This week, we looked at SEO Courses so I thought we would follow up with podcasts related to Search Engine Optimization. Therefore, in this January Podcast Roundup, we take a look at the future of SEO, habits we need to leave in 2017, and the future of voice search and search using digital assistants.
SEO Podcast Roundup
The future of SEO with Stephan Spencer – WP Elevation
Troy Dean interviews Stephan Spencer who is the co-author of The Art of SEO (Theory in Practice). Spencer tells the story of how he met Rand Fishkin after at an SEO conference. Apparently, Fishkin is a hugger.
Spencer gives lots of business advice in the interview which is part his backstory and part what he thinks the future of SEO will look like.
One advice is to get a bluechip client, as he calls it, someone that will make a splash for other potential clients. The story he tells goes back to his agency’s early days where they did a free SEO audit for an early version of Target.com in exchange for a testimonial to put on their site.
Another piece of advice he gave is to show results of your work using a service such as Authority Labs, Rank Ranger, or STAT Search Analytics to help.
This is a fantastic conversation between Troy and Spencer as they discuss more aspects of the future of the industry in WordPress as well as SEO.
9 Bad SEO Habits to Leave Behind in 2017 – SEO Podcast | Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing by eWebResults
Chris Burres and Matt Bertram, owners of eWebResults, host one of the most popular SEO Podcasts online.
These guys might have more energy than I am used to having, but they do a nice job of being entertaining and know their SEO information.
They went over the article 9 Bad SEO Habits to Leave in 2017 by Mindy Weinstein at Search Engine Journal.
The hosts go through each habit that has been used liberally in previous years giving commentary and reflecting on their own use or misuses of the habit.
Are You Ready for a Voice Search Future? [PODCAST] Search Engine Nerds
Brent Csutoras is the host and Christi Olson is the guest on this episode. Christi is the Head of Evangelism for Search at Microsoft.
The two discuss the future of voice search in the search engines. Basically, companies need to realize people are using voice to search for answers to questions now and even more so in the future. Olson explains that the technology behind the voice searching is much better than it used to be and much better than many of the systems used for a phone customer service tree.
Olson tells the story of a Toyota dealership in Seattle that created a content-rich page to answer frequently asked questions so that their receptionist can point people to the page. What happened was that users were using the voice search and the digital assistant’s features to ask certain questions and the dealerships web page came up in the results.
To explain the need to businesses, Olson says,
The question is how much do you invest and where do you invest. The way I typically, when I talk to businesses, I break it down as what are the main types of questions that your customers are asking about your products, your services, and can you create a great experience. Experience, in this instance, could be a web page that answers those questions and it gives them the information they look. Maybe it’s an FAQ, maybe it’s not. But can you answer those questions in such a way that the digital assistants pick it up and that becomes the voice of the digital assistant answering back?
This means, in your content strategy, we have to think about the questions our customers and potential customers ask in conversational nature.
I would say it’s not a completely different strategy than what you’ve done in the past. It’s going back and thinking about your customer and answering questions – being customer-focused and customer-centric.
Digital assistants and voice search is changing how we think about our content strategy, and it is making it a more fundamental task to focus on our customers’ needs.
Wrapping it up
SEO is ever changing. As digital marketers, we can’t afford to use outdated techniques as it can sabotage our results. What SEO strategies have you left behind recently?
