May 21, 2025 • 39 mins
Mentorship and representation transforms careers - this truth echoes throughout our conversations with leading SEO professionals in the first installment of our two-part "Best of SEO" episode series.
From personal journeys to strategies for tackling the various technical aspects of SEO, our expert guests reveal how adaptable and human-centered SEO truly is.
As they explore how AI is revolutionizing search, these conversations emphasize the importance of trust and reliability in the field, especially at pivotal career moments.
Episode Highlights:
- Nine SEO industry leaders share personal stories about how mentorship and representation have significantly shaped their SEO careers.
- Guests discuss the importance of authentic self-expression, visibility, curiosity, and the willingness to learn from mistakes can inspire others in the SEO community.
- These SEO experts emphasize that effective SEO strategies are highly tailored to client needs, from technical SEO for large e-commerce sites to content-driven approaches for news outlets.
- The conversation explores how AI is transforming search, emphasizing the ongoing importance of trust, reliability, and innovative algorithms in the evolving landscape.
Episode Links:
Follow The Digital Marketing Mentor:
- Website and Blog: thedmmentor.com
- Instagram: @thedmmentor
- Linkedin: @thedmmentor
- YouTube: @thedmmentor
Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family:
- Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations.
- ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business’s digital marketing strategy.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Danny Gavin (00:05):
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.
I'm your host, danny Gavin, andtogether with industry leaders
and marketing experts, we'llexplore the meeting point of
mentorship and marketing.
We'll discover how theseconnections have affected
careers, marketing strategiesand lives.
Now get ready to get human.
Now get ready to get human howthe industry has grown and
(00:50):
changed best practices and somuch more.
In this first part of our Bestof SEO series, we'll dive into
the critical role of mentorshipin shaping successful SEO
careers, as well as tackle thetechnical aspects of SEO and how
to overcome common challengesin the field.
Both episodes have gatheredwisdom from over a dozen
industry leaders and marketingprofessionals who have
generously shared theirexperiences.
Whether you're just startingyour journey in SEO or looking
to enhance your skills, there'ssomething here for everyone.
So let's jump right into partone and hear from our expert
(01:12):
guests on how mentorship cantransform your approach to SEO
and the strategies to tacklethose tricky technical
components.
Martha Van Berkel (01:21):
I would argue, my father today is a
mentor for me because he spent,you know, many, many, many years
in sales at IBM and so and I,you know, I run sales now at our
company and so it's like dad,like you know, help me
understand how you would managethe situation.
Or I'm thinking of doing this.
What do you think the impactwas?
And he can, you know again,courageously share his
experiences or, you know, ask mequalifying questions.
(01:44):
And then I've had other mentorswho are peers of mine now,
where they ask me the hardquestions and share their
experiences, but they're in asimilar role that I am in today
and so less of a sort of likethey're more senior than me or
older than me.
And then I would say, evenearly in my career, a lot of
times it was my boss, or myboss's boss, or women.
(02:07):
I had a couple of really coolwomen leaders who kind of just
was like, oh, she's goingsomewhere and I want to help her
remove some barriers and sortof help her thrive, and they
just raised their hand and saidI want to help.
I didn't know what my next rolewas going to be, and a past
manager who was someone I hadstayed in touch with you'll see
a theme of this.
She was like, oh, I have a jobin Belgium and again I like
(02:30):
adventures, that's sort of likepart of it.
And it was working with IBM.
So again I had like a familyhistory there.
I'd worked there in my summers.
Do I want to move to Belgium?
The 24 or 5-year-old me waslike, yeah, this could be
awesome, this could be a greatadventure.
And Denby was a director in thetechnical sport organization and
he actually was on assignmentfrom Australia so he sort of
knew a thing or two aboutworking internationally and you
(02:52):
know, he was at a differentstage of his life but he kind of
understood the complexities ofit.
And he actually took me asideand he was like I wanna go for a
walk.
He was like I have some wisdomI need to pass on to you.
And what he said was he waslike you know, international
work is amazing and super fun ifsupported in the right way.
And he said I'm concerned thatat your level they're going to
(03:14):
send you to Belgium.
You're going to have a ton offun, but you're going to get
stuck there.
And he said you have a lot ofpotential at this company and
you're right now in headquartersin San Jose.
And he said I know you're notgoing to want to hear this, but
I don't think you should takethis job and I was like but this
is like, I want a new job.
He's like I will help you finda different job.
For you to stay in San Jose.
He felt so passionately aboutthat that he was like I'll help
(03:37):
you find another job.
And he did so.
I didn't move to Belgium, Istayed at headquarters, and this
is actually where Jim Glickcomes in, who is, I consider,
I'll say, one of my championsand one of my mentors.
What I knew, but I didn't knowthere and now I look back on it
is Jim was an entrepreneurbefore he joined Cisco and I was
doing a role.
I was basically like theycreated a role for me, but it
(03:58):
wasn't a real role, but theywere trying to keep me in the
organization and I was exploringthis legal issue that I won't
bore everyone with and Ibasically had got to know
everyone at Cisco that had to dowith this issue.
I just kept calling people andfollowing down the rabbit hole
and again, I was really youngand had no title.
I just was like I'm going tosolve this problem, and this is
(04:18):
one of those things.
I could have taken that as like, oh, I don't have a real
project.
But instead I was like, what amI going to learn?
Like I'm going to learn how todo project management, I'm going
to learn everything I knowabout this it's called export
controls Like I'm going to knoweverything about it.
And then, worst case, like Ijust hand this off to someone
and I go do something else.
But like I'm going to have somefun and I'm going to just like
make this into what I can makeit right.
(04:40):
And what happened was is thatCisco got called at the very
senior level on this issue thatI was now the expert on, and the
only reason I was an expert wasbecause I took this opportunity
for fun and I had to.
I basically got called into avice president's office.
They were like Martha, what doyou know about this?
And I was like, oh, here's myproject plan, here's all the
people you need to pull into theroom.
(05:00):
This is where our biggest isand this is what we need to do
in the next 60 days in order toget this solved.
And I pulled all the peopleinto the room.
I directed everyone on whatthey needed to do and it got
done and my vice presidentlooked like a hero.
And then he's like I'm going tohave you take on my next biggest
project, which was a three tofive year strategy on how to
automate support for Cisco, andhe championed me and mentored me
(05:23):
.
I had like no idea how to dostrategy.
I had no idea, like how to workwith these senior directors,
like in identifying what thethemes were in order for us to
then put together a budget, ateam, pitch it to executives to
get funding and then build ateam.
But guess what?
(05:46):
He saw the entrepreneurialspirit in me that he was willing
then to coach me and mentor meon how to like I had to stand in
front of 10 executives on amonthly basis and just get, like
you think of I don't know, youguys have shark tank in the us,
like dragon's den canada but helike coached me on, like you
know, under promise over deliverright was one of the things
that I like I still like thinkof that right, stand there with
confidence and answer with theinformation you have, but like
(06:07):
stand tall Like they don't knowwhat you don't know right and
the reason I share this story,danny is like that mentoring
opportunity.
So like, yeah, I made him lookgood, like I got the opportunity
and the support then to buildthis organization within Cisco
that ended up being over 200people Manage a budget.
Oh wait, those are all thethings I wanted to do and grow
(06:29):
and learn.
Remember, yes, right, you haveto do the hard work and then
those mentors will also show upbecause they want you to be
successful.
Batli Joselevitz (06:38):
On the job.
I actually started out as aninternet marketing assistant,
which can be very vague, it canmean a lot of different things,
but it was a great opportunityto really have a foundation,
especially not having a formalmarketing background or
foundation.
To like not intentionally, butit was almost like a process of
elimination, but I was like,okay, I tried this route, it's
(06:59):
okay, but it's not like I'm notsuper, super passionate about it
, or I tried this route and samething.
So then, when an opportunitywith SEO, like a project, came
along, it definitely opened myeyes.
(07:19):
Oh whoa, I had no idea thisexisted or like this would click
, but it makes complete sensewith just my eyes.
Oh whoa, like I had no ideathis existed or like this would
click, but it makes completesense with just.
You know my background injournalism and storytelling as
well, from a content perspective, and also photography and I
think, going back evenbacktracking to before college,
my passion for photography Idiscovered when I was 13.
(07:41):
My passion for photography Idiscovered when I was 13.
I also learned a very similarway, where I did take a class,
but it was more of thetechnicality of processing and
developing black and white film.
It wasn't how to actuallycompose a photograph, like how
to look through the viewfinder,and that took some time and that
(08:03):
was more of me just exploringand experimenting.
And I feel like SEO was verysimilar, where I had the tools
and the resources and then, onceI had that, I could actually
figure out okay, this is I couldcome up of like, oh yeah, this
is what you do in this situation, and so forth, but it was more
(08:23):
of like here's the foundation,crystal clear basics, and then
how can we actually apply thisin this context?
Danny Gavin (08:31):
Imagine that someone actually identifies the
pattern in their life of howthey grow and learn and you were
able to see that right.
