This transcript is machine generated and has not been fully edited for errors.

Introduction to the Podcast

[00:00:00] Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the third season of the Simple and Smart SEO Show, the podcast dedicated to empathy driven brand building SEO. I'm your host, Crystal Waddell. I leverage my obsession with user experience to help business owners just like you optimize your website with confidence. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:17] Let's jump into another great episode.

[00:00:19] 

[00:00:19] Crystal Waddell: All right, guys. Uh, welcome back to the simple and smart SEO show. 

Introducing the Special Guest: Andrew Holland

[00:00:23] Crystal Waddell: This is crystal and I am here with a very special guest. Very, very special guest. 

[00:00:29] And if you know anything about SEO. 

[00:00:31] You are just going to be blown away that we have Andrew Holland with us here today. 

[00:00:36] To Give us a peek into the future of SEO.

[00:00:39] So Andrew, welcome to the show. 

[00:00:42] Could you tell people just in case, maybe they're a little bit new to SEO and not really familiar with what you do. 

[00:00:48] Can you tell us a little bit about you and where you work, what you do? 

Andrew Holland's Journey into SEO

[00:00:51] Andrew Holland: Thank you. yeah, wow, what an introduction. I totally, I am not that famous or anything like that.

[00:00:58] But thank you very much for the kind words. yeah, so my name is Andrew Holland. I'm the director of SEO at a digital PR and SEO agency called JBH. 

[00:01:06] We're based in Manchester in the United Kingdom. I've been professionally doing SEO. I'm going to say for eight to nine years now. 

[00:01:13] I can't really remember, but, I was doing it for a long time before that as a, as like a hobbyist.

[00:01:18] And then building sites and things. 

[00:01:20] But I actually learned SEO originally over 20 years ago.

Andrew's Transition from Police Officer to SEO Expert

[00:01:23] Andrew Holland: Cause I worked in police intelligence. We had our own search engine. so, I learned it that way. 

[00:01:28] And then I, developed very bad asthma. 

[00:01:30] So I was a police officer for 20 years. and then I retired on technically ill health. 

[00:01:35] Because my asthma stops me from going out on the streets. 

[00:01:38] And yeah, so that's what happened.

[00:01:39] I left. Set my own freelancing business up. That evolves into a little agency. 

[00:01:44] Just over, well, it's well over a year ago, I went inside a seven figure agency. 

[00:01:49] Took my agency inside that agency. 

[00:01:51] Ran a big team of nearly I think it was like 14, 15 staff, something like that. 

[00:01:55] Multi, million pound, seven figure agency within an agency.

[00:01:59] and then six, six months ago, to be precise, I, changed roles. 

[00:02:04] And I went into, Where we are at JBH. Because they wanted to grow their SEO department out. and that's what I'm currently doing. 

Building an SEO Department from Scratch

[00:02:11] Andrew Holland: I'm currently building out their whole SEO department from scratch. 

[00:02:14] I'm tasked with growing their SEO services and offerings and department. 

[00:02:19] Because they're 10 years old and they're very successful digital PR agency. 

[00:02:22] I'd never heard of a digital PR agency becoming an SEO agency.

[00:02:26] It's always the SEO agencies adding digital PR. 

The Unique Position of JBH in the SEO Industry

[00:02:29] Andrew Holland: So it's a really unique position we're in. 

[00:02:31] And it's allowed us to make some great decisions and unique approaches. 

[00:02:36] Crystal Waddell: That's awesome. 

Crystal's Career Journey and Connection to SEO

[00:02:37] Crystal Waddell: When I very first started out in college, I wanted to be a journalist. 

[00:02:40] Then I wanted to go into public relations.

[00:02:43] And then I wanted to be an athletic director at a university. 

[00:02:47] I hopped around a different thing. So I've had my hand in a little bit of everything that you talked about before. At least, seen it from afar. 

[00:02:53] It's interesting how, in this world, it does actually come together. 

[00:02:58] Which makes me so excited.

[00:02:59] Okay. 

The Future of SEO: UX and CRO

[00:02:59] Crystal Waddell: So recently you were presenting at Brighton in the U. K., 

[00:03:04] And I was looking over your slides and one of the first things that stood out to me was you said that SEO is about UX and CRO in the future. 

[00:03:14] And I was wondering if you could explain that,first of all, like what is UX?

[00:03:18] What is CRO? And what role are they going to play in the future? 

[00:03:22] Andrew Holland: Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the term UX and CRO. 

Understanding Behavioral Science in SEO

[00:03:25] Andrew Holland: I'm actually more a big fan of the term behavioral science. 

[00:03:28] And that's really supported by Google data, anyway. 

[00:03:31] In terms of, conversion rate optimization. 

[00:03:33] A user experience. 

[00:03:34] They tend to be the terms to make websites actually useful. Or good for people. 

[00:03:40] And a good experience. And also to encourage people to make decisions and buy and things like that's really what conversion rate optimization is.

[00:03:47] You know the idea that you can change the text here. Or change a button size. And that will increase sales. 

[00:03:53] and yeah, I get that but i'm more of a fan of the larger term that describes those. 

[00:03:58] Which is behavioral science. 

[00:03:59] And, and almost like design really as well.

[00:04:02] So you're designing for people, humans. 

[00:04:04] Rather than just search engines and things like that. So I am a big fan of that. 

The Evolution and Expansion of SEO

[00:04:08] Andrew Holland: I believe that SEO will continue to evolve. I think if you think about SEO as being like a core, it will start to eat everything. 

[00:04:17] It grows out. And I think SEO as an industry will start to consume all these other smaller sectors. 

[00:04:24] Because CRO is part of SEO. 

[00:04:26] UX part of SEO behavioral science for online sites.

[00:04:30] That's definitely going to be part of SEO. and I think we will grow out and maybe even consume PPC or paid search. 

[00:04:37] And that's potential as well. and obviously PR publicity is the bigger one. So maybe publicity will consume organic Traffic.

[00:04:44] The term SEO will just be, publicity, who knows in the future? We'll see.

