Speaker 1: 0:54

Hello and welcome to SEO is not that hard.

Speaker 1: 0:56

I'm your host, ed Dawson, the founder of the SEO intelligence platform, keywordfupoleasercom, where we help you discover the questions people ask online and learn how to optimize your content to build traffic and authority. I've been in SEO and online marketing for over 20 years and I'm here to share the wealth of knowledge, hints and tips I've amassed over that time. Hello, welcome back to SEO is not that hard. It's me here, ed, as usual, and today I am going to be doing some SEO emergency questions. So what are emergency questions? Well, if you go back and listen to episode 55, which I think came out in mid January this year, 2034, I did an episode on what podcasts I listened to. This was mainly, you know, seo and online marketing.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Podcasts are the ones that people might find useful, but I also mentioned a podcast that's nothing to do with SEO. It's actually the first podcast that I ever really listened to. It's the one that got me into podcasts as a listener years ago and that's called richard herring's leicester square theater podcast. Now, richard herring, he's a british comedian. Um, he was, I think he's in his mid-50s now, but he was very big on tv for a short while in the 90s, uh, when I was watching tv back as a teenager and I always liked him and his work. And then, yeah, found him doing these podcasts and what he's he does is most of his podcasts is he um, interviews other comedians or sort of people who are, like you know, famous and slightly funny, who, um, in a theater the rest of the leicester square theater in london which is why it's richard's herring's leicester square theater podcast, because he does it in front of a live audience mainly and, um, yeah, he just interviews people and it's a just a back and forth conversation, normally funny stories, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 2:44

And when he first started doing it back in 2012, he found, you know, because he was completely new to podcasting, completely new to interviewing people, even though obviously be on stage and on telly and things like that he was doing something that's slightly out of his comfort zone and he found in the first episode and a couple of episodes he would sort of freeze up on stage and forget what questions he got lined up or, um, what the people have been talking about and and what he wanted to anything. So he just started coming up with emergency questions which are, like these, really kind of quirky, humorous and often absurd questions which he will throw in all of a sudden at any point into the conversations that are going on. Often he'll do it at times when the conversation is kind of maybe dying or getting a bit flat, and sometimes he'll just throw it in completely randomly. Now these emergency questions are things like here's one of his most famous ones are would you rather have a hand made out of ham? So that's a hand made out of ham. Or an armpit that dispenses sun cream? Okay. So obviously that's completely absurd but it makes you think and it puts people off guard, makes them think about their answers and they just talk about it, explain it, and obviously people come up with some funny answers and how they discuss it. Sometimes it's personal anecdotes. So asking people I'm trying to think of what some of his personal anecdote questions are. I've not got a great one now.

Speaker 1: 4:15

He asks about supernatural encounters, things like have you ever seen a ghost? Um, do you believe in aliens? Um, another sort of paranormal phenomena to sort of see if people yeah, what's on? What kind of questions to get, because some people just go, no, ghosts don't exist, and other people are just really into believing in ghosts, that they've seen ghosts and um, he often just like takes the mickey out of people who have claimed to have seen ghosts and things like that, but it's done in a funny way. They often talk about absurd superpowers, whether people you know, what would they do if they had a finger that could travel through time? Where would they take that finger? And yeah, lots of things about time travel, history, all sorts of things. He's actually published books of these emergency questions now like there's hundreds and hundreds of them, but it's really effective how it works in a podcast. So now I've been thinking, and I'm hoping soon, to start actually doing some extra podcast episodes where I'm going to invite people on as guests. If you're listening and interested in being a guest on the show, you want to come and talk to me about SEO, then let me know or you can contact me with all the details that I mention in the show notes. And I've been thinking. Obviously I don't want to just do a standard Talking Heads SEO podcast like all of the other ones. I'm trying to think of formats. I'm still working on it. I've not quite worked out the format, but I have thought it would be great if I could build up some SEO emergency questions where I ask questions that people wouldn't have been asked on any other podcast and where you know.

Speaker 1: 5:48

One of the great things if you're a long-time listener to Richard Herring's podcast is you've seen how different people answer the questions. So you know the questions, you know the emergency questions and their fan favorites, and it lets you learn about the differences between the guests. By the way, they aren't that. They answer the same different, the same questions but differently. So I was thinking that might be something that could work for a podcast of interviewing other people interested in seo. So all credit to richard herring for, you know, inventing the the concept of putting emergency questions in.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I don't think they're ever going to be as funny when you're coming from an seo angle as his are, but obviously he's he's you know we call interviewing comedians and the whole point of his podcasts are to make people laugh, whereas these podcasts obviously I'd love to be funny, um, but I don't think I probably am very funny, um, but obviously you're listening to this to learn about seo and I'm trying to come up with some questions that will elicit A little bit more about people's sort of core beliefs when it comes to SEO, the kind of ways they approach it and get some things that have worked for them and you can compare and contrast between people. But obviously I'm going to obviously want to go through some of these myself first so you can see my point of view. So you know, this might be more than one episode because I have got quite a lot of questions. I'm not necessarily going to go through all of them, but I'm just going to start with a few now here. So let's, yeah, let's have a look. So emergency question number one what's the strangest keyword or search query you've ever come across in your work? So this one is. I'm to have to give you a bit of context on this one.

