SEO Is Not That Hard

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Ever wondered why PBNs still tempt smart SEOs? We pull back the curtain on private blog networks—how they’re built on expired domains, why they deliver short bursts of rankings, and where the true costs and risks hide. From anchor text control and link velocity to detection patterns, manual actions, and painful clean-ups, we map the full lifecycle of a PBN so you can make informed choices about your link strategy.

I share a straight-talking breakdown of link economics in 2025, including why links drive not just rankings but citations across AI search experiences. You’ll hear the most common PBN footprints—off-topic content mixes, templated layouts, suspicious publishing cadence, and outbound link density—and get a practical process to vet any seller with a single test buy. If you’re already entangled, we cover a triage plan: request removals, consolidate a precise disavow, refresh content to regain trust, and rebalance your efforts toward durable assets that earn mentions without violating guidelines.

We also explore safer, compounding alternatives: data-led digital PR, niche expert features, resource page outreach, unlinked mention reclamation, and building tools or templates worth sharing. The goal is a credible link profile that stands up to updates and sets you up for long-term growth. If you care about resilience, reputation, and real authority, this guide will help you avoid fragile shortcuts and invest where it counts.

If you find this useful, subscribe, share with a friend who’s wrestling with link building, and leave a quick review—your support helps more marketers find the show.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

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You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

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"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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Want search visibility that survives the next update and shows up in AI answers? We dive straight into the real calculus of link building: what still works, what crumbles under scrutiny, and how to build a backlink profile that compounds rather than collapses. Drawing on two decades of building, buying, and selling sites, Ed breaks down backlinks into three buckets—good, bad, and ugly—and explains the risks behind each, from short‑term bumps to long, painful recoveries.

We start with first principles: why links remain a core ranking signal and why AI assistants increasingly rely on citations to choose which sources to show. From there, we revisit the wild‑west years of easy link spam and the moment Penguin flipped the table, turning yesterday’s playbook into a liability. No moralising here—just pragmatic risk management. If you’re considering paid placements, niche edits, or PBNs, you’ll hear the pattern risks that can flag manipulation: lumpy velocity, repeating footprints, irrelevant anchors and networks built on expired domains.

Then we turn to the durable path. Ed outlines what makes a link “good” in practice—editorial, relevant, earned because the page genuinely helps someone else’s audience—and how to create assets that attract those links without cold outreach. Think original data, simple tools, clear frameworks, and opinionated guides packaged for easy citation. You’ll get a blueprint for seeding discovery through newsletters, communities, and journalists so that value finds the people who need it.

If you want rankings that last, less time worrying about link spam updates, and a brand that others cite because it helps their readers, this conversation gives you the strategy and the mindset to get there. Enjoy the episode, then subscribe, share with a friend who obsesses over DR, and leave a quick review to help more people find the show.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

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Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

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"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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What if your site could be read like a map of meaning instead of a pile of keywords? Edd walks through a complete reframe of SEO around entities — the people, organisations, products, places, and ideas that define your niche — and shows how to turn that model into durable authority across search and AI.

We start with how modern search reads the web: extracting entities, resolving ambiguity, and linking to public knowledge bases that feed Google’s Knowledge Graph. From there, we break down why entities power rich SERP features like knowledge panels, featured snippets, and AI Overviews, and how consistency across your site, social profiles, and trusted publications raises Google’s confidence in your facts. You’ll also learn how large language models actually represent meaning with vectors, why hallucinations happen, and how grounding with retrieval augmented generation changes the authority game.

Then we get practical. Run a four-pillar entity audit (brand/products, people, services/concepts, audience interests), perform entity-based competitor analysis to surface gaps, and build topic clusters that deliver information gain through research, case studies, and expert commentary. Implement schema.org with JSON-LD using @id and sameAs to connect Organisation, Person, Product, and Service entities into a clean graph. Optimise writing for AI citations with clear headings, concise lists, factual claims with sources, and FAQs that mirror People Also Ask. Finally, project authority off-site with digital PR, consistent identities across key platforms, partnerships that create co-occurrence with respected brands, and expert sourcing on journalist platforms.

Subscribe, share with a colleague who’s still chasing keywords, and leave a review telling us which entity gap you’ll tackle first.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Authority doesn’t live on your site alone—it’s earned in public, where other trusted names choose to cite, invite, and stand beside you. We wrap our entities series by moving beyond links-as-votes and into the richer world of entity association: the patterns of mentions, partnerships, and consistent identity signals that teach search engines and LLMs who you are and why you matter.

We start by reframing off-page SEO for the semantic era. Links still help, but the deeper win is co-occurrence with respected brands, experts, and publications in your niche. That’s why digital PR and linkable assets remain essential. We share how to craft research, data-led case studies, and definitive guides that journalists and industry bloggers want to reference—and how to pitch them with clear, timely hooks that generate both backlinks and valuable unlinked mentions.

From there, we get practical about your identity footprint. Think NAP for digital-first companies: one canonical name, URL, logo, and positioning statement, aligned everywhere from LinkedIn and X to Crunchbase, G2, and Trustpilot. This “digital foundational consistency” removes ambiguity in knowledge graphs and consolidates your signals into a single, trusted entity.

