August 7, 2025 • 24 mins
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Struggling to make sense of SEO for your photo business? You're not alone. Search engine optimization often feels like arcane wizardry to small business owners—a necessary evil that's either too complex to understand or constantly shifting beneath your feet.
Steven Schneider, co-founder of TrioSEO, shatters these misconceptions in this enlightening conversation. "It's not all witchcraft and wizardry," he explains, revealing how quality content and authority form the scientific foundation of successful SEO. For photo retailers and photographers who rely on white-label platforms, Schneider offers practical strategies to regain control of your digital presence through strategic blogging and targeted content creation.
The podcast dives deep into what really matters for photography businesses online. Discover why topical authority works like an iceberg (with your specialized content forming the powerful mass below the surface), how to refresh seasonal content like "fireworks photography tips" to maintain relevance, and why Pinterest remains an untapped goldmine for photography businesses. Schneider shares his 90-day sprint approach to SEO, explaining why meaningful results typically appear within three to six months when targeting the right niche keywords.
Perhaps most valuably, Schneider addresses the elephant in the room: artificial intelligence. While AI tools can generate content quickly, they lack the human touch that makes truly effective SEO content. "The AI isn't going to know how to add custom quotes and testimonials unique to your personal experience," he cautions, explaining why his agency remains committed to human-written content despite industry trends.
Visit trioSEO.com for a complimentary, hand-crafted site audit that examines ten core aspects of your web
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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Edited by Olivia Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Erin Manning (00:02):
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau.
Today we're joined by StevenSchneider, who is the co-founder
of Trio SEO, and Steven'scoming to us from Seattle today.
Hi, Steven, how are you today?
Steven Scheider (00:32):
Doing great.
Gary, Thanks for having me on.
Gary Pageau (00:35):
Now, seo is one of those topics that a lot of
business owners know they haveto deal with and it's either
arcane wizardry that they can'tfigure out or they're doing it
wrong.
And plus, it's changing rapidlynow with AI affecting SEO and
what Google is doing and allthese kinds of things.
(00:55):
If you were talking to a smallbusiness owner, what would be
the first thing you would haveto say to kind of start their
SEO journey?
Steven Scheider (01:03):
Yeah, the first thing is knowing that it's not
all witchcraft and wizardry,like there actually is a lot of
science and data and you knowproof of that matter.
But, you know, the biggestthing is just making sure that
you have quality content andauthority.
I think that it's very easy tothink that there's so much you
have to do in SEO, but really itjust comes back to you know,
(01:26):
making sure you have a good userexperience on your site, you
speak to them conversationallyand that you actually have some
thought leadership behind yourbrand and your website.
It's not too much.
Gary Pageau (01:37):
So a lot of the websites in our space, like the
online photo space I was talkingto a typical photo retailer
they really most of them use awhite label service provider.
They use a platform that kindof does their photo ordering and
all kinds of things and theykind of say, hey, we'll do this
SEO for you.
So it's sort of like that'stheir website.
(01:59):
They don't have a lot ofcontrol over it.
In a lot of ways, I mean, theycan add blogs and things or that
.
What do you think of that?
Steven Scheider (02:07):
I mean I think that's great if you can ever tap
into somebody who kind offacilitates a lot of that
upfront work for you.
I've never actually donebackend research on those sorts
of situations.
I'm guessing you can probablyjust tap into their authority
and really have some pretty goodupside potential.
But even if you have theopportunity to blog, like that's
(02:27):
a massive leg up on anybody whodoesn't blog in your space.
You know there's always goingto be keyword rich FAQs you
could tackle or ICP relatedqueries that you might want to
target if it's going after acertain demographic of audience
that you're trying to connect to.
So the blog is definitely wheremy bread and butter is and I've
seen a lot of success fromclients in my own personal
(02:49):
journey through blogging.
So huge advocate obviously verybiased, but yeah, I think
there's a lot of potential there.
Gary Pageau (02:55):
So when you're talking about authority, what
does that mean?
It doesn't necessarily meanknowing a lot about in our case,
I mean knowing a lot about, inour case photography or printing
.
It's really how much Google andsearch engines think you're
valuable, isn't it?
It's really what they think.
Steven Scheider (03:12):
Both.
So, at least from the contentside, there's what's called
topical authority and you cankind of imagine it almost like
an iceberg.
So if you have all the snow orthe ice above water, it's like
your homepage, your about page,kind of the must-haves of the
website.
But we all know what sank theTitanic it was the ice that was
below the water, and so that'sgoing to be the depth or the
(03:35):
blog content or any othercontent on your site that adds
to your expertise and the factthat you can actually cover a
wide range of topics, knowingthat you have something to offer
value to clients, customers,visitors, et cetera.
Other side of it, exactly whatyou said.
It's going to be your domain,your backlinks, all of the other
people on the web who arementioning you and either
(03:57):
linking to you or maybe not, butthey're still talking about you
to some degree and giving youalmost like their personal
internet vote of confidence, ifyou want to think about it like
that and that's almost a jobunto itself building all that
piece right what they call backlinking yeah, it's.
I mean, branding in itself is afull-time job, just to make sure
(04:18):
that people are aware of whoyou are and you're networking
and you're building allies andpartnerships like but we also
know, just based on history,like those who do that and can
do it.
Gary Pageau (04:30):
Well, obviously, crush it in any space, because
you're just constantly top ofmind for any person or client
that can think of you now, thechallenge I think a lot of
people have, especially in thephotography space, is just
keeping topics fresh, becauseyou know if you are providing
tips, tricks and things like youknow we recently had, you know
(04:52):
the July 4th weekends oreveryone's posting how to take
great fireworks pictures, youknow that sort of thing.
How do you keep those kinds ofevergreen topics fresh?
Steven Scheider (05:03):
Yeah.
