269 - The Future of SEO, with Abby Gleason

[Music] Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the NO-BS Marketing Podcast. I'm Daniel Murray. Enjoy me for unfiltered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests, stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the fuck off. Ultimately, people do want content that doesn't feel like it's been SEO'd or keyword stuff. They're looking for the assaultful responses. What's interesting though is that Reddit now shows up and I believe the last study I looked at said more than 97% of product review queries. Reddit shows up for it. That is an immense invisibility increase for them. You can also find it if you google finance advice right now, you will find Reddit. Multiple Reddit posts actually and I've looked through them and I would say some of them aren't particularly helpful. Welcome back to another episode of the Marketing Millennials. Today I have Abby Gleason on the podcast. She's the senior SEO and acquisition product manager at Scribe. We're going to talk everything SEO today. I know SEO is a crazy topic right now with Core Reddit, AI, and Abby's going to dig into all that. But I want to first start ask Abby, how does you get into marketing? Oh yeah. So I basically out of school got a job as kind of like a marketing catch all and was doing everything from packaging swag for sales people to running our blog and looking at Google Analytics. That's kind of how I got into SEO. No one goes to school for SEO. You fall into it by accident. That is how you get into it. As I was doing the blog work, I was looking at the data and I saw, hey, I didn't promote this this week. Why is it still getting so much traffic? Then I saw it was driving traffic from Google. So that very meta first Google search of how does one drive traffic from Google kind of got me down this rabbit hole and I started testing things on our blog and website and increased traffic like 40% year over years really quickly. And frankly, they came kind of addicted to that up into the right and really blended what I went to school for, which was creative writing, PR, and also super interested in psychology and love kind of peaking at the way people search about things and what people are interested in. So after that job, I moved into the SEO agency world where I was for four years and really dove into like tech and e-commerce sites. And then that's how that got me to the job I'm in today. So script is a tech company and we have a suite of three different brands, scribed in slideshare, which are user generated content brands with documents and presentations. And then there's also every and which are your ebooks, audiobooks, podcast, platform. Awesome. I mean, the funny thing is nobody goes, I think that's a one line in nobody goes to school for SEO, which is so true. Who teaches SEO and call it or anywhere? Besides, you have to go on the internet to find those. Yeah. You don't get to school. No one taught it. And you know, I actually like a couple of years ago, asked on Twitter, I was like, if you're an SEO, how did you get into it? And like got like a hundred really different responses. I mean, we had some people who started like a Dungeons and Dragons blog and then are now like full-time SEOs because of that. Like we've had people who were like, I think I saw like a plumber who learned how to do like local SEO for their business. Like you can get into SEO so many different ways. So it's just kind of a funny field that way. And it's a fun question to ask SEOs. How did you get into it? Because it's always going to be different. I want to go into what is the current landscape of SEO, particularly I know out Google algorithms are changing right now and they're always changing, but then also platforms like Reddison Core are becoming bigger and bigger on search results. So could you describe what the current landscape is? Yeah. So I think what would make the most sense is really talking through the helpful content update. So that started, I believe, end of 2022. And that is really where Google's like we're going to promote real helpful human responses. And so you start to see Reddison Core really coming into the search results around that time with kind of like a fever pitch starting, I believe kind of like mid 2023. So I mean, there's a lot to be said there, but ultimately people do want content that doesn't feel like it's been SEO or keyword stuff. They're looking for these helpful responses. What's interesting though is that Reddit now shows up. And I believe the last study I looked at said more than 97% of product review queries. Reddit shows up for that is an immense invisibility increase for them. And you can also find it if you Google finance advice right now, you will find Reddit multiple Reddit posts actually. And I've looked through them. And I would say some of them aren't particularly helpful. So it's definitely interesting like to see all of the different types of queries that Reddit shows up for because it is, yeah, it is expanded really quickly, which I get in one sense prioritizing user generated content. But also sometimes how could you trust that type of content because you don't know who if they really experts behind the content. So, but if Google is prioritizing it means you some people should think about investing. And then what are your thoughts about as an SEO investing in your company being more involved in Reddit? So I guess for me it's two parts. So being involved in Reddit, there's one side of it where like I mean, people are going on Reddit when they're considering your brand. So they are asking like, you know, I work for Scrimder and people