Fastlane Founders and Legacy with Jason Barnard: Personal Branding, AI Strategies, and SEO Insights for Visionary CEOs

Jason Fishman with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Jason Fishman talks with Jason Barnard about crowdfunding (and more specifically how to market your crowdfunding push). Upon defining the two types of crowdfunding, reward-based and equity crowdfunding Jason informs on how to market to acquire investors online and using traditional media. Jason B initially suggests that 1000 investors @ $1000 each will probably be less of a headache than 1 investor @ $1M. However, Jason F goes on to explain the complexity of keeping 1000 investors informed and happy whilst maintaining a relationship with 1 investor may also be a struggle. In this episode of the podcast, Jason F explains the ins and outs, tips and tricks to getting traction behind your crowdfunding push. How to correctly utilise social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn) and search engines (Google) to attract returning customers and new investors. Whilst it takes a lot of effort, apparently, he promises it is worthwhile :) What you’ll learn 00:09 Introducing Jason Fishman01:33 Controlling your Wikipedia presence02:53 Entering the Knowledge Graph04:13 The two primary types of crowdfunding and who can partake05:53 The three primary filings: Investors, Owners/Users and Reg A+07:15 Reg A+ and equity crowdfunding case study: Brewdog09:14 Can you treat crowdfunding as a marketing push?10:50 1000 investors or just one? Which one is easier to work with?11:56 How you acquire investors13:59 Utilising social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn17:31 Return on ad spend/return on marketing spend metrics18:24 Who are the targeted audiences on Instagram?20:20 Is Twitter a useful tool for crowdfunding campaigns?21:29 When does Google play a role in attracting investors22:34 Which type of marketing pays the best?24:38 Reward-based crowdfunding needs a strong first day26:00 Will previous success make it easier? Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video September 2nd 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Chase Reiner with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Chase Reiner talks to Jason Barnard about his SEO strategy (without link building). There is so much said and written about PageRank and the importance of inbound links to any SEO strategy. What Chase talks about is whether link building is necessary for an effective for SEO. He then goes onto explains how he manages to build successful SEO strategies without doing any link building. Chase has amassed a following 37.4k subscribers on YouTube which leads to the discussion of how suggestion based algorithms on YouTube, Facebook and Google are becoming more important to the user experience. Creating content worth looking at and how to retain an audience once a brand grows is vital to any brands success. Kalicube Tuesdays: SEO Without Link Building. With Chase Reiner. What you’ll learn 00:20 Introducing Chase Reiner 01:48 Getting a place in Google's Knowledge Graph 03:41 SEO without link building – are links still important? 05:10 Suggestion based algorithms on YouTube, Facebook and Google 06:40 The significance of being an entity in the Knowledge Graph 10:15 White hat Vs. black hat techniques on user signals 12:00 What influenced Chase to find his platform for SEO? 21:40 Is Chase now satisfied with his position? 24:14 Owning your own Brand SERP 26:16 Building relationships with content and engaging the audience 28:30 How can you maintain engagement with larger audiences? 35:40 Creating content that truly engages your audience 36:50 Taking control of your content 37:43 Remaining consistent Special offer from SEMrush : 2 weeks free Guru account this way >> Special offer from Wordlift : 10% lifetime discount this way >> Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video August 26th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Jes Scholz with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Jes Scholz talks to Jason Barnard about Google Discover and other pushy features. In the space of just a few years Google has gone from a search engine, to an answer engine to an assistive engine, where it aims to predict what we want before we express the need. Whether or not this is a good thing is definitely up for debate / depends on personal opinion. However, as marketers we cannot afford to ignore this development. How do these push services work? How can we optimise for them (CAN we optimise for them)? What benefits can we draw from them? Kalicube Tuesdays: Google Discover and Other Push Features. With Jes Scholtz. What you’ll learn 00:16 Introducing Jes Scholz01:32 Experimenting with Brand SERPs02:24 Utilising WordLift and Semrush to become linked with the Knowledge Graph 03:15 What is Google Discover?05:15 How does Google Discover work? Clue: it's a push technology06:24 Google Discover uses the Knowledge Graph and the Topic Layer07:07 The clarification of what the Topic Layer is08:19 An example of how Google Discover markets to you09:14 The precision of Google Discover10:32 How many steps ahead are Google Discover11:43 Google invading your privacy 12:37 A dig into Google's graveyard13:26 Google Discover as a social media14:50 How do you post directly to your Brand SERP?16:30 Google People Card17:30 The challenge of getting into the Knowledge Graph19:30 How Google Discover relates to the Knowledge Graph22:34 Are there other push features beyond Discover?24:08 Every entity needs a home25:40 Why organisation is key for your content27:53 The importance of being in control of your database29:20 The flaw of defining your company as only the product you provide Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video August 18th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

David Amerland with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays David Amerland talks to Jason Barnard about consumer behaviour. We all know about consumer behaviour but how many of us have thought about attention management as an approach to influencing it? David and Jason dig down that rabbit hole… But how can we as marketers manage to do this? We need to look to manage consumers' attention throughout their path to purchase? Kalicube Tuesdays: Consumer Behaviour and Attention Management With David Amerland. What you’ll learn 00:41 Introducing David Amerland01:30 Kalicube Tuesday podcast success on Periscope02:15 How quickly following creating this podcast did it show on David’s Personal Brand SERP?02:54 Utilising WordLift in generating an entity03:50 Google's Knowledge Graph and the entity-based content model05:22 Using SEMrush to track personal Brand SERPs08:40 Why do we need to understand consumer behaviour?09:30 What is attention in consumer behaviour?11:00 Has consumers' attention spans shortened?13:48 How to grip someone’s attention and keep them focused?14:42 Is eye contact a trigger for a pseudo-connection?17:03 Building connections online18:30 Can you trust a brand by appearances only?19:35 Are we made to feel indebted into buying a product?21:40 The use of emotional marketing22:46 How can you best serve a consumer to retain their attention?24:29 Educating about a product before selling it – is it possible?26:00 What is the halo effect? Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video August 11th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Rand Fishkin talks to Jason Barnard about removing Wikipedia from the equation when managing the Knowledge Graph. Many marketers rely on using Wikipedia to get into Google's Knowledge Graph. This approach has multiple issues it is not appreciated by Wikipedia editorsit isn't helpful to Wikipedia usersit truly is an all-or-nothing tacticit fails if the article is never published, or is quickly deletedit is an unstable 'one trick pony' strategyit hands control of 'facts' about your brand (or personal brand) to Wikipedians ... and then it isn't the only way to get into the Knowledge Graph. There are many, many other routes you can take that are more stable, more reliable and where you have control. Mostly, we discuss removing Wikipedia from the equation in our Knowledge Graph strategies... but we talk around the topic - taking control of information about you online, Brand SERPs, the future of Brand in digital marketing, the power of the tech giants... and rather a lot more ! 53 stunningly interesting minutes and an incredibly insightful conversation. Kalicube Tuesdays: The Knowledge Graph: Removing Wikipedia from the Equation. With Rand Fishkin. What you’ll learn 00:30 Introducing Rand Fishkin01:30 Have the tech giants coloured the United States pandemic response with disinformation?02:40 Nationalism/Collectivism Vs. Individualism and how countries respond to COVID-1908:16 Does the field of digital marketing hold some blame for the spread of misinformation?09:36 Deleting an article on Wikipedia - the impact on Google's Knowledge Graph (example: Boowa & Kwala)10:30 A quick look at Rand Fishkin's Brand SERP13:33 Why Rand petitioned for the removal of a Wikipedia page (and why you might want to)16:39 Using WordLift to create an entity-based content model17:12 Why are certain episodes of this podcast in the Knowledge Graph and others not? 18:45 How a webpage got to become an entity in the Knowledge Graph and trigger a knowledge panel19:24 Google and their use of structured data21:44 Introducing the “Zebra Vs. Unicorn” business philosophy24:43 Who is Google's competitor?25:50 Why you cannot build a competitor to Google28:50 Are governments right to be afraid of big tech companies?29:39 When did Microsoft become the good guy?31:40 The importance of Bingbot's annotation layers32:55 How a company inherits traits from their CEO34:15 The difficulty in disconnecting with a former business36:50 What drove the creation of SparkToro?37:30 What does the “Zebra Vs. Unicorn” business philosophy entail?40:28 Why did Kalicube trend on SparkToro?41:40 What does ‘trending’ indicate?43:32 What does SparkToro offer?46:20 How does SparkToro work?50:10 Look beyond Facebook and Google for inbound marketing Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video August 5th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >> Special offers... 10% off the schema plugin for Wordpress. This is tool I have been using for the Entity Based Content Model I keep mentioning in the series. Absolutely stunning results in ranking, visibility, traffic and knowledge graph presence... and it is the easiest tool from adding Schema.org markup on the market to use (even without schema markup skills). Plus they have an awesome client support and really get into helping you get the most out of it. 100% recommended. If you have been thinking about getting great schema markup on your site, and now want to take the plunge, get 10% discount on Wordlift here >> (this offer includes a rather generous and confident 14 day, no questions asked money back guarantee) 2 weeks Guru account free. This way for 2 weeks free Guru with SEMrush - the best bang for your buck in the SEO tool space right now :)

