SEO Experts Gather for a Candid Chat About Search [Podcast]

SEO

By Chris Barnhart Last updated Sep 13, 2024

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Wix just celebrated their 100th podcast episode! Congrats, Wix. To quote Mordy Oberstein, Head of SEO Brand at Wix; “we talk a lot.”

You sure do! It’s a good thing you have a lot of interesting stuff to say.

The 100th episode of “SERPs Up” was full of awesome guests. Here’s a summary of the action.

Apart from the usual faces, Oberstein and Crystal Carter, Head Of SEO Communications, it was a powerhouse guestlist:

• Chima Mmeje.
• Darren Shaw.
• Joy Hawkins.
• Eli Schwartz.
• Kevin Indig.
• Barry Schwartz.

Just How Broken Are The SERPs?

The first guest was Chima Mmeje from Moz. She dove into the frustrations that many SEOs have been feeling and spoke plainly about the flaws in Google’s updates.

Mordy Oberstein: “Is the SERP broken?”

Chima Mmeje: “The helpful content update, and I’m saying this here, live, is a farce. There was nothing helpful about that update. … Yes, the SERP is 1,000% broken. … How does anybody even use Google in the U.S.? … I don’t think they are going to release any update that will fix these issues.”

Mordy Oberstein: “There’s no update. … Plopping Reddit all over the SERP was because they saw the content trends … and they said ‘we don’t have any so we’re just going to throw Reddit there’.”

Chima Mmeje: “It was lazy to have Reddit there … Nobody uses their real names. Anybody can go on Reddit and answer questions and then you see these answers populating in People Also Ask, populating in featured snippets, populating all over the SERPs as correct information. It is dangerous, at worst.”

Crystal Carter: “Do you think that one of the reasons why we’ve seen so much upheaval and so much so volatility in the SERPs, which I certainly agree with in the last year … is lots and lots of variables, like lots of new features coming in, so the alignment with Reddit, the AI overviews, the SGE … Do you think it is just too many things being thrown in at the same time and it messing up lots of SERPs as a result? Or do you think it’s something else?”

Chima Mmeje: ” … releasing too many features that they did not test properly. Features that were rushed SGE [testing] did not even last a year and now they brought in Google AI Overviews. I still don’t understand why we have AI Overviews and featured snippets on the same SERP. I feel like it’s like pick one, make a choice.”

Mordy Oberstein’s next question was about what we can do. “As an SEO, how are you supposed to do this? I’ve heard things from people … Yeah, I don’t know what to do. I can’t produce the kind of results that I’ve always wanted to. Can you still be effective as an SEO in an environment like this?”

Chima Mmeje: “I’m going to be honest, we are suffering … It feels like we are trying our best with what we are seeing … because there is no clear guidance. And to be honest, a lot of us are playing a guessing game right now and that is the best that we can do. It’s all a guessing game based on what we’ve seen one or two variables work. And this is not a long-term strategy. If we’re going to be realistic, it’s not going to work in the long-term. I honestly, I don’t know what the answer is … you’re fighting against Reddit. How do you compete against Reddit? Nobody has figured that out yet.”

Crystal Carter: “Thanks for saying it out loud, Chima.” Crystal was reflecting the sentiment of the commenters, who appreciated her candor and willingness to say: we don’t know, but we’re trying our best.

Mordy Oberstein: “The most honest take I’ve heard on that in quite a long time.”

Mmeje also recounted examples of small website owners and small businesses that have had to shut down. She also talked about the pervasive feeling in the SEO community that there is no rhyme or reason to how the algorithms handle websites and content.

What’s Going On In Local SEO?

The next guests were Darren Shaw from Whitespark and Joy Hawkins, owner of Sterling Sky for a segment called “It’s New.” They talked about new developments in local SEO.

Hawkins talked about a new feature in Google Business Profile.

