Episode 22

Unlocking SEO Secrets: Expert Tips from Phillip Stemann

Published on: 15th May, 2024

Unravel the mysteries of SEO with expert Phillip Stemann on Digital Coffee: Marketing Brew! Join host Brett Deister as they dive deep into the ever-evolving world of search engine optimization, exploring successful strategies and the significant impact of AI on the field. Phillip shares practical tips to boost your website's visibility and outrank the competition, emphasizing the importance of both technical structure and original content. As they discuss game-changing SEO tools and techniques, listeners will gain insights into how to navigate the shifting landscape of SEO in 2024. Don't miss out on this opportunity to enhance your understanding of SEO and learn how to make your website stand out!

Takeaways:

  • SEO is not just about content; technical aspects like site structure and speed are crucial.
  • AI can be a valuable productivity tool for SEOs, aiding in tasks like internal linking.
  • Creating original content is essential; AI-generated content must be heavily edited for quality.
  • User experience (UX) will be a key ranking factor for Google in 2024 and beyond.
  • A solid Google Business Profile, filled with relevant information, is vital for local SEO success.
  • Backlinks remain important for SEO; focus on quality over quantity to improve domain authority.

Links referenced in this episode:

Companies mentioned in this episode:

  • Forbes
  • Authority Hacker
  • Ahrefs
  • Semrush
  • Key Search
  • Microsoft

๐Ÿ’ฌ Want to get involved? Leave us a comment, give us a 'like,' and follow us for more insights. Join our Locals for lively discussions, and if you've got questions, email us at bdeister@digitalcafe.media!

๐Ÿ‘• Check out our merch: www.digitalcafe.store


๐ŸŒŸ Review the Podcast if you loved this episode and share it with fellow marketers who could benefit from a treasure trove of podcasting wisdom. Tune in to "Digital Coffee: Marketing Brew" and let's brew up some success together!

Transcript
Brett Dyster:

That's good.

Brett Dyster:

And welcome to a new episode of Digital Coffee Marketing Brew.

Brett Dyster:

And I'm your host, Brett Dyster.

Brett Dyster:

But this week we're going to be talking about everybody's favorite, but not really that favorite thing is SEO, because we all need to know about it, but we all don't really understand it very well or don't like it.

Brett Dyster:

It's like kind of like the back end things that no one really wants to do anymore.

Brett Dyster:

But with me, I have Philip here and he is super passionate about SEO.

Brett Dyster:

That's why I have him here to actually help us out.

Brett Dyster:

He's working for years.

Brett Dyster:

He started with web development and found the technical aspect of SEO super exciting.

Brett Dyster:

So he transitioned over there and he's just a great guest to have on the show.

Brett Dyster:

So welcome to the show, Philip.

Philip:

Thank you so much.

Philip:

Thank you for having me.

Brett Dyster:

You're welcome.

Brett Dyster:

First question is on my guest is, are you a coffee drinker?

Philip:

I am a huge coffee drinker, but I've recently transitioned into decaf, so I don't drink caffeine coffee.

Philip:

So it's also funny to try and explore that area of coffee for sure because there's not as much decaf coffee as opposite, of course.

Philip:

So I, as you mentioned, I've always been into web development ever since I was a very young kid.

Philip:

I remember changing PHP files all the way back and be fascinated about how a line of text could, could basically become something visual.

Philip:

And I spent a lot of years trying to perfect that part.

Philip:

I just love the technical aspect of it.

Philip:

And that also what made me slowly transition into the technical part of SEO until I took on the content part and on page as well.

Philip:

Also I just love the technical part where you can basically build a foundation that can empower your content and still keep it technical.

Philip:

And there's so many small things you can twist and tweak and everything matters in the long run.

Brett Dyster:

The landscape of SEO has changed.

Brett Dyster:

It's always changing.

Brett Dyster:

Google always updates their new parameters and everybody tries to scramble to figure out how to do it.

Brett Dyster:

So what are some of the best practices for creating really good SEO for your brand's website?