Speaker 1: 7:41

In the UK there is a quite well-known website called Love Honey and it's a not safe for work website. If you're in an office now, don't Google Love Honey in front of people you don't want to seek. They sell sex toys. You know adult toys. You know which is is completely valid business, um, but it's um. You know one that some people might find embarrassing or not want to open up in front of certain people.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Um, now I came across, um, the keyword love honey. I think it was returns, but it was. It was something that was definitely related to the love honey sex toy website, related to the love honey sex toy website and it was coming up on the um google search console as a search to even click the term for a website that was run by a beekeeper who sells honey. So he he has, he keeps his own bees, sells, um, sells his own honey and he talks about how he loves honey. Obviously he's a beekeeper, he loves honey and he has inadvertently started ranking for keywords around um, love honey, the um sex toy seller, um, so that was. That was a very strange thing to come across when I was talking with a guy when we're going through his search. So all of a sudden I had to have a double take and say, is that what I think it is? And he went, yeah, that take and say, is that what I think it is? And he went, yeah, that's what I think, that is what you think it is, but what can I do about it? So that was that's the strangest one I think I've come across, recently at least anyway.

Speaker 1: 9:04

So emergency question number two If you could ask Google one question and be guaranteed 100% truthful answer, what would it be? And be guaranteed a 100% truthful answer. What would it be? And I think for me it would be to get out of them exactly how important links versus Now. If you've listened to podcasting enough, you'll know that my preference when it comes to SEO is really around content. I've always been a firm believer in content will get you a long way, and there are some people out there that are just all about the links and to me, if you produce great content, you will. You will build, naturally, organically, great links over time. But I would just love to know from google exactly the ratio of importance between the two and at what point content becomes more important the links, at what point the links becomes more important than content. I think that's where I'd like. It's not like a dead simple question and it's obviously once a conversation question, but that's what I would. That's what I would really want to know.

Speaker 1: 10:12

Um, because it it does get me a bit when some people go advice it's all about links, it's all about links, all about links. Go and build links, go and build links, buy links, buy links, and I just sit here and go. Well, I've been doing this for so many years and I've just you know, I did that, but did it back in the past. You know, if you listen to the podcast about Penguin, I talk about how you know we used to buy links, all sorts of dodgy links, and I got completely hammered for it and I was like I'm never doing that again and just concentrated, went all in on content and you know, touch wood, we've had no major issues since then because all the links we've ever gained are natural and, yeah, links are definitely important and all the links you've ever gained are natural and, yeah, links are definitely important and you, you want to create content that will get links. But I just, I would just really love to know from the horse's mouth exactly exactly how important it is now, because you get so many mixed messages from google. So that's, that's mine on that one.

Speaker 1: 11:06

Okay, emergency question. Is this the third one? Now? Emergency question number three have you ever tried to optimize something in real life? Forgetting, it's not a website.

Speaker 1: 11:15

I've got my local pub. I live in a small village in the UK and we're a very, very small village. There's only about 300 people probably in the whole village and, yeah, I'm sorry I mentioned before we live on a farm, but we're a farm in a village, a village farm. So our house is in the village and the farmland comes, goes behind it's and one of our almost well, we are field neighbors. It's only about 100 yards away down the road. Um is our local pub and obviously you know, being as Cuomo's neighbors, um, you know it's the only club in the village. I go there quite a bit so I know the, the people that own it, really really well. I help them out with things. You know like I even take my tractor up and mow some of their lawns for them with a tractor, because it's a big lawn area and it gets a bit overgrown sometimes. So I just like to set the tractor up and I just mow it for them because I can do it in literally a minute with the tractor.

Speaker 1: 12:16

I am constantly trying to come up with ideas and try to persuade them to optimize their menu, the menu design in the pub, so things like it's all about the behavioral design and conversion rate and those kind of things that work on a webpage and on a website equally can apply to menus. You give someone a menu with food on it or you have your specials board. You're trying to obviously A they want people to buy things want. They want to try and make as much money as they can. They want to and do all these things. So I I'm constantly saying to the things like you should take the pound sign off, you should round up, um, your prices to be whole numbers, things that you know I've learned from behavioral watching, behavioral podcasts and behavioral insight two videos.