It's like taking something, getthe fundamentals, understand it
and then from there I need totry and test and that's how I'm
going to learn and become reallygood at what I'm doing.
I think it's such an importantlesson, right, and that's why
(08:53):
doing things and trying things,even if it's in a different area
you were doing retail salesright For a while the more
experiences that you putyourself into, you kind of
figure out like, how do I learn,how do I grow?
And it's just cool that youhave found that out and you kind
of have the openness to seewhat it is and like, okay, if I
got to get to the next level,these are the things that I need
(09:15):
.
You know, I need that strongfoundation and then I need that
time to kind of grow anddiscover on my own.
Batli Joselevitz (09:21):
Someone looking at my background paper
would be like, oh wow, this islike a 360.
How's it all connected?
And you know, being able toidentify how it's all connected
is great, but also this isn'tlike a one-size-fits-all or just
for me, like someone else outthere listening.
I hope this should also giveyou some hope that even if you
feel like you're doing a 360,that it all is connected and
(09:43):
helps you for your next chapter.
So, going back to my retailexperience, something I learned
in there even though it wasn'tmarketing per se, it was very
fascinating because that companydidn't do traditional marketing
.
It's all mostly word of mouthand the way they do marketing is
very unconventional.
And over time, the clientele.
(10:04):
You start to identify theirpersonalities, their personas
and understand okay, where doesthis type of person hang out,
what do they do, what is theirmindset and that's something
that's really important inmarketing is understanding a
buyer persona.
So I really got that foundationworking in retail.
So even before I had thisformal marketing background, I
(10:26):
had real life experience whereI've used this.
It works, I've seen it inaction.
Mike King (10:33):
A lot of people reach out to me and this is why
representation matters.
Like I was literally sitting inthis room watching all these
people being like matters.
Like I was literally sitting inthis room watching all these
people being like, oh yeah, thisis not for me and that's not
something that I typically do,like in life in general, just
from all the experiences thatI've had and so on.
But in that situation I feltthat way.
(10:55):
So many people have reached outto me not just you know black
people, but also you know peopleof color in general reached out
to me and they say like, hey,you know black people, but also
you know people of color ingeneral reached out to me and
they say like hey, you know, Ilove to see you doing what you
do in the authentic way that youdo it, because sometimes it's
not just about like you knowwhat you look like, how you
present or whatever.
It's also just the way you arein the world.
(11:17):
Like I'm not somebody who codeswitches, I'm not somebody who,
you know, acts differently inthese environments, and for some
people that makes themuncomfortable, but for me I'm
like I'm here, this is who I am,you know.
Like I'm not changing who I am,just because you know this is
how everyone else acts.
(11:43):
People that reach out to me forthat and they're like I really
appreciate that you're notacting differently in this world
.
But yeah, also, you know, blackpeople reach out to me as well
and they're like wow, you knowyou're such an inspiration or
whatever.
And I appreciate that and Idon't take that for granted at
all.
Like I understand the gravityof my position and what I do and
I always look to pay thatforward wherever I can.
And so when people reach out tome and they're like hey, you
(12:04):
know I'm trying to figure thisout, I always try to make time
to be like hey, you know, here'swhat I've done, here's what's
worked for me.
It may not work for you, butlet's talk through it.
I'm happy to do that sort ofstuff because you never know
what impact you're going to haveon that next person and so on
and so forth.
And you know I just want to domy best to make the spaces I'm
(12:25):
in better for people like me whoalso want to be in those spaces
.
Danny Gavin (12:29):
It's so amazing, so powerful.
I know, at Brighton SEO lastyear or, yeah, already last year
one of my employees was with meand I was so excited that I
could introduce him to you,because it's like this is
someone you know has potentiallywalked the same path as you and
someone to look up and look howsuccessful he is, and it was
(12:49):
just nice, right Nice to be ableto create that connection.
It was just very inspiring forme.
Mike King (12:53):
Yeah, again, like I feel like it's my duty to do
that, because I don't wantanyone to feel the way that I
felt in that room where I waslike this is not for me, because
who's to say it's not for me,it's for whoever can do it.
And you know, I mean I thinkthe things that I've shared with
the SEO community imagine if Ihadn't had that moment watching
(13:17):
Will Reynolds and I didn't shareany of that.
You know, like I think thatwould have been a huge
disservice.
And I'm sure there have beenpeople in the past who were even
better than the things thatI've done, who have felt that
way and not felt like they couldbe included here and we've
missed out on the things thatthey had to contribute.
So, yeah, I think it's reallyimportant for me to keep doing
that work.
Danny Gavin (13:37):
Just to have a mix of people, so that everyone in
the crowd has someone that theycan look up to and say that
could be me.
It's so powerful.
You don't really think aboutthat, right?
Mike King (13:46):
Yeah, and I think I might actually be underselling
how impactful that was for me tosee Will Like, literally while
he was speaking, I pitched forSMX East and then I got it, and
then that created all of thisfor me.
So you know, for someone to beable to see themselves on the
stage is so powerful.
Sarah Presch (14:07):
This was probably one of the most ADHD ideas that
me and the co-founder Jack everhad.
We were at Brighton SEO.
You can see this as becoming acommon theme.
We were at Brighton SEO and wewere thinking that you know,
there's all of these differentcommunities within SEO but
there's no space for kind oflike neurodivergent folk like us
.
So we're like, let's make oneIn true ADHD fashion.
(14:29):
We set up a Google form, wemade a LinkedIn page and we went
live.
We were thinking that maybe oneor two people would sign up and
then we'd be like we have somefriends and that would be it.
But it's kind of grown and nowwe have well over 200 members in
.
I think it's like 30 differentcountries around the world.
Now We've provided opportunitiesfor people to go to conferences
(14:53):
, to do training courses andstuff, because unfortunately,
using autism as a statistic Ican't remember off the top of my
head if it, I think it's 73% ofautistic adults are unemployed,
even though they want to beemployed.
You can see that within theneurodivergent community, within
SEO as well, that you've gotall of these really, really
talented SEOs but for falls thataren't their own, Interviewing
(15:16):
processes are not set up forthem.
So we've done like interviewtraining courses for like a four
week course and stuff like that.
Training courses are not soaccessible and if you're
unemployed you can't afford topay, you know, a thousand
dollars for a training courseand stuff like that.
So it's just trying to breakdown those obstacles and just
help neurodivergent SEOs, youknow, do their best in their
career.
(15:40):
Are there only SEOs or otherdigital marketing specialists in
the group?
We've got quite a lot actually.
So we've got digital PR people,we've got PPC people, we've got
translators who specialize inSEO translation, got content
writers, as long as they work indigital marketing and they have
something to do with SEO.
That's kind of like oh, thatmatters really.
Even if you just want to learnSEO and you're not quite there
yet, you know, come and join us.
Danny Gavin (16:00):
How's the feedback been, just from the members, has
it been very positive?
Sarah Presch (16:05):
It has been and you know, from my point of view,
I feel like I finally found acommunity where we can kind of
just be ourselves and we can beour kind of unmasked selves,
because I don't think you knowas much as people say they're
open.
I don't think I'm quite readyfor a bunch of autistic people
to network in a very autisticway.
You know it's been perfect andyou know we've had people who
(16:27):
have sent us messages saying weactually landed our first job in
SEO because of the trainingcourse that you provided and
things like that.
So you know it's really cool.
Fay Friedman (16:38):
Unlike many others, I'm not college educated
.
I started out as a copywriterfor an SEO agency.
This was way back when theinternet was wild west and a lot
of things passed that wouldn'twork today.
I started out doing copywriting.
I knew nothing about SEO and ina way, it was the best way for
(17:00):
me to be exposed to the industry, because I saw a lot of black
hat and gray techniques thatlike.
I did that and then I kind ofheard from clients or
competitors who it came back tobite them.
There were some diceysituations, but it was the best
teacher and the best learningexperience for me.
(17:21):
So after that initialinteresting experience at an
agency doing copywriting, Ireally was intrigued by the
entire SEO field and I spentaround a year on my own just
playing around watching YouTubevideos, reading search engine
roundtable and every single blogI could find playing with a
family member's website, andthat was really how I got my
(17:43):
team on SEO and every singleblog I could find playing with a
family member's website, andthat was really how I got my
team on SEO and I feel like, ina way, that was the best teacher
.
So there was definitely alwaysthere's like this imposter
syndrome there's always gonna bea part of me that feels like
I'm missing something because Ididn't go to college.
I discussed this in the pastwith a colleague and he's
adamant that when we're notcollege educated in a way, there
(18:06):
are things that we know betterbecause we have to learn by
making mistakes.
Obviously, I really valueuniversity education.
It was an interesting way toget into the industry and for me
, it's work.
So, as you mentioned, I spentnine years in e-commerce and I'm
always learning.
There was never a day that Ididn't learn something new,
which is great.
(18:27):
At this point, I'm over to thereal estate side, which is a
completely different beast, andthrough my work in SEO, I was
really exposed to all differenttouch points in marketing.