Ted Rubin with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Ted Rubin talks to Jason Barnard about RoR (return on relationship). Ted is famous for his mottos, including 'Return on Relationship' and 'Be Good to People'. In this conversation, he puts these two together in the rough and tumble world of business, aiming to build an audience that truly engages and is truly relevant to your brand and products. He is also famous for straight talking, so this is a thoroughly interesting conversation that is a bit out of the ordinary. Kalicube Tuesdays: Gaining Return on Relationship Whilst Being Good to People. With Ted Rubin. What you’ll learn 00:50 Introducing Ted Rubin01:25 Entity based content models01:45 Linking through Google's Knowledge Graph02:50 Why does Google not connect someone to a Knowledge graph?03:15 Brand SERP connections04:05 What is Photofy?05:24 The importance of empowering and encouraging employees06:00 When content sharing is okay even when credit isn’t given07:22 How ‘Return on Relationship’ and ‘Be good to People’ are associated to one another08:10 The value of (RoR) Return on Relationship 09:40 Building a reputation10:30 (RoR) Return on Relationship contrasting (RoI) Return on Investment 11:30 What does family bring to you?14:05 Why do we need to take back the word ‘friend’?14:40 The difference between becoming friends and simply being introduced16:00 How many different categories of friendships are there?16:58 Google Circles and why it failed18:05 Google tries to understand relationships between entities over time18:30 Engagement pushes content onto your Brand SERP19:10 Why engagement helps build a strong relationship20:45 How social media allows you to see how people are engaging with each other21:40 Learning how to communicate knowledgeably23:20 Where do people choose to interact and engage?24:45 The significance of being able to bring entities together25:00 Networking vs. Community building27:50 ‘Be Good to People’ goes beyond simply being nice Helpful Resources About Gaining Return on Relationship Whilst Being Good to People Digital Marketing in 2022… Just Because You CanBusinesses No Longer Have the Luxury of Compartmentalizing Customer ExperienceVoyageRaleigh Magazine | Raleigh’s Most Inspiring Stories: Meet Ted Rubin Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video July 29th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Matthew Tenney with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Matthew Tenney talks to Jason Barnard about researching people. The discussion covers the best ways to use search engines such as Google, the pitfalls and the ways to avoid wasting time vetting the wrong individual. The single most important takeaway is that you'll do well to evaluate an expert through Google’s eyes. Matthew and Jason discuss in detail that, when researching, you should think more in terms of entities than authors, or people... and look at those entities from the perspective of how Google perceives their Expertise Authority and Trust (E-A-T). During the podcast Matthew goes on to point out the fundamental importance of using structured data and the sameAs property to indicate connections in a way that Google understands. They move onto using Google Trends as a way to evaluate a person's popularity... but also that it can be a limited since most people's names do not generate enough search volume for Google Trends to pick up on them. Then onto Google's Knowledge Graph – something Jason is especially keen to talk about - specifically how to influence it. To conclude, Matthew talks about the methods and tools he uses in his vetting procedure to find out as much as possible about an author or entity online. The perfect conclusion to a great conversation! Kalicube Tuesdays: Vetting Experts Through the Eyes of Google. With Matthew Tenney. What you'll learn 00:25 Introducing Matthew Tenney00:55 Why vetting on Google doesn't always work01:46 Creating a knowledge panel03:10 How to vet in the eyes of Google through an entity 04:25 Do you trust Google's results on a person?04:32 If you want a great Brand SERP that emphasises your E-A-T, you need Google to recognise you as an entity05:48 Looking at Google's Knowledge Graph06:05 Is Google moving away from Wikipedia/Wikidata to new trusted sources for information such as Crunchbase?07:36 Building an entity using structured data 09:42 Show to check author/entity authoritativeness through Google’s eyes10:10 Using Google trends to vet people12:45 Why Google trends does not always work for entities 14:34 Is it even worth vetting someone anywhere else besides Google?14:50 Why offline trust and authority signals also count15:47 Taking the offline and moving it online effectively16:54 Why using Kalicube.pro to measure the quality and control of your own Brand SERP is a good idea19:38 Influencing and educating Google to suit you (as an entity)20:30 How to leverage tools such as Google autocomplete and Google autosuggest 21:08 Why Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn and Bing are also important22:23 Bing’s Knowledge Graph22:40 Matthew's very own (rather good) vetting procedure Learn more about nailing your place in the Knowledge Graph (without a Wikipedia page) Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video July 21st 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Ryan Foland with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Ryan Foland talks to Jason Barnard about business and marketing. Truly effective marketing comes down to ensuring people can find your business when they need your products or services. Sounds simple? It is :) Ryan talks about his concept of the invisible like - a concept I love because it gives encouragement to all of us with our content creation. We then move on to inbound marketing to help people find your business, and specifically appreciating that your employees are one of the best inbound marketing tools you have at your disposal. I then pull in SEO - how all this could apply to Google and more specifically E-A-T. Ryan beautifully circles back from authority and trust to his 'invisible like'. And we end with the delightful approach that you should 'treat people as people' for your business to thrive. Brilliant;, and well worth listening to. What you will learn 00:50 - Introducing Ryan Foland03:40 - The definition of a personal brand (and how to get yours right)06:00 - You don't exist if people cannot find you08:00 - The invisible like - what it is and how to use it11:00 - Using inbound marketing to help people find your business11:50 - Why brands need to rely more on their employees' online reach14:55 - Why empowering your employees is a boon and not a risk16:00 - How the relationship between brands and their employees boosts E-A-T for SEO17:40 - Why all of this is the new link building18:50 - Do you get hired for your expertise or your experience?21:00 - Definitions of Expertise, Authority and Trust…21:30 - Why Authority is actually Validation (and how to leverage it)22:40 - Get ahead by sharing what didn't go right for you25:00 - How to motivate yourself in the face of content that doesn't appear to perform26:50 - Where and how to better invest in your employees Helpful Resources About Your Business Means Nothing if People Can’t Find You How Your Story Will Get You Hired (Even During a Pandemic)From Biotech To Media Disruptor: How Iman Oubou Used Her Story To Build A Women's Publishing Brand #1 Ranked Female Finance Influencer Winnie Sun Reveals Secret To Her Massive Success3 Actions To Help People Get To Know, Like, and Trust You Kalicube Tuesdays: Your Business Means Nothing if People Can’t Find You. With Ryan Foland. Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video July 15th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Patrick M Powers with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Patrick M Powers talks to Jason (M) Barnard about personal branding. In what turns out to be a wonderful conversation mostly about making the most of what you have. You don't need anything spectacularly special to stand out from the crowd. Small differences make all the difference when it comes to both personal and commercial relationships. Much of it is keeping people engaged, whether on or offline…. but most of all, embracing what makes you different and expressing it intellignetly. Amazing stuff. Makes 100% sense. I'm all on board. What you'll learn 02:00 Why a middle initial can be a great idea for online communication04:45 How to reactivate audience attention06:50 Using Quick Cut in video editing08:30 Why a three word title is perfect10:00 Using titles and subtitles to draw people in12:00 Stand out by being just a little bit different12:40 Why transactional questions are key14:00 Standing out in networking situations15:20 What is Quickfluence (and why that one word is so powerful)16:45 How you can use standard industry practices to help you stand out25:00 How to leverage the smallest tweaks to make the biggest difference Kalicube Tuesdays: Standing Out From the Crowd Without Doing Anything Exceptional. With Patrick M Powers. Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video July 7th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Neal Schaffer with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Neal Schaffer talks to Jason Barnard about influencer marketing. There’s a lot of buzz around influencer marketing right now. Even I hear it! Neal explains what is happening, with a particular focus on social media. Awesome ! We start with a conversation about drummers, then quickly get onto the topic we initially intended to talk about: influencer marketing. First thing an influencer should do is optimise their personal Brand SERP. They need to own that Google result. Next, social media marketing. Social media is all about being personal, relatable and emotional. Remember, social media was made for people and brands are trespassing - a brand that uses social as a way to advertise themselves. Which is a mistake. One very interesting fact about social media that stands out for me is that 90% of people on social are lurkers, 9% are commenters and 1% are content creators. In short there are billions of people just waiting to consume and interact with great content. So, to become an influencer on social all you need to do is create quality content that is truly relevant to your audience, push it out to them and then collaborate with them. Simple. What you will learn 3:20 that older content sticks to top spot on the SERPs 5:40 the sources the trigger knowledge panels for authors 7:40 why people outperform brands on social 8:30 how small brands can outperform the big players on social 10:20 why branded search is so very important 12:00 why we have been miseducated about influencer marketing 15:10 what are the 6 pillars of digital marketing 17:40 who are the influencers you should work with 24:50 how rare content creators are 26:30 that social media is all about collaboration Helpful Resources About The Golden Age of Influence and Where it is Heading The Age of InfluenceThe Age of Influence: What is Influencer Marketing and the Future of Influence?What is Influencer Marketing Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video June 30th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