Crystal's Experience with SEO and Conversion

[00:04:48] Crystal Waddell: It's so interesting that you say that because, the way that I also got into this whole podcasting thing and SEO is because I have a Shopify store. 

[00:04:56] I originally sold on Etsy and then I realized, Oh, no, this is Etsy's business, not my business. I need to do something about that.

[00:05:03] And so I created my own website. 

[00:05:05] And then I started doing my SEO. 

[00:05:07] And I started driving lots of traffic. Like for me. 10 000 visitors a month. It's a big deal, so i'm like, whoa, look at this I'm driving all this traffic. 

[00:05:15] But it wasn't converting. And so that's when I started digging a little deeper I was like, okay, so i'm driving traffic.

[00:05:20] Is it the right traffic? What's wrong with my traffic? how do I get it to convert? 

[00:05:24] And I started realizing like little things like sending people directly to a page versus a page with choices. 

[00:05:32] And then once I realized that I was like tightening up that user experience. 

[00:05:35] Making it easier for people to actually make the purchase on the page and that type of thing.

[00:05:40] So I, the reason why I was just like so attracted to all the things that you were saying was because some people speak about SEO, like it's this thing that's separate from everything else. 

[00:05:50] And it's no, all of that stuff works together. And it's only when you do one that you realize. 

[00:05:56] Oh, this other thing actually is a little bit broken too, or it can be optimized or You know that type of thing so that I love how you say all that. 

[00:06:05] Andrew Holland: Yeah. 

The Importance of Marketing Effectiveness in SEO

[00:06:06] Andrew Holland: Listen, at the end of the day SEO has to be rooted in marketing effectiveness. 

[00:06:10] And if it's not rooted in marketing effectiveness, then and we're all on the same page. Then everyone has a little channel versus channel battle going on about budget. 

[00:06:18] And trying to gain credit for a certain last click and things like that. And that goes on all the time. 

[00:06:24] Even some big name SEOs, where you hear them talking about stuff.

[00:06:26] And I know it's completely based on nonsense. 

[00:06:29] What they're saying, because they're trying to just replace, some of the things that paid social might do and other stuff. 

[00:06:34] And we've all got to start working together and understand actually the business that matters, marketing.

[00:06:38] SEO is part of marketing. 

[00:06:40] It has to be appropriately weighted. Not underweighted or overweighted. 

[00:06:44] And also, we have to all work together. 

[00:06:47] You can have a CRO agency or an SEO agency. and sometimes it can get a little bit of confusing. 

[00:06:52] So I think. 

The Future of SEO: More Marketing-Linked

[00:06:53] Andrew Holland: The future of SEO is becoming, is to be bigger, is to be more marketing, linked to marketing effectiveness.

[00:07:00] and I think that's what we need to have grown up conversations about in the SEO industry. 

The Misconceptions in the SEO Industry

[00:07:03] Andrew Holland: And we're still, I see the, I see some of the things that people write and I think to myself, that's just completely not right. and, The idea that it's almost like people want to berate SEO within the industry.

[00:07:13] When actual facts we are hugely important part of business growth. but we need to change our dialogue, I think. 

[00:07:19] About how we promote ourselves and how we discuss what we do as well. 

[00:07:23] I'm joking to myself that I go to the Andrew Holland University on LinkedIn. 

[00:07:27] Crystal Waddell: And so when you were posting about the Google behavioral science piece, I actually downloaded it. 

[00:07:32] And I started reading it, and I thought, wow, this is really interesting.

[00:07:36] Let me switch into this then: 

The Concept of Performance SEO

[00:07:38] Crystal Waddell: You talk about performance seo like that's part of your title like what's difference about performance seo than just regular seo. I think you're alluding to it. 

[00:07:46] Andrew Holland: Well, so it's very easy. 

[00:07:49] As you've actually alluded to yourself. 

[00:07:51] You were getting 10, 000 visitors a month.

[00:07:53] you wouldn't necessarily get in the revenue that you wanted from 10, 000 to 10, 000 visitors.

[00:07:57] It's a heck of a lot of traffic. That's 10, 000 people go to your websites, but why aren't they buying? 

The Importance of Sales in SEO

[00:08:02] Andrew Holland: So performance SEO is actually really about that, about. We want sales. So sales is the goal. 

[00:08:08] Brands grow through sales. 

[00:08:11] And SEO should help a brand to increase its sales. 

[00:08:14] And if, and I'm on about like publisher SEO slightly different.

[00:08:17] I'm always talking about brand SEO in terms of, someone sells something. and, when you're, A performance SEO is about making those sales happen as best as you can. 

[00:08:25] And capturing those sales and doing so in a rationally optimistic manner that, based on logic and sense and, and also having sensible conversations about SEO as a channel.

[00:08:37] So it's about helping, sales to happen. 

[00:08:39] And also, we know we're mostly a demand capture the channel. and performance SEO is ultimately about turnover. It's about helping brands to, to grow their turnover. 

The Epidemic of Traffic Focus in SEO

[00:08:50] Andrew Holland: And there's sadly an epidemic in SEO, which talks about traffic. 

[00:08:55] And people, I listened to the story about this traffic and stuff.

[00:08:59] and I think that doesn't follow logic because not all traffic is relevant. 

[00:09:04] And it doesn't even stand up to a tiny bit of scrutiny in relation to how people buy. 

[00:09:09] And how sales occur and the use of human memory and things like that and brand principles. It doesn't. just because. 

[00:09:15] For example, I'll give you a case, not my case study. But I know there's a very popular case study out there and that's your world.

[00:09:21] And when you break it down, mostly it's. Excel formulas and related to a software that sells some kind of replacement for, websites, and not web analytics. 

[00:09:30] But like data and data management and spreadsheets. 

[00:09:33] So, you know, the idea being that you need an Excel formula and then to go from that to actually replacing your entire company's use of sheets or Excel or something like that for this new data store. 

[00:09:44] They are miles apart. They aren't on the same page. You can have 800, 000 visitors a month looking for Excel formulas. 

[00:09:53] That does not mean that, you know, the idea that a tiny percent of them might be looking actually into moving their whole data and system over to this new system or platform. 