So everything from print adsand, as I said, my background as
a copywriter to email marketingprint ads and, as I said, my
background is a copywriter toemail marketing and the
technical specifics of buildinga website All of it I ended up
(18:47):
touching and that's really whathelped shape my career.
As I mentioned, some of theseare relationships that are not
necessarily that close, but thatthey've had an impact on me in
some way Very short to somebodythat, as I mentioned, I started
SEO reading search engineroundtable, not understanding
anything, Like I was readingGreek, I did not know what I was
(19:08):
reading, but it was soinspiring for me that as I
learned more, I reallyunderstood what he's saying In
real life.
He is so kind, so open andwilling to help.
He's just like humble, easy toreach.
If you have a question heanswers, and I love how you know
, as I mentioned, my personalityworks, because his blog is
(19:31):
exactly what I need, especiallyat this point in my career.
I don't have time to read longwhite papers and studies and
he's just quick bites of what'simportant.
He's taught me a lot on thesoft skill side leadership and
communication and dealing withmembers of my team, because you
could say that in many ways hispersonality is very different
(19:52):
from mine, but he just has a wayof quietly leading.
He's not the loudest guy in theroom.
He proves himself to his teamwith like a quiet authority.
He knows how to be firm when heneeds to and he knows his
opinion and it's really openedmy eyes into different ways that
(20:14):
you can lead, that it's notalways about talking the most
and holding the big meetings,but it's about really
understanding your team and whatthey need at that given moment.
Mordy Oberstein (20:26):
SEO is hard because I feel there's so much
debate and things become hotbutton issues and everyone kind
of draws these lines in the sand.
I don't think it's almost likeAmerican politics in a weird way
.
Right, everyone, I'm on thisside, you're on that side,
you're horrible.
There isn't a lot of room fordialogue and sharing of
(20:49):
different ideas or saying youknow what.
I don't agree with that, but Ican see where they're coming
from and that might be valuable.
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
Someone put out a study.
I'm not going to say what itwas.
I felt like, okay, that's notwhat they're trying to explain,
something, that's not what thatis.
I disagree with that, but youknow what?
It's interesting nonetheless.
There's interesting conclusionsthat I think are completely
valid or worthwhile formarketers of all kinds to know
(21:11):
and take away from that study,even though the thing they're
trying to explain might not beright.
And I think, because SEOs don'tdo that, because they don't look
for the good in things ever,sometimes it feels like I know
it's hyperbolic, but it doesn'tfeel hyperbolic.
I was just on Twitter a minuteago tweeting about something and
someone replied back to me likeyeah, seos make this so
(21:32):
complicated.
Why do we have to do this andblah, blah, blah, blah blah.
And because of that it makestalking and mentoring the wider
community so controversial.
But it shouldn't becontroversial at all.
It should just be like ideasflowing out and you'll see the
old school SEOs complainingabout that.
Oh, I remember when back in theday we walked uphill both ways
(21:52):
of school and newspaper forshoes and people shared ideas
together on Twitter and itdoesn't happen anymore and it's
hard.
Danny Gavin (21:59):
Do you ever get any anxiety before you put
something out there on, let'ssay, Twitter or LinkedIn?
Mordy Oberstein (22:05):
I used to when I was first getting in the
industry.
I don't know if I know anythingNow.
I know I don't know anything.
I'm more comfortable with whatI don't know Once in a while.
I put something out yesterdayabout AI overviews and SEMrush
data, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like someone's going tolook at this and they're going
to say that conclusion's notright.
And maybe it's not right, Idon't know.
Like I'm a god, I don't know if100% it's right or wrong.
(22:28):
So, yeah, a little bit, butlike at this point, like it's
just SEO, if someone thinks I'man idiot, like fine.
Danny Gavin (22:36):
The SEO strategy you've discussed using at GoFish
is very focused on thetechnical elements of SEO.
So links, analyzing logs,in-depth algorithm analysis.
How did you come to thisapproach?
Chris Long (22:47):
I think the approach has to be custom tailored to
whoever you're working with.
Now that is the biggest thing.
If you're setting SEO strategy,it needs to be very tailored.
So if you're talking the sitesthat are bigger and larger, so
if you're working with a hugee-merce site that's hundreds of
thousands, millions of pages,you're going to need to have a
(23:09):
technical SEO approach andreally that should probably be
in your roadmap.
All things being equal, thatshould be one of the biggest
things you're working on,because if you have millions of
pages, you do have problems withindexation, crawl rates, site
speed, all of that.
You need to be taking a customlook because basically, when
you're dealing with scale, youneed to be able to ensure Google
can crawl that scale asefficiently as it possibly can
be.
That's really helpful to have.
However, if you're working withdifferent types of clients and
(23:30):
we work with a lot of newsclients and that is a completely
different approach it's stilltechnical in some ways.
A lot of it's more almoststrategic, where it's like hey,
with news clients, they don'thave problems writing content.
They're one of the few clientsthat you're not forcing to get
content out of.
They have a bunch of editorsand writers who can create that.
So you're more working withlike hey, now our strategy
(23:51):
shifts to how do we createeditorial calendars?
How do we really figure outwhere the content gaps are and
how do we really inform whatyou're going to do for the next
year from an editorialperspective?
Also, how do we work withspecific creatures like top
stories?
Freshness starts to matter.
It matters everywhere, in myopinion, but it matters a lot
more for news organizations.
(24:11):
How do we implement live blogposting and structured data?
So there's different types ofstrategies.
Once again, that might allbreak down in terms of what type
of SEO you are.
If you're a technical SEO,you'll probably do really well
working with the big e-commercesites.
If you're a content-driven SEO,you might enjoy working with
more news organizations or morestandard WordPress-style sites.
But really, that contentstrategy is going to be the key
(24:31):
piece to success.
Danny Gavin (24:33):
So do you actually get through to news
organizations an SEO strategywhere it's like, okay, we know
you want to write stories, butlook at it from an SEO
perspective first.
Where it's like, hey, this iswhere you don't have a lot of
traffic from and you reallyshould write more stories in
this area.
Are you actually influencingdecisions at certain
organizations?
Chris Long (24:52):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Yeah, and it's been reallygreat to see because I think a
lot of news organizations arestarting to realize just how
important it is right when tosee.
Because I think a lot of newsorganizations are starting to
realize just how important it isright when they see their
competitors ranking in topstories, which most times is in
the canonical number oneposition, and they start to ask
themselves, hey, how do we getour stories written there?
And then you take a look andsay, well, hey, you know you're
(25:14):
writing these stories aboutthese topics, but you're not
really highlighting the mainpiece.
You're not highlighting themain topic in the title tag and
the subject line.
Or you wrote a story yesterday,but in order to be in top
stories, that story needs to bewritten within 24 hours.
So we've worked with a lot ofclients in terms of building out
their strategies.
What we find works well isreally having a collaborative
(25:35):
approach to figuring out like,hey, what stories they want to
rank for, and then what's theircurrent, say, architecture, and
then working with them to set astrategy for, hey, these are the
rules for your editors Everytime they create a new story.
This is what the URL needs tolook like these topics should be
in the H1 and the title tags.
You should update the storythis frequently and really
acting as an internal advocatefor SEO amongst their newsrooms.
(25:56):
We found that to be a prettyeffective approach and that's
exciting to me because it's oneway you can scale content right.
When you have all thesedifferent raters who can
contribute, you can all get themthinking to have kind of an SEO
mindset with every article theycreate.
Even if you only increase theirefficiency by 10%, well, that's
a large lift across the entireorganization.
Danny Gavin (26:16):
So you transitioned last year from senior SEO
manager to VP of marketing.
You so you transitioned lastyear from Senior SEO Manager to
VP of Marketing.
You've always been an SEOevangelist.
How has this shift changed yourfocus at GoFish, as you're now
viewing things from a more10,000 foot perspective?
Chris Long (26:29):
It is harder because with any role shift you find
yourself a little bit less inthe marketing day to day and
more in the operationalday-to-day.
So really I think one of thebiggest challenges with that
kind of shift is how to havemore influence at scale within
your organization.
(26:50):
So before you might be workingon a specific SEO process and
refining that and teaching theteam how to do that, but as you
take on right, as you shouldtake on more verticals, and then
and are talking to other teammembers, your kind of house of
responsibility like grows inthat way and you really need to
figure out like, hey, how canyou, how can you best like
(27:11):
assert your opinions andinfluence and whatever across
all of these different kind ofrealms.
So that's one of the biggestchallenges, just kind of just
how much more you inherit andthen you're figuring out your
ability to influence thosedifferent factors.
That's not to say I stillactually love the day-to-day of
SEO.
That is one of the bigger rolechanges.
(27:32):
It's just in terms of you'rethinking about larger pieces of
the pie, so to speak, and reallyhow to influence them, and it
really does become a lot moreabout, like you know, hey,
instead of this one individualtactic.
I'm going to start to developthis process that you know 20
people can follow.
That becomes just more valuablewith the more growth there is
within an organization or withinyourself.
Wil Reynolds (27:54):
Inevitably you Google something, you learn
something new.
You're now like, wow, that's anew word for me.
So now you've got to Googlethat word as part of another
thing, because you're stilltrying to solve the problem.
