SEO Rant Podcast

Rejoice Ojiaku joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her thoughts on what real diversity in the SEO community looks like:

* Talking about diversity is not enough

* What an actually diverse SEO community looks and feels like

* Why the SEO community loses out if we don't foster a diverse and inclusive environment

There is a lot of talk in the SEO community about diversity and inclusion. But outside of the talk, what is actually happening out there to be more inclusive and to foster a more diverse environment? If you look out there in the community and at what's actually happening out there it doesn't feel like much has changed in terms of being more diverse and inclusive. So while we do speak about the topic a lot, are we actually interested (as a collective) in real change?

Crystal Carter joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her outlook on how to build value for your domain with SEO by getting your homepage right.

* Why your homepage is the most important page on your site from an SEO point of view

* Creating domain identity with your homepage

* What you should be doing on your homepage so that it makes Google think your domain has value

Sure, having a great blog and landing pages is an awesome way to bring folks to your site. But don't spend all your time building a massive blog post while ignoring the most important page on your site... your homepage.

Your homepage is who your site is. If you get it wrong, it can impact every other page on your site. It's the first page Google crawls, it's the page most often linked to, and beyond. If you want to build your domain's organic search value you need to get it right.

More than any other page, your homepage gives your entire site identity. There are some really simple things you can do to optimize your homepage. Listen in as Crystal shares why getting the page right is so important and what you should or shouldn't be concerned with when optimizing the homepage.

Founder of Site Strategics and the Edge of the Web Podcast Erin Sparks (and the Robin to his Batman, Jacob Mann) join the SEO Rant to discuss the difficulties that come along with SEO clients:

* SEOs can't solve poor business practices, nor should you be expected to

* How to know when you should stay away from potential SEO clients

* Why you as an SEO should not entertain high levels of mistrust

"SEO is a long-term investment," says SEO veteran Erin Sparks. That can stand in strong juxtaposition to the expectation that many SEO clients have. Add on a heap of myths about Google that the SEO industry can't seem to shake off of its back and your client's expectations might be light years away from reality.

And that's just the start. Clients think that "digital marketing" (SEO included) is some sort of panacea to plug the enormous gaps in their overarching business goals and practices. If the business plan isn't sound, SEO isn't going to solve it for you.

Perhaps worse of all is the level of mistrust that sometimes comes with clients. Clients can come with certain expectations that are at times unreasonable even if they heavily finance their SEO efforts. Nothing is ever going to be perfect and no ride to the top of the SERP is without its bumps. If clients come at you with extreme levels of mistrust at the slightest sign of "a problem" - it might not be worth dealing with them.

Being aware of where the client is coming from, where their business currently stands, and so forth are beyond vital in ensuring you enter into a healthy client relationship.

Paul Andre de Vera joins the SEO Rant Podcast to explain why most SEO job listings fail!

We take up:

*Why SEO job listings are fundamentally flawed, more often than not

*What a good SEO job listing should look like

*How to align yourselves with a job listing so that you get the SEO job

you're after

SEO job listings often seem like they're after some mythical SEO who doesn't exist, never has existed, and never will exist. Instead of targeting a specific profile, these listings ask SEOs to know everything about SEO and beyond. Not only do you have to know everything from technical SEO to link building but a lot of these listings ask SEOs to be content writers, social media marketers, and beyond. That's clearly a problem.

To make matters worse SEO job listings, when they do include a listed salary, often throw out numbers that are incredibly low. So not only are these listings asking SEOs to know everything under the Sun, but they're not paying you much to know it!

In this episode, Dre walks us through the problems with SEO job listings, what they should look like instead, and how you as an SEO can best handle an SEO job listing!

Debi Norton joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share 25 years of experience as an SEO and digital marketer:

* How dealing with clients & SEO reporting has changed drastically

over time

* What life was like for an SEO at the start of it all

* Whether or not SEOs needed to know how to code & if they do

nowadays

Saying "SEO has changed" in the past quarter of a century is painfully obvious. That's why this episode doesn't list a whole heap of cliche points about how the digital landscape has changed in 25 years.

Instead... Debi recounts her experiences and journey through SEO and digital marketing over the past two and half decades. From what interaction with clients was like back when the industry was brand-new to what you did when you didn't have a heap of SEO tools or even a modem that wasn't dial-up!

Along the way, we get into some of the age-old questions that have plagued SEO since the dawn of time... Do SEOs need to know to code? What tools are the best for SEOs?... and so forth.