David Avrin with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays David Avrin talks to Jason Barnard about customer retention. Personally, I have never found selling to be easy. It can often be a costly and slow process. But all that time and cost is wasted when you lose the client after that first purchase. Too many companies focus too much on on acquisition, and not enough on retention. Retaining clients is a challenge, but a challenge well worth taking on and doing properly. David promises to explain the problems, but also suggest solutions. How you can best approach the challenge of retaining your customers long term. Kalicube Tuesdays: It's easy Enough to Sell. Retaining Customers is the Hard Part. With David Avrin. What you’ll learn 00:20 Introducing David Avrin01:44 Experiment with WordLift leading entities into the Knowledge Graph02:30 Is selling easy today in the age of the internet?03:30 Can you hide on the internet?04:23 Are price and proximity the only determining factors for a successful sale?05:35 Why do customers leave?07:58 Having empathy for the customer09:30 Is the phrase ‘your reputation speaks for itself?’ lazy?11:06 How does a business communicate who they want to be?14:36 How do you stop customers leaving?16:18 Do FAQ questions get overlooked?18:02 How to make it about the customer and less about yourself?19:34 Shifting from being product centric to customer centric20:58 The importance of being accommodating to the customer?22:22 Is the customer experience getting worse?23:05 Why is a business’s Brand SERP so critical?24:40 Information becoming misinformation Helpful Resources: 5 Day 5 Star Review Challenge Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video June 24th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Bengü Atamer with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Bengü Atamer talks to Jason Barnard about YouTube. I talked with Aleyda Solis about optimising videos for YouTube. That was awesome. But here we're looking at additional, less obvious optimisations you can apply to your YouTube Channel (including monetisation). YouTube is the second largest search engine network ranked just below Google.com and yet a lot of us don’t know just how beneficial it can be for our business. Take a dive into the endless opportunities available on the YouTube platform and how you can implement winning strategies to optimise your video content, gain more exposure and build your audience. Kalicube Tuesdays: The Untapped Benefits of YouTube Most of us Miss. With Bëngu Atamer. What you will learn 00:54 Missed opportunities on YouTube02:40 Leveraging YouTube04:00 What to do before uploading content 05:40 How to join a community on YouTube10:35 How the algorithm works16:00 YouTube Strategies 16:50 How to monetise your content 21:00 Importance of your title24:00 Live Streaming 25:00 How to pin your video Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video June 16th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Dr Ai Addyson-Zhang with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays Dr Ai Addyson-Zhang talks to Jason Barnard about live streaming. Live streaming is becoming more and more popular. But few people are using the format effectively. Dr Ai Zhang is one of the pioneers of the format, and one of the foremost experts of leveraging business value from live streaming. In this episode she talks about platforms for live streaming – LinkedIn, YouTube, Periscope, Twitter, Facebook… and how to leverage them for pre and post promotion. She gives a seemingly never-ending series of astonishing insights – most of which I will be using on this podcast from now onwards. She mentions boatloads of software solutions to help - Buffalo, Otter, Octopus, Media Studio (a billion dollar secret), Descript... Incredibly interesting is that your audiences are very platform-focussed - most people will stick to one preferred platform - LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter etc Amazing discussion. Well worth watching. Kalicube Tuesdays: Strategic Live Streaming for Business Development. With Dr Ai Addyon-Zhang. Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video June 9th 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

James Mulvany with Jason Barnard at Kalicube Tuesdays James Mulvany talks to Jason Barnard about podcasting. Wonderful conversation with James - loads of helpful advice about promoting podcasts (most of which I now need to take), plus some short and enjoyable meanders into some delightful anecdotes He's done more podcasting than I have had hot dinners (or something like that). So I will be asking the questions that will get him to help me understand how to better build my podcast audience. And I suspect that will spill over into building an audience around a brand with any type of online content. What you’ll learn 00:08 Introducing James Mulvany01:00 The benefit of live streams and podcasts02:24 Announcing the experiment with WordLift to build a Knowledge Graph04:20 What can you do to bring listeners to your podcast?06:10 How are you measuring your KPI (key performance indicator)?06:30 The use of call to action08:10 What does Brand SERP mean?10:10 What does the knowledge panel indicate?10:38 Introducing Radio.co, Podcast.co, Matchmaker.fm12:50 The 30 podcasts within 30 days16:08 Is it worth publishing a podcast on YouTube?16:53 Are short form clips on social media such as LinkedIn and Instagram worth it?18:16 What tools do you use to connect and find followers?20:30 Who are your audience?21:40 The importance of consistency and podcasts23:10 How to gain traction on Google, Apple and Stitcher etc? Subscribe to the podcast Subscribe here >> This episode was recorded live on video June 2nd 2020 Recorded live at Kalicube Tuesdays (Digital Marketing Livestream Event Series). Watch the video now >>

Mary Davies with Jason Barnard at SMX West Mary Davies talks to Jason Barnard about user experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS3gOC-Q2kI UX is all around us and it's part of everything we do from walking up the stairs to opening a car door.Figure out what makes your life hard and don't reproduce them for your clients. Mary has a notebook and writes down everything that gets in the way of a good User Experience for here, wherever she is and whatever she's doing. We quickly go semi-off-topic and start talking about emails… and not using the dot dot dot. Oops ! Then back on topic, and we decide that everything a Brand does is a part of their user's experience with them. I think it's kind of like reputation management but more positive. Don't tell your clients what you can give them. They want to know if you have what they are looking for. That's most of my marketing I need to look at again, then. Less in more. Keep it simple. Every piece of content should provide a solution. And wrap that solution in great UX. Brilliantly succinct, simple and helpful. Perfect UX, by Mary Davies. The simplest thing you can do is to look at everything the way that you experience it yourself on an average day.Mary Davies

Dejan Mladenovski with Jason Barnard at DMA Melbourne Dejan Mladenovski talks to Jason Barnard about affiliate marketing.... with a white hat on. Lovely conversation that gets me (back) on board with affiliate marketing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xU3rZUJD_w For his current project Dejan never even thought about using a PBN network, nor bought a link... he got hit by Penguin back in the day and he knows how much that hurts. He's found a great niche - he creates an independent overview of the construction permit situation in Sydney. He creates quality, content that is truly helpful to his audience, ranks #1, attracts 25,000 visits a month and gets revenue from affiliate sales of products and services that are useful. And apparently he has only 10% of the market in a niche market in just one city in Australia... the opportunity just in Sydney is enormous. Thinks about that across Australia, then the world... makes my eyes water :) Quite surprisingly, we end talking about relationships, communities, and offline when doing online marketing (affiliate or not). if you want to rank #1 on Google ask yourself "would someone recommend you".... because that is essentially what Google is doing - recommending you to it's clients. Brilliant.