So now, each time you learnsomething, you've got to go back
and refine your query and allthat stuff In ChatGPT.
You're like, oh, that's a greatanswer, but my kid's four years
(28:14):
old, oh, and it's also a girl.
So I don't like that example.
And it's like, oh well, let meput it to you this way, let me
put it to you that way versusthe amount of searches and
clicks and closing out pop-upsand where's the content, versus
where's the ad, and everybody'strying to make the ads look like
content because they need tomake money on that, and you're
(28:36):
just like man, there's so muchnow I just can't imagine.
Why would you want to gothrough all that friction?
Danny Gavin (28:40):
So do you feel like Google Ads, or the ad side of
Google, is actually like theirbiggest shackles?
That's just going to hold themback from totally embracing the
new world 1000%, and they justproved it again last week.
Wil Reynolds (28:52):
So I started.
This is where Some of thisstuff We've been around for a
while right, and oftentimes whatI would say to young people
when I would talk to them ingroups or provide some
mentorship is I'd be like heyguys, anytime you can jump in an
industry where the rules aren'twritten, you can't stay on top
of all of it.
When it comes to Google andpaid, what I've been saying to
people is like Google's not goodat disrupting themselves, and
(29:27):
the proof that I've been givingto people recently is look at
how quickly Apple launched ITPor whatever, ipt, itp, whatever
it is their privacy platform.
They like announced it and hadit rolled out in like 12 months,
and that was five years ago orwhatever.
And Google's like oh, you justkilled all of our cookies if
(29:48):
you're on an Apple device, andthat's not good.
And Facebook at the timecratered, so Apple applied that
pressure.
And Google's now like oh, bythe end of 2023, we're going to
have 1% of all the browsers aregoing to be using our new
privacy platform.
And now they just pushsomething like that out to 2025
or something.
And you're like wow, so Appledid this like six years ago and
(30:11):
got it done, announced it six,seven years ago, got it done in
12 to 18 months.
You then announced shortlythereafter oh, we're going to do
it too, and we're waiting fiveyears from now.
And then last week you justliterally said oh, we're going
to push it back another year toget to like one and a half or 2%
of the browsers are using yourprivacy platform because it
fucks with how they make money.
(30:32):
And I think the saddest thingabout the state of Google today
which is a way over-talked thingin our community, I believe.
But the way that I look at it is, you literally were rewarded
for years for going from one adto two.
I don't mean to say it this waybecause I'm not that smart, but
(30:52):
it's like one line of code, adda second ad.
One line of code, add a thirdad.
One line of code, add a fourthad and just make money, print
money, print money.
And then it's like take theyellow box and make it slightly
less yellow, so then peopledon't know it's an ad.
And then do this, so it's less,and then do that, so it's less.
And then it's like wow, youguys never really looked at
yourself in the mirror and saidhow can I make a better ad
(31:15):
experience for people?
You just got to add anotherline of code, change the layout.
You already had to have somecode to create a color behind
the paid search ads, so then youjust made it lighter.
I can do that.
I can do that.
So I think Google's they'rekind of screwed because they're
(31:35):
going to have to kill parts oftheir cash cow in order to lean
into people getting easieranswers.
And I think you just look atApple launching the privacy
sandbox or whatever they call it, and then how Google's reacted
to it, how long it's taken, andI'm like that does not bode well
for Google.
Danny Gavin (31:50):
And I think people don't want to say it, but people
like you do want to say it.
It's scary to say that.
So how do you look from anagency perspective?
Obviously, a lot of the work, alot of the money, is from SEO,
paid search, so doesn't thatscare you a bit?
Wil Reynolds (32:06):
No, because people need answers.
I don't think the market forquestions is going to drop Now
that ChatGPT is here, and thisis how I think it through.
So the internet started withdirectories if you wanted to
find other sites.
So once you wanted to get offof AOL or Prodigy or whatever
you were on, I was a Prodigy guyLike once you wanted to leave
the platform, it was like youdidn't know domains to search
(32:27):
for, right.
You just went to directories.
Yahoo directory, oh, okay.
But then there became too manyfreaking websites that solved
problems.
And then Yahoo became like oh,page one of 30 for a locksmith
or whatever, right.
So then you're like well, thatdoesn't work.
And then Google was like oh, whydon't we build something where
(32:49):
you can type what you want in soyou don't have to follow this
branch of a branch of a branchof a branch to then get like 900
different answers, alphabetizedright.
900 different answers,alphabetized, right.
That's not the right way to getan answer.
So let us do a search then,right.
So I go all, right, let'simagine that we're doing that,
we're in this, so now let'sapply that same thinking.
(33:10):
This is the one area, danny,where, like us being old dudes
in this industry actually givesus a leg up over the new guys,
right?
Because we're like wait, we'vealready seen this, bro.
Like so AI is making itridiculously easy for people to
write content of all varyingqualities.
So we're back to the sameproblem.
Now you're going to have 10times the amount of content I
(33:32):
don't want my answer to be 10times longer.
Which means that now chatsearch engines for lack of a
better word wherever you want tocall them, because everybody
you know I love watching SEOsget their panties in a bunch on
something that has nothing to dowith customers.
It's not a chat search engine.
Like, what the fuck ever?
Like, customers are searchingfor answers there, right?
So now we're living in a worldwhere you're like all these
(33:54):
people are producing contentfaster than ever, which now
means the chat search engineshave the exact problem that the
search engine solved for theYahoo directory.
And you go oh, you need a systemto allow people to search,
which is going to be easy tospam if it's just like keyword
driven, right?
So, oh, we need a trust metric.
Oh, page rank.
(34:15):
Oh, because Will doesn't want a10 times longer answer.
Just because we are indexing 10times more content.
Will wants an answer that hecan read and understand with
minimal friction, but I now havea million documents to select
to put into my small answer forWill.
How am I going to do that?
Sam Altman, you've got to havesomething that puts a ranking
signal somehow on.
(34:37):
Well, if I get the content fromthe New York Times and this site
and that site like, do I valuethat more and do I trust that
more than somebody else who justwrote it, like I think these
problems will show themselves.
I think it's reallyunpredictable right now and it's
really out there.
But I think at the end of theday, they're going to need
freaking algorithms to sortthrough the plethora of AI-built
content for the AI answer.
(34:59):
People don't want longeranswers, even when there is 10
times more content that's beenproduced.
So how are they going to narrowit down to what's most
important?
It's got to be something right.
So then I'm starting to look atlike the C4, the common crawl
and just be like where did theyuse most of their tokens from?
Because if most of the tokensyou use, why would you crawl the
(35:20):
New York Times more than youwould crawl Seer Interactive?
I don't know.
They write more content aroundmore topics and they're more
trusted, got it?
So I'm thinking of the commoncrawl as an early like okay, you
put more tokens against sitesthat you trusted more, it looks
like.
So maybe I could be off here,but that's just optimizing for
an algorithm again.
So it's like okay, how do Iunderstand what shows up and
(35:43):
what answers show up, and howfrequently the same answer shows
up and how often?
It gets a little spicy in termsof giving me different answers
to the same questions, and Ithink that'll be what the future
of search kind of looks like.
But it's still an algorithmdude, because there's too much
content out there and I don'twant longer answers.
Danny Gavin (36:07):
With LLMs and the training material and which are
written by humans and theyinherently have human biases.
Do you believe there's any wayto eventually filter out the
human error and prejudices thatwe're seeing?
Britney Muller (36:13):
No, because there will always be bias.
But there's ways to mitigatethat bias and one of those ways
is by introducing transparencyinto what those biases are.
So, even with our roughunderstanding of the C4 data set
, which is used in most LLMtrainings, we understand that
(36:35):
Wikipedia is super biased.
But now that we know thespecifics of it because the
average editor at Wikipedia issuper biased but now that we
know the specifics of it right,Because the average editor at
Wikipedia is, I think, 27 yearsold, Over 87% are men, they are
of higher education, single andno kids Because we know that we
can better adjust, we can ofnavigate some of those biases.
(36:59):
It's when these closed blackbox systems give us no insight
into what they were trained on,even like the image generative
models, we lack theunderstanding there of like what
all went into it.
If we knew, we could have amuch stronger understanding of
those biases and find ways tonavigate them.
(37:23):
With LLMs specifically, there isa really exciting area of
research to help mitigate errorsand some of the bias with
multi-agent deployment.
So with that you're actuallydeploying basically multiple
instances of LLMs and thethought process being that the
odds of them all making the samebias, judgment or error will be
(37:50):
less likely.
There's still a whole lot ofwork to be done in that space,
but that's some really excitingprogress.
And then, oh my gosh, I wish Icould remember her name.
There was a brilliant talk atNeurIPS around identifying bias
in image recognition models andgenerative image models, and it
(38:11):
was some of the most brilliantresearch I've seen on the topic
to date.
So there is exciting work beingdone but, again, unfortunately
it's not necessarily incompanies' best interest.
But it's an important area ofresearch.
Danny Gavin (38:26):
As we reach the end of part one, we hope you found
these insights to be invaluable.