are online and they're like, you know, tell me about ever end. Is it worth getting? You've probably done this for product reviews yourself. It's like before you invest your own money, you want real people's results. So you're digging through reviews, you're looking at Reddit, you're looking online. So I think it's important to like look at how you're being found on Reddit and Gora. What are people saying about you? What are their complaints? What are they saying that they love about you? And there's not so much, I would say that you should like jump in and do anything there. I mean, I'm sure there's ways that you can build community and like address certain comments. But overall, I think that's just helpful in shaping your product. So that is something that I I'm on Reddit every day. Like literally every day refreshing. What are people saying about my product? And I'm sharing that with our product team. And there have been instances where we've caught things because of what someone shared from something, you know, someone put it in a review. So that's one way. The other way is thinking deeply about why Reddit is winning. So big right now. I mean, there's obviously a lot of like SEO conspiracy theories right with like the 80 million dollar payout to Reddit. But going beyond that, it's, I mean, I have a lot of friends who say, I add Reddit to my search because it's a human result. If you look at the tone of voice, it's entertaining and it's to the point. So you don't have to dig through a bunch of advertisements or like, I don't know, you know the recipe blogs where it's like, what is a pound cake? It's like, I don't need all this junk. That is what people think of when they think of the awful SEO keyword stuffed content. And if you're still playing that game, that's where I think you're going to get left behind. Yeah, I mean, I'll be honest when I'm deserging for travel stuff. Now when I look at lists, I feel a lot of them are affiliate based links. So it's hard to trust. Is this hotel or is this location actually good? So I will search favorite restaurants in London, Reddit and Reddit. What Reddit will come up with or I'll go and tick tock and I'll say best restaurants in London and see what they have. Before I go look at the search results because some of them are actually just paid a play. So it's hard to tell what's actually truthful and what's not. But I don't think everybody's like that. But I want to go also talk about what are some strategies that SEO leaders can implement to compete with platforms like Reddit and Korra. Yeah, I mean, I kind of think of a website really like a storefront. Like you want to go in a store that is exciting, that has a perspective that you go in and you have a feeling there. So I think of like a good example of this as a site like Healthline. So while maybe not the most exciting topic, but I purposely will scroll until I find them because I trust them. I know kind of the tone of voice they use. I know their style is really simplistic. They use shure paragraphs. I know everything has been written by a medical person and also reviewed by someone with a doctorate. So I feel like when I go there, I kind of know what I'm getting and I trust it. And I think we can all take a lesson from those sites that do that. So using like a really clear tone of voice, getting to the point quickly, like I know it's tempting to have all of the definitions in every possible, you know, keywords stuffed into there. But like don't bury the lead. That's one of the things I think Reddit does really well is people just put their response. I also think there's a way to show like why you're recommending the things you are. It's not just because someone paid you a bunch of money. That's why people trust Reddit. That's why I do. Is because when you're looking for best restaurants in London, you see the top voted. So you know that like a hundred people up voted this restaurant and you have inherent trust because you're getting like sourced recommendations. And I actually think there's ways to do that in your own content. For example, on a health website that I worked on when I was agency side, we sourced ideas from their own Facebook. So we would ask the question that we were writing about. We'd usually get like a hundred plus responses and we would copy paste and site that person's response within the article. And that did really well. We got a lot of feedback that it was helpful and it felt very human like they could trust what we were saying because ultimately the people going through those health crises were the experts. So those are just a few examples of things that I think you can do. But going beyond like how you can improve your site, like at the end of the day, like if Google's putting Reddit and Quora and AI overviews above your content, you're going to lose traffic. So I think you also need to pivot to looking at like other distribution platforms. Are you building an audience of people that trust your brand via email, social, you mentioned TikTok, like are you also showing up there? So I think those are a few things that I would definitely start with to kind of make your site stand out. A lot of people view search engine optimization as just your website. But there's so many now different places where you can optimize for search. Like you said, TikTok, social, Reddit, all these different places where you can optimize to get yourself on the top. For example, if you have a great LinkedIn post, it could be one of the number one search things. And if you're one of your founders or someone your company is writing about something interesting and is getting attention on LinkedIn, it