Philip:

Yeah, that's a good question.

Philip:

There are a lot of things, and it's funny you're saying it because we had a core update from Google just finished now, but there's another one running at the moment which is a review update, so it's crazy.

Philip:

Just a year, a couple of years ago, we had maybe four core updates a year, and I think we've had four or Five in the last couple of months.

Philip:

So it's really, yeah, it's like insane at the moment.

Philip:

But I think I always say that there are two aspects of SEO.

Philip:

There is technical part and then your content.

Philip:

And your technical part is basically like a structure of a house.

Philip:

It's so important to empower your content.

Philip:

And here you need to ensure that you have your images optimized.

Philip:

You have a fast hosting, you have a fast DNS, you were using caching plugins and all these elements.

Philip:

They're so important to get an order and they might be difficult, but it's like a one time thing.

Philip:

Once they are up and running, you don't have to think about it again.

Philip:

That's definitely one part and that's the more, I would say easy part, because the difficult part is definitely the content.

Philip:

Because with the content there are just so many aspects of it.

Philip:

Of course it's important that you write original content.

Philip:

And as you probably heard, unless you've been living under a rock, AI is everywhere.

Philip:

And you can generate content with AI and it's completely fine if you do.

Philip:

But my recommendation is definitely to heavily edit it heavily, have a human in and just read it through and edit it.

Philip:

Because often it's just generic content.

Philip:

It's a good start, it's a good draft, but it's just generic content.

Philip:

It's summarized from the web and it doesn't bring anything new to the web.

Philip:

So it's so important to add that aspect and then add original images.

Philip:

Use your own knowledge and add small tips that shows that you know what you're talking about in the industry and then use your own images if you can.

Philip:

Because what it's all about is bringing something new that Google hasn't seen before.

Philip:

Because if you're using AI and just summarizing the web and publishing it, sure it will give you some value, but it will not give you the same value as if you actually bring something original to Google.

Philip:

So it's so important when you do this.

Philip:

And we can of course dive more into content part because you need to do your research part and then you need to write your content and then you need to optimize it.

Philip:

So there are so many layers within this as well.

Brett Dyster:

Next question is how is, besides the content side of it, how is AI changing like the SEO side of it?

Brett Dyster:

Because it's affected everything in the marketing industry.

Brett Dyster:

Everybody's talking about it.

Philip:

Exactly.

Philip:

And it's crazy.

Philip:

Just the other day, I don't know if you've heard about, but there was something called the SEO Heist, where there was a website that completely copied another website.

Philip:

They just took their sitemap and then they just AI generated content for each single article and they were actually beating the original content on Google.

Philip:

So of course, Google is also constantly changing because of this.

Philip:

So AI is definitely changing this pace and the speed that we generating content basically spin up a website and write 100 articles in a single day, and then you have a website with some content.

Philip:

It's not good content, but it's okay content to get started.

Philip:

So AI is definitely doing that part.

Philip:

But I will say that there are also some positive things with AI.

Philip:

A thing that I'm testing at the moment is trying to optimize my internal links, for example, and this is when you link from one post to another post.

Philip:

So for example, I'm trying to test with, with ChatGPT, where I give it some URLs and then I asked it to suggest what can I interlink in between to just some relevant anchor text and so on.

Philip:

So I definitely see AI being a productivity tool for SEOs.

Philip:

And I think it will continue to be.

Philip:

So it will never be able.

Philip:

Okay, I cannot say never, but I think it's far into the future until we reach a point where we'll actually be able to generate original content.

Philip:

Because for it to be able to generate original content, it needs to do its own experience and own experiments and stuff.

Philip:

And I think we're far ahead from that.

Philip:

So it's definitely interesting.

Philip:

With AI, I don't think you should be afraid of it things.

Philip:

You just embrace it and use it as a productivity tool because it can really help you in a lot of phases, for sure.

Brett Dyster:

And are we seeing more SEO caring more about the content side of it and different types of content, or is it still primarily just the written portion that matters the most?

