SEO Rant Podcast

Ori Zilbershtein returns to the SEO Rant Podcast to share his experience with an SEO agency -from what went wrong to what SEO agencies can learn from this series of unfortunate events:

* The importance of offering SEO clients a consistent agency experience

* How SEO agencies can correct course when things go wrong with clients

* How agencies can handle project failures the right way

When an SEO agency is on its game - it's great. Agencies can be a powerful ally to help you grow your business and improve your site's experience for users. When an SEO agency is not on its game it can be a downright nightmare.

Listen as Ori Zilbershtein shares his SEO agency nightmare with SEO Rant host Mordy Oberstein!

Michel Fortin joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share why putting users before bots matters and why that's the best thing you can do as an SEO:

* Why you should stop chasing keywords, algorithms, and the like

* Why user-first SEO means conversion-first SEO

* What it means to put the user first when doing SEO

While the SEO industry has (mostly) moved off of the over-emphasis on keywords, there still seems to be a lag in adopting a more holistic and user-focused approach to SEO. That's not to say there isn't much importance to things like technical SEO or links, etc. Obviously, ensuring the technical health of a site is of paramount importance. Rather, and as Michel Fortin points out, the ultimate goal of a site and the work an SEO does isn't around technical SEO, it's to bring in users and new resources of revenue and growth.

Listen as Michel Fortin and Mordy Oberstein share why a user-centric approach to SEO is the best approach to SEO!

Helen Pollitt joins the SEO Rant Podcast to talk about the problems in the SEO job market:

* Why the interview process for SEO jobs is broken

* Why there needs to be a better way other than preparing multiple audits to prove your SEO worth to a prospective employer

Working your way through the hiring process when searching for a new job can be unpleasant, but perhaps more so if you're an SEO. Whereas back in the day the application process for an SEO job was relatively streamlined Helen Pollitt advocates that the process has gotten far messier. Nowadays, SEOs need to jump through all sorts of hoops as they navigate the hiring process.

Listen as host Mordy Oberstein chats with Helen in order to understand why the SEO job application process is broken and what would make it better.

* Why CVs are such a waste of time when trying to judge an SEO for a job

What is the fallout of Google's gender bias inside its search results? Myriam Jessier joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share the problem Google has with gender and language:

* How does gender bias play itself out on the SERP?

* How certain languages are impacted by Google's gender more bias than others

* Why gender bias in search results disincentivizes good content

Unlike English, many of the world's languages utilize male-specific and female-specific conjugation. That creates a very significant problem for search engines as it opens the door to gender bias among the search results. As Myriam points out, if you search for the female version of something in French, you end up getting the male conjugation on the SERP instead.

Listen as Myriam Jessier and Mordy Oberstein explore the problem of gender bias on the Google SERP.

Kristal Audain joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her experience coming into the SEO industry and being an SEO (and beyond):

* Why being invested in your own SEO education matters so very much

* The value in finding your own SEO space

* Why the road doesn't always end at SEO

No one has ever said, "you know what I want to be when I grow up... Barry Schwartz." Despite how wonderful Barry is, very few people think about being an SEO when they grow up. Usually, we somehow fall into being an SEO. One day, we wake up, and we're suddenty Barry Schwartz.

The path towards one day waking up and being an SEO is messy. There are so many variables that play into it. Join Kristal Audain and Mordy Oberstein as they explore the path towards becoming an SEO, then being an SEO, and then perhaps moving beyond SEO.

Kristie Plantinga joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her client-first approach to keyword research:

* Why your clients are the best source for keyword research

* How to get clients to think about new query opportunity

* The one question to get clients to think about the right topics to cover on their site

Your clients are the experts on the topics that relate to their business. Your job as an SEO isn't to go to a keyword research tool and pull out a list of topics/keywords for the site to target. Your job is to figure out what topics are the right topics to create content around. If your clients are topical experts then wouldn't they have a lot more genuine insight than a keyword research tool?

Join Mordy Oberstein and Kristie Plantinga as they explore a client-oriented version of keyword research!

Want to learn more about how SEO works in China? Owain Llyod-Williams shares his experience optimizing sites for Baidu:

* How governmental censorship plays itself out when doing SEO on Chinese websites

* How language norms impact the content on your site

* How intelligent Baidu is relative to Google

Manual actions are one thing but say the wrong thing on your site in China and the whole site comes down. Owain Llyod-Williams lays out the extreme level of censorship in China and how that impacts doing SEO.

Local SEO ninja guru Claire Carlile joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her thoughts on the wide world of local SEO:

* Why did Google rename GMB?

* The state of spam fighting

* When should SMBs focus on SERP features?

Over the years local SEO has really come into its own. In this episode, Claire Carlile runs through an array of local SEO topics within the context of how the space has developed over time.

Listen as Claire and the show's host, Mordy Oberstein, dive into the state of spam in the local space, when SMBs should focus on SERP features, and, more!

Alex Wright joins the SEO Rant Podcast to discuss how to showcase the value of SEO to clients:

* The value in understanding how the client's business works so your SEO work aligns

* Why you need to have conversations around the client's overarching business goals

* How to integrate yourself into your client's business

It should go without saying (although it appears we do need to say it) that you need to prove the value of your SEO work to clients. This really isn't unique to SEO but it can be a little trickier when it comes to the value of SEO work.

This process starts with understanding how the client's business works. That means you need to really jump into things.

Listen as Alex Wright and Mordy Oberstein discuss how to integrate yourself into your client's business so that your SEO work can provide them with unique value.

Alice Roussel joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her thoughts on growth marketing vs SEO:

* The advantage of looking at multiple channels for growth

* The advantage of looking at multiple channels for your career

* Managing growth channels that you are not the expert on

For SEOs with many years of experience, zooming out and focusing on wider multi-channel growth is often the next natural step. One of the unique advantages that Alice sees in going this route is the perspective that looking at multiple channels offers. Taking a step back and looking at all the channels and the full user journey gives your organic traffic context. You now better understand your customer's journey and this can indeed help you better optimize for organic channels, including organic search.

Listen as Mordy Oberstein and Alice Roussel chat about pivoting from SEO to growth marketing.