[00:10:03] Whatever it is. and that's 800, 000 visitors of waste. 

[00:10:06] No matter how much that 800, 000 visitors cost to build that traffic. 

[00:10:11] That is nowhere near a productive use of, SEO resources, or even business project makes a great case study for traffic.

[00:10:18] It's not going to, it isn't going to do anything for sales. but don't be wrong. 

[00:10:22] People can twist it and say, Oh, Luke, we've got all this traffic. And now look at our revenue growth and things like that. 

[00:10:27] But it won't be, it won't be, that's just the way people try and twist things around. 

[00:10:32] But there's loads of case studies like that.

[00:10:34] And I've experienced it where, where we've worked on businesses and we've got that traffic up. And then reality is it didn't increase their revenue. 

[00:10:40] So we actually did work on pages that did increase their revenue. 

[00:10:44] Traffic went. Tiny bit up, tiny 1 percent up. 

[00:10:48] But their revenue went from 1 million to 3 million, so it's about focusing what matters rather than, thinking of traffic.

[00:10:56] Traffic has to be earned. 

[00:10:58] But traffic has to be valuable to a business and it has to have a business case for that value.

[00:11:03] Absolutely. and that was one reason why I don't like that term. like conversion rate. 

[00:11:07] Crystal Waddell: First it was like, go on social media and build your business.

[00:11:09] And I was like, wow, that doesn't work. Okay, did that didn't work. or at least that's not the place you want to build it. Just like you don't want to build it on Etsy. 

[00:11:15] You want to build it on your own website. And then it was like, get more traffic. 

[00:11:18] And then, like you said, everything you just said, that's what I thought.

[00:11:21] And so I started thinking about what I consider like profit rate optimization. And I'm curious, what did you do? do you remember like any kind of tidbits of what you guys did to those pages or how you found your focus? For those pages to truly optimize it for profit. 

[00:11:37] Andrew Holland: Oh, Yeah it wasn't really with that client that i'm just talking about.

[00:11:40] that's a few years ago. 

[00:11:41] But in truth, we created content and that content. Was very top of funnel. 

[00:11:46] And that top of funnel content was massive. 

[00:11:48] I mean It's one of them tracking graphs that you see online where they're wow everyone. That's incredible. 

[00:11:53] But reality is the client was very strong minded and very commercially driven. 

[00:11:58] And to be fair, this kind of likeis bought the journey I was on anyway.

[00:12:00] the client was very commercially driven. So now it's not really working for us. That isn't, we need to change tact. 

[00:12:05] Go, go do me a strategy that makes me money, not traffic. I went back and looked at everything and we created a huge process where we had a 24 hour a day content system working on pages. 

[00:12:16] Which are basically like product pages is best way to describe them.

[00:12:19] And they are so high purchase intent. It's ridiculous. But every page is ridiculously low traffic. 

[00:12:25] You would only go to those pages if you were buying or selling that particular item. And it's so unique. 

[00:12:31] So we did that at scale as a scale as you can, and you can do it with AI now.

[00:12:35] And yeah, the business dramatically increased turnover and they built their own internal team to replace the agency usage.

[00:12:41] And, I'm still in touch with the client now. He's somebody I can have a good conversation with. 

[00:12:45] And I'm sure we'll end up working together in the future. But yeah, and that's the thing, though, what that would go against every kind of traditional SEO with traffic versus, right?

[00:12:53] It's got to be the traffic's got to be meaningful. Not meaningless. 

[00:12:57] And it's got to be commercially focused. 

[00:12:59] If you were to look at that website and strip away all the informational content. 

[00:13:03] There is barely a lift in traffic. 

[00:13:05] Barely a lift, but that lift. 

[00:13:07] That little, like maybe 1 percent lift, is worth a millions.

[00:13:11] And that's, I think that's the key generally with, with that kind of approach to performance SEO. 

[00:13:16] And that kind of shaped my sort of vision moving forward in the future. So we have to make, we have to move the needle for clients at all costs. And it has to be revenue focused. 

[00:13:26] Crystal Waddell: So are you saying that you, do you guys focus then on optimizing their product pages more for that?

[00:13:31] Andrew Holland: Yeah, for that client. Yeah. It's all bottom of the funnel. 

The Power of Organic Reach in SEO

[00:13:34] Andrew Holland: It's all, cause if you think about it, so the idea of what happens online is, essentially. 

[00:13:39] It's like a supermarket aisle. 

[00:13:40] When somebody goes into the supermarket aisle, they're in the market for whatever you sell.

[00:13:45] And you pick up a package you put it down, things like that.

[00:13:48] That's what goes on. 

[00:13:49] And with buyers. 

[00:13:50] They're in the aisle and they're gonna buy today, you know,it doesn't always happens sometimes, it because of the way it did digitally. We don't always buy there and then. 

[00:13:58] We go on the research mission. 

[00:14:00] But when you're in, in the mode to buy, you are in the aisle.

[00:14:04] and eventually you will put in your basket and check out. And, it's a case of you just want to catch more of those people. 

[00:14:10] So sales growth occurs by what they call light category buyers. And these are the people that don't buy on or heavy buyers. so the people that buy from, a certain type of website come there direct, every time.

[00:14:22] that's great. People who buy from Amazon go to Amazon for everything, don't they? They do. And,Amazon will grow by getting the likes of my mother and father to choose to buy from Amazon who have never pitched anything from Amazon in their life. 

[00:14:36] But there's a, if you think about Amazon growth, there's a huge section of society that has never purchased from Amazon. 

[00:14:41] And if it encourages those people just to buy maybe one or two more things a year from them than they have done before. 

[00:14:47] Suddenly Amazon's growth is even through the roof. 

[00:14:49] And it's the same model that applies to your business, my employer's business, it's the same model.

[00:14:54] If we can get more people to try us once.

[00:14:57] or try your services once, then what happens that, that actually equates to growth overall. it's. It's getting more people. Catching more of today's buyers as possible. 

[00:15:07] And if you maybe increase someone's chances, just literally go from one in 300 to two and 300, you double potential sales.

[00:15:16] and that's the thing with SEO and that's why organic reach is so powerful. 