Aleyda Solis with Jason Barnard at SMX West Aleyda Solis talks to Jason Barnard about optimising video for YouTube. There are three pillars: Relevance, Engagement and Retention. All based on understanding your audience, and creating videos that bring them value and that they want to consume. Sounds so simple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSZxcIxmSC0 Aleyda learned loads from producing her practical / how-to series : Crawling Mondays. The series has been very successful with her very niche audience (international SEO), which very much proves her point. Success on Youtube is all about playing the YouTube algorithm as a social algorithm. All about relevance, engagement and retention. The entire system works on the algo recommending according to direct user behaviour (shares, likes, watches, comments and channel retention…). Building communities around your brand on all sorts of channels then push the video out to them to get that user engagement right at the start… that boosts it up and gets it more recommendations to relevant people by the algorithm, and that creates a virtuous circle. Lastly, you should publish the video on your site. You lose nothing and gain visibility for your site outside the YouTube. Use Wistia to do that because it includes structured data that will give your thumbnails in Google SERPs… and Google can show both the YouTube and Wistia versions in their carousels. Along the way, Aleyda mentions boatloads of SEO tools and their functionalities.

Mordy Oberstein with Jason Barnard at SMX West Mordy Oberstain talks with Jason Barnard on when marketing and SEO collide. Mordy starts off by getting on my good side by telling me I have the best pipes in SEO… what a charmer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THvPtnGCvPY Mordy talks about why Google updates should matter to all marketers - that Google is getting closer and closer to reflecting your market, so playing the SEO game is just playing the marketing game through Google. His advice: do what you do, address your audience and Google will figure it out. Google is trying to think like a person - looking at tone and format, so it is all coming together. Understanding tone backhandedly is an interesting concept… and a lovely put down of the trick of using 5 tips to… 10 ways to… which are pretty annoying and not good for authority. Brilliant ! If you want to know how Mordy gets this sentence into a conversation (and it sounds logical) "are you sick or do you want to buy car insurance?" you'll have to listen to the whole episode. You don't need to try to explicitly please the machine any more because the machine is like a person. We end with some philosophy around football, medical, Terminator and how we are all equally related to Kevin Bacon. Helpful Resources About When Marketing and SEO Collide How & Why Usability Will Be the Future of SEOThe Problem With The ‘Structured Content’ MindsetTaking Your SEO Content Beyond The Acquisition

Nathan Chalmers with Jason Barnard at The Bing Series Nathan Chalmers talks to Jason Barnard about the whole page algorithm. Nathan had done his homework by listening to previous episodes…. And he loves the song :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5kJFlMIHVU A year ago I didn't know about the bidding system in Google and Bing ranking… and 6 months ago I didn't know there was a whole page team. Now I get to learn how the latter affects the former. First up, I had called the bidding system "Darwinism in Search". Turns out Darwin is the name of their algorithm that allocates the positions on the SERP to different rich elements. He tells me my initial analysis was good, but I made it all sound more mechanical than it truly is. Next reveal - there are 6 teams that work together to build the whole page, each with their own Darwinistic system, with the aim of creating the best user experience. The blue links are the base and they are NOT dying out, even if I thought they were. Then onto Brand SERPs - and although I had seen that they are nuanced, but I had underestimated just HOW nuanced. User behaviour on the SERP is key to the anatomy of that page of results. Whatever the SERP - Bing's aim is to get the user to success as fast as possible. Brilliant from Nathan - I would say that as he ends by saying "this whole Darwinism in Search thing is really cool". Catch the rest of the Bing Series: How Ranking Works at Bing – Frédéric Dubut, Senior Program Manager Lead, Bing Discovering, Crawling, Extracting and Indexing at Bing – Fabrice Canel Principal Program Manager, Bing How the Q&A / Featured Snippet Algorithm Works – Ali Alvi, Principal Lead Program Manager AI Products, Bing How the Image and Video Algorithm Works – Meenaz Merchant, Principal Program Manager Lead, AI and Research, Bing How the Whole Page Algorithm Works – Nathan Chalmers, Program Manager, Search Relevance Team, Bing The full transcript from How the Whole Page Algorithm Works at Bing (Nathan Chalmers with Jason Barnard) Jason: A quick hello to start the show. Welcome to the show, Nathan Chalmers. Nathan: Awesome. I've been listening to your podcast for a couple of episodes and I love this song. Jason: You've been doing your homework. Lovely to meet you — we've just met literally not even a minute ago. Nathan: Not even. Jason: And you're the whole page guy. Nathan: I am the whole page guy. One of the whole page guys — there are literally dozens of us. Jason: Brilliant. Nathan: Just on PM Jason: what's PM? Nathan: Product management. Jason: A year ago I didn't know the concept of different teams working on different rich elements, pushing them into the SERP with the bidding system. Google explained it to me, Frederic (Dubut) re-explained it to me, and he mentioned the whole page team. I said "ooooh", because I was thinking Darwinism in Search... that it's not really Darwinism, is it? Nathan: Ironically enough, the name of the algorithm that does the placement of some of our rich elements is actually called Darwin. Jason: Oh yes — so I was right after all! Nathan: I read through your article on Darwin in Search and there's a lot there, but it's a little different. Jason: My article is fairly accurate, but not 100% — I threw a few things in that I think were a bit off. Nathan: I would say it's not as mechanical as the way you outlined it. At the end of the day, how does this whole page stuff work? Jason: Well, that was the big question. The idea of different rich elements bidding for a place just makes so much sense — each one has an adaptation of the algorithm run by machine learning, going back and forth. But the whole page team sits on top of all that and says, okay, you've made this great bid, videos, but you're not in. Nathan: Exactly. You have to remember, there are six teams that represent the whole page, not just one. So it's way more complicated. As Frederic was saying, the algo results are really the core of it — the blue links. Then you have the rich answer cards in the middle, those are a component too. But then there's the right rail with our entity pane, there's ads, rich captions — sometimes you see the little pictures on the algorithmic links, or the tables — there's a whole team behind each of those. These are all whole page teams working together to build the whole page. Jason: So I had the idea there was one whole page team, but in fact it's six smaller teams, each with their own Darwinistic system. Nathan: Exactly they each have their own Darwinistic system. And basically what we're all working towards is optimising for user satisfaction. Jason: Yeah, Nagu was telling me about that — and that's what strikes me. You're looking to serve your clients the best way you can, which is what we're all doing. Nathan: Exactly, exactly. Jason: People forget that. Sorry, go ahead. Nathan: Yeah,

