate publishers are manipulating the Google Reviews System Algorithm and getting away with it, demonstrating what appears to be a bias towards big brands that negatively impacts small independent publishers.

HouseFresh Google Algorithm Exposé

The story begins with a post titled, How Google is killing independent sites like ours, published on the HouseFresh website. It published what it asserted was evidence that several corporate review sites gamed Google’s algorithm by creating the perception of a hands-on reviews for what HouseFresh maintains were not actual reviews.

For example, it noted how many of the publishers ranked an expensive air purifier that HouseFresh (and Consumer Reports) reviewed and found to perform worse than less expensive alternatives, used more energy and required spending $199.98/year on purifier replacements. Yet the big brand sites gave the product glowing reviews, presumably because the high cost results in higher affiliate earnings.

Remarkably, they showed how the product photos from different big brand publishers were sourced from the same photographer in what appears to be the exact same location, strongly implying that the individual publishers themselves did not each review the product.

HouseFresh offered a detail takedown of what they insist are instances of Google showing preference to fake reviews.

This is a partial list of sites alleged by HouseFresh of successfully ranking low quality reviews:

  • Better Homes & Gardens
  • Real Simple
  • Dotdash Meredith
  • BuzzFeed
  • Reddit with a spam link dropped by a user with a suspended account
  • Popular Science

HouseFresh published a lucid and rational account demonstrating how Google’s Reviews Systems algorithms allegedly give big brands a pass while small independent websites publishing honest reviews steadily lose traffic under each successive wave Google’s new algorithms.

Google Responds

Google’s SearchLiaison offered a response on X (formerly Twitter) that took the accusations seriously.

Notable in the response are the following facts:

Google does not do manual checks on claims made on webpages (except as part of a reconsideration request after a manual action).

Google’s algorithms do not use phrases designed to imply a hands-on review as a ranking signal.

SearchLiaison tweeted:

“Thank you. I appreciated the thoughtfulness of the post, and the concerns and the detail in it.

I’ve passed it along to our Search team along with my thoughts that I’d like to see us do more to ensure we’re showing a better diversity of results that does include both small and large publications.

One note to an otherwise excellent write-up. The article suggests we do some type of “manual check” on claims made by pages. We do not. That reference and link is about manual reviews we do if a page has a manual *spam* action against it, and files a reconsideration request. That’s entirely different from how our automated ranking systems look to reward content.

Somewhat related, just making a claim and talking about a “rigorous testing process” and following an “E-E-A-T checklist” doesn’t guarantee a top ranking or somehow automatically cause a page to do better.

We talk about E-E-A-T because it’s a concept that aligns with how we try to rank good content. But our automated systems don’t look at a page and see a claim like “I tested this!” and think it’s better just because of that. Rather, the things we talk about with E-E-A-T are related to what people find useful in content. Doing things generally for people is what our automated systems seek to reward, using different signals.

More here: developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content#eat

Thank you again for the post. I hope we’ll be doing better in the future for these types of issues.”

Does Google Show Preference To Big Brands?

I’ve been working hands-on in SEO for 25 years and there was a time in the early 2000s when Google showed bias towards big corporate brands based on the amount of PageRank the webpage contained. Google subsequently reduced the influence of PageRank scores which in turn reduced the amount of irrelevant big brand sites cluttering the search results pages (SERPs).

That wasn’t an instance of Google preferring big brands as trustworthy. It was an instance of their algorithms not working the way they intended.

It may very well be there are signals in Google’s algorithm that inadvertently favor big brands.

If I were to guess what kinds of signals are responsible I would guess that it would be signals related to user preferences. The recent Google Navboost testimony in the Google antitrust lawsuit made clear that user interactions are an important ranking-related signal.

That’s my speculation of what I think may be happening, that Google’s trust in user signals is having an inadvertent outcome, which is something I’ve been pointing out for years now (read Google’s Froot Loops Algorithm).

Read the discussion on Twitter:

What do BuzzFeed, Rolling Stone, Forbes, PopSci and Real Simple have in common?

Read the HouseFresh Article:

How Google is killing independent sites like ours

Featured Image by Shutterstock/19 STUDIO

FAQ

Does presenting a rigorous testing process in content influence Google’s ranking?

While presenting a rigorous testing process and claims of thoroughness in content is beneficial for user perception, it alone does not influence Google’s rankings. The response from Google clarifies this aspect:

  • The algorithms focus on factors related to content usefulness as perceived by users, beyond just claims of in-depth testing.
  • Claims of a “rigorous testing process” are not ranking signals in and of themselves.
  • Content creators should focus on genuinely serving their audience’s needs and providing value, as this aligns with Google’s ranking principles.

