Rand Fishkin: The Wizard of Moz

SEO's have always been tactical about how they use content, but they have become increasingly strategic and content-driven as digital marketing has evolved.

Rand Fishkin talks about "the SEO as content strategist" and much more, including empathy and teamwork, "10X Content," voice search, and his thoughts on this week's FCC decision to roll back net neutrality.

Rand's Bio

Rand Fishkin goes by the ludicrous title, Wizard of Moz. He's founder and former CEO of SEO software startup Moz, host of Whiteboard Friday, co-author of a pair of books on SEO, co-founder of Inbound.org, and serves on the board of the presentation software firm, Haiku Deck. Rand's currently writing a book for Penguin/Random House on the ups and downs of startup culture, due out in 2018. In his minuscule spare time, he loves to travel with his wife, author Geraldine DeRuiter, and read about their adventures in her books and blog. Geraldine and Rand are also small investors in Backstage Capital and Techstars Seattle.

Video

Here's the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/u71KHOrLjyY

Transcript

This current version is not a word-for-word transcript, just my raw notes from my first listen-through of our conversation.

The SEO as Content Strategist

1:15 how and why SEOs should be strategic about content - SEO used to be tactical: ID keywords, get links - a rankings strategy

1:50 SEO content strategy - start from a place of "I believe that if I can get my audience in front of this content it will help my brand, my conversions, my business goals" - after I create and amplify this content, the world will change in this way - start with: how to get them in front of my content - start with the right content - then find the right audience - do keyword research, etc. - and then search is another channel (along with word of mouth, email, etc.) to attract visitors to your content

3:15 evolution of the role - different content than 10-15 years ago - then formulaic keyword targeting landing pages - now serve visitor intent, accomplish task, amplification-worthy, viral-worthy - but similar volume of content creation in SEO role

4:45 how SEOs cope with SEO-unfriendly CMS's - work-arounds - SEOs becoming more technical - realization that marketing should drive decisions, not tech - tech should be there to serve business goals - much less of

SEO Content Team Dynamics

7:40 optimal team? - "small teams of collaborators with different skills all working together" - e.g. content team that includes 2 devs, a designer, 2 content creators, an SEO strategist, and a content strategist - problem he sees all the time

8:55 team dynamics - "tribalism" - we crave it - "me good, you bad" - the "other team" the cause of problems - harder to complain when diverse team assigned a strategic goal

10:50 - empathy - core principle: "I want to be able to emotionally and intellectually put myself in someone else's shoes so that I can feel their pain and their problems, so that I can understand things from their perspective." - by doing that you can get a better relationship with - developers e.g. may not write a single line of code before they know X

12:45 - benefits of literally working side by side - no more villians

"10X Content"

13:45 - "10X" Content - Google doc with criteria and examples at

bit.ly/10Xcontent - remarkable content - that everyone has seen - that stuff is powerful - not required of every piece of content - but consult his list for inspiration for 10X content you could create for your audience

15:45 - yes, we serve customers and business goals, "But I think when content is really special and people get truly inspired - it becomes art. It's something that we do for ourselves.