Learning how the cogs turn behind the Google machine

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to actually talk to Google?

To ask them all the questions you’ve ever wanted to ask?

To find out why they do what they do.

Why they keep fiddling.

What they have coming up.

Imagine how great that would be.

Well, imagine no more, for today we have John Mueller, head of Google Search Relations, on the pod. 

We’ve spoken to John before in my first season on Episode 15: Ask Google: Q&A with John Mueller, Episode 29: Mobile First with John Mueller, and Episode 30: GOOGLE Q&A with John Mueller. 

And today, to kick off our pod in 2023 we have his ear again.

Hurrah.

Tune in to learn:

• Biggest updates from 2022
• What small businesses should focus on for SEO
• What’s coming up in 2023
• Where to find out the latest Google updates
• Developments John is most excited for
• John’s top 5 tips for ranking on Google
• How important backlinks really are

Useful resources: 

• Follow Google on Twitter 
• Follow updates on YouTube
• Google Search Essentials
• Best practices for ecommerce sites in Google Search
• In-depth guide to how Google Search works
• Google Helpful Content Update: What NOT to do with James Welch (NEWBIE)

Head to episode notes

Freebies:

1. Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

2. The Ultimate SEO Checklist

3. Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

How SEO has changed this year and what you should do about it

It’s been a busy year in SEO land.And Google has been experimenting as always.And if you’re a normal human, and not glued to Twitter every living minute of the day, you might find it hard to keep up with it all.So I’ve asked one of our most popular guests to come back on the show and give us the low down on what’s what in SEO in 2022.The big moves.The little tweaks.The things you can ignore and the things you better jump right on.

This is a short, snappy wrap-up of everything you need to know about Search Engine Optimisation before you head into your festive flop period and face a brave new year.

Tune in to learn: 

• Kate and Cyrus’s thoughts on the top 10 changes in SEO this year:
• Improvements to Google Search Console
• Google not indexing less important pages
• More videos 
• Greater emphasis on visual search
• Mobile SERP changes: Site Name and Favicon in results, shorter titles on mobile
• Spam Update (auto-generated content)
• Universal Analytics > GA4
• Changes to Google My Business > Google Business Profile
• Product Review Update
• Helpful Content Update
• Where SEO is heading for 2023

Useful Resources: 

• Google Search Console
• Google Helpful Content Update: What NOT to do with James Welch (NEWBIE)

Head to episode notes

Freebies:

1. Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

2. The Ultimate SEO Checklist

3. Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

Scaling up from being an SEO freelance consultant

Okay so perhaps you’re an SEO freelancer.Working job to job, helping clients on a small scale.But you have big dreams.You’d love to run your very own SEO agency.But the thought of setting it up and managing all the ins and outs leaves you cold.

The risk is huge and let’s be honest, SEO agencies often don’t have the best reputation out there! So how do you overcome all this and make your agency honest, legitimate and profitable? Today we’re going to answer all this and more.

Tune in to learn:

• How running an SEO agency differs from being a freelance SEO consultant
• Darren’s tips for starting your own SEO agency
• Common mistakes to avoid
• Why so many agencies get a bad wrap, and how to improve your reputation 
• Big changes in SEO - what has happened in the past, and what’s coming up in the future
• Darren’s top DIY SEO tip

Head to episode notes 

Freebies:

1. Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

2. The Ultimate SEO Checklist

3. Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

How to Yoastify your shop

If you’re even vaguely into SEO and haven’t heard of Yoast, then I’m guessing you have been living under a rock.

But for those that don’t know, Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps your site perform better in search engines like Google. 

It also gives you the tools to bring your content to the highest standards of SEO and overall readability. 

It’s my favourite SEO tool which I use on all my sites and recommend in my course The Recipe for SEO success. 

And yes I’ve tried all the other tools, but I find that Yoast works best with other plugins and its SEO copywriting features are just awesome.

But one big fat bummer was always that I couldn’t recommend Yoast to my Shopify students, who now make up nearly 50% of my course takers.

They had to struggle on, using dodgy apps or hand coding.

But all that has changed. 

Yoast has just launched a Shopify version of their famous WordPress plugin and today I’m delighted to be chatting to Marieke van de Rakt all about its features, upcoming developments and how to get the best out of the app.

Tune in to learn:

• What Yoast is
• Why Yoast launched an SEO app for Shopify
• Core features of the Yoast SEO app
• How it helps deal with duplicate content
• How to start off with Yoast SEO
• What kind of support is available
• Marieke’s top SEO tip

Useful resources:

• Yoast SEO for Shopify
• Yoast SEO for WordPress

Head to episode notes

Freebies:

1. Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

2. The Ultimate SEO Checklist

3. Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

Have you heard about content clusters?

They’re all about strategic internal linking.

Creating little groups of content around a key topic.

You create a pillar page and link to and from it, offering multiple internal links to keep readers entertained, educated and on your site.

Benefits include more organised content, less overlap and more authority on a given topic and increased content production speed.

Sounds good right?

But where do you start?

And if your existing content is currently the blog equivalent of a hoarders boudoir, how do you organise your content into clusters?