[00:15:19] Because you reach more people who are ready to buy. 

[00:15:23] And you capture them as they're just about to.

[00:15:25] And it's, if you think about it, whenever you buy. And you break down your own behavior when you go online.

[00:15:29] And it's sometimes you'll search for the person directly. Sometimes you'll look at a broad keyword. 

[00:15:33] But you're ready to buy. And then even at the last minute, you'll click on a few links before you actually purchase to decide what are we going to do? What are we going to do? What am I going to do? We come back and forward and back and forward.

[00:15:42] And eventually you try something. 

[00:15:43] And it's tiny. 

[00:15:45] It's the tiniest nudge at the end of that. Can move you from one to another. And that report that we shared on Google the other day is all about that, really. 

[00:15:52] It's about nudging somebody. 

[00:15:54] All we do in SEO is create online nudges for people. 

[00:15:57] But unless you're ranked, you can't be in that party and you have to pay to be there.

[00:16:01] And that's an expensive game. Because every click is expensive. And every click does not convert. 

[00:16:08] And then even then, when they're ready to buy and you can convert, the organic traffic is reaching more people. More people are clicking through organic listings. 

[00:16:16] Because we we know that they're paid listings and there's almost like what they call Google gullibility.

[00:16:21] We rely on Google to filter the best results for us. So we can assume that when you search for something, anything on positions, one, two, three, or four is probably going to be the best for you. 

[00:16:29] Because They've had to fight their way up there and Google's gotten there.

[00:16:33] So performance SEO is all about, brand performance and business performance and sales performance.

[00:16:38] it's nothing about traffic or rankings. And that's why yeah, I love seeing traffic graphs cause they're interesting, but. 

[00:16:44] Very rarely do we get the story behind that in terms of revenue. And all that kind of stuff. 

[00:16:48] It's very just hey look. We grew all this traffic. Fantastic.

[00:16:52] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, gosh, it reminds me of just yesterday. 

[00:16:55] I've been complaining about sitting too much, at home and working on my computer. So I was searching for a standing desk. 

[00:17:02] And once I went into search mode, I forgot everything about SEO. because I was like, Oh yeah, here's the standing desk.

[00:17:09] It's like the first option. It must be the best.

[00:17:11] And so I completely, fell back to those practices myself. 

[00:17:15] And I bought the desk. But what was funny is. When I first got there, they had a pop up that said, you know, save 10 bucks. 

[00:17:22] And 10 bucks off a few hundred dollars, not that much.

[00:17:25] But when I made the decision that I wanted to buy the desk, I was like, I still want that 10 off. 

[00:17:29] And the first code didn't work. 

[00:17:31] And when I went to, exit out the page, I was sure a pop up would say, Hey, don't forget your 10 off. 

[00:17:37] and there was no pop up. 

[00:17:39] Eventually, I did get the code. But you're right. I did everything you said. I clicked around because I was like, wait a second. Is this the one that I want? if I'm going to spend a couple hundred, do I want to spend a couple more hundred, that type of thing.

[00:17:49] So that was really funny.

[00:17:50] But you just completely described what I went through yesterday. 

[00:17:54] Andrew Holland: That's interesting. 

The Role of Discounts in Online Sales

[00:17:54] Andrew Holland: Can I ask you a question? Were you going to buy that desk anyway, regardless of the discount? 

[00:17:58] Yes. 

[00:17:59] Okay. There you go then. So what that discount has effectively done is robbed that business of future profit.

[00:18:04] and because you were going to buy it anyway, and that's what PPC does, by the way. 

[00:18:07] In terms of paid search. 

[00:18:08] I want to say PPC people get all in a fizz about the fact that I mean paid search, but I'm calling it PPC. 

[00:18:13] and, SEOs don't go around saying paid search too. We just say PPC.

[00:18:17] But the PPC, what you're doing is effectively discounting your business because you've got to pay for the clicks. 

[00:18:22] For them to get the sales. Every sale is discounted. And in actual fact, a lot of the time they would have purchased from the brand anyway. 

[00:18:28] If they were already ranking. 

[00:18:30] It's the fact that, and we see so many brands ranking in the paid search. And ranking in the organic search. 

[00:18:35] That they click on the page results and check out for them.

[00:18:38] And they've given themselves a massive discount. 

[00:18:40] And, some brands don't care because they just make so much money they didn't care. it's just one of the things. 

[00:18:44] We just would block out all the businesses, but yeah, it's things like that. Like performance SEO really should be saying to that business, okay, do we really need the 10 percent discount?

[00:18:52] What happens when we take it off? 

[00:18:53] Have we tested this? Because we should be engaged in that? And then, but it doesn't work like that. 

[00:18:58] There's somebody in some other department that sits there and has these conversations and maybe the SEO agency. 

[00:19:03] Maybe the marketing manager. And there's lots of information about discounting and theories and things like that.

[00:19:08] you've, everyone's got to test in their own environment, but yeah, it's interesting that you would have brought it anyway. 

[00:19:13] And they've effectively lost 10 percent money that they were going in their pocket. 

[00:19:16] Now, if you do that at scale, that's a heck of a lot of profit going out every single year.

[00:19:22] So interesting.

[00:19:23] Crystal Waddell: 

The Impact of Double Discounting on Profit

[00:19:23] Crystal Waddell: they were already running a sale, so that was incentivizing me anyway. 

[00:19:28] And yeah, so it was one of those things. They put discount on top of discount in that situation.

[00:19:33] but I feel like I got a good deal and who knows. 

[00:19:34] Maybe they jacked their prices up for that weekend.

[00:19:37] Andrew Holland: Probably that's another tactic people do. 

[00:19:39] Crystal Waddell: Okay. 

Online Nudges in SEO

[00:19:40] Crystal Waddell: You had mentioned in your presentation, that SEO helps brands grow through online nudges. 

[00:19:44] We had someone on our podcast she's a UX copywriter. 

[00:19:48] And, micro copy, I think is what she talked about. 

[00:19:51] And she talked about nudges as well. 

[00:19:54] Andrew Holland: Yeah, yeah, I think I mean it's true.

