694 | Trusting AI in the SERPs? w/ Mark Williams-Cook & Jack Chambers-Ward

[00:06:07] Will Google Pass the Cost of Digital Ad Taxes to US Advertisers? Maryland is the first state to pass a tax on digital advertising. In countries such as the UK, Austria, and Turkey, Google has passed those costs to advertisers. Will it do the same in the US? [00:14:48] Search Results are Being Upgraded at Microsoft Bing The five key Bing features being updated include intuitive highlighting of content, integrated visual search, expandable carousels, infographic-like SERPs, and richer results for local queries. [00:21:44] Why Did My Site's Rich Results Disappear? If a website suddenly loses its rich results on the Google SERP, John Mueller says it might indicate a site-wide quality issue serious enough to make Google not trust the site anymore. [00:27:42] Bonus Article; Google brings Full Coverage news to search results by Barry Schwartz

9 Mar 202135min

Craig Campbell visited the EDGE team to share some key understandings around Personal Blog Networks for inbound link building. He also shared his many tips for "website flipping": finding old domains, making them sparkle and building the value of the site for sale. Entrepreneurship is the name of the game here today on the EDGE. [00:02:35] Is there Black Hat & White Hat SEO anymore? [00:09:26] What are PBNs? [00:14:19] How tough is SEO now? [00:17:43] How does the process of buying websites work? [00:22:55] How tough is it to scale? [00:26:09] Where can you buy websites?

5 Mar 202133min

2 Mar 202132min

Craig Campbell, long time SEO, gives us a deep and dark look into the running of an agency and how it can affect you. There are stresses and challenges there that are not for the faint of heart. Is running a digital agency worth it in the long run, especially if it harms your health? Frank candor is the coin of the realm and Erin and Craig share some common ground on this episode. [00:08:08] How Craig got into the consultancy space [00:12:22] Employees that leave and compete with you [00:14:41] When is enough, enough? [00:21:17] What do you recommend, pivot from entrepreneur agency ownership to individual consultancy [00:27:58] Know your stuff, or you'll get laughed off the park [00:30:12] Don't Drink and SEO - a PSA

26 Feb 202132min

[00:03:22] Site Ranking Smackdown: Wix vs WordPress All other things equal, does one website CMS (content management system) platform have an edge over the other when it comes to local search rankings? Google's John Mueller weighed in on the topic with ideas and tips. [00:16:47] Core Web Vitals Reporting is Changing for the Better Changes in the Google Search Console often cause panic among SEOs and site owners, but the changes being made to Core Web Vitals reporting for LCP, FID, and CLS look like they should make site owners happy. [00:25:59] What You Can Do with the Associations Feature in GSC There's a new feature coming to Google Search Console (GSC) called "associations" for linking your GSC account to other Google accounts, such as Google Analytics, YouTube, various Android apps, and so on.

23 Feb 202132min

Jason Barnard, the Brand SERP Guy, joins the EDGE to talk about Brand SERP Optimization. We cover a host of steps to improve Google's understanding of your brand. Learn about rich site links, twitter and video card and how topical, relevant content makes its way into the Brand SERPs. This is the modern business card and managing the data brings you more into focus for Google and your customers. You cannot just ignore it. [00:07:45] Why is the Brand SERP so important? [00:10:04] Google is like a child [00:14:46] Rich Site Links are underestimated [00:19:10] Your Contact page is important in the Brand SERP. [00:21:40] It's about what is relevant, TODAY. [00:25:13] Stay away from Wikipedia

19 Feb 202147min

[00:03:48] Desktop Users Will Now Have Messaging for Google My Business It was only a matter of time for desktop users to get GMB messaging, and it's now rolling out, so keep an eye out for messages appearing in your GMB desktop dashboard. [00:10:19] Free Top Product Results Gets Scroll-to-Text Feature on Google Click on a result that has scroll-to-text and Google takes you to the web page and the spot on the page with relevant text is highlighted. This will now be on free top product listings boxes. [00:19:40] US English Search Results Now Have Google Passage Ranking Passage ranking is now live. Google expects passage ranking to affect up to 7% of search queries when it's fully rolled out globally for all languages. Have your rankings changed?

16 Feb 202130min

Jason Barnard, the Brand SERP Guy, joins the EDGE to share the concept of the Brand SERP and how it affects our digital visibility. Learn about Jason's backstory, how he came to be the leading authority with 500 knowledge panel experiments going at this moment. Also find out how he has been in Erin's head for the last 17 years, without even knowing it. The digital business card is here and you need to learn how to bring it into "focus". Be sure to listen to the second segment of the show as well where we cover the real estate of the Brand SERP and optimization techniques. [00:09:58] How Jason Segued From A Billion Pages Per Month Site Into The SEO Industry. [00:14:58] What's The Current Real Estate On The Brand Serp? [00:21:08] Jason's Own Brand Serp Domination [00:22:35] Experimenting On Himself [00:27:23] Identifying The Trusted Data Sources.

10 Feb 202133min