could be the number one search result. So. Absolutely. And so do you follow carry rows by chance from where I set seven? No, but I need to know. You need to. Anyone listening, you need to follow carry rows. She's doing some of the most creative, like PR SEO work out there. And she had a really good example recently where a client came to her. They wanted to rank for a term. And she was like, we can get you there on Google search, but it will literally probably take, I think she set like 12 months or 18 months, which is realistic to gain the authority for a super competitive term. She said, but look at TikTok. This is how many searches this term gets on TikTok. And we can get you there in six weeks. And she did. So it's about paying attention to these other platforms that are getting a lot of search volume for these terms. Because ultimately, people are starting to move away from Google for certain types of terms. Like I myself go straight to TikTok and write it for anything travel related or product related. You know, also think at the end of the day, it's it doesn't, if your impressions are quality impressions and they're converting. If you not getting, you're getting 800,000 versus 1.2 million, but they're still converting really high or even higher than you did before because you optimize your site for conversion. It might actually be better than trying to get to that 1.3, making your site way better. Like you said, a storefront could be the better option for you as a business. Absolutely. And I've been saying trends are born on TikTok. Like if you're not kind of paying attention to what people are talking about there, I do think you're missing out. Like there are all these terms that you will never find in your like a troughs or sem rush. Like I think of like clutter core. That's like a whole interior design thing or like cottage core. It's a whole vibe. Like these are things where I gave an example, unlinked in a while ago where eras outfits, but Taylor Swift tour eras like eras outfit ideas. This was something that was hugely trending and you might not find it as much on keyword research tools, but if you were paying attention at all online, you know how big of a topic that is. And so forget what brand it was. But if you Google that eras tour outfit ideas, someone created a category page for it and they were ranking like number one or number two consistently. Like think about the amount of conversions that drove. I actually had people in the comments on my posting. I bought from this site because of this. So it's just yeah, I think TikTok can be a way to find ideas as well to help you show up both on TikTok and at actual Google search. Yeah, I think I saw post I saw funny meme you did about this 79 hours and the right and see of that. It just shows how fast moving the industry is now and how you have to be relevant to be great at these things. That's why you one of the things you said at the beginning of the podcast, which I think most people should do is stay up to date of what people are doing on Reddit and Korra and TikTok. Otherwise you're just going to fall behind if you're just going to do blog posts only and try to do keyword stuffing and all those the old tactics that work in the past. Exactly. And so one of the tactics that you know, it's about choosing the right keywords too. Like I do see a world in which like I'm calling them brandless queries in my head like how many cups and a pint. These are things that I do think in the very near future are not going to make sense for people to write about. Things that no one hears about what the website looks like, who you are, they just mean the information. So I think that's where even like definition content like what is this? If you don't have a perspective or it's not like this trending new thing that like people don't know enough about yet for AI overviews to be worth it. Like that is if you're going for just those keywords like I would say I would be concerned. But that's why I've worked, you know, me and my team like the editorial team were always looking at TikTok to find like these new terms. Like I even think we write about books. So like spicy books like that was a term that was big has started to be big for the last couple years. But this is something that maybe like AI overview or a generic article wouldn't cover. So it's also about picking topics that like actually do require like an opinion and a tone of voice and a perspective. Yeah, it's just like when you go into a great bookstore and now they have popular books on TikTok, which is super smart to do because people see that as a place of authority now because it's authentic content that people are putting out. But which leads me to one of the biggest threats right now to SEO is AI in AI content and it's becoming more and more prevalent now and everybody's talking about it everybody's putting it in their site. So how do you see this affecting SEO and also what what are some things you people should think about with the rise of AI? Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts here. I'll talk about kind of where things are now. AI overview, they scaled it back pretty significantly. So we actually did kind of, you know, I took a look at our sites and I actually this is I would recommend everyone do this if you are in SEO or any digital position. People will ask you about this. So have a document prepared that shows your current risk and potential future risk and what you're going to do about it. So that that's kind of step one is like actually audit the risk. So look at your top keywords from Google search console now that it's finally updated. And yeah, take a look like is AI overview showing up for that? And is it automatically unfurling? It doesn't link to your site and that way you can start to assess the risk to some of your top, you know, most important topics. And then from there just I mean just because the risk isn't currently high at super high right now, I feel like it's best. Will Will Reynolds said this in a recent keynote I saw like let's say people are saying that it's going to take 90% of traffic. Let's say it only takes 50%. How are you going to be in the top 50% or the top 10% of sites that beat AI? So I think it's kind of going back to all the same things we just talked about is like I would fully expect this to be a significant threat and a siphon for your traffic. So think about how you can stand out how you can be found in that a.o. overview box. That was something that a latest Elise shared. She's an amazing SEO in her keynote at min search. She was showing that actually when you do appear in the a.o. overview box, you were click through rate is higher than if you were in position one. So a.o. overview. Yes, it's a threat. I think it's particularly a threat for brandless queries. But I also think SEOs should see it as an opportunity, you know, if they're going through best practices and having, you know, original research and solid content that's organized well, you increase your chances of being found in that box and could increase your clicks that way. So I mean, I think yes, a threat, but treat it as an opportunity and just kind of like the adaptable and pivot as things change because it's just changing constantly. It's hard to hard to say any given day what you should do. I was wondering what is your thoughts on how people are using AI to create multiple articles on their site to rank more? What is your opinion on that? My opinion is AI is only as good as the content that it's learning from. So like what's going to happen is if everyone's creating AI content, then the AI content learns from other AI content and then you're just spewing robotic sentences. I would also say like yes, AI can be quite good, but there are certain topics where you, I don't know about you, Daniel, but like now whenever I go on a site, I am like in the back of my mind, I'm supposed to consciously checking if it's AI. Like, there's little tells, there's certain words that it loves to use. I feel like AI is the version of like, in these uncertain times during COVID, like anytime you see these kind of weird little openers, I feel like that's kind of a tell. So how I feel about it is, I mean, I think AI should be used as a tool, like absolutely, use it to help you get started with your writing, but I do think programmatic AI content at scale when it's being used to generate entire like articles or entire sites, I would be very hesitant to invest heavily in that. Versus I do think it might be helpful let's say you're creating like category page content, things that don't need that strong of a perspective, I think AI could be helpful in a starting point like there. - It's funny because you, we have on the one side, people scaling up AI content, and then we're also talking about on the other side, how Google is prioritizing these user generated responses. People are actually saying what people are actually up voting. So you could tell that, and Google wouldn't prioritize that, unless people actually wanted that, and people who want these authentic responses now. So I think it is a telltale sign that you need to make your storefront that feel of user generated feel, these are generated content, make it feel like a human is on that side, not just because to be honest, 10 years ago I would go read a blog from a company. Now I'm going to look at a newsletter or a podcast or a TikTok, I'm not looking at a blog unless it's from a health line or something like that, or a warb luxury travel or something where it's very trusted and they make good recommendations, I'm not going to go look at a blog because it seems best practicing if that makes sense. - Oh yeah, the 10 best ways too, I mean, it's just like copycat content over and over. But kind of to that point, I think of travel as such a good example of this, I will say right now, I feel like it's a hard time being a searcher for certain types of topics like travel, because you have two options. You can go on Google search and either find Reddit when Reddit's fine, but it's not necessarily like visual or pretty to look at, or you can look at a site that's littered with affiliate links and you're like, I don't trust that the four seasons here is necessarily the right place to stay. I bet they're paying you the most, or you can go to chat GPT and it'll streamline the process where you put its soulless, it is just a word prison in there. When I was trying to plan my Mexico City trip, I just did this, I was trying to find the best ways, and it was actually very hard. TikTok was really the way that I, you know, TikTok and friends was how I found this because it provided that exciting visual experience because I want to get excited about searching. I'm inexplorable, that's what a lot of people are doing when they're searching for these top of funnel queries is lore like Mexico City trip ideas, like I want to be inspired, I want to see pictures of Luchili, Brian, and Chaladas. Like I don't just need a list of words. So in my opinion, I think the sites that will create a brand around providing the experience of being concise, trustworthy, and create kind of an exciting experience. Like those are the sites that are gonna convert. So I am going to sign up to your newsletter. I am gonna sign up to the podcast, as you