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People like Rory Sutherland who talks a lot about menu design, and they've actually tried some of the things I've done and I think some of them have worked because obviously they've carried on doing it. They have changed it. So I'm always trying to nudge them for things like that. I'm talking to them about things like the weight of the cutlery. Apparently, the heavier cutlery, the weight that apparently, that the apparently the the heavier cutlery is, the more likely people think the food is better. So the heavier the cutlery, the more people rate the food they're given. So I'm always trying to use these kind of conversion rate optimization and behavioral insights I've picked up from marketing you know, websites and trying to improve how people interact with websites and take the actions that you want them to on my local pub, um, just just because, just for fun really, and just because, like I just love behavioral insights and that psychology side of marketing. So, um, yeah, I've quite often tried to um, get them to optimize things.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Okay, last one for today um, because clearly these are going to take a bit longer than trying to get them into one episode. Um, so if you could only use one seo tactic for the rest of your career, which one would it be, and why? Now, for me, it would be, um, building tools. Um, because this is something that has literally worked for me for 20 years and it continues to work now. So that's not just building a website of written content, not just of video content even nowadays, but really a website that does something, that is a tool that helps someone achieve a problem, solve a problem or get further forward with something they're trying to achieve. So, yeah, achieve a goal.

Speaker 1: 14:39

So, for example, originally with broadband at Code UK, it was a was a postcode checker. You know, which was revolutionary at the time that you could, you know, put your postcode in, find out what broadband providers are available in your area, if it was even available at all back then, because that was a real key thing. And then we did further, further tools within that, like the broadband speed test and other things and these tools people link to. Naturally they build links by themselves. Um, obviously you've got to do a little bit promotion maybe, but you know, as soon as people start linking to, it will then start to rise.

Speaker 1: 15:07

So, and we've done lots of other tools with other affiliate websites. Obviously, keywords people use it's. It's a huge example of it's all the most complex tool we've ever built is keywords people use, especially with any search console integration stuff we've put in. It is it's an application slash type tool. You know, um, but we've done it again, just with my console data as well, what we, which we released just the other week, you know, where people can for free download their um google search console data without the thousand row limit. We, we took some of the code we'd we'd written for our google search Console integration for KeywordCupoUse, which had to do that task to be able to then do all the other things we do within the paid tool, which obviously is why it's paid, because it does so much more than just download that data. But we just thought, well, we can make this tool, make it free because it becomes a lead generation tool then for KeywordCupoUse, if we're obviously finding people, it helps us find people that are interested in search console data and then you know, in time we'll be able to say to them hey, it's great you downloaded the data here. Look, we've got this other tool that could help you do so much more with it. So, and people are already linking to my console data, it's already driving links. So that is the one tactic, is the one that I would follow, because because they are just, they draw attention, get links that you don't have to worry as much about anything else. Really, so, really, that will be my one tactic. So that's, that's it for today.

Speaker 1: 16:34

On sjo emergency questions. I hope you found them interesting and the answers. I think maybe it draws something out of me, maybe you've learnt a bit something more about me. You've learnt maybe in terms of SEO, maybe also about personally about me. Maybe it's something a bit different. So let me know what you think.

Speaker 1: 16:53

I'll be doing more of these and hopefully soon, with some guests, we'll be hearing other people answering these questions. Obviously, I'm still going to do the three short episodes a week. With some guests. We'll be uh, you'll be hearing other people answering these questions. Obviously, I'm still going to do the three episodes short episodes a week, like I always have done, which are generally focused. You need to be focused on um, practical tips and that kind of thing, so I don't want to change out these interview ones. I hope to be additional ones, um, that will come out from separate but on the same feed, if that makes sense. Um, so, yeah, I hope you found it interesting, useful and yeah, until next time, keep optimizing, stay curious and remember seo is not that hard when you understand the basics. Thanks for listening. It means a lot to me.

Speaker 1: 17:32

This is where I get to remind you where you can connect with me and my seo tools and services. You can find links to all the links I mentioned here in the show notes. Just remember, with all these places where I use my name, that Ed is spelled with two Ds. You can find me on LinkedIn and Blue Sky. Just search for Ed Dawson on both.

Speaker 1: 17:47

You can record a voice question to get answered on the podcast. The link is in the show notes. You can try our SEO intelligence platform, keywords People Use at keywordspeopleusecom, where we can help you discover the questions and keywords people are asking online. Poster those questions and keywords into related groups so you know what content you need to build topical authority and finally, connect your Google Search Console account for your sites so we can crawl and understand your actual content, find what keywords you rank for and then help you optimise and continually refine your content. Targeted, personalised advice to keep your traffic growing. If you're interested in learning more about me personally or looking for dedicated consulting advice, then visit wwweddawsoncom. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO Is Not that Hard.