So I think that, like, like youalways want to refresh them
right before the seasonalityhits, so there's always going to
be evergreen topics that comeand go in waves.
So like fourth of july stuff,that would be good.
I think that you could also tieit back to like just some newer
content in that article.
So if it is the fourth of julyarticle, there's always going to
be new sections or questionsyou could add.
(05:24):
So.
So like how to take 4th of Julyphotos, whether it's foggy or
sunny or rainy.
Like maybe your blog doesn'ttouch on that, but that's the
settings I use for these photos.
Like here's some good, likeactionable tips you could kind
(05:47):
of tap into.
Other things would be likegetting quotes from other people
, like Google loves when you canoffer a unique insight compared
to someone else's piece ofcontent.
So, say you have other friendsin the space and it's like go
reach out to them, get, ask themall the same question, get a
quote from them and then addthat back to your blog and say,
(06:07):
hey, I interviewed X number ofpeople and here's their best
go-to tip when taking fireworkphotos on the 4th of July.
So it's more about like, how doyou make your piece of content
stand out to competitors andothers in the space, and Google
loves that.
That's kind of what you reallywant to lean into.
Gary Pageau (06:23):
And even, like I was even thinking, maybe for the
sake of you know, the retailersin peace and all that maybe
have your customers ask them tobe quoted.
Right yeah, making yourcustomers hero.
Steven Scheider (06:35):
Huge, that's huge.
And I think that the other partof it is like the trust side of
things.
So not only getting theirinsight on how they're using the
product or how they're engagingwith that side of things, sure,
the other thing is justtestimonials and credentials
from your point of view.
So you know, getting insightaround, like you and them in
that relationship, and gettingsocial proof that you can then
(06:59):
add into your content.
So that goes a long way as well.
Gary Pageau (07:02):
What are some of the changes that are going on
right now in kind of the SEOworld?
Because there's the AI piece,because, again, a lot of this
stuff can be generated by AI.
But then I think that you know,if you just drop into chat, gpt
, write me a 400 page articleabout fireworks photos and the
fog, you'd get one.
But isn't that not beingtreated as valuable, as original
(07:25):
content?
Steven Scheider (07:26):
no, and I would say that the really big caveat
of that entire ai dilemma isthat when the conversation
adapts toward going more of aquantity output and like
checking the box just to get thearticle out completed, there's
a lot of things that lack fromthe quality side of things.
So, like the ai isn't going toknow how to add in the custom
(07:51):
quotes and the testimonialsthat's unique to your own
personal experience or it's,it's going to pretty much create
a cookie cutter version of thattopic.
But where a lot of that valueadd is is where you can think
outside the box and add thathuman element.
So even if you use that as likeyour initial outline or, say,
the foundation to go from there,I always suggest that if you
(08:13):
must use AI like, you also mustedit and try to incorporate it.
So that's kind of my two centson that.
But like even in our own agency, like we're 100% human, written
and edited and it's solelybecause that's what really works
well, still to this day, and soit's a slippery slope.
Gary Pageau (08:31):
Yeah, it's one of those things where I think you
know, just because it's easy andit does seem to get reasonable
results, it can also beinaccurate and have tonal
problems.
Right, it may not fit the toneof the rest of your content, so
it'll look weird.
Steven Scheider (08:49):
Yeah, and that's the huge part too is like
I think that people are sooverly aware of AI and how it's
being used that, like I've beenseeing on LinkedIn, where people
are almost starting to addtypos, at least in social
content, as a way to show thatit's not AI, which is so weird
to even like think that we're inthat day and age.
(09:09):
But, like, even if you thinkabout like M dashes.
I think that M dashes aretraditionally fine to use, but
now they have this like taintedspell on them where, if you
start to use M dashes in yourcontent, it's a very that's a
very common theme in chat.
Gbt is to use those.
Gary Pageau (09:25):
Was not aware of that.
Steven Scheider (09:27):
So, yeah, that's one of the things you can
look for that yeah, but it'salso when it was like damned if
you do, damn if you don't.
Situations because, like, Ijust like using them.
But because I use them in mycontent, people think that I'm
using ai.
So I think it really comes downto like, how is this read if
you read this out loud, andwould you be proud to present
this to a board of people in apublic setting?
(09:47):
If you read this article outloud and say, hey, I am putting
my name and my brand behind thisthing, like, would you do that
if it was in a social setting?
And if not, you should probablyrethink things.
Gary Pageau (09:57):
Yeah, because that is one of the things.
I think, because it's so easyand it gives passable results at
first glance, that people willstart, you know, will accept it.
There's also issue of you knowfor a lot of content it's you
know you don't actually own thatin a lot of ways because you
know AI content can't becopyrighted.
Steven Scheider (10:16):
So I think it can mess up from a legal
standpoint and part of your site, half your site would be not
even copyrighted for yourbusiness, actually.
Gary Pageau (10:24):
not even copyrighted for your business,
actually.
Steven Scheider (10:26):
So yeah, and I think that it's one of those
things, too, where it's reallyeasy to see some short-term
traction and be like, wow, thisis the new way forward, I can't
wait.
But anything in SEO is truly agame of delayed gratification
and knowing that, like we prideourselves on being really boring
SEOs because it's boring thathas proven to work for years and
(10:50):
years and years you just do thesame fundamentals over and over
again.
It sucks, but that's the way itis, and I think that the time
you start cutting corners andtrying to accelerate the
timeline to success is alsowhere you shorten your prolonged
success at the same time.
Gary Pageau (11:10):
So what do you think is a reasonable timeline?
Let's say, for example, I'm aretailer and I've had my website
up for several years, I've beentaking orders from it or
whatever, and I want to startadding some blog content to
whatever.
So let's say, I'm posting acouple times a week just basic
stuff.