said. I'm gonna follow you on TikTok, 'cause now I trust you. But it does take work and I mean, I recognize that. It's not easy, it's not supposed to be. (upbeat music) It's funny because it's also making people want to go back to experts because it's like going full cycle. For me, the research used to be really fun. Now it's overwhelming because I can't tell. You're seeing, for example, grease being overcrowded by people. So now I want to go ask people who have been there for a travel agent, which used to be the trend a long time ago as people still use them today. But now travel agents are becoming bigger and bigger on TikTok at these platforms because they can give expert recommendation and they're trustworthy source and people want to go to them and clut through the clutter of all these crazy searches. - That's one error. Exactly. Okay, what TikTok have you seen where it's like explaining, like what is grease? - Grease is a country. I mean, they're not giving you all this random information that you don't need for SEO. They are getting directly to the point because they know that's what it's gonna get people to engage. So yeah, I think just coming back to that word engagement, which can be such a confusing word. But it's like, how do you get people not just to click on your site and leave it to actually engage with you to comment, to share, to join the newsletter, to convert, to check out your product pages. And so that's why I'm kind of just another tip I wanted to share is lately I've been on my CRO game more acronym, so you got SEO, CRO. But yeah, conversion rate optimization, ultimately, I spoke at a conference a couple weeks ago and I just talked to people and pretty much everyone I spoke to has been losing traffic. And these are really talented SEOs. So it's not them, it's the landscape. And so I think it's also good to look at your site, you know, of course, making it quality. But how can you get people to take the next action? That makes sense for them and it makes sense for your business. So when you're losing traffic, how can you still make money? And so that's something that I do at my business. And I mean, even changing things, I changed one of our top clicked CTA buttons, I changed two words on it and we increased sign of break by more than 10%. Like, that is a significant impact to our revenue because when you change things to make more sense and meet user intent, you can make more money. So that's another piece of advice is like, maybe you've done all the things that I've suggested. You have the expert. Like I've seen that online. People are like, I am the expert. Like there's nothing I can do to make this better. And it's like, if you're losing traffic and you can't help it, how do you still make money from your site? How do you still get people to take action? And so that's where I'd suggest pivoting some of your energy and some of your effort to looking at how you can take, you know, get people to take the next action and increase that. So if your agency side, that's a great way to show clients, hey, I'm still doing work even when traffic is down. If you were the site owner, you know, you work in house, it's a great way to get buy in for more projects if you can still show that you're making, you know, progress. - I think two points on that. If one, I think a lot of people under estimate actually bringing on an expert if you don't have one in the house because you invest, content marketers are great, they're great. But usually they're not the best expert in a field if you're a content marketer for, say, a like electrician company that you have electrician. So it might be better to either have bring on an evangelist who understands he's been electrician before to help you create that content or hire a journalist who is really great at finding information, getting information out. What I see a lot of is people just trying to put out a lot of content instead of focusing on expert, yeah, the expert trick that people actually want these days. I want to also go a little deeper. What are some things that I know we talked about, CRO and you talked a little bit, what are some other CRO tactics that you recommend people implementing to make that storefront their website? Yeah, absolutely. So I'd say first, focusing on your top pages. So there's a lot of places you can start with CRO, but I would really look at start with the top performing because I always say a 10% lift to your top performer will do so much more than a 50% lift on something that's not driving that much traffic. So starting with your top product pages, category pages, your home page, your top performing blogs or articles. So first step is really identifying where you're driving the most traffic and signups today. And then just a few examples, I just mentioned CTA button text is shockingly effective. I'm sure this doesn't apply to everyone, but saying start your free trial, no one wants another subscription, Dan, no. No one wants this thing that you're selling, what they want is the actual thing that you provide. So instead of saying, hey, start your free trial, maybe pivot it to get your first book free or get free shipping or whatever it is, lead with what they actually want, meet their intent, and I do believe you will see a near-immediate impact. And then there are also just elements, small changes, can make a big impact button color. We tested a lot of different ones, other than the plain black CTA and all of them performed much better. So how can you make things more eye catching match your brand better? And all the way down to things like your site navigation. So elements that people regularly see and interact