We've explored the significanceof mentorship and tackled some
of the technical challenges inSEO.
Make sure to tune in next weekfor part two, where we'll
discuss how to create compellingcontent that drives organic
traffic and how to align SEOwith other marketing strategies
for maximum impact.
Plus, we'll talk a bit aboutthe future of SEO, too.
(38:48):
Thank you for listening and, asalways, remember to continue
learning and growing in yourdigital marketing journey.
We'll see you next week forlistening to the Digital
Marketing Mentor Podcast.
Be sure to check us out onlineat thedmmentorcom and at
thedmmentor on Instagram, anddon't forget to subscribe on
Apple Podcasts, spotify orwherever you listen to your
(39:11):
podcasts for more marketingmentor magic.
See you next time.
Welcome to the Digital Marketing Mentor.
I'm your host, danny Gavin, andtogether with industry leaders
and marketing experts, we'llexplore the meeting point of
mentorship and marketing.
We'll discover how theseconnections have affected
careers, marketing strategiesand lives.
Now get ready to get human.
Now get ready to get human howthe industry has grown and
(00:50):
changed best practices and somuch more.
In this first part of our Bestof SEO series, we'll dive into
the critical role of mentorshipin shaping successful SEO
careers, as well as tackle thetechnical aspects of SEO and how
to overcome common challengesin the field.
Both episodes have gatheredwisdom from over a dozen
industry leaders and marketingprofessionals who have
generously shared theirexperiences.
Whether you're just startingyour journey in SEO or looking
to enhance your skills, there'ssomething here for everyone.
So let's jump right into partone and hear from our expert
(01:12):
guests on how mentorship cantransform your approach to SEO
and the strategies to tacklethose tricky technical
components.
Martha Van Berkel (01:21):
I would argue, my father today is a
mentor for me because he spent,you know, many, many, many years
in sales at IBM and so and I,you know, I run sales now at our
company and so it's like dad,like you know, help me
understand how you would managethe situation.
Or I'm thinking of doing this.
What do you think the impactwas?
And he can, you know again,courageously share his
experiences or, you know, ask mequalifying questions.
(01:44):
And then I've had other mentorswho are peers of mine now,
where they ask me the hardquestions and share their
experiences, but they're in asimilar role that I am in today
and so less of a sort of likethey're more senior than me or
older than me.
And then I would say, evenearly in my career, a lot of
times it was my boss, or myboss's boss, or women.
(02:07):
I had a couple of really coolwomen leaders who kind of just
was like, oh, she's goingsomewhere and I want to help her
remove some barriers and sortof help her thrive, and they
just raised their hand and saidI want to help.
I didn't know what my next rolewas going to be, and a past
manager who was someone I hadstayed in touch with you'll see
a theme of this.
She was like, oh, I have a jobin Belgium and again I like
(02:30):
adventures, that's sort of likepart of it.
And it was working with IBM.
So again I had like a familyhistory there.
I'd worked there in my summers.
Do I want to move to Belgium?
The 24 or 5-year-old me waslike, yeah, this could be
awesome, this could be a greatadventure.
And Denby was a director in thetechnical sport organization and
he actually was on assignmentfrom Australia so he sort of
knew a thing or two aboutworking internationally and you
(02:52):
know, he was at a differentstage of his life but he kind of
understood the complexities ofit.
And he actually took me asideand he was like I wanna go for a
walk.
He was like I have some wisdomI need to pass on to you.
And what he said was he waslike you know, international
work is amazing and super fun ifsupported in the right way.
And he said I'm concerned thatat your level they're going to
(03:14):
send you to Belgium.
You're going to have a ton offun, but you're going to get
stuck there.
And he said you have a lot ofpotential at this company and
you're right now in headquartersin San Jose.
And he said I know you're notgoing to want to hear this, but
I don't think you should takethis job and I was like but this
is like, I want a new job.
He's like I will help you finda different job.
For you to stay in San Jose.
He felt so passionately aboutthat that he was like I'll help
(03:37):
you find another job.
And he did so.
I didn't move to Belgium, Istayed at headquarters, and this
is actually where Jim Glickcomes in, who is, I consider,
I'll say, one of my championsand one of my mentors.
What I knew, but I didn't knowthere and now I look back on it
is Jim was an entrepreneurbefore he joined Cisco and I was
doing a role.
I was basically like theycreated a role for me, but it
(03:58):
wasn't a real role, but theywere trying to keep me in the
organization and I was exploringthis legal issue that I won't
bore everyone with and Ibasically had got to know
everyone at Cisco that had to dowith this issue.
I just kept calling people andfollowing down the rabbit hole
and again, I was really youngand had no title.
I just was like I'm going tosolve this problem, and this is
(04:18):
one of those things.
I could have taken that as like, oh, I don't have a real
project.
But instead I was like, what amI going to learn?
Like I'm going to learn how todo project management, I'm going
to learn everything I knowabout this it's called export
controls Like I'm going to knoweverything about it.
And then, worst case, like Ijust hand this off to someone
and I go do something else.
But like I'm going to have somefun and I'm going to just like
make this into what I can makeit right.
(04:40):
And what happened was is thatCisco got called at the very
senior level on this issue thatI was now the expert on, and the
only reason I was an expert wasbecause I took this opportunity
for fun and I had to.
I basically got called into avice president's office.
They were like Martha, what doyou know about this?
And I was like, oh, here's myproject plan, here's all the
people you need to pull into theroom.
(05:00):
This is where our biggest isand this is what we need to do
in the next 60 days in order toget this solved.
And I pulled all the peopleinto the room.
I directed everyone on whatthey needed to do and it got
done and my vice presidentlooked like a hero.
And then he's like I'm going tohave you take on my next biggest
project, which was a three tofive year strategy on how to
automate support for Cisco, andhe championed me and mentored me
(05:23):
.
I had like no idea how to dostrategy.
I had no idea, like how to workwith these senior directors,
like in identifying what thethemes were in order for us to
then put together a budget, ateam, pitch it to executives to
get funding and then build ateam.
But guess what?
(05:46):
He saw the entrepreneurialspirit in me that he was willing
then to coach me and mentor meon how to like I had to stand in
front of 10 executives on amonthly basis and just get, like
you think of I don't know, youguys have shark tank in the us,
like dragon's den canada but helike coached me on, like you
know, under promise over deliverright was one of the things
that I like I still like thinkof that right, stand there with
confidence and answer with theinformation you have, but like
(06:07):
stand tall Like they don't knowwhat you don't know right and
the reason I share this story,danny is like that mentoring
opportunity.
So like, yeah, I made him lookgood, like I got the opportunity
and the support then to buildthis organization within Cisco
that ended up being over 200people Manage a budget.
Oh wait, those are all thethings I wanted to do and grow
(06:29):
and learn.
Remember, yes, right, you haveto do the hard work and then
those mentors will also show upbecause they want you to be
successful.
Batli Joselevitz (06:38):
On the job.
I actually started out as aninternet marketing assistant,
which can be very vague, it canmean a lot of different things,
but it was a great opportunityto really have a foundation,
especially not having a formalmarketing background or
foundation.
To like not intentionally, butit was almost like a process of
elimination, but I was like,okay, I tried this route, it's
(06:59):
okay, but it's not like I'm notsuper, super passionate about it
, or I tried this route and samething.
So then, when an opportunitywith SEO, like a project, came
along, it definitely opened myeyes.
(07:19):
Oh whoa, I had no idea thisexisted or like this would click
, but it makes complete sensewith just my eyes.
Oh whoa, like I had no ideathis existed or like this would
click, but it makes completesense with just.
You know my background injournalism and storytelling as
well, from a content perspective, and also photography and I
think, going back evenbacktracking to before college,
my passion for photography Idiscovered when I was 13.
(07:41):
My passion for photography Idiscovered when I was 13.
I also learned a very similarway, where I did take a class,
but it was more of thetechnicality of processing and
developing black and white film.
It wasn't how to actuallycompose a photograph, like how
to look through the viewfinder,and that took some time and that
(08:03):
was more of me just exploringand experimenting.
And I feel like SEO was verysimilar, where I had the tools
and the resources and then, onceI had that, I could actually
figure out okay, this is I couldcome up of like, oh yeah, this
is what you do in this situation, and so forth, but it was more
(08:23):
of like here's the foundation,crystal clear basics, and then
how can we actually apply thisin this context?
Danny Gavin (08:31):
Imagine that someone actually identifies the
pattern in their life of howthey grow and learn and you were
able to see that right.
It's like taking something, getthe fundamentals, understand it
and then from there I need totry and test and that's how I'm
going to learn and become reallygood at what I'm doing.
I think it's such an importantlesson, right, and that's why
(08:53):
doing things and trying things,even if it's in a different area
you were doing retail salesright For a while the more
experiences that you putyourself into, you kind of
figure out like, how do I learn,how do I grow?
And it's just cool that youhave found that out and you kind
of have the openness to seewhat it is and like, okay, if I
got to get to the next level,these are the things that I need
(09:15):
.