Today we’ll answer these questions and many more.

Tune in to learn: 

• What content clusters are
• What the benefits of using content clusters are
• How to choose your cluster topics
• Must-haves for your content clusters
• Common mistakes to avoid
• How to measure the effectiveness of content clusters, and where you can gather these metrics
• How Google’s recent content update impacts content clusters
• What to do if you already have a blog packed with content
• Marion’s top content cluster tip

Useful resources: 

• Answer the Public
• Clever Copy Chats

Head to episode notes

Freebies:

1. Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

2. The Ultimate SEO Checklist

3. Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

Did you know that half of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile? I hope when you hear that you’ll understand how important it is to listen to this week’s episode.

Google has been pushing mobile-first indexing for the past few years. It rolled out the first mobile-first index in 2018 but more recently announced mobile-first indexing for the whole web.

So what does this mean for your little website? Well if your site isn’t fully optimised for mobile searches, it’s about time you got with the program.

In today’s episode, we’re going to share what mobile SEO is, best practices and top tips on how to ensure your site looks tickety boo on any device.

• What Mobile SEO is
• How Google classifies mobile
• Why mobile SEO is so critical
• Easy ways to check if your site is mobile-friendly
• How to optimise your site correctly
• How to improve the user experience of your site on mobile
• How keyword research differs for mobiles
• What you need to know about the latest mobile-first indexing update
• Cindy’s top mobile SEO tip

• Mobile statistics
• Google mobile-friendly test tool
• Google URL inspection tool
• Lighthouse (more for developers)
• Google PageSpeed tool
• Core web vitals test tool

Head to episode notes

Freebies

1. Free webinar: Your first month as a copywriter

2. Free rates guide

Membership: Join now

Recently Google announced its Helpful Content update. And as per usual, the interwebs got their knickers in a twist.

SEO agencies sending emails to copywriters telling them to stop using keywords.

Business brands frantically worrying that they were going to get a penalty after stuffing their sites with useless space-filling guff in their blogs.But I tend not to freak out about these things.I like to wait and see.

And today we’ll be chatting through what Google really wants to see when it talks about Helpful Content.The dos.The do nots.And the do not panics.

Tune in to learn: 

• Google Helpful Content update: 
• What the purpose of the update is
• What has changed
• What hasn’t changed
• 3 things you SHOULDN’T be doing
• How sites are being impacted by the update
• What mistakes SEO agencies are making with content
• James’s top content creation tips

Useful resources: 

• Google’s guidelines
• Embryo’s word count study  
• Frase
• SourceBottle

Head to episode notes

Freebies:

• Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

• The Ultimate SEO Checklist

• Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

Finding the right keywords to rise above the competition

By now you’ve gobbled up a lot of SEO advice.

But is it really all doable? 

In my reality SEO episodes, I talk to real humans and get the truth about how they use SEO and digital marketing to improve their businesses.

Today I’ll be talking to a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, and eCommerce extraordinaire, Estelle Oliveri. 

We’ll chat about how Estelle got her start in SEO, the digital marketing highs and lows, and the challenges she’s faced along the way.

Useful resources: 

• Namecheckr
• Google Trends
• Digital Masterchefs

Head to episode notes 

Freebies:

• Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

• The Ultimate SEO Checklist

• Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

Enriching web dev and copy services with SEO

Hearing great SEO advice is one thing but is it actually doable? 

In my reality SEO episodes, I talk to real humans and get the truth about how they use SEO and digital marketing to improve their businesses.

Like Rachel Amies, a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, a member of the Digital Masterchefs, and a cat-pun enthusiast.

We’ll talk about how Rachel took her web design and digital marketing to the next level with SEO, and the challenges she’s faced along the way.

Useful resources: 

• UpdraftPlus
• Wordfence
• How to set up an SEO-friendly WordPress Site

Head to the episode notes

Freebies:

• Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)

• The Ultimate SEO Checklist

• Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course

Influencer marketing.

Even the mention of it gives me the heebeejeebees.Visions of hot 20-somethings lying in a cossie on a rock in Ibiza spring to mind.  Your product lying next to them on said rock.

And oh the horror stories. Small business owners giving away oodles of product, and splashing the cash only to be ghosted.So how do you choose a trustworthy influencer? And how do you see genuine return on your investment?

Today we’ll talk about the positives and the pitfalls of this relatively new form of advertising, and whether it really has legs for your business.

Tune in to learn: 

• What influencer marketing is, and when it became a thing
• The positives of influencer marketing
• Which types of businesses can benefit from influencer marketing
• How to find the right fit for your business 
• How to approach an influencer the right way
• What kind of return on investment (ROI) you should expect from engaging an influencer
• What measures to have in place to ensure you don’t get burned 
• Marina’s top marketing tip

Useful resources: 

• Tribe Group
• Social Blade

Head to episode notes Freebies:

• Free webinar: Increase your website traffic (and sales)
• The Ultimate SEO Checklist
• Free SEO Nibbles Course

Sign up for the Recipe for SEO Success Course