Joy Hawkins: “… There’s a little services section inside the Google business profile dashboard that’s easy to miss, but you can add anything you want in there. … We’ve done a lot of testing on it and they do impact ranking, but I should clarify, it’s like a small impact. So usually we see it for longer-tailed queries that maybe don’t match a category or things that are not super competitive. … So it is a small ranking factor, but still one that is worth filling out.”

Darren Shaw: “ .. this is the question that a lot of people ask. We know that if you go into the services section of your Google business profile, Google will suggest predefined services … And so Joy’s original research was focused on those predefined ones and it definitely identified that when you do put those on your profile, you now rank better for those terms depending on how competitive they’re, as Joy had mentioned. … There is a place where you can add your own custom services. Have you done any testing around that? Will you rank better with the custom services?”

Joy Hawkins: “Yes. They both work. In custom services … I’m trying to remember the keyword that Colin tested it on. It was something super niche like vampire facials. I was Googling, what the hell is that? … Really, really niche … But he just wanted to know if there was any impact whatsoever and there was. [Custom services fields are a] good way to go after longer tail keywords that don’t have crazy high search volume or aren’t super competitive.”

Darren Shaw: “You want to make sure that you’re telling Google what you do … that’s basically what the services section provides. And it’s not a huge ranking factor, but it’s just another step in the local optimization process. … a tip for custom services because custom services often get pulled into the local results as justifications. It’ll say this business provides vampire facials, right? Well, did you know there’s a vampire emoji? So if you put the vampire emoji in the title … Then in the local results you’ll see a whole panel of businesses that all provide that service, but yours has that little vampire emoji which will draw people in.”

There was tons more in this section, including questions from the audiences and some great jokes.

The Obligatory AI Section.

Eli Schwartz And Kevin indig were next up to talk about AI. Oberstein, professional rabble rouser, tried to get them to argue, but despite their very different posting habits, they found a lot to agree on about AI.

Mordy Oberstein: “It wouldn’t be an SEO podcast if we didn’t talk about AI. Where do we currently stand with AI? What can it do? What can’t it do?”

Kevin Indig: “… We’re at a stage where AI basically has the capability to create content, analyze some basic data. It still hallucinates here and there and it still makes mistakes. … If you compare that to when this AI hype started in November, 2022, so it’s almost two years now and we’ve come a really long way, these models are getting exponentially better. … It means different things based on whether you look at it as a tool for yourself to make your work more efficient. And of course, what does it mean from an SEO perspective? How does it change search, not just Google, but also how people search. And I think these are all different questions that are exciting to dive into. … So there is a lot of objective data that indicates efficiencies and benefits from AI. There’s also a lot of hype that promises a little too much about what AI can do. And so I’m generally AI bullish, but I’m not in the camp of AI is going to replace us all the next two years.”

Mordy Oberstein: “I’m setting the stage here a little bit because while your LinkedIn pros are generally like pro ai, a lot of Eli’s posts are a little more skeptical about AI. So Eli, what do you think about what Kevin just said? By the way, I’m like, for those who are listening or watching this, I’m pitting them against each other. They’re friends and they do a podcast together. So it’s cool.”

Eli Schwartz: I think AI is great. I think that there’s a lot of great things you can get out of AI. You can, again, like Kevin said, it can be your thought partner. … I’m anti AI in the way people are using it. And I don’t think people have necessarily changed their behaviors because before … they outsource [content] on Fiverr and Upwork and they bought very cheap content and now they’re getting very free content. So then that’s coming from AI. That behavior hasn’t really changed. The challenge is that now there are more people that think they can copy them.

So I talk to CMOs all the time who are like, well, I just go of my SEO team. A big company reached out to me recently. They wanted to gut check themselves after they already fired their SEO team. So I can’t really help there, but they’re like, AI can do everything. … Well, I’ll see them in a year from now when they have whatever sort of penalty. AI is a very powerful tool. Any tool we have a drill is a very powerful tool. But if you just hold it in the air and just let it go, it’s going to make holes. But if you use it appropriately, it does the thing it’s supposed to do. … We’re humans and we buy stuff and it has to come to a point where humans are talking to humans.