Meenaz Merchant with Jason Barnard at The Bing Series Meenaz Merchant talks to Jason Barnard about the video and image algorithms. Meenaz is team lead for multimedia - and that includes image search, video search and camera search. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyPc-NqN9uY The single most important factor for multimedia is relevance - ie fit for purpose / answers the intent. But also authority and trust (that are built over time - proving oneself) and engagement. To understand images, they use alt tags, surrounding content, but also analysis of the image using machine learning. They process every single image and recognise objects in the images. In terms of image analysis / object recognition, they started with faces of celebrities, and developed their machine learning from there. For video, quality is vital… but also engagement. And the platform. And the player. Then also the sources that dominate depend on the type of query - news would tend to pull the BBC, CNN et al, entertainment would be mor YouTube, industry specific how-to's more industry sites… So there is not a 'one rule fits all'. As usual ;) Catch the rest of the Bing Series: How Ranking Works at Bing - Frédéric Dubut, Senior Program Manager Lead, BingDiscovering, Crawling, Extracting and Indexing at Bing - Fabrice Canel Principal Program Manager, BingHow the Q&A / Featured Snippet Algorithm Works - Ali Alvi, Principal Lead Program Manager AI Products, BingHow the Image and Video Algorithm Works - Meenaz Merchant, Principal Program Manager Lead, AI and Research, BingHow the Whole Page Algorithm Works - Nathan Chalmers, Program Manager, Search Relevance Team, Bing Full Corrected Transcript for How the Image and Video Algorithm Works at Bing (Meenaz Merchant with Jason Barnard) Jason Barnard: Welcome to the show, Meenaz. Meenaz Merchant: Lovely to meet you, Jason. Jason Barnard: I spent so long trying to remember "Meenaz" — it's a completely unique name. I take it nobody else in the world has it? Meenaz Merchant: Well, I'd say I'm the only male Meenaz in the world. Jason Barnard: Brilliant. I was concentrating so hard on "Meenaz" that I forgot "Merchant," so I had to write it on the board over there to cheat. Meenaz Merchant: That's very kind of you. Jason Barnard: We're at the Bing offices looking out over Seattle, which is absolutely beautiful. Meenaz Merchant: Yes, it's a glorious day today. This is the view you have every day here. I think it inspires us — the Evergreen State of Washington. Jason Barnard: Stunning. But we're not here to talk about Seattle. We're here to talk about video, images, and multimedia. What exactly is your remit? Meenaz Merchant: We handle image search, video search, and also camera search, which is a new area. With image search, you type a text query and get a set of image results back. With video search, you type a text query and get videos back. And the new area is visual search: you take a picture of something and search using that image. Jason Barnard: I heard Microsoft is really good at that — identifying specific areas and objects within an image? Meenaz Merchant: Yes, that's another area we've been working on as well. Jason Barnard: So you handle image search, video search, and camera search. I'm particularly interested in how these results get into the main SERPs. I've been looking at Brand SERPs and trying to figure out why Bing sometimes shows images, sometimes videos. With my own brand SERP, I've noticed I tend to get one or the other, rarely both. Meenaz Merchant: That's not entirely right. The way it works is: we look at what the intent of the query is. If someone types "flower images," the image intent is very clear — they want flowers and they want images, so we'll show a big image block on the SERP. In that case, it's quite likely that "flowers" doesn't carry video intent, so we won't show video results. But for around ten percent of queries there's an overlap, where both image and video intent are present. Jason Barnard: And in those cases, you'd show both? Meenaz Merchant: Yes, it's quite possible. One might appear at the bottom of the page, or even at the top of page two, but one will always have higher intent and higher engagement over time and will naturally rank higher. Jason Barnard: Let's start with images. With image boxes on the SERP, it appears that source diversity is very important? Meenaz Merchant: We don't show image boxes if all the results come from just one site. We monitor diversity, and diversity is important. But the most important thing is relevance. If someone is looking for images and only one web page had six really good images of that thing, we'd select all six from that same page, because relevance trumps everything. Jason Barnard: And relevance, in this context, means matching what the

Ali Alvi with Jason Barnard at The Bing Series Ali Alvi talks to Jason Barnard about the search algorithm for featured snippets. First thing we learn is that this feels a lot like a soccer interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0UhsQb5iAU Then Ali confirms what Gary Illyes said in 2019 - the different candidate sets use the core algo in a modular fashion. Ali is team lead for the Q&A candidate (Q&A is Bing's name for featured snippet) But also that all of the algos are end-to-end neural networks. We know what goes in, we see what comes out… but nobody knows what goes on in between :) And a nice clarification - Q&A are pulled from the blue links below it. Other rich elements such as video and images don't rely on the pages the 10 blue links provide - they have a separate selection process. Now that is interesting. Even more interesting - Ali answers the intriguing question "where do the descriptions for the blue link / core results come from?" (spoiler alert - it isn't from the core algo!) We talk a great deal about trust - Bing must trust the website providing the answer. So building trust over time has to be key. And then onto the main factors / features that affect ranking for Q&A are: accuracy, trust, authoritativeness, freshness… and not being offensive (aka safeguarding Microsoft's reputation). We also discuss Google's decision to remove the result from the main results when content is used as a featured snippet (Ali doesn't agree with Google here). And finally, dependence on annotations by the crawling and indexing team, as discussed with Fabrice Canel in the previous episode. It all fits together so nicely ! Catch the rest of the Bing Series: How Ranking Works at Bing - Frédéric Dubut, Senior Program Manager Lead, BingDiscovering, Crawling, Extracting and Indexing at Bing - Fabrice Canel Principal Program Manager, BingHow the Q&A / Featured Snippet Algorithm Works - (this episode) Ali Alvi, Principal Lead Program Manager AI Products, BingHow the Image and Video Algorithm Works - Meenaz Merchant, Principal Program Manager Lead, AI and Research, BingHow the Whole Page Algorithm Works - Nathan Chalmers, Program Manager, Search Relevance Team, Bing Full Corrected Transcript for How the Q&A / Featured Snippet Algorithm Works (Ali Alvi with Jason Barnard) Jason Barnard: The camera is kind of far away. They usually have cameras right in people's faces. Anyway, welcome to the show, Ali Alvi. Ali Alvi: Thank you. Great to be here. Jason Barnard: That's the best name I've heard all day. I love your name. Ali Alvi: Thank you. Ali Alvi, rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Jason Barnard: Yes, brilliant. Ali Alvi: Like the boxer. People debate whether it's "Ali" or "Ali." I say it like the boxer. Jason Barnard: All right. So here we are, looking out over Seattle from the Bing offices. You're the team lead for Q&A? Ali Alvi: Yes, I'm the lead PM for the team that handles Q&A in Bing, including the captions and the snippets you see under the URLs in the search results. Jason Barnard: The blue link descriptions. Better descriptions that get pulled dynamically. That's part of Q&A, so they can be generated as well? Ali Alvi: Yes. The algorithms we use to generate the snippets are essentially the same algorithms we use for Q&A. Google calls it "featured snippets" because a snippet is just a feature. We use a slightly different framing at Bing: we're saying this is an answer to a question, which is more explicit. And when you look at the architecture, we're not just taking a snippet and featuring it. We actually do a lot more than that in many cases. So broadly, it falls into this category: when a user comes and asks a question, or a query that looks like a question we can answer directly, that's the domain my team handles. In addition to that, I'm also the lead PM for a high-ambition AI initiative called Project Turing. Jason Barnard: Project Turing. That's a Microsoft initiative, particularly within Bing? Ali Alvi: There's a team of scientists and applied researchers working on high-ambition natural language processing algorithms. We're kind of the hub for those algorithms across all of Microsoft. That same team provides some of the models we use in Q&A. Think of it as a horizontal team that provides the brains for a lot of these scenarios, and Q&A is one of them. Jason Barnard: So you're the brains behind Bing? Ali Alvi: I wouldn't go that far. I represent the brilliant minds who are the minds behind Bing. Jason Barnard: So for Q&A, my journey to this conversation started when I asked Gary Illyes from Google whether there's a separate algorithm for featured snippets. He said, very dryly, "No," and then explained how it works. The idea is that you've got the basic algorithm for the blue links,

Fabrice Canel with Jason Barnard at The Bing Series Fabrice canel talks to Jason Barnard about Bingbot. Fabrice was on the podcast last year talking about Javascript and the new indexing API. That was very interesting and he shared quite a few insights... If you would rather read than watch or listen, here is an article I wrote based on this conversation >> This Episode Takes the Conversation a BIG step Further https://youtu.be/dSSZeTYOtMk This conversation is on a whole different planet. Fabrice is head of the entire discovery-crawling-extracting-indexing process. Think about how much that involves. And how important he and his team are to the process of getting your content to the top of the results. You cannot hope to get your content into search results if it isn't found, crawled, extracted and indexed... and since he manages every single one of those steps, he is a person we really need to listen to. Bingbot and Googlebot Function in Much the Same Way Obviously they don't function exactly the same way down to the tiniest detail. But close enough ... the process is exactly the same (discover, crawl, extract, index) the content they are indexing is exactly the same the problems they face are exactly the same the underlying technology they use is the same So the details of exactly how they achieve each step will differ. But they are faced with the same environment and aim to do the same thing - index the web effectively. So, we can safely assume Google deals with the discovery-crawling-extracting-indexing process in a manner very, very close to Bing. Just think about whatever industry you are in - details differ, but every competitor uses the same foundation. Easy to forget, but this is just another industry. So same here. Google functions much the same way as Bing. And vice versa. Close enough for us not to need to worry too much about the differences. Stunning Insights. I Learned sooooo Much. The conversation with Frédéric Dubut that kicked off this series (this episode recorded at UnGagged) suddenly looks tame and unrevealing. A simple 'mise en bouche', as we say in French. Listen and Learn Google collaborate with Bing on Chromium They discover 70 billion new webpages every day Bingbot pre-filters to stores only the 'best' content New technology is coming out for rendering (Machine Learning + Javascript) Standardised HTML is powerful Bing (and we can safely assume Google) is getting exponentially better at extracting information The process of storing the content is MUCH more important than you probably imagine Every candidate set team at Bing relies on Bingbot Nofollow has always been just a hint Sitemaps and RSS are incredibly important Indexing includes annotation, and annotations are fundamentally important to all the other teams and their algos Indexing includes classification, and classification is fundamentally important to all the other teams and their algos In short, as SEOs, we all depend on Fabrice and his team to an extent most of of us have probably will only start to grasp after watching the episode. This is the foundation of ranking in search. Everything else depends on this. Fabrice is a truly lovely guy who wants to help you as a website manager... if only you'd help him help you. Here he tells you what he (and, presumably, his equivalent at Google) wants from you so that he can help you get your content to rank. Help them overcome their problems, and you WILL be rewarded. Groovy ! Catch the rest of the Bing Series: How Ranking Works at Bing - Frédéric Dubut, Senior Program Manager Lead, Bing Discovering, Crawling, Extracting and Indexing at Bing - Fabrice Canel Principal Program Manager, Bing How the Q&A / Featured Snippet Algorithm Works - (this episode) Ali Alvi, Principal Lead Program Manager AI Products, Bing How the Image and Video Algorithm Works - Meenaz Merchant, Principal Program Manager Lead, AI and Research, Bing How the Whole Page Algorithm Works - Nathan Chalmers, Program Manager, Search Relevance Team, Bing Full transcript of "Bingbot: Discovering, Crawling, Extracting and Indexing (Fabrice Canel with Jason Barnard)" Jason Barnard: A quick hello, an we're good to go. Welcome to the show, Fabrice Canel! Welcome, lovely — you know, we're in the Bing offices. Yes, again, I had you on the show last year, it was just audio, now we've got video so everyone can see what Fabrice looks like. Fabrice, incredibly important person at Bing who crawls, extracts, and stores. Fabrice Canel: Yes, I do all of it. Every day I am in charge of discovering internet content — all the internet content. I am in charge of selecting the best content on the internet, as you said. I am fetching and crawling the best content from the internet, then processing it and understanding it. Jason Barnard: So one question is: when you crawl, you're actually looking for what's best, so there's a pre-filter even before the ran