You know, I need that strongfoundation and then I need that
time to kind of grow anddiscover on my own.
Batli Joselevitz (09:21):
Someone looking at my background paper
would be like, oh wow, this islike a 360.
How's it all connected?
And you know, being able toidentify how it's all connected
is great, but also this isn'tlike a one-size-fits-all or just
for me, like someone else outthere listening.
I hope this should also giveyou some hope that even if you
feel like you're doing a 360,that it all is connected and
(09:43):
helps you for your next chapter.
So, going back to my retailexperience, something I learned
in there even though it wasn'tmarketing per se, it was very
fascinating because that companydidn't do traditional marketing
.
It's all mostly word of mouthand the way they do marketing is
very unconventional.
And over time, the clientele.
(10:04):
You start to identify theirpersonalities, their personas
and understand okay, where doesthis type of person hang out,
what do they do, what is theirmindset and that's something
that's really important inmarketing is understanding a
buyer persona.
So I really got that foundationworking in retail.
So even before I had thisformal marketing background, I
(10:26):
had real life experience whereI've used this.
It works, I've seen it inaction.
Mike King (10:33):
A lot of people reach out to me and this is why
representation matters.
Like I was literally sitting inthis room watching all these
people being like matters.
Like I was literally sitting inthis room watching all these
people being like, oh yeah, thisis not for me and that's not
something that I typically do,like in life in general, just
from all the experiences thatI've had and so on.
But in that situation I feltthat way.
(10:55):
So many people have reached outto me not just you know black
people, but also you know peopleof color in general reached out
to me and they say like, hey,you know black people, but also
you know people of color ingeneral reached out to me and
they say like hey, you know, Ilove to see you doing what you
do in the authentic way that youdo it, because sometimes it's
not just about like you knowwhat you look like, how you
present or whatever.
It's also just the way you arein the world.
(11:17):
Like I'm not somebody who codeswitches, I'm not somebody who,
you know, acts differently inthese environments, and for some
people that makes themuncomfortable, but for me I'm
like I'm here, this is who I am,you know.
Like I'm not changing who I am,just because you know this is
how everyone else acts.
(11:43):
People that reach out to me forthat and they're like I really
appreciate that you're notacting differently in this world
.
But yeah, also, you know, blackpeople reach out to me as well
and they're like wow, you knowyou're such an inspiration or
whatever.
And I appreciate that and Idon't take that for granted at
all.
Like I understand the gravityof my position and what I do and
I always look to pay thatforward wherever I can.
And so when people reach out tome and they're like hey, you
(12:04):
know I'm trying to figure thisout, I always try to make time
to be like hey, you know, here'swhat I've done, here's what's
worked for me.
It may not work for you, butlet's talk through it.
I'm happy to do that sort ofstuff because you never know
what impact you're going to haveon that next person and so on
and so forth.
And you know I just want to domy best to make the spaces I'm
(12:25):
in better for people like me whoalso want to be in those spaces
.
Danny Gavin (12:29):
It's so amazing, so powerful.
I know, at Brighton SEO lastyear or, yeah, already last year
one of my employees was with meand I was so excited that I
could introduce him to you,because it's like this is
someone you know has potentiallywalked the same path as you and
someone to look up and look howsuccessful he is, and it was
(12:49):
just nice, right Nice to be ableto create that connection.
It was just very inspiring forme.
Mike King (12:53):
Yeah, again, like I feel like it's my duty to do
that, because I don't wantanyone to feel the way that I
felt in that room where I waslike this is not for me, because
who's to say it's not for me,it's for whoever can do it.
And you know, I mean I thinkthe things that I've shared with
the SEO community imagine if Ihadn't had that moment watching
(13:17):
Will Reynolds and I didn't shareany of that.
You know, like I think thatwould have been a huge
disservice.
And I'm sure there have beenpeople in the past who were even
better than the things thatI've done, who have felt that
way and not felt like they couldbe included here and we've
missed out on the things thatthey had to contribute.
So, yeah, I think it's reallyimportant for me to keep doing
that work.
Danny Gavin (13:37):
Just to have a mix of people, so that everyone in
the crowd has someone that theycan look up to and say that
could be me.
It's so powerful.
You don't really think aboutthat, right?
Mike King (13:46):
Yeah, and I think I might actually be underselling
how impactful that was for me tosee Will Like, literally while
he was speaking, I pitched forSMX East and then I got it, and
then that created all of thisfor me.
So you know, for someone to beable to see themselves on the
stage is so powerful.
Sarah Presch (14:07):
This was probably one of the most ADHD ideas that
me and the co-founder Jack everhad.
We were at Brighton SEO.
You can see this as becoming acommon theme.
We were at Brighton SEO and wewere thinking that you know,
there's all of these differentcommunities within SEO but
there's no space for kind oflike neurodivergent folk like us
.
So we're like, let's make oneIn true ADHD fashion.
(14:29):
We set up a Google form, wemade a LinkedIn page and we went
live.
We were thinking that maybe oneor two people would sign up and
then we'd be like we have somefriends and that would be it.
But it's kind of grown and nowwe have well over 200 members in
.
I think it's like 30 differentcountries around the world.
Now We've provided opportunitiesfor people to go to conferences
(14:53):
, to do training courses andstuff, because unfortunately,
using autism as a statistic Ican't remember off the top of my
head if it, I think it's 73% ofautistic adults are unemployed,
even though they want to beemployed.
You can see that within theneurodivergent community, within
SEO as well, that you've gotall of these really, really
talented SEOs but for falls thataren't their own, Interviewing
(15:16):
processes are not set up forthem.
So we've done like interviewtraining courses for like a four
week course and stuff like that.
Training courses are not soaccessible and if you're
unemployed you can't afford topay, you know, a thousand
dollars for a training courseand stuff like that.
So it's just trying to breakdown those obstacles and just
help neurodivergent SEOs, youknow, do their best in their
career.
(15:40):
Are there only SEOs or otherdigital marketing specialists in
the group?
We've got quite a lot actually.
So we've got digital PR people,we've got PPC people, we've got
translators who specialize inSEO translation, got content
writers, as long as they work indigital marketing and they have
something to do with SEO.
That's kind of like oh, thatmatters really.
Even if you just want to learnSEO and you're not quite there
yet, you know, come and join us.
Danny Gavin (16:00):
How's the feedback been, just from the members, has
it been very positive?
Sarah Presch (16:05):
It has been and you know, from my point of view,
I feel like I finally found acommunity where we can kind of
just be ourselves and we can beour kind of unmasked selves,
because I don't think you knowas much as people say they're
open.
I don't think I'm quite readyfor a bunch of autistic people
to network in a very autisticway.
You know it's been perfect andyou know we've had people who
(16:27):
have sent us messages saying weactually landed our first job in
SEO because of the trainingcourse that you provided and
things like that.
So you know it's really cool.
Fay Friedman (16:38):
Unlike many others, I'm not college educated
.
I started out as a copywriterfor an SEO agency.
This was way back when theinternet was wild west and a lot
of things passed that wouldn'twork today.
I started out doing copywriting.
I knew nothing about SEO and ina way, it was the best way for
(17:00):
me to be exposed to the industry, because I saw a lot of black
hat and gray techniques thatlike.
I did that and then I kind ofheard from clients or
competitors who it came back tobite them.
There were some diceysituations, but it was the best
teacher and the best learningexperience for me.
(17:21):
So after that initialinteresting experience at an
agency doing copywriting, Ireally was intrigued by the
entire SEO field and I spentaround a year on my own just
playing around watching YouTubevideos, reading search engine
roundtable and every single blogI could find playing with a
family member's website, andthat was really how I got my
(17:43):
team on SEO and every singleblog I could find playing with a
family member's website, andthat was really how I got my
team on SEO and I feel like, ina way, that was the best teacher
.
So there was definitely alwaysthere's like this imposter
syndrome there's always gonna bea part of me that feels like
I'm missing something because Ididn't go to college.
I discussed this in the pastwith a colleague and he's
adamant that when we're notcollege educated in a way, there
(18:06):
are things that we know betterbecause we have to learn by
making mistakes.
Obviously, I really valueuniversity education.
It was an interesting way toget into the industry and for me
, it's work.
So, as you mentioned, I spentnine years in e-commerce and I'm
always learning.
There was never a day that Ididn't learn something new,
which is great.
(18:27):
At this point, I'm over to thereal estate side, which is a
completely different beast, andthrough my work in SEO, I was
really exposed to all differenttouch points in marketing.
So everything from print adsand, as I said, my background as
a copywriter to email marketingprint ads and, as I said, my
background is a copywriter toemail marketing and the
technical specifics of buildinga website All of it I ended up
(18:47):
touching and that's really whathelped shape my career.
As I mentioned, some of theseare relationships that are not
necessarily that close, but thatthey've had an impact on me in
some way Very short to somebodythat, as I mentioned, I started
SEO reading search engineroundtable, not understanding
anything, Like I was readingGreek, I did not know what I was
(19:08):
reading, but it was soinspiring for me that as I
learned more, I reallyunderstood what he's saying In
real life.
