In Episode 29 of The Page 2 Podcast, hosts Jacob Stoops and Jeff Louella sit down with Kelly Stanze, SEO Specialist at Hallmark, for a timely deep dive into seasonal SEO, career pivots, mental health, and what it’s really like optimizing for the holidays at a brand known for owning the season.

Kelly shares how she went from social media to SEO, rebounded from an early layoff, and found her stride working in-house at Hallmark—while juggling agency experience, freelance side gigs, and the joys of raising a toddler (with 26 pets!).

🎯 What you’ll hear: 

• How getting laid off led Kelly to discover SEO
• The difference between agency and in-house SEO culture
• Why building evergreen holiday content matters more than ever
• A full breakdown of SEO for Q4: planning, content timing, and code freeze prep
• What it’s like launching Christmas content in March
• The “poop” side of retail SEO and stocking stuffers gone wild
• SEO horror stories: disallowed robots.txt, site crashes, firewall fails
• A reality check on burnout, motherhood, boundaries, and real work-life integration
• The underrated power of empathy, collaboration, and building trust across teams

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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In Episode 28 of The Page 2 Podcast, hosts Jacob Stoops, Jeff Louella, and guest co-host JR Oakes sit down with Martin Splitt, Developer Advocate at Google, for a wide-ranging and deeply transparent discussion on how search really works, the limits of Google’s communication, and the complexity behind “simple” answers in SEO.

This episode delivers: 

• Martin’s journey from developer burnout to Googler to public-facing web platform advocate
• The truth behind SEO errors in Search Console—especially “Other” and “Redirect” errors
• The myth of SEO autopilot, broken rendering, and JavaScript horror stories
• AMP: Google’s real position, personal vs official takes, and use cases in 2025
• Behind the curtain at Google: infrastructure, testing systems, indexing scale
• Martin’s framework-agnostic approach to building performance-minded websites
• How Search Console testing tools differ from live indexing behavior
• An honest look at criticism, burnout, heat from the SEO community, and how Martin handles it all
• The evolution of Googlebot and the problems with simplifying SEO answers
• Why developer experience matters—but user experience must win
• Oh—and the backstory behind Martin’s now-iconic hair

This episode doesn’t just teach SEO—it helps demystify the people behind the platforms we rely on daily. It’s technical, personal, hilarious, and packed with advice for SEOs, developers, and digital leaders.

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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In Episode 27 of The Page 2 Podcast, hosts Jacob Stoops and Jeff Louella welcome British technical SEO legend Simon Cox for a wide-ranging conversation that spans nearly three decades of SEO, web development, corporate bureaucracy, and personal reinvention.

Simon reflects on his journey from art school and graphic design to hand-coding HSBC’s first global site in Notepad—before “SEO” was even a term. He shares stories about building the bank’s first SEO team, fighting for implementation in a regulated industry, surviving a platform migration gone wrong, and eventually walking away to start a boutique freelance business with his wife.

🚂 In this episode: 

• What SEO looked like in the AltaVista days
• Running global enterprise SEO across 30+ countries and languages
• Why content migration—not just redirects—breaks sites
• What to do when dev teams say "no" for 12 straight months
• Building a world-class SEO team inside a global bank
• Screaming Frog, log files, site speed, and tool geekery
• The truth about replatforming: it’s never just a redesign
• Simon’s secret life as a narrow-gauge model railway builder
• How personal burnout led him to pursue autonomy and joy
• The myths of rankings, the need for better SEO dashboards, and why C-suite data must be curated

Simon also shares hard-earned advice on keeping SEO simple, staying technical, and prioritizing what actually moves the needle.

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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Welcome back! The Page 2 Podcast returns for Season 2 with a fresh format, new voice, and a massive lineup of upcoming guests. In this launch episode, host Jacob Stoops is joined by Jeff Louella—longtime SEO technologist and platform engineer at Search Discovery—to preview what’s coming this season, reflect on what worked (and didn’t) in Season 1, and weigh in on the latest news shaking up the SEO world.

🔥 What you’ll hear: 
• Why Jacob added a co-host and how podcasting really works behind the scenes
• A look back at mistakes, growth, and gratitude from Season 1
• Jeff’s background in front-end development, accessibility, and DJing?!
• A skeptical SEO takedown of BrightEdge’s “Autopilot” marketing spin
• What tasks actually can be automated—and which ones still need human brains
• Google Search Console’s new speed and video reporting features
• Why H1 tags aren’t ranking signals—and why SEOs panicked anyway
• Rants on vendor hype, broken best practices, and enterprise tool bloat
• A preview of Season 2 guests, including Martin Splitt from Google, JR Oakes, and more
• And… an open admission about the dot-com domain that got away 🙃

It’s technical, tactical, and totally unfiltered. Season 2 is here—and it’s going to be good.