Rich Goldstein, Principal Patent Attorney at Goldstein Patent Law explains patents and trademarks in simple terms so you can protect your business.

Purna Virji, the Senior Manager of Global Engagement at Microsoft spills her top secrets for researching competitors using search.

Digital Marketing Excellence Practitioner, Eric Enge shares the latest tips and trends to help you drive great SEO gains through high quality content.

Jason Barnard interviews SEO copywriting specialist, Kate Toon where she shared some ace tips to help you develop your personal brand

Jason Barnard interviews Event Photographer & Video Producer, Joyce Ong as she shares great tips to help you produce a bulletproof video shoot

Daniel Hunjas explains his analogy between traffic lights and the sales process. When selling, we often have a tendency to speed up at a yellow light, and that is the wrong thing to do - a yellow light is an objection, so you should slow down and take the time to explain to the potential customer… Daniel advises taking people to their pain points right from the start, which reduces churn and avoids wasting everyone's time. Some lovely quotes "solutions hold no value, they only derive value from the problems they solve", "tension is the chemistry of sales"…. this is the day I switched from being an SEO to being a marketer. Thanks Daniel. Daniel on LinkedIn

Jason Mun with Jason Barnard at Chiang Mai SEO Standing by the pool in a posh hotel in Chiang Mai, I start by mis-singing his name very terribly. I then insult him very rudely. And despite that, Jason remains really delightful. Building an ecommerce site from scratch is easy. Getting the foundations right is the only way to make it work long term. And that is very very difficult. It isn't just me who thinks that Prestashop is particularly tough… Shopify is the platform Jason recommends. No doubt in his mind. Then onto reviews, how they help convert - pre and post purchase reassurance - but also with features, functionality and attributes. He likes Trustpilot quite a lot. And at the end, I sing to myself. Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) on Linkedin and Twitter Poolside in Chiang Mai

People think "what do I have to do" rather than "what do I want to do"… outsourcing allows you to get to the place where you can choose what you want to do, and not be stuck in the rut of "need to do". BUT, that can lead to a midlife crisis, even at 25 years old. It's easy to outsource, but apparently, attaching your name to a project tends to make the process much more difficult, especially if you are perfectionist like Lee Louis Gung. We didn't get to the practical stuff - how do you outsource successfully… so we recorded a follow up episode that is a must-listen if you listened all the way to the end of this one :).

Nobody seems to know where that magic figure of 7 touchpoints come from… Daniel Hunjas suggests it used to be 5.4 just to dialogue with a brand. With the advent of the internet, and the explosion of information that number is quickly approaching 20. As brand we are getting drowned out by the noise. Intelligent use of remarketing is now absolutely vital so you are front of mind at time of purchase. Aiming at bottom of funnel is like asking someone to marry you on the first date. Daniel gets a whole football team of touch points... and the Brand SERP is the striker who scores the goal. Luckily for me. We also discuss the rebranding for the podcast, but didn't figure out the new name :( Daniel on LinkedIn

Ahmed Khalifa with Jason Barnard at BrightonSEO September 2019 Ahmed Khalifa talks with Jason Barnard about why you would use captions and subtitles for your video. Firstly, accessibility. All sorts of people benefit from captioned / subtitled videos, not just deaf people says Ahmed Khalifa: non-native speakers, people watching with the sound off, when the speakers’ accents aren’t clear (think Glaswegian :) … and some people just like to read along. Automatic captions need to be corrected. Machines simply cannot get everything right (especially the scene directions and ambiance descriptions). Apparently, professionals can write captions almost in real time, including descriptions about background noise. I personally hadn’t thought about how important that can be for context. It’s not just what we say, but the context in which we say it. Ahmed is deaf, and relies on captions. But all sorts of people benefit from captioned videos… Of course, we get onto Glaswegian accents. Heads up Craig Campbell. Auto captioning is far from perfect. It needs to be corrected. Then we get onto pushing that to transcripts and adapted transcripts. Apparently, professionals can write captions almost in real time, including descriptions about background noise. Guess who hadn’t thought about how important that can be for context. It’s not just what we say, but the context in which we say it. I speak too much without engaging my brain. Ahmed saves the day and makes me sound intelligent. Phew ! Jason Barnard I’m going to reread your name to make sure I get it right. #SEOisAEO, welcome to the show. Ahmed Khalifa. Ahmed Khalifa Actually, yeah, that's quite like intro. People should do that more often. Jason Barnard Yeah, but the shame was I actually had to read it. Ahmed Khalifa I don't blame you for that. Jason Barnard Thank you. Lovely to meet you. I believe you started your career in Brighton. Ahmed Khalifa Kind of. I did have an agency experience in Worthing. So I lived there for like a year and I did agency work. I did a few things building up to it, then from then on, I just kept up the momentum. Jason Barnard And you worked for a company called Fresh Egg? My first thought when I saw fresh egg was rotten egg. Ahmed Khalifa My first thought was some kind of farm or something And that was about seven or eight years ago now. So it's been a while. Jason Barnard Okay. Right. Brilliant stuff. Video Captions Jason Barnard You were talking about that earlier on, and shamefully I didn't see your talk… but you gave me a quick idea of what it was all about. Captions on videos and how rubbish they can be when they're auto generated on YouTube and people leave them idiotically. Ahmed Khalifa Pretty much. And they don't give it a second thought. Jason Barnard Yeah. And, and you were telling me why that's particularly interesting for you? Ahmed Khalifa Well, I mean, if I'm going to go from my personal experience, I depend on captions because I'm deaf and I depend on captions just to access videos. But then even if it's not for me, it can be for all for people for whom English is not their first language. They're learning the language. Or it could be some kind of learning disability and they need captions to keep up. It could be attention deficit disorder. It could be even be, for all of us, because you may be an urban transport or maybe you're in a library or whatever, and you just want to watch the video in silence. Jason Barnard Or it could be that the person speaking has a really, really thick Glaswegian accent like Craig Campbell. Ahmed Khalifa That is one thing that I mentioned in the talk. I had the example of Kevin Bridges, the comedian. He’s from Glasgow, and the auto captions struggled. to get it right - and it was interesting what they come up with. So, of course, a strong Glaswegian accent can affect things (smiles). Jason Barnard That leads us really neatly onto the idea that if you make a video, do the transcript. Stick it on your site, then you get both the text - remember, people people prefer reading to watching videos. People talking about this more and more in this industry. Is that a great strategy moving forward? Transcripts and Video Jason Barnard Put a transcript on your site, then you get both the text - remember, people people prefer reading to watching videos. People talking about this more and more in this industry. Is that a great strategy moving forward? Ahmed Khalifa It is. I mean, it's a way for you to target both YouTube search and web search. They're two separate things. If you have captions and you've done it correctly, you've done all the editing and it is clean and accurate and correct, then great - YouTube will be able to understand better what the video is about. Then you can use the captions and turn them into a transcript and that can be your blog post where you can embed the same video. So then you target the web search as wel