Philip:

I think what I'm seeing now about SEOs is that of course they're focused on the content part, but they're really also focused on everything surrounding the content.

Philip:

Building authority, showing Google that they know what they're talking about by trying to build links, of course, on other websites, but also creating author profiles using something called schematics, which is basically a way of showing Google your content a specific way.

Philip:

So for example, if you've written a review and you give it a, let's say you give it 3 out of 5 stars, then out in the search results, you can actually see these three out of five stars.

Philip:

That's schematic.

Philip:

So I definitely see people still care more about the content, they try to make it more original images because that's how you stand out from AI, because AI, they can also generate images.

Philip:

But it's still fairly easy to separate an AI generated image from an original taken image with a camera.

Philip:

So that's definitely what I see that people have focused on.

Brett Dyster:

So it's still important to have the backlinks.

Brett Dyster:

And so how do you create the good backlinks?

Brett Dyster:

I'm pretty sure you can create any backlink, but I'm pretty sure Google prioritizes some over others.

Brett Dyster:

So how do you create the ones that.

Brett Dyster:

Or prioritize?

Philip:

Yeah, great question.

Philip:

And it's funny because Google, they publicly said the other.

Philip:

It's a week ago they said that backlinks are no longer a top three ranking factor.

Philip:

And there was a study conducted by a company called Authority Hacker where they basically managed to rank a worse article just because they had more backlinks.

Philip:

So it's definitely still super important.

Philip:

And the thing about backlinks is that every single domain has something called a domain rating.

Philip:

And the domain rating is between 0 and 100.

Philip:

And the higher it is, the more trustworthy your website is.

Philip:

And you increase your domain rating by getting these important backlinks.

Philip:

So if you get, for instance, a backlink from Forbes, that's an incredible backlink to get from your website.

Philip:

Whereas when you get a backlink from a very spamming website, that can negatively affect your website.

Philip:

So what's super important is to analyze the domain you're about to pursue a backlink from.

Philip:

What is their domain rating looking like?

Philip:

And there are a lot of free tools you can use.

Philip:

Ahrefs has a free tool.

Philip:

For example, you can just Google domain rating.

Philip:

And then you get a lot of tools where you can just enter the domain and you need to look for the spam score, it should be below 3%.

Philip:

And then you need to look at domain rating and domain rating.

Philip:

You basically just wants to be higher than your own.

Philip:

But of course, the higher the better.

Philip:

And another way you can do it is that you can take your own domain and then you can compare it to a competitor using a tool like Ahrefs again or something called key search.

Philip:

And here you can see what backlinks does your competitors have that you don't have already.

Philip:

And then you can try to pursue them, reach out to them.

Philip:

And here there are different methods.

Philip:

Either you can suggest a guest post that you can write on their website, but you can also look for broken links on their website.

Philip:

So let's say that you have an article about a specific dog breed.

Philip:

And we can see that this backlink that you're pursuing, they have an article about it where they link to another article, but this article doesn't exist anymore.

Philip:

Then you can basically swoop in and suggest your article for this article, and then you get a backlink this way.

Philip:

And at the same time, you're also helping the website because instead of linking to a page that doesn't exist, and they're actually linking to your page that exists.

Philip:

But there are a lot of different methods, but I think those two are the most successful ones.

Philip:

Yeah.

Brett Dyster:

And for those just getting started into trying to figure out SEO, like, what are the top tools that you recommend for them to actually use?

Brett Dyster:

Because I'm pretty sure there's a ton of them out there and not everyone is going to be good one.

Philip:

No, for sure.

Philip:

There are hundreds of SEO tools, almost a new one every single day.

Philip:

It's really.

Philip:

It's crazy, but I think the basis that you base, you have to do is to set up Google Analytics and Google Search Console, those two tools you have to set up.

Philip:

And it's entirely free to set up.

Philip:

So I think everyone should do that.

Philip:

And in Google Search Console, you can basically see everything that's happening on Google with your website.