The Importance of Clicks in SEO

[00:19:56] Andrew Holland: There's a lot more to it because you've got to get clicked. 

[00:19:58] Unless you get clicked no one can buy from you. 

[00:20:01] So there's more going on. 

[00:20:02] It's like your distinctive brand assets like the logo, the color of your website. 

[00:20:06] Your font. All that kind of stuff. Essentially, we're creatures of memory.

Understanding User Experience on Websites

[00:20:11] Andrew Holland: So what ends up happening is we experience, a website. Either through their advertising, their publicity, their brand marketing. 

[00:20:18] And when we go into the search engine pages, we know them because they're familiar to us. 

[00:20:22] So we see them and click on those links. And also if they're not known to us and not familiar to us, we tend to click on links during our research phase.

[00:20:30] But in the very, very last minute. 

[00:20:32] It's a little bit like wacky races, it's this, everyone's racing to the finish line to try and get that sale. 

The Importance of Clicks in Online Marketing

[00:20:39] Andrew Holland: And I think once you, the fight is in the click. 

[00:20:43] You've got to try and get clicked. If you can't get clicked, you're not going to get that sale.

[00:20:46] And then if you do land on the website. 

Factors Influencing User Experience on Websites

[00:20:49] Andrew Holland: Then it's a whole range of factors on there. 

[00:20:51] How easy is it to click out? How easy is it to order? 

[00:20:54] How easy is it to book a service or a session with somebody? 

[00:20:59] You know, all that kind of processes is definitely part of that. How is it frictionless?

[00:21:03] Is it full of friction? 

[00:21:05] Does the copy explain things easily? Is it hard to navigate? Is it hard to find? And all those things Will matter, massively to a consumer. 

[00:21:15] So there has to be that balance. 

The Role of Nudging in SEO

[00:21:16] Andrew Holland: So yeah, in relation to nudging, there's lots of nudges that can be done. Both, in the SERP. 

[00:21:21] But clearly based on that Google report that we read, and also on page. 

[00:21:25] And you've got to test things and everything's different. 

[00:21:28] But making life as easy as possible for people to gain information. 

[00:21:31] And make decisions is pretty much core of what SEO is all about.

[00:21:35] And I think, yeah, so I describe it as online nudges. 

The Impact of Branding on Online Sales

[00:21:37] Andrew Holland: But you might not be winning sales, not because of your UX is horrible or anything like that. 

[00:21:42] Just because your logo isn't particularly memorable. And they, the person likes the owl logo or likes the, that, that.

[00:21:49] The brand color speak to somebody or put somebody off. 

[00:21:52] You know, there's so much into it that is important. Or perhaps they just don't know you. 

[00:21:56] And the other brands just do that much a better job of marketing and they feel safe. 

[00:22:01] and we do an awful lot to eliminate risk from it.

[00:22:04] Nobody wants the best product necessarily, but they want the least worse. 

[00:22:08] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's so funny. 

[00:22:10] So, okay, you kind of touched on this. 

The Misconception of Traffic Data in Business Decisions

[00:22:13] Crystal Waddell: Why do you say some businesses make decisions on incorrect data, basically going off that traffic data versus actual, profitable?

[00:22:20] Andrew Holland: Well, yeah, that's about budget. 

[00:22:21] So I mean, you alluded to that yourself about profit and ad spend. 

The Value of Being a Small Business Owner in SEO

[00:22:24] Andrew Holland: The thing is, Crystal, the really great thing about you is you've been a small business owner. 

[00:22:27] So it makes you immediately far better SEO.

[00:22:29] Because when you actually spend money of your own. You've had to build your own business, you see things in entirely different light. 

[00:22:35] Crystal Waddell: yeah, that is so true. That is so true. 

The Challenges of Testing in SEO

[00:22:38] Crystal Waddell: Cause I, one of my least favorite words in the world is test. Because testing, when it's your money, it's your money and your time.

[00:22:46] And it's do we even have time to do this? Do we even have the money to spend on that? But I know it's necessary as well. 

[00:22:52] Andrew Holland: But I'll be honest with you.

The Importance of Commerciality in SEO

[00:22:54] Andrew Holland: That's because of commerciality. That if you've got that degree of commerciality, you think with commerciality in mind in every pound. 

[00:23:01] And I honestly believe that. and I think that's a separation. The thing is not every SEO can be a business owner.

[00:23:06] And not every business owner who becomes an SEO is amazing.

[00:23:10] But what I would say is mostly. SEOs who have been a business owners in some way or another and have learnt SEO that way, end up being far more commercially minded. 

[00:23:21] And they, because they see the link between traffic and bank accounts.

[00:23:24] And I think that's the important part there, but with the old, making incorrect decisions. 

The Misconception of Last Click Attribution in Marketing

[00:23:28] Andrew Holland: And for the last 10, 15 years or whatever it is, people have made decisions in relation to the performance of marketing budgets based on credit on ad spend, which is the last click attribution. 

[00:23:38] And that's encouraged PPC agencies to get very, very wealthy. 

[00:23:41] So the PPC agency model is quite simple. You charge a fee, for your services and then charge percentage of ad spend. 

[00:23:48] And that's made a lot of PPC agencies rich. And a lot of PPC agencies have, won. On by giving, yeah, look, we've got all the last sales and things. 

[00:23:56] But a lot of those sales would have happened anyway.

[00:23:59] That's the reality of it. They would have won. They just actually found you. 

[00:24:03] And also it means that organic search was generally under invested in. 

[00:24:07] Because people say, well, I can just pay for traffic and I'm profitable. 

[00:24:10] Most of that, wasn't profit on ad spend. Most of that was credit on ad spend.

[00:24:15] So I'm being very sweeping with these statements. 

The Problem with Making Decisions Based on Incorrect Data

[00:24:18] Andrew Holland: But what I mean is that if people are making marketing decisions about canning SEO. Which is what generally has happened in favor of PPC. 

[00:24:25] It's not really based on the correct data.

[00:24:28] And I've rarely seen that. I've seen mostly decisions made on credit on ad spend. 