You know how to put on a lenscap or why you should have a
(11:34):
camera strap and you know thatsort of thing.
How long is it going to takebefore I see appreciable results
from something like that?
Steven Scheider (11:42):
Yeah.
So we work in 90 day sprintsbecause we found that that's a
really good kind of like way tostructure strategy.
Like 90 days is usually enoughtraction to where you can see
some meaningful results afterthe second or during the second
sprint per se.
So in that like three to sixmonth range, the other kind of
like asterisks, I would say is ahuge component of that is going
(12:04):
after the right topics.
So like in the photographyindustry, if you are writing an
article around like you know howto set up your f-stop or your
aperture or something like that,it's a very competitive topic,
I have to assume.
Like every single photographerknows what that is and how to
write about it got it.
So the more niche you can getwith the topic, the better it's
(12:26):
going to be like just makingsomething up, but it's more like
how to take a photo of mythree-year-old at the park on a
sunny day.
Like the way more long tail,obscure keywords have a much
higher chance of success becausethey're less competitive so you
should be.
Gary Pageau (12:44):
Instead of going for a broad interest in it, you
could almost start narrowingthat down.
Steven Scheider (12:51):
Yeah, or even tailor it to who your clientele
is more specifically.
So you know, like I've doneaudits and worked with people in
the past who like only cater tolike newborn photography or
only work with weddingphotography, etc.
So there's tons of topics inthose arenas specifically, um,
(13:12):
and it's also more of like theintent behind who's reading the
topic and who is your idealcustomer.
So, for example, if you'rewriting like how to take wedding
photos, well, you're actuallywriting for another photographer
, so it doesn't really matter.
So you want to be like whatshould I look for when hiring a
wedding photographer?
Because that's going to be theperson who's actually going to
be looking for your services.
Gary Pageau (13:32):
So intent is important, but also just making
sure that there's actual demandbehind the topic to begin with,
so where are some good sourcesif you're not a very good writer
and you don't want to rely onchat, gpt to find content, to
find this sort of thing?
Steven Scheider (13:50):
Yeah, I think WriteSonic is a good tool that
I've been kind of tapping intonowadays.
It's a newer AI tool.
They have good keyword researchbuilt in.
They also help you build youroutlines.
It's pretty much kind of likethe ideal full circle suite for
people nowadays.
Like the ideal full circlesuite for people nowadays.
Se rank is good.
Ahrefs is good for keywordresearch, not so much for
writing, but definitely can helpdetail outlines and get the
(14:14):
structure in place for thecontent.
So I mean there's so many likeSurfer.
Seo is a good one Like they're.
I can name dozens, but I thinkit's just more about like what
your needs are and like whereyou think your weaknesses are in
that process and then finding atool specific to that weakness
now, how does video contentenhance seo?
Gary Pageau (14:39):
does it, or is it mostly for social clicks?
Steven Scheider (14:42):
no, it definitely helps.
I mean, anything that can addmore value to the user at the
end of the day and also act asanother gateway to your content
is going to be a huge win.
So, kind of going back to theblogging side of things, if you
have a blog, well then yourealize that, oh, this blog
would actually serve really wellas a 30 second reel where I can
(15:03):
just talk on you know the touchpoints and the summarized
aspects of it, add in somevisual examples, you upload that
to YouTube, meta, instagram,pinterest, especially like
Pinterest is so good forphotographers and Pinterest is
also a search engine in itself,so like those things all feed
(15:24):
together and then you link itback to your article, you
include the video and embed itwithin your content, like you
kind of have now this likeecosystem within your content
and that all brings Googlerelevance customers.
Like it all ties in together.
Gary Pageau (15:40):
So when you're talking about Pinterest
specifically I haven't heard theword Pinterest in a while, I
know right.
Steven Scheider (15:46):
It seems like a while I know right.
Gary Pageau (15:47):
It seems like it's almost like eBay.
Right, it was super hot foreverand now it's still around and
millions of people use it, butno one ever talks about it.
Why is that?
Steven Scheider (15:57):
I think it's kind of that same thing.
It's like you know, it had itsday and age.
I think that just because it'snot like trendy anymore it's not
top of mind but trendy anymore,it's not top of mind, but it's
very top of mind for someaudiences and some people, like
you know.
I think that, like I used toown a site that's like majority
of its traffic was generatedjust strictly through Pinterest
and creating pins and content onthat side of things, and it's
(16:19):
great because it is its ownsearch engine.
So the more people search forcontent in Pinterest, the more
optimized you can create yourboards and your pins and like if
you just study Pinterest SEOlike you definitely have a leg
up in your industry, andphotography is like one of the
more kind of top of mind nichesin Pinterest.
(16:41):
So anybody who's not doing thatlike I think that's a huge
opportunity for people.
Gary Pageau (16:45):
Yeah, well, I know some of my audience they have
Etsy stores right and they kindof-.
Steven Scheider (16:50):
Yeah, Etsy's great too.
Gary Pageau (16:51):
Well, they drive traffic to their Etsy stores
through Pinterest, right,because you can.
People are visually searchingfor stuff and they drive it
there, so that works.
Steven Scheider (17:01):
Yeah, I used to own an Etsy store too, and it
was the same strategy.
Pinterest connects to Etsy and,yeah, I love all of those like
little kind of indie backdoormarketing strategies, because
it's not something that peopleusually like rave about in terms
of like drop shipping orrunning Facebook ads, but it
still works really well and I'mlike you know you can really do
(17:23):
a lot of damage.
Gary Pageau (17:24):
There you go.
So let's get back to the AIthing for a little bit, because
I keep hearing about how AI ishitting Google in the search
business and it's reallyimpacting how valuable Google
search is Right, because they'reeven starting to bias their own
(17:46):
AI results at the top of thepage, so your results may
actually go down under the foldbecause there's not as much
space there because they'retaking it up with their own AI
results.