In short, this was a nice conversational look at how doing the work and dealing with the clients has changed and what it really used to look like!

Navah Hopkins joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share her thoughts on the state of PPC and its relationship to SEO.

* How PPC has fundamentally changed

* How PPC and SEO work together

* When to consider investing in PPC versus when to consider investing in SEO

Navah Hopkins and Mordy Oberstein lay it all out for you in this episode of the SEO Rant Podcast!

Yuriy Yarovy joins the podcast to shamelessly promote his Twitter curation tool, Dewey, but also to share his thoughts on the role of curated content:

* Why content today demands curation

* The role of trust in the content curation process

* The future of content and where curation may or may not fit in

Why Curated Content Is the Hottest Thing Since Sliced Bread: Episode Synopsis

When it comes to understanding the value of curated content, Yuriy Yarovoy knows a thing or two. He's the founder of Dewey, a Chrome extension that lets you save tweets and categorize them in folders (as opposed to Twitter Bookmarks which is just a heap of unorganized mess).

His idea was that what you bookmark on Twitter says a lot about you. If you're an expert in whatever field others might be interested in what you bookmark. Being able to organize your bookmarks into folders, etc. is a way of curating content. Meaning, instead of you having to scour Twitter for content, just have a look at what your favorite personalities are saving via Dewey.

This speaks to a larger problem, the over-abundance of content. Anyone who's anyone is spitting out all sorts of content these days and most of it is utter crap. That means you need to spend way too much time sifting through content in order to separate out what's good and what's... not.

To combat this, curated content has taken off. This is the age of the newsletter. Why spend so much time reading all sorts of content from all sorts of sites when only 5% of it is decent? Why not subscribe to a newsletter where content is expertly picked for you? (Which is why I subscribe to the SEOFOMO newsletter and why you should too. Do it now.)

The point is, as the barrage of content continues, people will need a way to sift through it all without spending a ton of time doing so. Being someone who can do this for people, being someone who curates content, has a lot of potential in such an ecosystem.

If you're someone who people trust, who people would rely on to have you pick the content they consume for them... then you might want to seriously consider putting out some form of curated content!

Georgios Chasiotis joins the SEO Rant Podcast to talk about how to good SEO means building topical authority from the bottom up.

How to build your site's authority methodically

The difference between topical coverage and topical identity

How to use site identity & authority to move into more competitive areas on the SERP.

Building Authority by Association with Small Libraries:

Google works by associations. It understands that a site is associated with a given topic or set of topics. When thinking about your content from an SEO perspective it pays to start thinking about it in a far more targeted way. Think of your site as containing small libraries of very focused content that's clearly identifiable. By clearly identifiable we mean that it's clear that the topics are a focus of the site. This stands in contradistinction to casting a wide net with your content in the hopes of bringing in a large amount of content. Aside from targeted content being more valuable, you can't establish yourself as an authority in that manner. By creating small and concentrated libraries of focused content you're showing Google you comprehensively cover a topic. Meaning, you're showing Google you are an authority on the topic. In turn, when relevant keywords are entered into the search engine Google considers you relevant at the topical level.

This means you want to start targeting the small terms that show a refined understanding of the topic area. This allows you to grow into more competitive subtopics as Google already understands that you're a relevant authority. By building authority at the topic level from the bottom up you give your site a chance, ultimately, to compete in more competitive spaces.

Olga Zerzeczna joins the SEO Rant to discuss the central role that Search Console takes in doing SEO:

* What makes Search Console unique

* The data found inside of Search Console

* When to move to a third-party tool

When it comes to SEO tools and data Google's Search Console is foundational. It's fundamentally different than anything else out there. While third-party tools are great and essential for a heap of SEO tasks Search Console holds a special place in the hearts of SEOs.

In this episode, Olga and I discuss what makes Search Console so special and when you should move to a third-party tool.

Christina LeVasseur joins the SEO Rant Podcast to discuss what it means to create your own path and identity in SEO.

* How to create a unique SEO career

* Why self-reflection and awareness is critical to creating a unique SEO career trajectory

* The stress of evaluating and reevaluating your SEO career choices

SEO is in more demand than ever and accordingly, there are more SEOs than ever. Standing out from the crowd and having a unique persona within the industry can give your career a boost. Instead of giving you a set of top-level and relatively meaningless tips on how to create a unique SEO career path... we're diving deep into the mindset that helps foster an upwards career trajectory.