with, that is a great place that you should be putting your value proposition and your key actions. And if you're not doing that, it's a missed opportunity because that's something that follows people everywhere they go on your site. So making sure about your navigation reflects what people most want to see on your site. So those are just, I mean, I could go on and on, but I'd say those are a few places definitely to start. And if you're not sure, yeah, interview someone, like talk to, even just get a friend to look at your site and be like, what questions do you have? Do you feel compelled to take this action? And if you do, happen to have a user research team, I think it's absolutely worth yet doing some research about how people feel when they land on your site and if what you're doing is clear and motivating. Two more questions for you. One is, what do you think if you had your own magic ball? What do you think is the future of SEO? What are some predictions you have for the next year or two? Or what's going to happen in this space? I think AI overviews will get better and rapidly expand. So I don't think we should be chilling on that. I think the future will be instead of looking at how we can get featured snippets or rank number one, it's going to be how can we get featured in the AI overview box. And I'm curious how much that will overlap with the practice is already existing for like ranking number one or in a featured snippet. I have a hunch that it'll be pretty similar, but I've also seen sites that aren't even ranking in the top 10 show up in AI overviews occasionally. So I'm really curious to see kind of what guidelines Google might put out to say or about how to be featured and how to organize your information in that way. So that's one thing that I fully expect to like, you know, put my attention towards in the next year or two. The other thing just reflects so much of what we talked about today, which is SEO will not just be Google anymore. And it shouldn't be. If you're still thinking of SEO as Google, like that we've got to move past that. SEO should involve other platforms, should involve TikTok, should involve even Reddit. So just I'd say really the importance of focusing on these other platforms where there's less competition and sometimes equal or more search volume. I think you'll see brands really winning and, you know, teams like Kerry Roses rise at seven, like that's why they continue to succeed so much is because they're exploring these other less traditional avenues and they're winning. Yeah, because if you even think about it, there are all all these platforms have search engines inside of it. Even YouTube is a huge search end of that you can optimize for TikTok. Even these storefronts that if you're an e-commerce brand. For example, I was me, my wife, were at a dinner with someone who runs a skincare brand and they were thinking about going to Amazon. So I searched their product on Amazon and all these search turns with their product were coming up and I was like, look, people are looking for your product on Amazon. This might be a sign that you should actually consider it because people are querying. So it was pretty fun to just look at different places where you can show up and be present. Is that absolutely? Lastly is what is a marketing hill you would die on? Mine is search still matters and the phrase SEO is dead comes up. It's to me, I just kind of laugh. Like SEO will not die until people stop searching. So the way people search is changing will continue to change. The best SEO is pivot towards that and that might mean, you know, expanding what it means to be an SEO and where you play. And I kind of just want a great resource that would underscore a lot of this. Randfischkin recently published on Spark Toro, I believe it's called the 2024 zero click search study that shows that despite people thinking like, oh, goop, you know, people aren't searching on Google anymore. Actually, they're searching more than ever and he includes a graph that shows people are not stopping searching on Google either. So I definitely think it's still very important to have, you know, organic search be a channel that you pay attention to in addition to others. So yeah, that's my hill is SEO is not dead and in fact, it's thriving. I think that's such a super good point because just think about your own behavior. What's the first thing you do when you go on the internet? It's going that search box and Google pops up. You're not very, even when you're searching a website, sometimes you just don't even know the website you'll search the brand name. It's every time you're searching is on mostly on Google search. So super good point. And lastly, where could people find you and what you're doing? Yeah. So I am a LinkedIn girl. So absolutely hang out with me on LinkedIn, Abby Gleason. And if you could just include a note about that you heard me on the podcast and I'll definitely connect because Daniel, I'm sure you know, there'll be spam. There'll be spam. So yeah, just if you out of no, I'll definitely connect. And then also Twitter, I'm not going to call it X because I'm straight from that, but I'm on Twitter. I am not as active there as I once was. I'm more active on LinkedIn, but definitely still post some things there and then active there. Well, everybody go follow Abby. This has been super insightful, super great to chat about SEO and I learned a lot. I'm not the best at SEO. So it's good to hear from an expert like you. So thank you so much for coming on. Thanks so much for having me, Daniel. Thanks so much for listening. 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