What are your thoughts on that?
Steven Scheider (17:58):
Yeah, I think Google is killing Google.
Unfortunately.
I think that the userexperience of Google is garbage
nowadays.
Hopefully they get it figuredout, but at least from like an
SEO perspective, what we'reseeing is that the generative AI
add in that you see at the topof Google nowadays is actually
helping deter unwanted trafficfrom your site that isn't going
(18:20):
to be meaningful or take intentor action.
So anybody who's clickingthrough to your site and is from
AI actually has more of adesire to work with you or learn
more about the information onyour site because they're much
more driven based on the result.
That started that.
But if people can just gettheir answer in 30 seconds and
(18:41):
move on, they probably weren'tyour ideal customer to begin
with.
So it's kind of like it answersthe questions, it cuts out the
fluff and then anybody whoarrives from that like it's
probably someone you want to getin touch with immediately.
Gary Pageau (18:54):
What are some ways people, once they've kind of run
that the gauntlet of the GeminiAI feed gauntlet they're there.
Is there anything they can do,once they're there, to help
convert those people?
Steven Scheider (19:09):
Yeah.
So the big thing I think that isvery overlooked is giving
people some sort of free,valuable asset to as soon as
they jump in the gate.
So you know, like it could besomething as easy as, like take
our quiz to see if you qualifyfor 25% off our next package or
new, new customer package, likesomething that's engaging.
(19:30):
Keep people on the page, givesthem something to like interact
with quizzes calculators aregreat, maybe a lead magnet, like
maybe it's a 50 page bundle ofways that people can rethink
their next photo shoot orsomething like that.
So like things like that werelike what would give somebody so
(19:51):
much value that the next timethey heard from you, it'd be
ridiculous for them not to sayyes to work with you.
And I think like that's kind ofthe way you want to go about it
, Because if you can do that,then people already feel like
they've gotten so much value outof you that, like the next time
you throw out a numberprice-wise, they're like oh yeah
, great, like I already got thatfrom the last thing you gave me
, so there's no reason not to dothat so that then requires some
(20:14):
sort of way to retrieve thoseemails and do something with
them, right?
Gary Pageau (20:19):
so there's sort of a whole crm side of it which is
not of this, but it certainly isa way to feed that.
Steven Scheider (20:26):
Yeah, exactly so, like even if you're working
with, like a email provider likekit, convert, kit or you know
something, where it's just adrop in your email here, we'll
send you this via email and thenyou set up maybe a multi day or
something sequence where youjust casually message them over
the next week or so, or twoweeks or month and just can
(20:47):
check in and kind of make itmore of an automated process,
because at the time if you haveto spend to email all those
people manually, it's going tojust be a huge pain yeah, so the
fourth quarter is the bigquarter for our industry a lot
of industry, but our industry.
Gary Pageau (21:06):
Right, and it's July now this is running in
August, so when do people needto get started on their strategy
for if they want to have anoutstanding SEO driven fourth
quarter?
Steven Scheider (21:22):
Last quarter, last Q4.
I mean, yeah, the sooner thebetter.
I mean just because of how longit takes for things to come to
life.
I think that the further it'sdelayed or the longer it's
delayed, it's really going toimpact things.
And I always kind of try andrelate it to investing in your
retirement account.
You know, like people who delaythat passive couple hundred
(21:43):
dollars a month in their 401k ortheir IRA, like they look back
and they're like dang it.
I wish I would have startedwhen I was 20 years old.
And that same mindset is how SEOworks Like it's a compounding
thing.
It takes time to ramp up, butonce it's alive and kicking,
you're so happy with the resultsand you're like, wow, I'm so
happy I started.
So same mindset shifts shouldkind of be adopted when it comes
(22:06):
to your marketing strategy.
Gary Pageau (22:08):
Because, as you were saying earlier, you know
this is an ongoing process.
It's not a, it's a growthengine as opposed to a, you know
, just a swing at a ball andtrying to get a hit.
Steven Scheider (22:20):
Exactly.
That's kind of where I thinkpaid ads or ppc would come into
play.
It's very push button, getresult sort of thing, whereas
seo it's like push 50 buttons,wait six months and push 50 more
.
Gary Pageau (22:34):
So but, and those two can work together because
you're not saying peopleshouldn't do paid paid ads, but
they're no exactly strategy 100.
It's a very short term versuslong-term strategy, and the two
go hand in hand so maybe aroundyou know when you, when you have
a specific product you'repushing, you do the paid ads.
Steven Scheider (22:54):
But if you have the ongoing traffic building
strategy to build your customerdatabase, that's more of the seo
approach yeah, I think it's areally good strategy to
implement paid ads and then usethe profits from paid ads to
supplement your SEO strategy.
And I think that, like, overtime, that flywheel starts to
churn and now you kind of havethis ongoing thing that work
(23:18):
hand in hand and can kind ofsurvive as a result of each
other.
Gary Pageau (23:21):
Sure, sure hand and can kind of survive as a result
of each other, sure, sure.
So where can people go for moreinformation about your company
and the stuff you guys offer forbusinesses to help them grow
through?
Steven Scheider (23:33):
SEO.
Yeah, you can go to trio SEOdot com.
We offer free complimentaryaudits that are hand done by our
team.
It's not some AI automatedthing, hand crafted Exactly Old
school for sure.
We look at things like you know10 different core aspects of
your site that would contributetowards success.
(23:54):
Where your gaps lie in thatprocess, what's holding you back
?
Keywords you should be rankingfor kind of the whole gamut of
what it needs to be successfulat the end of the day.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active there.
I post daily content.
You can also just Google TrioSEO or Steven Schneider.
I always joke that if you can'tfind me on Google, I'm doing my
(24:16):
job wrong.