[00:24:33] Not necessarily looking at, Hey.

[00:24:35] SEO is actually a long term play for profit. And, if you're spending 30, 000 a month on PPC, which is fantastic. 

[00:24:45] What's your plan to grow beyond that? what are you going to do?

[00:24:48] And I see that too often that businesses now they've leveraged themselves for five, 10 years on PPC costs go up. Ad costs go up, profit, costs of shipping, costs of staff, costs of wages, inflation, all that kind of stuff goes up. 

[00:25:02] And profits and business declines. So that's not marketing design to increase the profitability of a business.

[00:25:08] And so a lot of incorrect decisions about what SEO should have been gauged to be made based on incorrect data. 

[00:25:14] And that's why I say, we've got to, if you're going to make decisions about marketing channels, you better make sure your data's bang on. and I don't think that's been the case for a lot of people.

[00:25:22] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, wow. That is such a great explanation. I've never, I never thought about it that way. I can't wait to go back and listen to this. 

Understanding Share of Search

[00:25:29] Crystal Waddell: What about share of search? What do we need to know about share of search? And we actually did talk about this early on in one of our probably first 10 episodes. 

[00:25:38] Because a friend of mine works for Simrush and they were working on a project at that time.

[00:25:43] And so we talked about Share of search and I would just love to revisit that and hear, from your mouth, the advantages of that and what to do. 

The Importance of Branding in Share of Search

[00:25:52] Andrew Holland: So, share search is an interesting one because essentially it's a brand proxy. 

[00:25:56] It's nothing to do with SEO. I've completely stolen it. 

[00:26:00] And, and the reason why it is share search really, is a very fast, cheap way to measure, your marketing's impacts. 

[00:26:08] Because there's more people are likely to search for you.

[00:26:11] the more people are likely probably to be interested in buying from you in the future. 

[00:26:14] Crystal Waddell: You said that it's quick. How do you measure it? what is the timeline on that? 

[00:26:18] Andrew Holland: Yeah. you generally, you get all the brands traffic for a month.

[00:26:21] You, you decide who you're competing against, go get all the brand traffic, divide against itself, get a percentage and the percentage of your traffic against you, you're competing with is your share of search. And you do that with Google trends. 

[00:26:33] I use a tool called my telescope, which is a very cheap, and very good to do it.

[00:26:38] You can use other things. 

[00:26:40] You can use SEMrush as well. And Ahrefs. It just, it's how easy it is to that. But, brand share a search is something very cheap to do. Essentially free that everyone can do. And when you start looking at it, it's really hard to get people searching for your business. It really is.

[00:26:56] Well, that's marketing, getting people searching for you. 

[00:26:58] What I've said is the people who invented share of search do not think it's nothing to do with SEO or organic. 

[00:27:04] It's not a ranking thing. What I'm saying to people is actually share of search is interesting terminology because one, yes, it's a brand thing.

[00:27:13] And we can see that because we're in search data every day. We're the people that report on search data. So in actual fact is we should be reporting on share of search for clients. 

[00:27:22] We should be doing a share of search assessment for clients. 

[00:27:25] First off the bat by saying, Hey, look, this is your market share.

[00:27:28] It's not very good. Have you got any budget that you can put in brand marketing? 

[00:27:31] Because if you put budget in brand marketing, it accelerates SEO work and accelerates SEO results anyway. 

[00:27:37] So we should be doing that first off. 

[00:27:39] And then the second thing is that extra share of search, that what I call buyer intent share search. 

[00:27:45] Which is the thing that people search for related to your category. When they don't search for your brand directly. 

[00:27:51] That's broad like car insurance. 

[00:27:53] Pet shops near me. 

[00:27:54] Whatever it is you want to get as much of that traffic in comparison to your competitors as possible.

[00:27:59] And that's two bubbles. So you've got your brand search and you want your buyer intent share search. 

[00:28:04] They're both of search. So what's your share of buyer intent? 

[00:28:07] What's your share of the brand search and against the categories. And then what happens there is you've got those great buckets. 

[00:28:13] Now, an actual fact that I'm saying that the same metric, because in actual fact, they come together to create total search volume.

[00:28:21] And that's fantastic. So you can say, okay, this is our total search volume. 

[00:28:25] This is their split. This is the brand search, this is the share of search. 

[00:28:29] And then what you get is that this really great metric where you can turn around to any kind of CMO or boss or client or manager. And say, Hey, look, we're growing here.

[00:28:36] We're not growing there. you need to go and invest in this. You need to go invest in that. and I think that's the secret of the share of search metric. In terms of what what we've got to do as an industry. 

[00:28:46] Is find better terminology than traffic and rankings, because it's quite meaningless.

[00:28:50] We sit there with reports for years. Everyone, some arrows are going up, some arrows are going down. some have green, some have red. Oh, no, please less red. 

[00:28:58] And actual fact, it doesn't make that much difference because there's so many thousands of keywords or hundreds of keywords per pages and variations that it's not great.

[00:29:07] What really matters is. Is our marketing working?

[00:29:10] Are we increasing in search?

[00:29:11] Now, share of search has got this whole thing going on. I think we should adopt share of buyer intent search as a metric. 

[00:29:18] And then we should be the people reporting on shared search for all the businesses. 

[00:29:21] Because every business that's got an SEO can now suddenly go out there and report on share of search.

[00:29:25] And now some brands, you've got no brand traffic. It's just, there's nothing there. 

[00:29:29] For some, you'll be able to localize and it is local. 

[00:29:31] You're doing some penetration, marketing penetrations, working locally. 

[00:29:35] And also it encourages businesses to think more, three dimensional about their marketing in terms of, okay, maybe, those radio ads did work after all. 

[00:29:43] Maybe that PR works. Maybe the other stuff we do works.

[00:29:48] And It's not just all paid search. Maybe paid social has been doing us wonders. 

[00:29:53] So yeah, so share a search is, an effectiveness measurement. 

[00:29:56] And I think it works perfectly well for SEO regarding the buyer intent search. 

[00:30:01] And it helps us be on the same map regarding terminology as well. 