Gennaro Cuofano with Jason Barnard at ColosSEO Gennaro Cuofano talks to Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about Microsoft's business model. Gennaro looks at financials. He likes numbers. Microsoft has survived almost 50 years and ridden all the innovation waves (unlike many other large corporations). Microsoft are making $110 billion – almost as much as Google. But with a more varied and balanced business model – Office, Windows, Cloud, Gaming, Search and digital platforms. They have a lot of work to do to retain their existing clients, especially in Office. Their key worry with Office and Windows is how to stop their client-base shrinking. Investments such as LinkedIn are part of a strategy to expand their customer base. In both cases, they are dealing with very different demographics. And looking to the future… LinkedIn is making almost as much money as Bing advertising, but it still hasn’t paid for itself… but is key to their future because it hooks into so many other of their products. Contact Gennaro Cuofano

Paul Bongers with Jason Barnard at BrightonSEO September 2019 Paul Bongers talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about the wonderful world of SaaS startups. Paul talks about the rarity of tech startups that actually survive… and the even more rare case of one that succeeds. Part of that is educating the audience for a new innovative product they didn’t know they needed. In this space, the new product is often the solution a company created to a problem they had… and then open it up to the wider world. Once out to market, the product often needs to adapt. You start with your core market. But then once investors come in, many startups expand the functionality of the product to try to reach a wider client base in order to please the investors. Not always a good idea. Knowing how to pivot is vital. Paul Bongers talks Jason Barnard through how SEPO tools have pivoted. And points out the irony that we are amazed that people are talking to their phones, given that Alexander Graham Bell invented it for exactly that purpose. Helpful Resources About The Wonderful World of SaaS Startups Getting a Seat at the Table: How SEOs can Appeal to the C-LevelSales Code Leadership Podcast by Kevin Thiele

Jim Boykin with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles Jim Boykin talks to Jason Barnard about private blog networks. Jim explains how he identifies the patterns that link buying and PBNs create. Anyone who is selling links is creating a network that can be mapped (because they are using a Rolodex, apparently). There is no safe way to buy links, says Jim. And don’t expect natural links into your product page. They will be to your content pages, so use the internal linking to benefit your product pages. When you create that linkworthy content, then spend time promoting it using the 80/20 rule. Jim is happy to stand by the idea that links are still the biggest thing, and will be for a long time to come. Jim is a content creator who happens to get links rather than a linkbuilder who happens to create content. Helpful Resources About Identifying Link Buying and PBNs Does DA Matter When Disavowing Links?Google Penalties Backlog and Mapping Your Backlinks to Known Link Sellers

Bruce Clay, the father of SEO – he’s been in the industry for almost a quarter of a century. He started with Infoseek. Then I say Google and my phone joins in the conversation. He then goes into the details of the 19 major search engines of the early years. And the tiny numbers we were using at the time. And how simple it was to rank, and yet complicated at the same time. Then the power of human intuition. And the glory of Macromedia Flash (that’s me, not Bruce). Rumour has it that only 10% of companies have even done any active SEO. Bruce suggests that there is an 80/20 half life of evolving SEO strategies. Lastly onto E-A-T – expertise is your onpage content, authority is that peers agree with you and trust is a reflection of the sentiment / praise of your users. Ends with a delightful Einstein SEO quote.

Simon Heseltine with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Simon Heseltine talks with Jason Barnard about SEO for Publishing with AOL. AOL were very very big and were going to dominate the world. Did the CD work? Yes it did. At one point, for 2 weeks, no other CDs were produced in the world. Simon Heseltine was doing SEO for TechCrunch, but the journalists didn’t want to listen. So he took them out to lunch and charmed them into submission. Problem solved! Both Simon and AOL were precursors. They had a two-pronged approach – copywriting and tech. Then onto examples of extreme preciceness, then the vagueness in queries and results… and how queries change with story evolution (and articles must change too). Play on people’s vanity to get them to do what you want. Sounds very creepy, but is less so than it sounds.

Pamela Lund with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Pamela Lund talks with Jason Barnard on why brand awareness is important. We start with a chat about talking to every single person at UnGagged. Pamela Lund suggests that we have relationships with brands… and that brand can be our friend. We need to build relationships through connections. Then I get over-excited about entities and relationships and memory. Then onto brand personality (Pamela uses the official term – brand awareness). Vanilla is not bland (have a listen and you’ll know why). Then brands have personality and need to maintain that – meaning HR is really important. ALso, please DO have a branded Google Ads campaign. Finally, use the 7 points of contact to get rid of the churners (Kate Toon !), and don’t waste your ad budget on them. Finally, one of the more delightful out-takes with Pamela, Dexter (the videographer) and Hal (the photographer). Ace.

Hamlet Batista with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Hamlet Batista talks with Jason Barnard about what tricks can be played when working with Google Colaboratory. Google Colaboratory is like Google Sheets on steroids. Use it to save bucketloads of time and be terribly productive. Gerry White got very excited about the 6 use-cases Hamlet Batista gave in his talk. For example automating duplication, writing meta titles automatically, Andrea Volpini’s dance with machines, mapping redirects, writing alt tags, finding content gaps.

Loren Baker with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles Loren Baker talks with Jason Barnard about the tricks available for content and links used by search engine journal. We start with the ‘soy sauce secret of sumptuous speech’. When you produce a piece of content, create it for everyone. Some people learn visually, some auditively, some through reading. So one piece of content should be video, audio and text. Make a video, create an audio file and a transcript. And probably a good idea to adapt the transcript to be readable (as opposed to speakable). SEJ make an effort to format for Google with lists and QA etc etc. We get onto baseball and cricket – watching TV but listening to the radio. Then onto repurposing content across media (but the site is always the hub). Loren Baker shares a neat trick to segment your email audience by learning-type. Then onto cartoons – Loren is Wreck it Ralph. ANd guess what film Loren describes as ‘Goodfellas and Ralph Breaks the Internet Combined’. AT the end, I have left the short (and fun) UnGagged interview.

Cindy Krum with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles Cindy Krum talks with Jason Barnard about Fraggles and beyond. Cindy Krum and I discuss an awful lot of stuff in a lovely, meandering and super informative chat. Starting with Fraggles, and how powerful they are (top middle and bottom)… Plus some experiments we have done, the risks for Google and the possibilities for the future. And onto Darwinism in search, on-SERP SEO, local SEO, not needing a website, branding, offline SEO, ranking without an URL, the new EU directive, social metas. Crumbs. That’s a lot.

Louisa Frahm with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Louisa Frahm talks with Jason Barnard at moving from print press to digital. Louisa Frahm is SEO editor at the Los Angeles Times and I feel a little overwhelmed by her and the institution that is the LA Times. First thing to know is that Louisa is there to educate the journalists rather than messing with their style. She is the stabiliser wheels for people who have 40 years of career behind them, which is cool. Moving an institution like this to a digital approach is a big, big deal. Then onto the European directive that aims to protect publishers. Louisa looks at it from the publishers point of view, I try to defend Google. Louisa then suggests a compromise and we move on very naturally to find a solution for a world where everyone is happy.