Gary Pageau (24:16):
Exactly.
You should be eminentlyfindable.
Steven Scheider (24:21):
Exactly, I am.
Gary Pageau (24:22):
All right.
Well, thank you, stephen, foryour time.
It's been great talking to you.
I know you've given a lot ofgreat tips and direct action
that people can use, and I lookforward to speaking to you again
sometime.
Steven Scheider (24:33):
Yeah, thanks, gary, this has been great.
Erin Manning (24:36):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
Read more great stories andsign up for the newsletter at
wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast, the
photo imaging industry'sleading news source.
Here's your host, Gary Pageau.
The Dead Pixels Society podcastis brought to you by Mediaclip,
Advertek Printing andIndependent Photo Imagers.
Gary Pageau (00:17):
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels
Society podcast.
I'm your host, Gary Pageau.
Today we're joined by StevenSchneider, who is the co-founder
of Trio SEO, and Steven'scoming to us from Seattle today.
Hi, Steven, how are you today?
Steven Scheider (00:32):
Doing great.
Gary, Thanks for having me on.
Gary Pageau (00:35):
Now, seo is one of those topics that a lot of
business owners know they haveto deal with and it's either
arcane wizardry that they can'tfigure out or they're doing it
wrong.
And plus, it's changing rapidlynow with AI affecting SEO and
what Google is doing and allthese kinds of things.
(00:55):
If you were talking to a smallbusiness owner, what would be
the first thing you would haveto say to kind of start their
SEO journey?
Steven Scheider (01:03):
Yeah, the first thing is knowing that it's not
all witchcraft and wizardry,like there actually is a lot of
science and data and you knowproof of that matter.
But, you know, the biggestthing is just making sure that
you have quality content andauthority.
I think that it's very easy tothink that there's so much you
have to do in SEO, but really itjust comes back to you know,
(01:26):
making sure you have a good userexperience on your site, you
speak to them conversationallyand that you actually have some
thought leadership behind yourbrand and your website.
It's not too much.
Gary Pageau (01:37):
So a lot of the websites in our space, like the
online photo space I was talkingto a typical photo retailer
they really most of them use awhite label service provider.
They use a platform that kindof does their photo ordering and
all kinds of things and theykind of say, hey, we'll do this
SEO for you.
So it's sort of like that'stheir website.
(01:59):
They don't have a lot ofcontrol over it.
In a lot of ways, I mean, theycan add blogs and things or that
.
What do you think of that?
Steven Scheider (02:07):
I mean I think that's great if you can ever tap
into somebody who kind offacilitates a lot of that
upfront work for you.
I've never actually donebackend research on those sorts
of situations.
I'm guessing you can probablyjust tap into their authority
and really have some pretty goodupside potential.
But even if you have theopportunity to blog, like that's
(02:27):
a massive leg up on anybody whodoesn't blog in your space.
You know there's always goingto be keyword rich FAQs you
could tackle or ICP relatedqueries that you might want to
target if it's going after acertain demographic of audience
that you're trying to connect to.
So the blog is definitely wheremy bread and butter is and I've
seen a lot of success fromclients in my own personal
(02:49):
journey through blogging.
So huge advocate obviously verybiased, but yeah, I think
there's a lot of potential there.
Gary Pageau (02:55):
So when you're talking about authority, what
does that mean?
It doesn't necessarily meanknowing a lot about in our case,
I mean knowing a lot about, inour case photography or printing
.
It's really how much Google andsearch engines think you're
valuable, isn't it?
It's really what they think.
Steven Scheider (03:12):
Both.
So, at least from the contentside, there's what's called
topical authority and you cankind of imagine it almost like
an iceberg.
So if you have all the snow orthe ice above water, it's like
your homepage, your about page,kind of the must-haves of the
website.
But we all know what sank theTitanic it was the ice that was
below the water, and so that'sgoing to be the depth or the
(03:35):
blog content or any othercontent on your site that adds
to your expertise and the factthat you can actually cover a
wide range of topics, knowingthat you have something to offer
value to clients, customers,visitors, et cetera.
Other side of it, exactly whatyou said.
It's going to be your domain,your backlinks, all of the other
people on the web who arementioning you and either
(03:57):
linking to you or maybe not, butthey're still talking about you
to some degree and giving youalmost like their personal
internet vote of confidence, ifyou want to think about it like
that and that's almost a jobunto itself building all that
piece right what they call backlinking yeah, it's.
I mean, branding in itself is afull-time job, just to make sure
(04:18):
that people are aware of whoyou are and you're networking
and you're building allies andpartnerships like but we also
know, just based on history,like those who do that and can
do it.
Gary Pageau (04:30):
Well, obviously, crush it in any space, because
you're just constantly top ofmind for any person or client
that can think of you now, thechallenge I think a lot of
people have, especially in thephotography space, is just
keeping topics fresh, becauseyou know if you are providing
tips, tricks and things like youknow we recently had, you know
(04:52):
the July 4th weekends oreveryone's posting how to take
great fireworks pictures, youknow that sort of thing.
How do you keep those kinds ofevergreen topics fresh?
Steven Scheider (05:03):
Yeah.
So I think that, like, like youalways want to refresh them
right before the seasonalityhits, so there's always going to
be evergreen topics that comeand go in waves.
So like fourth of july stuff,that would be good.
I think that you could also tieit back to like just some newer
content in that article.
So if it is the fourth of julyarticle, there's always going to
be new sections or questionsyou could add.
(05:24):
So.
So like how to take 4th of Julyphotos, whether it's foggy or
sunny or rainy.
Like maybe your blog doesn'ttouch on that, but that's the
settings I use for these photos.
Like here's some good, likeactionable tips you could kind
(05:47):
of tap into.