Philip:

So you can see all the impressions you get on Google, all the clicks and so on.

Philip:

And when you're ready to take it a step further, then there is a tool called Key Search, which is super cheap.

Philip:

I think it costs $17 per month.

Philip:

And here you just get so many SEO tools.

Philip:

And it's definitely my recommendation.

Philip:

It's there are two, like, major tools in the industry called Semrush and Ahrefs, but they are also super expensive.

Philip:

And it's not everyone who needs all that functionality.

Philip:

So a tool like Key Search, which costs, I think it's $17 per month, you get so much functionality and you can analyze your website, your competitors, you can do keyword research where you find specific keywords you want to rank for and so on.

Philip:

So that's definitely my recommendation.

Brett Dyster:

Keyword search is still valuable right now because I know everything's changing.

Brett Dyster:

I know Google's trying to say backlinks don't care.

Brett Dyster:

I'm pretty sure they're trying to say is keyword search kind of care, but they don't really care.

Brett Dyster:

They're trying to get.

Brett Dyster:

I think they're trying to get to the content side of it.

Brett Dyster:

But how important should you create a really good keyword search?

Philip:

It's still definitely important, but as you say it has changed a lot because a couple of years ago you could just find a lot of long tail keywords which had low competition, high search volume, just write content for them.

Philip:

But today there's a lot of elements like topical map and consensus that you need to focus on.

Philip:

So this means that you can basically still do keyword research where you find long tail keywords, but they need to be interlinked, they need to be related to each other.

Philip:

And you ensure this by creating what's called a topical map.

Philip:

The topical map is basically where you have all your categories on your website and then under each category you have subcategories and then you basically do a keyword research for each subcategory and you just exhaust that subcategory for subjects and then you write the content for all those subjects.

Philip:

Because that basically tells Google that whatever people are searching within that subject, then you have an answer.

Philip:

And that means that Google sees you as an authority within that subject.

Philip:

So that's why it's super important to change the method a little bit about how we do keyword research from just some years ago until today.

Philip:

That's super important to do it that way because it's still relevant and you can still find a lot of great keywords doing it this way.

Brett Dyster:

And how do PR pros and marketers try to optimize for cause I'm pretty sure you'll see some websites are like, this really isn't optimized for my phone.

Brett Dyster:

So how do I get that optimized part?

Brett Dyster:

Because it's not just the computer website and just looking at the computer screen.

Brett Dyster:

You also have tablets, you also have mobile phones.

Brett Dyster:

You're eventually going to have AR glasses with the new AR glasses from Google, I mean from Apple.

Brett Dyster:

So how do you, how do you get that optimization specifically for mobile first?

Philip:

Exactly.

Philip:

Yeah.

Philip:

And you said the keywords there, mobile first.

Philip:

ll does it, but especially in:

Philip:

This also means that you should start thinking of your website as mobile first and desktop second.

Philip:

Of course, confirm this with your Google Analytics data.

Philip:

If you have a majority of desktop viewers, then focus on desktop and secondary mobile.

Philip:

But the most of us should focus on mobile first.

Philip:

And depending on your setup at the moment, either you can of course optimize your current setup where you switch between mobile tablet and see what you need to optimize.

Philip:

Otherwise you can go out and buy a super cheap theme at the themeforest or something like that, because they're already optimized for you and then you can basically go from there.

Philip:

So it really depends on your current situation because if you're using a website like WordPress, sorry, a CMS like WordPress, then you have this way of you can change between whether you see your website on a tablet, on mobile, and then you can see how it looks and if it looks great or you need to optimize anything.

Brett Dyster:

And should marketers and PR pros go through their website as a user, try to figure out.

Brett Dyster:

Because I'm pretty sure there's a lot of bounce rates and different types of things and you can look at Google Analytics and figure out where the bounce rates are.

Brett Dyster:

But should they also do that as well and figure out like where the pain points are from your website?

Brett Dyster:

Just so you know yourself, you're like, okay, maybe we should change this.