He is so kind, so open andwilling to help.
He's just like humble, easy toreach.
If you have a question heanswers, and I love how you know
, as I mentioned, my personalityworks, because his blog is
(19:31):
exactly what I need, especiallyat this point in my career.
I don't have time to read longwhite papers and studies and
he's just quick bites of what'simportant.
He's taught me a lot on thesoft skill side leadership and
communication and dealing withmembers of my team, because you
could say that in many ways hispersonality is very different
(19:52):
from mine, but he just has a wayof quietly leading.
He's not the loudest guy in theroom.
He proves himself to his teamwith like a quiet authority.
He knows how to be firm when heneeds to and he knows his
opinion and it's really openedmy eyes into different ways that
(20:14):
you can lead, that it's notalways about talking the most
and holding the big meetings,but it's about really
understanding your team and whatthey need at that given moment.
Mordy Oberstein (20:26):
SEO is hard because I feel there's so much
debate and things become hotbutton issues and everyone kind
of draws these lines in the sand.
I don't think it's almost likeAmerican politics in a weird way
.
Right, everyone, I'm on thisside, you're on that side,
you're horrible.
There isn't a lot of room fordialogue and sharing of
(20:49):
different ideas or saying youknow what.
I don't agree with that, but Ican see where they're coming
from and that might be valuable.
Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada.
Someone put out a study.
I'm not going to say what itwas.
I felt like, okay, that's notwhat they're trying to explain,
something, that's not what thatis.
I disagree with that, but youknow what?
It's interesting nonetheless.
There's interesting conclusionsthat I think are completely
valid or worthwhile formarketers of all kinds to know
(21:11):
and take away from that study,even though the thing they're
trying to explain might not beright.
And I think, because SEOs don'tdo that, because they don't look
for the good in things ever,sometimes it feels like I know
it's hyperbolic, but it doesn'tfeel hyperbolic.
I was just on Twitter a minuteago tweeting about something and
someone replied back to me likeyeah, seos make this so
(21:32):
complicated.
Why do we have to do this andblah, blah, blah, blah blah.
And because of that it makestalking and mentoring the wider
community so controversial.
But it shouldn't becontroversial at all.
It should just be like ideasflowing out and you'll see the
old school SEOs complainingabout that.
Oh, I remember when back in theday we walked uphill both ways
(21:52):
of school and newspaper forshoes and people shared ideas
together on Twitter and itdoesn't happen anymore and it's
hard.
Danny Gavin (21:59):
Do you ever get any anxiety before you put
something out there on, let'ssay, Twitter or LinkedIn?
Mordy Oberstein (22:05):
I used to when I was first getting in the
industry.
I don't know if I know anythingNow.
I know I don't know anything.
I'm more comfortable with whatI don't know Once in a while.
I put something out yesterdayabout AI overviews and SEMrush
data, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like someone's going tolook at this and they're going
to say that conclusion's notright.
And maybe it's not right, Idon't know.
Like I'm a god, I don't know if100% it's right or wrong.
(22:28):
So, yeah, a little bit, butlike at this point, like it's
just SEO, if someone thinks I'man idiot, like fine.
Danny Gavin (22:36):
The SEO strategy you've discussed using at GoFish
is very focused on thetechnical elements of SEO.
So links, analyzing logs,in-depth algorithm analysis.
How did you come to thisapproach?
Chris Long (22:47):
I think the approach has to be custom tailored to
whoever you're working with.
Now that is the biggest thing.
If you're setting SEO strategy,it needs to be very tailored.
So if you're talking the sitesthat are bigger and larger, so
if you're working with a hugee-merce site that's hundreds of
thousands, millions of pages,you're going to need to have a
(23:09):
technical SEO approach andreally that should probably be
in your roadmap.
All things being equal, thatshould be one of the biggest
things you're working on,because if you have millions of
pages, you do have problems withindexation, crawl rates, site
speed, all of that.
You need to be taking a customlook because basically, when
you're dealing with scale, youneed to be able to ensure Google
can crawl that scale asefficiently as it possibly can
be.
That's really helpful to have.
However, if you're working withdifferent types of clients and
(23:30):
we work with a lot of newsclients and that is a completely
different approach it's stilltechnical in some ways.
A lot of it's more almoststrategic, where it's like hey,
with news clients, they don'thave problems writing content.
They're one of the few clientsthat you're not forcing to get
content out of.
They have a bunch of editorsand writers who can create that.
So you're more working withlike hey, now our strategy
(23:51):
shifts to how do we createeditorial calendars?
How do we really figure outwhere the content gaps are and
how do we really inform whatyou're going to do for the next
year from an editorialperspective?
Also, how do we work withspecific creatures like top
stories?
Freshness starts to matter.
It matters everywhere, in myopinion, but it matters a lot
more for news organizations.
(24:11):
How do we implement live blogposting and structured data?
So there's different types ofstrategies.
Once again, that might allbreak down in terms of what type
of SEO you are.
If you're a technical SEO,you'll probably do really well
working with the big e-commercesites.
If you're a content-driven SEO,you might enjoy working with
more news organizations or morestandard WordPress-style sites.
But really, that contentstrategy is going to be the key
(24:31):
piece to success.
Danny Gavin (24:33):
So do you actually get through to news
organizations an SEO strategywhere it's like, okay, we know
you want to write stories, butlook at it from an SEO
perspective first.
Where it's like, hey, this iswhere you don't have a lot of
traffic from and you reallyshould write more stories in
this area.
Are you actually influencingdecisions at certain
organizations?
Chris Long (24:52):
Yeah, absolutely so.
Yeah, and it's been reallygreat to see because I think a
lot of news organizations arestarting to realize just how
important it is right when tosee.
Because I think a lot of newsorganizations are starting to
realize just how important it isright when they see their
competitors ranking in topstories, which most times is in
the canonical number oneposition, and they start to ask
themselves, hey, how do we getour stories written there?
And then you take a look andsay, well, hey, you know you're
(25:14):
writing these stories aboutthese topics, but you're not
really highlighting the mainpiece.
You're not highlighting themain topic in the title tag and
the subject line.
Or you wrote a story yesterday,but in order to be in top
stories, that story needs to bewritten within 24 hours.
So we've worked with a lot ofclients in terms of building out
their strategies.
What we find works well isreally having a collaborative
(25:35):
approach to figuring out like,hey, what stories they want to
rank for, and then what's theircurrent, say, architecture, and
then working with them to set astrategy for, hey, these are the
rules for your editors Everytime they create a new story.
This is what the URL needs tolook like these topics should be
in the H1 and the title tags.
You should update the storythis frequently and really
acting as an internal advocatefor SEO amongst their newsrooms.
(25:56):
We found that to be a prettyeffective approach and that's
exciting to me because it's oneway you can scale content right.
When you have all thesedifferent raters who can
contribute, you can all get themthinking to have kind of an SEO
mindset with every article theycreate.
Even if you only increase theirefficiency by 10%, well, that's
a large lift across the entireorganization.
Danny Gavin (26:16):
So you transitioned last year from senior SEO
manager to VP of marketing.
You so you transitioned lastyear from Senior SEO Manager to
VP of Marketing.
You've always been an SEOevangelist.
How has this shift changed yourfocus at GoFish, as you're now
viewing things from a more10,000 foot perspective?
Chris Long (26:29):
It is harder because with any role shift you find
yourself a little bit less inthe marketing day to day and
more in the operationalday-to-day.
So really I think one of thebiggest challenges with that
kind of shift is how to havemore influence at scale within
your organization.
(26:50):
So before you might be workingon a specific SEO process and
refining that and teaching theteam how to do that, but as you
take on right, as you shouldtake on more verticals, and then
and are talking to other teammembers, your kind of house of
responsibility like grows inthat way and you really need to
figure out like, hey, how canyou, how can you best like
(27:11):
assert your opinions andinfluence and whatever across
all of these different kind ofrealms.
So that's one of the biggestchallenges, just kind of just
how much more you inherit andthen you're figuring out your
ability to influence thosedifferent factors.
That's not to say I stillactually love the day-to-day of
SEO.
That is one of the bigger rolechanges.
(27:32):
It's just in terms of you'rethinking about larger pieces of
the pie, so to speak, and reallyhow to influence them, and it
really does become a lot moreabout, like you know, hey,
instead of this one individualtactic.
I'm going to start to developthis process that you know 20
people can follow.
That becomes just more valuablewith the more growth there is
within an organization or withinyourself.
Wil Reynolds (27:54):
Inevitably you Google something, you learn
something new.
You're now like, wow, that's anew word for me.
So now you've got to Googlethat word as part of another
thing, because you're stilltrying to solve the problem.
So now, each time you learnsomething, you've got to go back
and refine your query and allthat stuff In ChatGPT.
You're like, oh, that's a greatanswer, but my kid's four years
(28:14):
old, oh, and it's also a girl.
So I don't like that example.
And it's like, oh well, let meput it to you this way, let me
put it to you that way versusthe amount of searches and
clicks and closing out pop-upsand where's the content, versus
where's the ad, and everybody'strying to make the ads look like
content because they need tomake money on that, and you're
(28:36):
just like man, there's so muchnow I just can't imagine.