[00:30:05] Crystal Waddell: Okay. Oh, my gosh.

[00:30:07] And I'm like, we haven't even gotten a PR link building. 

[00:30:09] Which is what you really talk about more than anything. before we go, definitely let you tell people where to find you. So you can, they can get that information. It's I want to go to the Andrew Holland University. It's fantastic.

[00:30:20] Andrew Holland: We've got 10, we've got 10 minutes.

[00:30:23] So give me whatever you want in 10 minutes.

[00:30:24] Crystal Waddell: 

The Role of SEO in the Future

[00:30:24] Crystal Waddell: You were talking about SEO in the future. And you said that it's going to look like consultancy, omni channel, growth, and publicity. 

[00:30:32] Omni channel, that's one of my favorite conversations.

[00:30:35] like I love talking about just, spreading myself out everywhere.

[00:30:38] Not too thin, but just being everywhere. I think that's critical.

[00:30:41] WhaT do you think about those four things?

[00:30:44] Yeah, so I think growth that we've covered kind of growth. Anyway, I think what we talked about, I think omni channel. Yeah, there are Google, not the only search engine.

[00:30:54] Andrew Holland: There are other search engines. Having a presence on some search engines matters.

[00:30:58] Necessarily also having a presence on I say search engine, my Amazon might be search engine. It's a lot of people check out Amazon. 

[00:31:04] And I think omni channel necessarily is that it's SEO. Yeah. It needs to be a little bit more broad, but I don't think that necessarily mean that, I think that's a skill thing for SEOs to get good at different channels, and that takes just time.

[00:31:15] TikTok might be the a thing, for some brands. I think the jury's out on a lot of it, consultancy. I think within an, an AI generative era, I think that, you are more. It's not so much the doing it's, I think you'll get paid for knowing which screws to turn rather than turning the screws.

[00:31:33] The turning of the screws is irrelevant. It's knowing which screws to turn is the thing. So I think we need to price differently from a consultancy point of view and say, Hey, look, this SEO costs X, Y, Z.

[00:31:45] Because you'll get in my experience in years and rather than by the hour. And by the hour is a terrible pricing metric anyway.

[00:31:53] People are splitting the retainers by the hour and things and that's not necessarily right.

[00:31:58] And the argument is you charge more by the hour as you're more experienced. But eventually that payoff doesn't work very well. And it's finite. And when you buy the hour is different.

[00:32:07] What about thinking time? You're going to charge for your thinking time? And, so I think. 

[00:32:12] Consultancy is more of a case of the value based pricing and what you deliver. 

[00:32:16] We've got to do the publicity side. 

The Importance of Publicity in SEO

[00:32:17] Andrew Holland: That's the interesting thing.

[00:32:18] I have this argument all the time and I have these debates.

The Misconception of Buying Links in SEO

[00:32:21] Andrew Holland: There are people, SEOs who buy links. I'm not a fan of buying links, never have been. I've spent six figures on link buying in various times in my career. 

[00:32:29] And it never generates any kind of meaningful or significant result. 

[00:32:33] No matter what anyone tells you.

[00:32:35] And i'll say this, quite simply. 

[00:32:37] You know people buy links because they don't do real marketing.

[00:32:40] If you're having to buy links, you've got a problem with your marketing. Full stop. 

[00:32:45] Because there's something going wrong that's not effective. 

[00:32:48] I've never once had a CMO tell me, go buy links. Nobody asks, go buy me some links. 

[00:32:54] It's not done that way. You, it's a problem, you've got, yeah.

[00:32:58] I know that some people can say, Oh yeah, if I do these niche edits and things like that. 

[00:33:01] And I'm sure some people have got temporary results because the search engines reacted a little bit of a way because of those niche edits temporarily. 

[00:33:09] And you get a temporal lift and all that kind of stuff.

[00:33:11] But very rarely it's not worth any kind of risk to it. 

[00:33:14] Whereas publicity helps to drive that share of search and brand search because you're constantly getting links. 

[00:33:20] You're constantly getting mentioned. You're constantly getting Discussed about an expert. 

[00:33:24] It's that E A T again. I love it when our clients get featured as according to the experts at what's ... according to the experts in, at.

[00:33:33] You can't get any better anchor text for that. And even if it's not anchor text It's still putting you as experts in xyz. 

[00:33:40] And helping google to understand what you are as a business So I'd rather have that than anything else, and buying links.

[00:33:46] So I think publicity is the one thing that we can order out of our SEO budget that can help with brand growth. And it can fuel it. 

[00:33:54] So for me, I think it's always looking for publicity for businesses and saying, Hey, SEO and publicity go together, hand in glove. 

[00:34:02] Why aren't you doing it? Why aren't you spending on publicity?

[00:34:06] and to be honest with you, when you look at link buying budgets compared to link building or link earning with digital PR on a cost by cost basis, it's pretty much the same. 

[00:34:14] Crystal Waddell: Most of the people who listen to our podcasts are solo preneurs or, they've got small businesses with minimal employees. 

[00:34:21] How can small Businesses do this.

[00:34:23] Is this only a big business game?

[00:34:25] Andrew Holland: What I would say to everyone is. 

[00:34:27] So the Ehrenberg Bass Institute of Marketing Science is really cool because they put loads of data out there, but their sponsors are large businesses. 

The Importance of Telling People Your Business Exists

[00:34:34] Andrew Holland: there's some work around there about how tiny brands grow.

[00:34:36] There's a few articles knocking around at how tiny brands grow.

[00:34:39] And tiny brands grow the same way. This is from them, not me. They grow by telling more people they exist. 

[00:34:46] And that's exactly the mantra that any small business should have.

[00:34:49] Tell as many people that you exist as possible. As much as you can. As many means as possible. 

[00:34:54] That might be going get featured in directories. That might mean sponsoring events. That might mean sponsoring your local football team. 

[00:35:03] That might mean handing out flyers on car parks. 

[00:35:06] Because you do think there's a lot of stuff that doesn't scale What we do.

[00:35:10] and if you have that mantra of telling people you exist, and if you do it digitally as well, okay, how can we tell people exist digitally? 