Brett Dyster:

Maybe we should do that.

Philip:

For sure.

Philip:

Yeah, for sure.

Philip:

You should definitely put yourself in the reader's mind and then ask questions to yourself, basically.

Philip:

Am I answering the search intent fast enough?

Philip:

Because we tend to write a lot of fluff in the beginning because we want them to stay on the page, but we have to just answer the question immediately, whatever it is that they are searching for, and then add all the extra information afterwards.

Philip:

But what you can also do is you can install something called Microsoft Clarity, which is also a free tool from Microsoft.

Philip:

And here you can record all your visitors on your website so you can see how they use it.

Philip:

And often you will find mistakes and minor things you need to change.

Philip:

And especially look at scroll depth, because if you see that people doesn't scroll that long and they just leave your website, which results in a high bounce rate, then it means that you don't answer the query fast enough.

Philip:

And then you definitely need to rearrange.

Philip:

Often you just have to rearrange your second section to your first section and then you have sold the issue.

Philip:

Because we really tend to first describe an overview, an overall picture of whatever it is that we're writing about and then we answer the actual query.

Philip:

So just swap those around.

Philip:

And then often you are, you have optimized 80% of the issues and how.

Brett Dyster:

Do they actually optimize it for the local SEO?

Brett Dyster:

Because we have the Internet.

Brett Dyster:

SEO, I guess is the best way of saying it, where it's everywhere, but then you have local.

Brett Dyster:

So how can you localize that effectively?

Philip:

Yeah, for local SEO, the Google Business Profile is crucial.

Philip:

You simply need a Google Business Profile.

Philip:

It's so important.

Philip:

And the ranking factor here are also reviews.

Philip:

So as much as you can every time you've been with a client, then ensure that they give you a review.

Philip:

Because the more reviews and of course the better reviews, the easier it is for you to rank on near me keywords.

Philip:

So that's super important whether you have a restaurant because people always search restaurant and city or restaurant near me because Google have their location.

Philip:

So that's definitely so important to get a Google business profile and then optimize that as well.

Philip:

the, I don't remember if it's:

Philip:

And if you have a restaurant and add your menu, if you're a service provider, then add all your services with prices and everything.

Philip:

The more you can fill into your Google business profile, the better because the easier it is for Google to understand what it is that you provide.

Philip:

And you also just, you basically have a broader span to reach out to people in wherever it is that you have your services or if you're a restaurant.

Philip:

So that's super, super important.

Brett Dyster:

And also have for your menu, have the pictures of the food.

Philip:

So.

Philip:

True.

Philip:

Exactly.

Philip:

You can also get the guests and stuff to upload pictures of the food as well.

Philip:

So yeah, that is super important.

Philip:

The more you can fill into your Google business profile, the better.

Philip:

Awesome.

Brett Dyster:

Users generated content with your own content to actually fill it out is basically.

Philip:

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Philip:

User generated content is gold at the moment.

Philip:

It's perfect.

Brett Dyster:

And this is search.

Brett Dyster:

Is voice search really that important anymore?

Brett Dyster:

I know.

Brett Dyster:

Building itself.

Brett Dyster:

But it feels like Google, Amazon and Apple are like shying away from it a little bit more.

Brett Dyster:

I know Google's trying to put Google Voice with Bard now they're trying to use AI with it.

Brett Dyster:

So is voice search still important or is that kind of not really important anymore?

Philip:

Oh, it's such a good question.

Philip:

I don't see it like explode as it did just a couple of years ago when all the assistants came out.

Philip:

It's still relevant and you can still get a lot from it.

Philip:

Because if you're optimized for search, you're basically also.

Philip:

No, sorry.

Philip:

For voice search you basically also optimize for when people, they write questions.

Philip:

Because just like a couple of years ago we searched different than we do today.

Philip:

We searched keywords back then and now we search an entire question and we basically search almost the same way as we ask a Google assistant.

Philip:

So it's still important to be optimized for search, but I don't see it explode in the same way as it did for some time ago.