Other things would be likegetting quotes from other people
, like Google loves when you canoffer a unique insight compared
to someone else's piece ofcontent.
So, say you have other friendsin the space and it's like go
reach out to them, get, ask themall the same question, get a
quote from them and then addthat back to your blog and say,
(06:07):
hey, I interviewed X number ofpeople and here's their best
go-to tip when taking fireworkphotos on the 4th of July.
So it's more about like, how doyou make your piece of content
stand out to competitors andothers in the space, and Google
loves that.
That's kind of what you reallywant to lean into.
Gary Pageau (06:23):
And even, like I was even thinking, maybe for the
sake of you know, the retailersin peace and all that maybe
have your customers ask them tobe quoted.
Right yeah, making yourcustomers hero.
Steven Scheider (06:35):
Huge, that's huge.
And I think that the other partof it is like the trust side of
things.
So not only getting theirinsight on how they're using the
product or how they're engagingwith that side of things, sure,
the other thing is justtestimonials and credentials
from your point of view.
So you know, getting insightaround, like you and them in
that relationship, and gettingsocial proof that you can then
(06:59):
add into your content.
So that goes a long way as well.
Gary Pageau (07:02):
What are some of the changes that are going on
right now in kind of the SEOworld?
Because there's the AI piece,because, again, a lot of this
stuff can be generated by AI.
But then I think that you know,if you just drop into chat, gpt
, write me a 400 page articleabout fireworks photos and the
fog, you'd get one.
But isn't that not beingtreated as valuable, as original
(07:25):
content?
Steven Scheider (07:26):
no, and I would say that the really big caveat
of that entire ai dilemma isthat when the conversation
adapts toward going more of aquantity output and like
checking the box just to get thearticle out completed, there's
a lot of things that lack fromthe quality side of things.
So, like the ai isn't going toknow how to add in the custom
(07:51):
quotes and the testimonialsthat's unique to your own
personal experience or it's,it's going to pretty much create
a cookie cutter version of thattopic.
But where a lot of that valueadd is is where you can think
outside the box and add thathuman element.
So even if you use that as likeyour initial outline or, say,
the foundation to go from there,I always suggest that if you
(08:13):
must use AI like, you also mustedit and try to incorporate it.
So that's kind of my two centson that.
But like even in our own agency, like we're 100% human, written
and edited and it's solelybecause that's what really works
well, still to this day, and soit's a slippery slope.
Gary Pageau (08:31):
Yeah, it's one of those things where I think you
know, just because it's easy andit does seem to get reasonable
results, it can also beinaccurate and have tonal
problems.
Right, it may not fit the toneof the rest of your content, so
it'll look weird.
Steven Scheider (08:49):
Yeah, and that's the huge part too is like
I think that people are sooverly aware of AI and how it's
being used that, like I've beenseeing on LinkedIn, where people
are almost starting to addtypos, at least in social
content, as a way to show thatit's not AI, which is so weird
to even like think that we're inthat day and age.
(09:09):
But, like, even if you thinkabout like M dashes.
I think that M dashes aretraditionally fine to use, but
now they have this like taintedspell on them where, if you
start to use M dashes in yourcontent, it's a very that's a
very common theme in chat.
Gbt is to use those.
Gary Pageau (09:25):
Was not aware of that.
Steven Scheider (09:27):
So, yeah, that's one of the things you can
look for that yeah, but it'salso when it was like damned if
you do, damn if you don't.
Situations because, like, Ijust like using them.
But because I use them in mycontent, people think that I'm
using ai.
So I think it really comes downto like, how is this read if
you read this out loud, andwould you be proud to present
this to a board of people in apublic setting?
(09:47):
If you read this article outloud and say, hey, I am putting
my name and my brand behind thisthing, like, would you do that
if it was in a social setting?
And if not, you should probablyrethink things.
Gary Pageau (09:57):
Yeah, because that is one of the things.
I think, because it's so easyand it gives passable results at
first glance, that people willstart, you know, will accept it.
There's also issue of you knowfor a lot of content it's you
know you don't actually own thatin a lot of ways because you
know AI content can't becopyrighted.
Steven Scheider (10:16):
So I think it can mess up from a legal
standpoint and part of your site, half your site would be not
even copyrighted for yourbusiness, actually.
Gary Pageau (10:24):
not even copyrighted for your business,
actually.
Steven Scheider (10:26):
So yeah, and I think that it's one of those
things, too, where it's reallyeasy to see some short-term
traction and be like, wow, thisis the new way forward, I can't
wait.
But anything in SEO is truly agame of delayed gratification
and knowing that, like we prideourselves on being really boring
SEOs because it's boring thathas proven to work for years and
(10:50):
years and years you just do thesame fundamentals over and over
again.
It sucks, but that's the way itis, and I think that the time
you start cutting corners andtrying to accelerate the
timeline to success is alsowhere you shorten your prolonged
success at the same time.
Gary Pageau (11:10):
So what do you think is a reasonable timeline?
Let's say, for example, I'm aretailer and I've had my website
up for several years, I've beentaking orders from it or
whatever, and I want to startadding some blog content to
whatever.
So let's say, I'm posting acouple times a week just basic
stuff.
You know how to put on a lenscap or why you should have a
(11:34):
camera strap and you know thatsort of thing.
How long is it going to takebefore I see appreciable results
from something like that?
Steven Scheider (11:42):
Yeah.
So we work in 90 day sprintsbecause we found that that's a
really good kind of like way tostructure strategy.
Like 90 days is usually enoughtraction to where you can see
some meaningful results afterthe second or during the second
sprint per se.
So in that like three to sixmonth range, the other kind of
like asterisks, I would say is ahuge component of that is going
(12:04):
after the right topics.
So like in the photographyindustry, if you are writing an
article around like you know howto set up your f-stop or your
aperture or something like that,it's a very competitive topic,
I have to assume.