Why would you want to gothrough all that friction?
Danny Gavin (28:40):
So do you feel like Google Ads, or the ad side of
Google, is actually like theirbiggest shackles?
That's just going to hold themback from totally embracing the
new world 1000%, and they justproved it again last week.
Wil Reynolds (28:52):
So I started.
This is where Some of thisstuff We've been around for a
while right, and oftentimes whatI would say to young people
when I would talk to them ingroups or provide some
mentorship is I'd be like heyguys, anytime you can jump in an
industry where the rules aren'twritten, you can't stay on top
of all of it.
When it comes to Google andpaid, what I've been saying to
people is like Google's not goodat disrupting themselves, and
(29:27):
the proof that I've been givingto people recently is look at
how quickly Apple launched ITPor whatever, ipt, itp, whatever
it is their privacy platform.
They like announced it and hadit rolled out in like 12 months,
and that was five years ago orwhatever.
And Google's like oh, you justkilled all of our cookies if
(29:48):
you're on an Apple device, andthat's not good.
And Facebook at the timecratered, so Apple applied that
pressure.
And Google's now like oh, bythe end of 2023, we're going to
have 1% of all the browsers aregoing to be using our new
privacy platform.
And now they just pushsomething like that out to 2025
or something.
And you're like wow, so Appledid this like six years ago and
(30:11):
got it done, announced it six,seven years ago, got it done in
12 to 18 months.
You then announced shortlythereafter oh, we're going to do
it too, and we're waiting fiveyears from now.
And then last week you justliterally said oh, we're going
to push it back another year toget to like one and a half or 2%
of the browsers are using yourprivacy platform because it
fucks with how they make money.
(30:32):
And I think the saddest thingabout the state of Google today
which is a way over-talked thingin our community, I believe.
But the way that I look at it is, you literally were rewarded
for years for going from one adto two.
I don't mean to say it this waybecause I'm not that smart, but
(30:52):
it's like one line of code, adda second ad.
One line of code, add a thirdad.
One line of code, add a fourthad and just make money, print
money, print money.
And then it's like take theyellow box and make it slightly
less yellow, so then peopledon't know it's an ad.
And then do this, so it's less,and then do that, so it's less.
And then it's like wow, youguys never really looked at
yourself in the mirror and saidhow can I make a better ad
(31:15):
experience for people?
You just got to add anotherline of code, change the layout.
You already had to have somecode to create a color behind
the paid search ads, so then youjust made it lighter.
I can do that.
I can do that.
So I think Google's they'rekind of screwed because they're
(31:35):
going to have to kill parts oftheir cash cow in order to lean
into people getting easieranswers.
And I think you just look atApple launching the privacy
sandbox or whatever they call it, and then how Google's reacted
to it, how long it's taken, andI'm like that does not bode well
for Google.
Danny Gavin (31:50):
And I think people don't want to say it, but people
like you do want to say it.
It's scary to say that.
So how do you look from anagency perspective?
Obviously, a lot of the work, alot of the money, is from SEO,
paid search, so doesn't thatscare you a bit?
Wil Reynolds (32:06):
No, because people need answers.
I don't think the market forquestions is going to drop Now
that ChatGPT is here, and thisis how I think it through.
So the internet started withdirectories if you wanted to
find other sites.
So once you wanted to get offof AOL or Prodigy or whatever
you were on, I was a Prodigy guyLike once you wanted to leave
the platform, it was like youdidn't know domains to search
(32:27):
for, right.
You just went to directories.
Yahoo directory, oh, okay.
But then there became too manyfreaking websites that solved
problems.
And then Yahoo became like oh,page one of 30 for a locksmith
or whatever, right.
So then you're like well, thatdoesn't work.
And then Google was like oh, whydon't we build something where
(32:49):
you can type what you want in soyou don't have to follow this
branch of a branch of a branchof a branch to then get like 900
different answers, alphabetizedright.
900 different answers,alphabetized, right.
That's not the right way to getan answer.
So let us do a search then,right.
So I go all, right, let'simagine that we're doing that,
we're in this, so now let'sapply that same thinking.
(33:10):
This is the one area, danny,where, like us being old dudes
in this industry actually givesus a leg up over the new guys,
right?
Because we're like wait, we'vealready seen this, bro.
Like so AI is making itridiculously easy for people to
write content of all varyingqualities.
So we're back to the sameproblem.
Now you're going to have 10times the amount of content I
(33:32):
don't want my answer to be 10times longer.
Which means that now chatsearch engines for lack of a
better word wherever you want tocall them, because everybody
you know I love watching SEOsget their panties in a bunch on
something that has nothing to dowith customers.
It's not a chat search engine.
Like, what the fuck ever?
Like, customers are searchingfor answers there, right?
So now we're living in a worldwhere you're like all these
(33:54):
people are producing contentfaster than ever, which now
means the chat search engineshave the exact problem that the
search engine solved for theYahoo directory.
And you go oh, you need a systemto allow people to search,
which is going to be easy tospam if it's just like keyword
driven, right?
So, oh, we need a trust metric.
Oh, page rank.
(34:15):
Oh, because Will doesn't want a10 times longer answer.
Just because we are indexing 10times more content.
Will wants an answer that hecan read and understand with
minimal friction, but I now havea million documents to select
to put into my small answer forWill.
How am I going to do that?
Sam Altman, you've got to havesomething that puts a ranking
signal somehow on.
(34:37):
Well, if I get the content fromthe New York Times and this site
and that site like, do I valuethat more and do I trust that
more than somebody else who justwrote it, like I think these
problems will show themselves.
I think it's reallyunpredictable right now and it's
really out there.
But I think at the end of theday, they're going to need
freaking algorithms to sortthrough the plethora of AI-built
content for the AI answer.
(34:59):
People don't want longeranswers, even when there is 10
times more content that's beenproduced.
So how are they going to narrowit down to what's most
important?
It's got to be something right.
So then I'm starting to look atlike the C4, the common crawl
and just be like where did theyuse most of their tokens from?
Because if most of the tokensyou use, why would you crawl the
(35:20):
New York Times more than youwould crawl Seer Interactive?
I don't know.
They write more content aroundmore topics and they're more
trusted, got it?
So I'm thinking of the commoncrawl as an early like okay, you
put more tokens against sitesthat you trusted more, it looks
like.
So maybe I could be off here,but that's just optimizing for
an algorithm again.
So it's like okay, how do Iunderstand what shows up and
(35:43):
what answers show up, and howfrequently the same answer shows
up and how often?
It gets a little spicy in termsof giving me different answers
to the same questions, and Ithink that'll be what the future
of search kind of looks like.
But it's still an algorithmdude, because there's too much
content out there and I don'twant longer answers.
Danny Gavin (36:07):
With LLMs and the training material and which are
written by humans and theyinherently have human biases.
Do you believe there's any wayto eventually filter out the
human error and prejudices thatwe're seeing?
Britney Muller (36:13):
No, because there will always be bias.
But there's ways to mitigatethat bias and one of those ways
is by introducing transparencyinto what those biases are.
So, even with our roughunderstanding of the C4 data set
, which is used in most LLMtrainings, we understand that
(36:35):
Wikipedia is super biased.
But now that we know thespecifics of it because the
average editor at Wikipedia issuper biased but now that we
know the specifics of it right,Because the average editor at
Wikipedia is, I think, 27 yearsold, Over 87% are men, they are
of higher education, single andno kids Because we know that we
can better adjust, we can ofnavigate some of those biases.
(36:59):
It's when these closed blackbox systems give us no insight
into what they were trained on,even like the image generative
models, we lack theunderstanding there of like what
all went into it.
If we knew, we could have amuch stronger understanding of
those biases and find ways tonavigate them.
(37:23):
With LLMs specifically, there isa really exciting area of
research to help mitigate errorsand some of the bias with
multi-agent deployment.
So with that you're actuallydeploying basically multiple
instances of LLMs and thethought process being that the
odds of them all making the samebias, judgment or error will be
(37:50):
less likely.
There's still a whole lot ofwork to be done in that space,
but that's some really excitingprogress.
And then, oh my gosh, I wish Icould remember her name.
There was a brilliant talk atNeurIPS around identifying bias
in image recognition models andgenerative image models, and it
(38:11):
was some of the most brilliantresearch I've seen on the topic
to date.
So there is exciting work beingdone but, again, unfortunately
it's not necessarily incompanies' best interest.
But it's an important area ofresearch.
Danny Gavin (38:26):
As we reach the end of part one, we hope you found
these insights to be invaluable.
We've explored the significanceof mentorship and tackled some
of the technical challenges inSEO.
Make sure to tune in next weekfor part two, where we'll
discuss how to create compellingcontent that drives organic
traffic and how to align SEOwith other marketing strategies
for maximum impact.
Plus, we'll talk a bit aboutthe future of SEO, too.
(38:48):
Thank you for listening and, asalways, remember to continue
learning and growing in yourdigital marketing journey.
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