Brett Dyster:

Do you think more voice search than anything else?

Brett Dyster:

Because it will better understanding your questions.

Brett Dyster:

Google Assistant is still the best one out there, but will AI help with those voice search queries?

Philip:

Yeah, I think for sure.

Philip:

They're testing the search generative answers at the moment and I don't know whether they're going to roll it out eventually.

Philip:

Maybe they will, maybe they won't because they're getting mixed results based on it.

Philip:

But I think if they manage to nail it, they can definitely give better results than just giving the generic websites.

Philip:

And then they just have to mix it because of course if the website owners doesn't get any traffic because of this, then they don't want to create content.

Philip:

And this SGE and AI in general doesn't work without content.

Philip:

So they definitely need to find a balance and that's going to be the tough part.

Brett Dyster:

And where do you see the features SEO going?

Brett Dyster:

Do you see AI content still some keyword searching like becoming the future of it?

Brett Dyster:

Do you see Google just going somewhere completely different?

Brett Dyster:

We have no idea where they're going because it seems to be their plan most of the time.

Brett Dyster:

Where do you see it going?

Philip:

Yeah, it's a great question.

Philip:

I think there's like the long perspective and then there's in the near future and in the near future there'll be so much content generated by AI and Google needs to figure out what content to crawl because they can't continue crawling billions of pages all the time because there's so many new pages with AI.

Philip:

So they definitely need to figure that part out.

Philip:

But what I think will be super important already next year is UX is something that's been neglected from a lot of websites and it's so important because you need a great user experience.

Philip:

And as Google is using all of these user inputs to ensure that the website is great and is supposed to rank well, then UX just becomes so important.

Philip:

Google wants people to interact with the websites, fill out forms and use elements on the websites because it shows that it's a great website.

Philip:

So that's definitely something that's super important.

Philip:

And I think a funny theory in the long perspective it's either we are going to change completely and we are all going to have this personalized AI system, we can just ask things that knows everything about us and the world or then I don't know, it's really difficult to predict.

Philip:

But it's interesting because I think the technology is not going to be what's breaking everything.

Philip:

It's going to be us humans.

Philip:

Whether we can adapt fast enough or what our methods of finding information is going to be.

Philip:

That's definitely going to be the deciding factor.

Brett Dyster:

The near future.

Brett Dyster:

It probably is going to be trustworthiness and authority.

Brett Dyster:

That's going to probably take President besides the looking pretty, but the trust already correct.

Philip:

Exactly.

Philip:

Yeah, that's super correct.

Philip:

Because AI can't just.

Philip:

Of course they will probably be able to figure out a way.

Philip:

But Google will also figure out a way out to stop that as well.

Philip:

But getting backlinks is something that you can't just generate.

Philip:

That's something that requires trust.

Philip:

Because other websites need to trust your website to be able to link to your website.

Philip:

So your backlink profile and your authority and all those elements you just can't generate with AI, they will also continue to be super important in the coming years.

Brett Dyster:

Where do we find you online?

Philip:

I'm on Twitter, or X as it's called now.

Philip:

That's where I'm most active.

Philip:

And then I have a YouTube channel where I talk about SEO and review SEO tools as well.

Philip:

So that's where you can find me on my name.

Philip:

No, just keep trying.

Philip:

Even though SEO can be a hassle sometimes, just keep trying because you will eventually figure it out.

Philip:

I'm sure of it.

Brett Dyster:

All right, thank you Philip, for joining Digital Coffee Marketing Brew and sharing knowledge on SEO.

Philip:

Thank you for having me.

Brett Dyster:

And thank you for listening.

Brett Dyster:

As always, please subscribe to Digital Copy Marketing Brew on all your favorite podcasting apps.

Brett Dyster:

And guys, see you next time when we talk to another great thought leader in the PR industry.

Brett Dyster:

All right, guys, stay safe and understand your SEO and how to make your website better.

Brett Dyster:

We'll see you next time later.

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