What measures does Google take to check the accuracy of web page claims?

Google does not perform manual checks on the factual accuracy of claims made by web pages. Their algorithms focus on evaluating content quality and relevance through automated ranking systems. Google’s E-E-A-T concept is designed to align with how they rank useful content, but it does not involve any manual review unless there is a specific spam action reconsideration request. This separates factual scrutiny from automated content ranking mechanisms.

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Feb 20 2024
5 Questions Answered About The OpenAI Search Engine via @sejournal, @martinibuster

It was reported that OpenAI is working on a search engine that would directly challenge Google. But details missing from the report raise questions about whether OpenAI is creating a standalone search engine or if there’s another reason for the announcement.

OpenAI Web Search Report

The report published on The Information relates that OpenAI is developing a Web Search product that will directly compete with Google. A key detail of the report is that it will be partly powered by Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. Apart from that there are no other details, including whether it will be a standalone search engine or be integrated within ChatGPT.

All reports note that it will be a direct challenge to Google so let’s start there.

1. Is OpenAI Mounting A Challenge To Google?

OpenAI is said to be using Bing search as part of the rumored search engine, a combination of a GPT-4 with Bing Search, plus something in the middle to coordinate between the two .

In that scenario, what OpenAI is not doing is developing its own search indexing technology, it’s using Bing.

What’s left then for OpenAI to do in order to create a search engine is to devise how the search interface interacts with GPT-4 and Bing.

And that’s a problem that Bing has already solved by using what it Microsoft calls an orchestration layer. Bing Chat uses retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to improve answers by adding web search data to use as context for the answers that GPT-4 creates. For more information on how orchestration and RAG works watch the keynote at Microsoft Build 2023 event by Kevin Scott, Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, at the 31:45 minute mark here).

If OpenAI is creating a challenge to Google Search, what exactly is left for OpenAI to do that Microsoft isn’t already doing with Bing Chat? Bing is an experienced and mature search technology, an expertise that OpenAI does not have.

Is OpenAI challenging Google? A more plausible answer is that Bing is challenging Google through OpenAI as a proxy.

2. Does OpenAI Have The Momentum To Challenge Google?

ChatGPT is the fastest growing app of all time, currently with about 180 million users, achieving in two months what took years for Facebook and Twitter.

Yet despite that head start Google’s lead is a steep hill for OpenAI to climb.  Consider that Google has approximately 3 to 4 billion users worldwide, absolutely dwarfing OpenAI’s 180 million.

Assuming that all 180 million OpenAI users performed an average of 4 searches per day, the daily number of searches could reach 720 million searches per day.

Statista estimates that there are 6.3 million searches on Google per minute which equals over 9 billion searches per day.

If OpenAI is to compete they’re going to have to offer a useful product with a compelling reason to use it. For example, Google and Apple have a captive audience on mobile device ecosystem that embeds them into the daily lives of their users, both at work and at home. It’s fairly apparent that it’s not enough to create a search engine to compete.

Realistically, how can OpenAI achieve that level of ubiquity and usefulness?

OpenAI is facing an uphill battle against not just Google but Microsoft and Apple, too. If we count Internet of Things apps and appliances then add Amazon to that list of competitors that already have a presence in billions of users daily lives.

OpenAI does not have the momentum to launch a search engine to compete against Google because it doesn’t have the ecosystem to support integration into users lives.

3. OpenAI Lacks Information Retrieval Expertise

Search is formally referred to as Information Retrieval (IR) in research papers and patents. No amount of searching in the Arxiv.org repository of research papers will surface papers authored by OpenAI researchers related to information retrieval. The same can be said for searching for information retrieval (IR) related patents. OpenAI’s list of research papers also lacks IR related studies.

It’s not that OpenAI is being secretive. OpenAI has a long history of publishing research papers about the technologies they’re developing. The research into IR does not exist. So if OpenAI is indeed planning on launching a challenge to Google, where is the smoke from that fire?

It’s a fair guess that search is not something OpenAI is developing right now. There are no signs that it is even flirting with building a search engine, there’s nothing there.

4. Is The OpenAI Search Engine A Microsoft Project?

There is substantial evidence that Microsoft is furiously researching how to use LLMs as a part of a search engine.

All of the following research papers are classified as belonging to the fields of Information Retrieval (aka search), Artificial Intelligence, and Natural Language Computing.

Here are few research papers just from 2024:

Enhancing human annotation: Leveraging large language models and efficient batch processing
This is about using AI for classifying search queries.

Structured Entity Extraction Using Large Language Models
This research paper discovers a way to extracting structured information from unstructured text (like webpages). It’s like turning a webpage (unstructured data) into a machine understandable format (structured data).