Like every single photographerknows what that is and how to
write about it got it.
So the more niche you can getwith the topic, the better it's
(12:26):
going to be like just makingsomething up, but it's more like
how to take a photo of mythree-year-old at the park on a
sunny day.
Like the way more long tail,obscure keywords have a much
higher chance of success becausethey're less competitive so you
should be.
Gary Pageau (12:44):
Instead of going for a broad interest in it, you
could almost start narrowingthat down.
Steven Scheider (12:51):
Yeah, or even tailor it to who your clientele
is more specifically.
So you know, like I've doneaudits and worked with people in
the past who like only cater tolike newborn photography or
only work with weddingphotography, etc.
So there's tons of topics inthose arenas specifically, um,
(13:12):
and it's also more of like theintent behind who's reading the
topic and who is your idealcustomer.
So, for example, if you'rewriting like how to take wedding
photos, well, you're actuallywriting for another photographer
, so it doesn't really matter.
So you want to be like whatshould I look for when hiring a
wedding photographer?
Because that's going to be theperson who's actually going to
be looking for your services.
Gary Pageau (13:32):
So intent is important, but also just making
sure that there's actual demandbehind the topic to begin with,
so where are some good sourcesif you're not a very good writer
and you don't want to rely onchat, gpt to find content, to
find this sort of thing?
Steven Scheider (13:50):
Yeah, I think WriteSonic is a good tool that
I've been kind of tapping intonowadays.
It's a newer AI tool.
They have good keyword researchbuilt in.
They also help you build youroutlines.
It's pretty much kind of likethe ideal full circle suite for
people nowadays.
Like the ideal full circlesuite for people nowadays.
Se rank is good.
Ahrefs is good for keywordresearch, not so much for
writing, but definitely can helpdetail outlines and get the
(14:14):
structure in place for thecontent.
So I mean there's so many likeSurfer.
Seo is a good one Like they're.
I can name dozens, but I thinkit's just more about like what
your needs are and like whereyou think your weaknesses are in
that process and then finding atool specific to that weakness
now, how does video contentenhance seo?
Gary Pageau (14:39):
does it, or is it mostly for social clicks?
Steven Scheider (14:42):
no, it definitely helps.
I mean, anything that can addmore value to the user at the
end of the day and also act asanother gateway to your content
is going to be a huge win.
So, kind of going back to theblogging side of things, if you
have a blog, well then yourealize that, oh, this blog
would actually serve really wellas a 30 second reel where I can
(15:03):
just talk on you know the touchpoints and the summarized
aspects of it, add in somevisual examples, you upload that
to YouTube, meta, instagram,pinterest, especially like
Pinterest is so good forphotographers and Pinterest is
also a search engine in itself,so like those things all feed
(15:24):
together and then you link itback to your article, you
include the video and embed itwithin your content, like you
kind of have now this likeecosystem within your content
and that all brings Googlerelevance customers.
Like it all ties in together.
Gary Pageau (15:40):
So when you're talking about Pinterest
specifically I haven't heard theword Pinterest in a while, I
know right.
Steven Scheider (15:46):
It seems like a while I know right.
Gary Pageau (15:47):
It seems like it's almost like eBay.
Right, it was super hot foreverand now it's still around and
millions of people use it, butno one ever talks about it.
Why is that?
Steven Scheider (15:57):
I think it's kind of that same thing.
It's like you know, it had itsday and age.
I think that just because it'snot like trendy anymore it's not
top of mind but trendy anymore,it's not top of mind, but it's
very top of mind for someaudiences and some people, like
you know.
I think that, like I used toown a site that's like majority
of its traffic was generatedjust strictly through Pinterest
and creating pins and content onthat side of things, and it's
(16:19):
great because it is its ownsearch engine.
So the more people search forcontent in Pinterest, the more
optimized you can create yourboards and your pins and like if
you just study Pinterest SEOlike you definitely have a leg
up in your industry, andphotography is like one of the
more kind of top of mind nichesin Pinterest.
(16:41):
So anybody who's not doing thatlike I think that's a huge
opportunity for people.
Gary Pageau (16:45):
Yeah, well, I know some of my audience they have
Etsy stores right and they kindof-.
Steven Scheider (16:50):
Yeah, Etsy's great too.
Gary Pageau (16:51):
Well, they drive traffic to their Etsy stores
through Pinterest, right,because you can.
People are visually searchingfor stuff and they drive it
there, so that works.
Steven Scheider (17:01):
Yeah, I used to own an Etsy store too, and it
was the same strategy.
Pinterest connects to Etsy and,yeah, I love all of those like
little kind of indie backdoormarketing strategies, because
it's not something that peopleusually like rave about in terms
of like drop shipping orrunning Facebook ads, but it
still works really well and I'mlike you know you can really do
(17:23):
a lot of damage.
Gary Pageau (17:24):
There you go.
So let's get back to the AIthing for a little bit, because
I keep hearing about how AI ishitting Google in the search
business and it's reallyimpacting how valuable Google
search is Right, because they'reeven starting to bias their own
(17:46):
AI results at the top of thepage, so your results may
actually go down under the foldbecause there's not as much
space there because they'retaking it up with their own AI
results.
What are your thoughts on that?
Steven Scheider (17:58):
Yeah, I think Google is killing Google.
Unfortunately.
I think that the userexperience of Google is garbage
nowadays.
Hopefully they get it figuredout, but at least from like an
SEO perspective, what we'reseeing is that the generative AI
add in that you see at the topof Google nowadays is actually
helping deter unwanted trafficfrom your site that isn't going
(18:20):
to be meaningful or take intentor action.
So anybody who's clickingthrough to your site and is from
AI actually has more of adesire to work with you or learn
more about the information onyour site because they're much
more driven based on the result.