Partnerships are your next force multiplier. Co-authored reports, joint webinars, and product integrations with credible, non-competing peers create repeated, contextual appearances of your brand alongside category leaders. Those patterns tell Google and AI systems that you belong in the same conversation—and they compound over time.

Finally, we show how to become a quotable expert where journalists actually request sources today. With HARO fragmented, mapping platforms like Qwoted, Featured, and niche reporter communities is critical. Respond fast, offer tight, useful quotes, and keep bylines consistent to strengthen both your personal and organisational entities across high-authority sites.

If you’re ready to stop chasing hacks and start building a reputation that algorithms can verify, this guide gives you the playbook. Subscribe, share with a teammate who owns off-page strategy, and leave a review telling us which tactic you’ll deploy first.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Search is quietly rewiring how people find answers, and the biggest shift isn’t on the results page—it’s inside the models that compose those answers. We dig into a practical playbook for turning your content into the source that ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity cite, so your brand earns authority even when no click happens.

First, we map the path from traditional rankings to AI citations and explain why “position zero” is now the reference text behind generative answers. Then we get tactical. You’ll learn how to build a heading hierarchy that machines can parse instantly, write short paragraphs that summarise cleanly, and use lists that act as ready-made snippets. We show how to replace fluffy claims with measurable statements, cite credible sources, and link to original research so your pages pass retrieval checks that power modern LLMs.

We also cover framing content as answers using an FAQ strategy guided by real user questions. By mining People also ask or a dedicated question research tool, you can align sections to specific intents and produce Q&A pairs that models can lift verbatim. To make sure all of this effort is discoverable, we finish with essential technical checks: confirm robots.txt welcomes major AI crawlers, review CDN and firewall rules that might block them, and keep a clean XML sitemap to speed up discovery. You’ll leave with a simple, repeatable audit to run on a high-value page this week: fix structure, rewrite for facts, and add focused FAQs.

If this helped, follow the show, share it with a teammate who owns your content pipeline, and leave a quick review telling us which page you’ll optimise first. Your feedback shapes what we tackle next.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Tool mentioned in the podcast: https://validator.schema.org/


Machines don’t reward guesses; they reward clarity. We walk through a practical, four‑step framework to make search engines and LLMs understand your brand, your people, and your offers without ambiguity. The focus is on schema markup that scales: JSON‑LD for clean implementation, @id for stable references, and a connected entity graph that links Organisation, Website, Person, Product, and Service into one coherent map of your business.

We start by establishing a sitewide identity with Organisation and Website markup, then strengthen it with authoritative sameAs profiles so your name is matched to the right entity in the knowledge graph. From there, we embed authorship into Article schema and connect each writer back to the brand via affiliation, with optional knowsAbout fields to highlight topical expertise and support EEAT. Next, we mark up Products and Services with properties that mirror visible content, reinforcing trust and unlocking eligibility for rich results. Finally, we tie it all together using @id URLs as canonical anchors so every reference points to a single, durable source of truth.

Along the way, we share common pitfalls to avoid, why isolated page labels leave performance on the table, and how a connected schema strategy helps search engines attribute content, surface it confidently, and reduce confusion with lookalike brands. We also cover essential tooling: the Schema Markup Validator for structure and the Rich Results Test for feature eligibility, plus pointers to research resources for deeper implementation.

If you want your authority recognised by both users and machines, this is your blueprint to ship. Subscribe for more hands‑on SEO strategy, share this with a teammate who owns structured data, and leave a review telling us which schema type you’ll implement first.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Ready to stop sprinkling keywords and start building authority that lasts? We take one neglected concept in your niche and turn it into a structured topic cluster that both readers and search engines recognise as a trusted resource. From mapping entities to designing a pillar page and the right cluster coverage, we show how to move beyond thin posts and build a small, focused library that stands up to scrutiny.

We break down the hub-and-spoke model in plain terms: what belongs on a pillar, how to choose cluster pages, and why reciprocal internal links matter for both navigation and crawl clarity. Then we go deeper into information gain, the critical difference between echoing the web and advancing it. Expect practical ways to add unique value: original surveys, product or platform data, detailed case studies, and timely expert commentary that clarifies what news means for your audience. We also explain how a comprehensive “skyscraper” update can win when you can’t run new research right away.

To tie it together, we map the work to EEAT. You’ll hear how author entities, credentials, citations, and update discipline signal expertise and trust, while linkable assets and comprehensive coverage build authority. You’ll leave with a clear action plan: outline a pillar for your chosen entity gap, select three to four cluster pages, and pick one to elevate with real information gain. Stick around for a quick teaser of what’s next as we prepare to express your structure to machines with schema markup.

If you’re serious about topical authority and sustainable rankings, this is your blueprint. Subscribe, share with a colleague who writes content, and leave a review telling us which entity you’ll build a cluster around next.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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The prompt mentioned in the episode is:

You are an expert SEO analyst specializing in Natural Language Processing and entity-based optimization. I will provide you with the text from a competitor's webpage. Your task is to perform a Named Entity Recognition (NER) analysis on this text.