Improving Text Embeddings with Large Language Models (PDF version here)
This research paper discusses a way to get high-quality text embeddings that can be used for information retrieval (IR). Text embeddings is a reference to creating a representation of text in a way that can be used by algorithms to understand the semantic meanings and relationships between the words.

The above research paper explains the use:

“Text embeddings are vector representations of natural language that encode its semantic information. They are widely used in various natural language processing (NLP) tasks, such as information retrieval (IR), question answering…etc. In the field of IR, the first-stage retrieval often relies on text embeddings to efficiently recall a small set of candidate documents from a large-scale corpus using approximate nearest neighbor search techniques.”

There’s more research by Microsoft that relates to search, but these are the ones that are specifically related to search together with large language models (like GPT-4.5).

Following the trail of breadcrumbs leads directly to Microsoft as the technology powering any search engine that OpenAI is supposed to be planning… if that rumor is true.

5. Is Rumor Meant To Steal Spotlight From Gemini?

The rumor that OpenAI is launching a competing search engine was published on February 14th. The next day on February 15th Google announced the launch of Gemini 1.5, after announcing Gemini Advanced on February 8th.

Is it a coincidence that OpenAI’s announcement completely overshadowed the Gemini announcement the next day? The timing is incredible.

At this point the OpenAI search engine is just a rumor.

Featured Image by Shutterstock/rafapress

Ecommerce MGMT 0 Comments
Feb 19 2024
Revolutionizing SEO With Google’s Search Generative Experience via @sejournal, @VincentTerrasi

The advent of Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is revolutionizing online search, ushering in a new era of contextualization and intuition in information discovery.

This technological advancement is fundamentally changing SEO strategies, requiring professionals to adopt a new approach to content creation.

The impact on users is equally significant, with AI greatly facilitating access to search results.

This article proposes an advanced thematic mapping approach to maximize the effectiveness of these technologies in SEO.

It also discusses the knowledge of large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s GPT, Google’s Bard, and Microsoft’s Bing AI, highlighting their limitations and potential in SEO content creation.

The Arrival Of Google SGE

Google SGE marks a revolutionary shift in online search. This innovation sees Google take a more contextual and intuitive approach to information retrieval.

This development has a significant impact on how SEO professionals need to think and plan their content strategies.

The user experience is also changing, as AI-guided search results are easier to find.

Answers are quickly accessible without having to sift through multiple tabs and pages.

Understanding how this AI works and extracting its knowledge using new methods is essential to position yourself effectively and understand its limitations.

Understanding Large Language Models (LLMs)

LLMs such as GPT, Bard, and Bing AI are powerful tools with impressive natural language generation and understanding capabilities.

However, these models have limitations, particularly when it comes to understanding specific contexts and updating information.

Ontologies around bikes: LLM exampleImage from author, January 2024

SEO project staff need to understand these limitations in order to maximize their content creation efficiency.

There are two types of knowledge: that which comes from the data used for training and that which is in the search engine index and is used as part of the answers.

To illustrate this, I’d like to show you how we can map this knowledge.

Thematic Mapping Importance

Thematic mapping is a critical tool in SEO that organizes and structures content in a logical and intuitive way.

It ensures that all facets of a topic are covered, increasing the relevance and quality of the content. Using an LLM for thematic mapping offers unique advantages in generating new ideas and perspectives.

Structuring A Thematic Map

Topic mapping is the practice of grouping related ideas and topics into clusters to facilitate the creation of coherent and comprehensive content.

This approach not only helps to organize ideas in a logical way but also to identify gaps in existing content.

Topic Map Architecture

Choice Of Topic And Keywords

Choose a niche topic and identify the relevant keywords. You can start with the LLM of your choice, but I prefer one approach.

The first is to use Google’s AI, such as PaLM 2 if you have a good command of Google’s tools (for your information, I have set up a training course on Data Marketing Labs).

Here’s a very simplified prompt to get the ontologies present in ChatGPT: 

  • Give me a list in a table of the ontologies around “YOUR CONCEPT.”
ChatGPT 4 exampleScreenshot from ChatGPT 4, January 2024

Brainstorming

For each expression, you’ll ask the LLM to brainstorm by creating several passages related to the expression.

I’m often asked why I make several passages. The answer is simply because, depending on the creativity threshold and the answers in Google’s index, the LLM may have slightly different answers, and this allows the field of possibilities to be included.

Here’s a picture where I’m using PaLM 2 to generate topics that the AI knows perfectly well and that are searched for by web users. The more topics you ask for, the better the coverage of your topic.

SGE Simulator Screenshot from SGE Simulator, January 2024

Extraction

Next, you can extract all the entities mentioned in relation to a concept.