That started that.
But if people can just gettheir answer in 30 seconds and
(18:41):
move on, they probably weren'tyour ideal customer to begin
with.
So it's kind of like it answersthe questions, it cuts out the
fluff and then anybody whoarrives from that like it's
probably someone you want to getin touch with immediately.
Gary Pageau (18:54):
What are some ways people, once they've kind of run
that the gauntlet of the GeminiAI feed gauntlet they're there.
Is there anything they can do,once they're there, to help
convert those people?
Steven Scheider (19:09):
Yeah.
So the big thing I think that isvery overlooked is giving
people some sort of free,valuable asset to as soon as
they jump in the gate.
So you know, like it could besomething as easy as, like take
our quiz to see if you qualifyfor 25% off our next package or
new, new customer package, likesomething that's engaging.
(19:30):
Keep people on the page, givesthem something to like interact
with quizzes calculators aregreat, maybe a lead magnet, like
maybe it's a 50 page bundle ofways that people can rethink
their next photo shoot orsomething like that.
So like things like that werelike what would give somebody so
(19:51):
much value that the next timethey heard from you, it'd be
ridiculous for them not to sayyes to work with you.
And I think like that's kind ofthe way you want to go about it
, Because if you can do that,then people already feel like
they've gotten so much value outof you that, like the next time
you throw out a numberprice-wise, they're like oh yeah
, great, like I already got thatfrom the last thing you gave me
, so there's no reason not to dothat so that then requires some
(20:14):
sort of way to retrieve thoseemails and do something with
them, right?
Gary Pageau (20:19):
so there's sort of a whole crm side of it which is
not of this, but it certainly isa way to feed that.
Steven Scheider (20:26):
Yeah, exactly so, like even if you're working
with, like a email provider likekit, convert, kit or you know
something, where it's just adrop in your email here, we'll
send you this via email and thenyou set up maybe a multi day or
something sequence where youjust casually message them over
the next week or so, or twoweeks or month and just can
(20:47):
check in and kind of make itmore of an automated process,
because at the time if you haveto spend to email all those
people manually, it's going tojust be a huge pain yeah, so the
fourth quarter is the bigquarter for our industry a lot
of industry, but our industry.
Gary Pageau (21:06):
Right, and it's July now this is running in
August, so when do people needto get started on their strategy
for if they want to have anoutstanding SEO driven fourth
quarter?
Steven Scheider (21:22):
Last quarter, last Q4.
I mean, yeah, the sooner thebetter.
I mean just because of how longit takes for things to come to
life.
I think that the further it'sdelayed or the longer it's
delayed, it's really going toimpact things.
And I always kind of try andrelate it to investing in your
retirement account.
You know, like people who delaythat passive couple hundred
(21:43):
dollars a month in their 401k ortheir IRA, like they look back
and they're like dang it.
I wish I would have startedwhen I was 20 years old.
And that same mindset is how SEOworks Like it's a compounding
thing.
It takes time to ramp up, butonce it's alive and kicking,
you're so happy with the resultsand you're like, wow, I'm so
happy I started.
So same mindset shifts shouldkind of be adopted when it comes
(22:06):
to your marketing strategy.
Gary Pageau (22:08):
Because, as you were saying earlier, you know
this is an ongoing process.
It's not a, it's a growthengine as opposed to a, you know
, just a swing at a ball andtrying to get a hit.
Steven Scheider (22:20):
Exactly.
That's kind of where I thinkpaid ads or ppc would come into
play.
It's very push button, getresult sort of thing, whereas
seo it's like push 50 buttons,wait six months and push 50 more
.
Gary Pageau (22:34):
So but, and those two can work together because
you're not saying peopleshouldn't do paid paid ads, but
they're no exactly strategy 100.
It's a very short term versuslong-term strategy, and the two
go hand in hand so maybe aroundyou know when you, when you have
a specific product you'repushing, you do the paid ads.
Steven Scheider (22:54):
But if you have the ongoing traffic building
strategy to build your customerdatabase, that's more of the seo
approach yeah, I think it's areally good strategy to
implement paid ads and then usethe profits from paid ads to
supplement your SEO strategy.
And I think that, like, overtime, that flywheel starts to
churn and now you kind of havethis ongoing thing that work
(23:18):
hand in hand and can kind ofsurvive as a result of each
other.
Gary Pageau (23:21):
Sure, sure hand and can kind of survive as a result
of each other, sure, sure.
So where can people go for moreinformation about your company
and the stuff you guys offer forbusinesses to help them grow
through?
Steven Scheider (23:33):
SEO.
Yeah, you can go to trio SEOdot com.
We offer free complimentaryaudits that are hand done by our
team.
It's not some AI automatedthing, hand crafted Exactly Old
school for sure.
We look at things like you know10 different core aspects of
your site that would contributetowards success.
(23:54):
Where your gaps lie in thatprocess, what's holding you back
?
Keywords you should be rankingfor kind of the whole gamut of
what it needs to be successfulat the end of the day.
You can also find me on LinkedIn.
I'm very active there.
I post daily content.
You can also just Google TrioSEO or Steven Schneider.
I always joke that if you can'tfind me on Google, I'm doing my
(24:16):
job wrong.
Gary Pageau (24:16):
Exactly.
You should be eminentlyfindable.
Steven Scheider (24:21):
Exactly, I am.
Gary Pageau (24:22):
All right.
Well, thank you, stephen, foryour time.
It's been great talking to you.
I know you've given a lot ofgreat tips and direct action
that people can use, and I lookforward to speaking to you again
sometime.
Steven Scheider (24:33):
Yeah, thanks, gary, this has been great.
Erin Manning (24:36):
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixel
Society podcast.
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wwwthedeadpixelssocietycom.
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