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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In this episode, the final episode of Season #1 of The Page 2 Podcast, we talk with Ross Hudgens, Founder and CEO of Siege Media. We cover his beginnings in the SEO world centering around link building around the time of the Penguin update, how he went from beginning his career on the corporate side to founding his own company, the challenges of being a business owner and entrepreneur. We also discuss the Siege Media video content strategy, how their amazing studio and video production quality comes together, if he ever feels any pressure being the face of most of the videos, and much more.

🎯 What you’ll learn:

• How Ross transitioned from corporate SEO to launching Siege Media
• Early lessons from the Penguin update and the link building pivot
• The risks, rewards, and mindset needed to build an agency from scratch
• What it’s really like being “the boss” (hint: not always glamorous)
• How Siege built a full-service, in-house video content studio
• The strategy behind their high-performing YouTube channel
• SEO content that actually drives ROI—without chasing vanity metrics
• Career lessons, mentorship, and agency hiring mistakes

If you’re running an agency, building your SEO career, or thinking about launching a video strategy—this episode is packed with real talk, tested strategies, and a ton of heart.

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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In this episode, the final episode of Season #1 of The Page 2 Podcast, we talk with Ross Hudgens, Founder and CEO of Siege Media. We cover his beginnings in the SEO world centering around link building around the time of the Penguin update, how he went from beginning his career on the corporate side to founding his own company, the challenges of being a business owner and entrepreneur. We also discuss the Siege Media video content strategy, how their amazing studio and video production quality comes together, if he ever feels any pressure being the face of most of the videos, and much more.

In this episode, we talk with JP Sherman, Enterprise Search & Findability Manager at Red Hat – the world’s open source leader. I’ve always said that this podcast is primarily about telling the winding stories of where SEO’s come from and this episode may be the greatest example of that yet.

🎙️ In this episode:

• How JP transitioned from Army PsyOps to building enterprise search strategies
• The power of internal site search—and why most SEOs ignore it
• Measuring search quality with metrics like CTR, time-to-task, and result relevance
• Using site search to surface content gaps and refine UX
• Evangelizing SEO internally to tech writers, product teams, and execs
• What makes Red Hat’s open source culture a dream SEO environment
• Vulnerability, trauma, and the reality of mental health in the SEO industry
• Why “brain ghosts” and empathy matter more than title tags

🔥 Whether you're an enterprise SEO, a content strategist, or navigating your own career transformation, this conversation delivers insight, honesty, and a healthy reminder to optimize for humans—not just engines.

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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In this episode, we talk with JP Sherman, Enterprise Search & Findability Manager at Red Hat – the world’s open source leader. I’ve always said that this podcast is primarily about telling the winding stories of where SEO’s come from and this episode may be the greatest example of that yet.

JP has one of the most diverse and interesting backgrounds of any SEO I’ve ever chatted with. His jobs before SEO have included time as an Archaeological Dig Consultant, a Psychological Operations Specialist in the US Army, a massage therapist, an autopsy assistant, a police officer and more.

We talk about how his background ultimately led him into a career in SEO, get deep on the intricacies of building an internal search engine and how it can be used for traditional SEO, and we both talk about our challenging backgrounds and how our upbringings have shaped the people we are today.

In this episode, we talk with Jenny Halasz, Founder and Presidnt of JLH Marketing. We discuss her 20 years of experience in the SEO industry, how she went from being a Communications Major with the hopes of going into Broadcasting to a marketing major while at NC State University, and how that eventually led her to a career in SEO. We talk about her experiences as an affiliate marketing manager for what eventually became Art.com, her rise to become VP of Search Strategy at Acronym, and her transition into owning her own business. And potentially even more importantly, we discuss what it’s like to lose your job, as well as how to pick yourself up and dust yourself off. On top of this, we even talk a little SEO. Crazy right?!? 

In this episode, we talk with Jenny Halasz, Founder and President of JLH Marketing about her powerful and deeply personal journey through the SEO world—covering everything from affiliate marketing in the early 2000s to leading enterprise-level SEO teams, overcoming toxic work environments, and becoming a solo consultant and mentor.

🎙️ In this episode:

• How Jenny accidentally got into SEO and rose to VP of Search Strategy
• What really happened during her time at WebSourced and Acronym
• Balancing career ambition with mental health and motherhood
• Her take on being a woman in SEO—and why she speaks up for others
• Why implementation is the biggest SEO challenge no one talks about
• Working with developers, handling backlink audits, and avoiding vanity metrics
• The challenges of solo consulting—and how to avoid getting burned by clients
• Advice for new SEOs: Learn, respect, share, and cut the BS

💬 Whether you’re building your SEO skills, managing a team, or trying to balance it all—this is an honest, real-world look into the emotional and strategic side of digital marketing.

Sponsored by Moving Traffic Media

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