In the beginning, I used Python libraries, but now you can use an LLM because the task is very simple for it.

In the end, everything is stored in an array, and you can count the number of times a concept appears. I’d like to explain this part in more detail.

In this image, you can see that for each of the previous topics, I’m doing five generations to try to recover as many relevant elements as possible, which will help me generate the mind map.

For each generated text, I use PaLM 2 to extract the important terms, and everything is stored in a table.

Palm2 exampleScreenshot from PaLM 2, January 2024

As you can see, each step takes place in a Google Colab, which provides ready-to-use tables and makes it easy to sort your data with a few clicks.

Google Colab tables of data from Palm2Screenshot from Google Colab, January 2024

Next, you can build the thematic map from this prompt.

thematic mapScreenshot from author, January 2024

Here’s a possible result:

**Step 1: Topical Map Creation**

**Topic:** Bike

**Nouns/Predicates:**

**1. Bike Types**
– Peloton bike
– Electric bike
– Mountain bike
– Road bike

**2. Bike Components**
– Sound bike boy bell
– Bike clips
– Bike pedals
– Road bike pedals

**3. Bike Activities**
– Run walk bike regularly
– Human fully aware bike

**4. Bike Accessories**
– Mountain bike tires

**5. Bike Safety**

**Step 2: Semantic Graph**

| Subtopic 1 | Subtopic 2 | Semantic Connection |
|—|—|—|
| Peloton bike | Electric bike | Both are types of bikes that are powered by electricity. |
| Electric bike | Sound bike boy bell | Both are components that can be added to a bike. |
| Sound bike boy bell | Human fully aware bike | Both are related to the safety of the rider. |
| Human fully aware bike | Run walk bike regularly | Both are related to the physical activity of riding a bike. |
| Run walk bike regularly | Mountain bike tires | Both are related to the terrain that a bike can be ridden on. |
| Mountain bike tires | Road bike pedals | Both are components that can be added to a bike. |
| Road bike pedals | Bike clips | Both are components that can be added to a bike. |

**Step 3: Mind Map**

**Topic:** Bike

**Subcategories:**

1. Bike Types
– Peloton bike
– Electric bike
– Mountain bike
– Road bike
– BMX bike

2. Bike Components
– Sound bike boy bell
– Bike clips
– Bike pedals
– Road bike pedals
– Bike seat

3. Bike Activities
– Run walk bike regularly
– Human fully aware bike
– Bike racing
– Bike touring
– Bike commuting

4. Bike Accessories
– Mountain bike tires
– Bike helmet
– Bike lights
– Bike pump
– Bike rack

5. Bike Safety
– Bike brakes
– Bike reflectors
– Bike locks
– Bike insurance
– Bike maintenance

6. Bike Brands
– Specialized
– Trek
– Giant
– Cannondale
– Scott

7. Bike Shops
– REI
– Performance Bike
– Dick’s Sporting Goods
– Walmart
– Target

8. Bike Events
– Tour de France
– Giro d’Italia
– Vuelta a España
– Tour of California
– USA Cycling National Championships

9. Bike Clubs
– The League of American Bicyclists
– Sierra Club
– National Bike Club
– Adventure Cycling Association
– Bikers Against Child Abuse

10. Bike Advocacy
– People for Bikes
– Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
– Bike Walk Alliance
– National Center for Safe Routes to School
– International Bicycle Fund

Visualization

You can visualize the whole thing using mind-mapping tools, and the results are very instructive.

For easy visualization, there is a free Assistant in ChatGPT called AI Diagrams.

I invite you to search for it, and then you can request the generation of your mind map from the table from the previous steps.

ChatGPT 4 bike mind map Screenshot from ChatGPT 4, January 2024
Bike mind map results from promptScreenshot from ChatGPT 4, January 2024

Now I’d like to suggest some advanced actions to anticipate Google SGE.

Advanced Strategies For Google SGE

  • Use Google’s PaLM 2 to check that the map covers all aspects of your topic.
  • Integrate the map into your content research and writing process.
  • Turn each sub-theme into a web page, blog post, or other form of content and link them together to create an interconnected web of content.

This methodology provides a robust way to understand the role of generative AI in search engines and optimize for generative AI search features.

It’s enriched with detailed examples and explanations and focuses not just on topic optimization but on prioritizing content quality and targeting specific search intentions.

Human intervention remains critical to search intent and content quality.

The combination of a skilled writer and AI can enhance content optimization, using tools to maximize the efficiency and relevance of your ecosystem.

With the advent of generative AI, any SEO professional can build their own tool.

More resources: 

Featured Image: Summit Art Creations/Shutterstock

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