Frédéric Dubut with Jason Barnard at The Bing Series Frédéric Dubut talks to Jason Barnard about Bing's search algorithm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyLwHeEViNQ Episode #1 in a series about how ranking functions at Bing This conversation confirms that the overall system for ranking at Bing functions in the same way as Google (as explained by Gary Illyes) - Darwinism in Search But things rapidly become more interesting still… Frederic is the 10 blue links / core algorithm team lead but goes on to explain a little about how ranking works for featured snippets, images, videos… and intriguingly how the whole page algorithm works. After this interview, he generously organised a series of interviews with other team leads at Bing. The Bing Series Listen to (or watch) this episode with Frédéric to whet your appetite for the stunning revelations that the Bing team leads give me in the other four. Frédéric shared a lot of interesting information me in this conversation. But that is nothing to what I learned in the other four. How Ranking Works at Bing - Frédéric Dubut, Senior Program Manager Lead, BingDiscovering, Crawling, Extracting and Indexing at Bing - Fabrice Canel Principal Program Manager, BingHow the Q&A / Featured Snippet Algorithm Works - (this episode) Ali Alvi, Principal Lead Program Manager AI Products, BingHow the Image and Video Algorithm Works - Meenaz Merchant, Principal Program Manager Lead, AI and Research, BingHow the Whole Page Algorithm Works - Nathan Chalmers, Program Manager, Search Relevance Team, Bing The Bing Series (Part 2) Assuming these 5 episodes are well received, we'll do another series of interview-cum-conversations later in 2020. Hopefully getting more detailed insights into other things Frédéric mentions - I'm hoping for Ads (that work on much the same principle as other rich elements), knowledge panels, local results… and more. Full Corrected Transcript for How Ranking Works at Bing (Frédéric Dubut with Jason Barnard) Jason Barnard: Welcome to the show, Frédéric Dubut. Frédéric Dubut: Thank you for having me. Jason Barnard: Absolute pleasure. We've met a couple of times. Frédéric Dubut: That's right. Jason Barnard: I've talked to people about the ranking algorithm and nobody will tell me any secrets. I suppose you won't either, but I wanted to talk to you about the candidate sets — the idea Gary Illyes described, where the blue links form the basis and the candidate sets are bidding for a place. They need to outbid the top blue link, and if they do, they win the position. Frédéric Dubut: Sounds about right. In the end, what we want is to really serve our users. The ten blue links are the basis of everything. And then, if the query is a question or something we can answer with an intelligent answer — what Google calls a featured snippet, and what we call Q&A internally — that comes on top. And then there are all the other answer types. So there's a different team for each. I'm the ten blue links. I have a colleague who handles Q&A. And then there's a team called Whole Page. Jason Barnard: [Laughs] Frédéric Dubut: The Whole Page team, as the name suggests, runs the entire page as an end-to-end product. They arrange ads when the ads team tells them there are ads to show. They look at the ten blue links. They look at potential answers — video answers, image answers, news answers — and if they think those answers are going to satisfy users more than some of the blue links, that's where they start inserting them. Jason Barnard: So my Darwinism framing is that these candidate sets bid for a place, and they live or die by whether they can convince the algorithm they have more value than a blue link. But you're saying it's actually teams deciding that their specific element is more interesting and inserting it manually? Frédéric Dubut: No, no, no. It's not manual. If, say, I'm working on videos, I generate the best video answer I can for a given query. But my team is not the one deciding whether it shows up on the page. That's the role of the Whole Page team. Jason Barnard: And it's all working on the same algorithm but with different weightings? Frédéric Dubut: Yes. For featured snippets, being accurate, being fresh, and being authoritative is going to matter much more than having links, for example. It's the same central algorithm working with different weightings, and each team is tweaking it for their specific rich element and their specific need. And what you show really depends on the query. Take a query like "Beyoncé." It's very important to show videos and news — that's what users want. In that case, the ten blue links matter less. The master algorithm makes the call. But for a simpler, more general query — "what is one plus one," say — the calculation is completely different. Jason Barnard: "What is one plus one" — I'd imagine tha

Jerry West with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Jerry West talks with Jason Barnard about the cost of doing nothing. Slightly uncomfortable moment at the start. I then try to be professional. Not sure if I carry it off. Jerry West tells me how great UnGagged is. Then we move onto doing something – the small things effectively. And then the 5 things people can start to do to move your business forwards. A lot of it is simple common sense. And we miss that more often than not. Jerry gives me a good lip twitch that is now a ‘thing’ :) Jerry answers the question as to how much it can cost to flip a switch. Then onto swapping goat stories.

Eric Wu with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Eric Wu talks with Jason Barnard about SEO and digital marketing for startups. Eric Wu loves UnGagged. Then we discuss what is things to focus on in what stage of your startup journey, including which keywords. We get onto the importance of branding, brand SERPs and bringing the offline online. And when a query can be a mix of informational, transactional, and navigational. There is a lovely break where we discuss stuff ‘off-record’, that I left in because we completely forgot to discuss what we decided to discuss during the break.

Jennifer Hoffman with Jason Barnard at Ungagged Los Angeles 2019 Jennifer Hoffman talks with Jason Barnard about tech SEO pays. Along with Greg Gifford, Arsen Rabinovich, Jennifer Hoffman starts with why technical SEO pays. A bit of a discussion about bells, whistles, heavy images and mega comment threads leading to poor onsite experience in terms of load time. Then onto navigation and indexation. And tracking user behaviour, the Knowledge Graph, entity optimisation… and brands as entities. We end with the importance of spring cleaning.

Dixon Jones with Jason Barnard at BrightonSEO September 2019 Dixon Jones talks with Jason Barnard (The Brand SERP Guy) about the bias in the Knowledge Graph. Jason and Dixon Jones are sitting in two comfy armchairs, looking at the sea in Brighton. We start with a chat about machine learning in Google’s search algorithm, PageRank and then onto the Knowledge Graph. There are less entities in the world than webpages. So Google’s job is easier. But the Knowledge Graph is biased – the seed set for google’s understanding is a bunch of librarians (aka Wikipedia editors) who have little in depth knowledge on the topics they edit, especially in anything that is not within their culture. We happily grab examples from the surrounding environment. Piers become a central point, and piers in Ethiopia in particular. We move onto fan sites, that are not necessarily accurate, and perhaps people believe that William Shatner is a space man. Errors such as that at the start of a seed set will mean learning is biased and perhaps inaccurate… and can quickly spiral out of control. They are building on what Dixon calls ‘areas of light’, but that is biased too. One problem is that genuinely good new ideas are going to have trouble surfacing because of the bias against ideas that are not popularly held belief. We move onto loops of truth and self-fulfilling prophecies. Fake news gets a look in (of course). As does bad fact checking. Then we finish off with InLinks – Dixon’s super new SaaS for automatically building internal knowledge graphs and writing scheme.org structured data on the fly. I ask a trick question, and Dixon deals with it rather well. And we end by coining the phrase ‘The Wikipedia model’. Helpful Resources About Bias in the Knowledge Graph Google Knowledge Graph Bias Uncovered

Susan Westwater with Jason Barnard at Global Marketing Day Susan Westwater talks to Jason Barnard about voice search. She insists that voice search is happening faster than we think. 5 years, not 10. Half life theory comes into play with technology. Don’t underestimate “Call mom”. Then we have the great debate about the amount of voice data. And Susan nails her argument by identifying what are the fallbacks for these machines? Interestingly, even if we think the answers / system is weak now, that doesn’t mean we aren’t going somewhere very interesting very fast. Susan acronyms. I keep using them. But they are ambiguous. So she convinces me again… I agree. Featured snippets are super important (and super exciting).

David Markovich with Jason Barnard at Global Marketing Day 2019 We start talking about building community. David gives some great tips – he has 22,000 people in his genius online community who share 50,000 messages a month, so he knows what he’s talking about. He points out we all have a community whether we know it or not. We talk about implicit and explicit communities, then have a debate about the word ‘crumbs’. But then David turns the table on me brilliantly by asking about the red t-shirt… and the second half is him getting me talk about the digital nomad lifestyle and the podcast. My initial thought was to only publish the first half. But David does a great job as interviewer, so I left it all. Warts and all ! At the end Susan Westwater (the previous podcast guest) joins in because she thinks we are just having a chat (and not recording a podcast). Finally, right at the end, we end with a Mexican standoff.

Lily Ray with Jason Barnard at Global Marketing Day 2019 Lily Ray talks with Jason Barnard about the lowdown on E-A-T strategy. We start with a delightful chat about New York, Halloween and even get a quick (made up) Broadway ditty. Then onto E-A-T and how this is affecting our approach to digital marketing. You need to get your information more accurate with help from experts. The problem comes from the fact that the returns aren’t immediate, which is a problem for a lot of people since their job often depends on fast results and quick returns. Is there a quick-win cheat? And is Google a chicken with its head cut off (terribly good analogy for Halloween)? Lily Ray tells all !