Please identify all the significant entities mentioned in the text. For each entity, classify it into one of the following categories: Person, Organization, Location, Product, Event, or Concept (for abstract ideas, theories, or topics).

Please present your findings in a simple list or table format, with one column for the entity and one for its category.

Please sort the entities in order of importance

Here is the text:

[Paste the competitor's text here]

Every rival looks unbeatable until you see what Google actually sees: the network of entities that frames their authority. We pull back the curtain on a simple, repeatable method to map competitor concepts, spot gaps, and build content hubs that earn durable rankings.

We start by recapping the four-pillar entity audit that anchors your strategy: brand and products, people, core concepts, and audience topics. Then we turn that blueprint outward. Instead of chasing keyword lists, we show how to identify true SERP competitors for your core ideas, pick a representative high-ranking page, and extract its entities using a clean, copy-paste prompt with your favourite LLM. No specialist software, no guesswork — just a structured list of people, organisations, products, locations, events, and concepts that shape the page’s topical focus.

From there, we translate data into decisions. You’ll learn to compare entity saturation against your own audit, find the missing concepts and influential names you should reference, and read structural clues in URLs, headings, and internal links that reveal how competitors build content hubs. We also touch on brand signals and knowledge panels to understand how well Google recognises a site as an entity. The result is a pragmatic roadmap: pick one high-value gap, create a cornerstone guide and supporting pieces, interlink with consistent anchors, and align metadata and naming to signal clear relevance.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Search engines understand the world through entities, not just keywords, and that changes how we plan, write, and structure content. We take the entity conversation out of theory and into practice by building a simple, durable audit you can complete today. The result is a living blueprint that gives your brand a clear centre of gravity online and helps algorithms connect your pages to real people, products, and ideas.

We start by anchoring your commercial core with precise brand and product entities—official names, common variants, sub-brands, and flagship offerings. Then we layer in people entities to demonstrate E‑E‑A‑T: founders, executives, and subject matter experts with real author pages, consistent bylines, and verifiable profiles. From there we map service and concept entities, breaking broad capabilities into sub-services and pairing them with the ideas customers research first. Finally, we shift focus to audience-centric entities, mining Reddit, Quora, and People Also Ask to capture the exact questions and pain points that drive discovery and trust.

Across the episode, we show how to turn this list into action: canonical URLs for each entity, schema types to apply, internal links that mirror meaning, and content that answers real questions with clarity. You’ll leave with a four-column template—brand/products, people, services/concepts, audience—and the guidance to populate at least five entities in each. Use it to align navigation, consolidate overlapping pages, and build stronger hubs that prevent cannibalisation while improving topical authority.

Ready to move beyond keyword chasing and build an entity-first strategy that lasts? Subscribe, share this with a teammate who owns content planning, and leave a quick review to tell us which pillar you’re tackling first.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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Tired of confident AI answers that crumble under scrutiny? We pull back the curtain on why large language models hallucinate—and how to stop the damage by turning your website into a source AIs can safely cite. Instead of treating models like fact vaults, we treat them like brilliant writers who need trustworthy notes. That shift unlocks a practical playbook: ground responses in real documents, use retrieval‑augmented generation, and structure your content around clear, unambiguous entities.

We break down RAG in plain terms: retrieval first, generation second. Think open‑book exam, where you get to choose the book. When your policies, performance metrics, and definitions are precise and easy to retrieve, AIs pick your pages to anchor their answers. That means replacing “unparalleled performance” with “10,000 records per second, 20% faster than the previous version,” mapping canonical names for products and features, and supporting claims with dates, units, and links. We share cautionary tales—from invented airline policies to fake case law—and translate them into concrete steps any team can take to reduce risk and increase trust.

The bigger win is strategic. As organisations build internal copilots and external chat experiences, they’ll prioritise ingesting domains with reliable, machine‑readable knowledge. This authority economy rewards brands that publish clean, verifiable, entity‑rich content. We walk through a simple content audit you can run this week, how to align claims across your site, and why release notes, policy pages, and structured data make you more “retrievable.” By the end, you’ll know how to write for humans and machines at the same time—and how to become the default reference in your niche.

If this helped you think differently about content and AI, follow the show, share it with a teammate, and leave a review. Got a question you want answered on air? Send a voice note from the link in the show notes.

SEO Is Not That Hard is hosted by Edd Dawson and brought to you by KeywordsPeopleUse.com

Help feed the algorithm and leave a review at ratethispodcast.com/seo

You can get your free copy of my 101 Quick SEO Tips at: https://seotips.edddawson.com/101-quick-seo-tips

To get a personal no-obligation demo of how KeywordsPeopleUse could help you boost your SEO and get a 7 day FREE trial of our Standard Plan book a demo with me now

See Edd's personal site at edddawson.com

Ask me a question and get on the show Click here to record a question

Find Edd on Linkedin, Bluesky & Twitter

Find KeywordsPeopleUse on Twitter @kwds_ppl_use

"Werq" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/