[00:35:17] Okay, we can put some Facebook ads. 

[00:35:19] We can go on local radio. We can go on local podcast. We can be featured in the local blogs. 

[00:35:25] All that kind of stuff add links to your website.

[00:35:27] And I say local, it can be industry specific as well. 

[00:35:30] As long as they're getting eyeballs on whether you're getting featured, that's publicity. 

[00:35:34] And that's helping people. It's telling people you exist. and I think that's the key is that we we've got very lazy with marketing.

[00:35:41] We wanted it to be Facebook push button. 

[00:35:43] Pressed ad go. And look, I gave Google $1,000 and now I'm rich. 

[00:35:48] And it just doesn't work that way. 

[00:35:50] And SEO doesn't work that way. Nothing else works that way, unfortunately. 

[00:35:55] That's why I want businesses to succeed.

[00:35:58] Small and large, and if you've got a good service, tell people about it, it will grow.

[00:36:03] Crystal Waddell: Oh, I love that. Okay, so last question. 

Understanding the SEO Apocalypse

[00:36:06] Crystal Waddell: Okay, you were talking about the SEO apocalypse.

[00:36:09] So I was hoping you could elaborate on that a little bit for us. 

[00:36:12] Andrew Holland: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. 

The Future of SEO with SGE

[00:36:13] Andrew Holland: Very last thing. So at the end of the day, we're facing a current time where everyone's thinking this. SGE is the SEO apocalypse. I actually don't prescribe to that.

[00:36:23] I think publishers are going to be in a bit of pain in terms of actual people who make money just from content and display ads. I get that. And I think they will lose some traffic. 

[00:36:31] But for everybody else, information science is all about people finding the best solution for themselves. 

[00:36:38] SGE logically should help people choose the best solution for themselves.

[00:36:44] And that best solution, they should actually be found online. It should actually lead to faster purchases, not slower purchases. 

[00:36:51] Because you're not clicking through the sites as often. You're gaining the information faster. So SGE is all about information gain. How quickly do people gain the information to make the decisions they do make?

[00:37:01] And unfortunately, everyone's got this thing as well. I'm going to lose traffic. no, are you going to lose traffic? 

[00:37:06] You could lose traffic and gain more sales because the actual business benefits are faster for you. So when somebody decides they want to buy what you offer. Their research phase is quicker.

[00:37:17] Their ability to buy becomes quicker. And they come into the market ready to buy. 

[00:37:20] Because we're giving faster information because they're not getting smashed with display ads. 

[00:37:24] So I don't think SGE is the thing that people need to worry or be obsessed about. 

[00:37:29] However, it will change everything. 

[00:37:31] But if we go back to what I said about share a search and share a buyer intent search. 

[00:37:36] It affects us all.

[00:37:37] So the marketplace doesn't change. It actually, those shares of searches, your brand search, and also your buyer intent search, everyone's affected. It's not just you. It's everybody. 

[00:37:47] What I think. 

The Importance of Moving Away from Traffic and Rankings in SEO

[00:37:48] Andrew Holland: is that for SEOs, we need to get off this traffic and rankings thing. 

[00:37:53] Because in the future, a vertical search engine isn't going to be probably a thing.

[00:37:58] It's going to be like, very different than what we can imagine. 

[00:38:01] The UX will be different. Technology will be different. Hey, we'll probably even be on the internet, goggles on or something like that. 

[00:38:08] Go minority report style. 

[00:38:10] So, yeah, that's what I mean by the SGE apocalypse. So everyone's running around with their heads worrying about things.

[00:38:16] And I don't think we need to be in the slightest. 

[00:38:18] Except if you're in the publishing business, cause I get that. 

[00:38:20] That's right. You're going to, you're going to take a hit. 

[00:38:23] But then, ad costs will probably go up and change that anyway. So, that's what I mean. Everyone thinks it's an apocalypse.

[00:38:28] I actually think there's a good side about it. 

[00:38:30] And I think it might actually lead to business growth for people. 

[00:38:33] Crystal Waddell: Oh, I love that so much. And for the SEOs that follow us, because I do get DMS from them. and who are now listening to you, like I'm listening to you thinking, Oh my gosh, now this guy has got it.

[00:38:45] Where can they connect with you to follow you into the future? 

Where to Connect with Andrew Holland

[00:38:48] Andrew Holland: Yeah, so you can follow me on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn. That's the best place to follow me if I'm on honest with you. 

[00:38:52] And then also visit jbh.co.Uk. you can follow us, sign up for our stuff. We've got quite some good stuff that we put out there.

[00:38:59] and also subscribe. I've got a newsletter I put out usually weekly called, Go Through Content, which is through my bio, so that you can sign up for that as well. 

[00:39:07] And there's some other stuff coming out in the future, which I'm very excited about. 

The Value of SEO Book by Andrew Holland

[00:39:09] Andrew Holland: And also I've got a book called the value of SEO. So if you liked anything I've said here, go across to Amazon, order the paperback because it's better than the digital version.

[00:39:18] And it's got some nice quirky little drawings in there. And it also can pay for my daughter's,swimming lessons. it's, it helps put a poor girl in the pool. but yeah, that's it. 

Closing Remarks

[00:39:27] Andrew Holland: Thank you very much for your time. 

[00:39:29] Crystal Waddell: Oh, thank you. Andrew. It's really been a pleasure.

[00:39:32] Thank you so much.

[00:39:33] Andrew Holland: Likewise and hopefully,I'm sure we'll connect and speak to you in the future. 

[00:39:37] And yes, see you soon.

[00:39:38] Crystal Waddell: All right. 

Podcast Outro

[00:39:39] Crystal Waddell: Thanks guys. We'll see you next time. Bye! 

[00:39:42] 

Call to Action for Podcast Subscribers

[00:39:43] Crystal Waddell: If you enjoy the podcast, would you do me a favor and hit that subscribe button? Or share the podcast with a friend? 

[00:39:49] It really makes a big difference when people subscribe, share, or rate. 

[00:39:53] So if you're listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, just give a rating.

[00:39:57] And if you have a little extra time, leave a review.