An Interview With Loren Baker #403

Hi, and welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebResults. My name is Matt Bertram, also owner of eWebResults. That is great. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is going to be an amazing podcast. You guys are really going to enjoy this. We have none other than Lauren Baker joining us, a search engine journal fame joining us. He will be joining us shortly. Before we get to that, as always, this is podcast number 403. We have a tip from our previous podcast, and that tip is... Create high-quality long-term content instead of creating marginal content because it doesn't work anymore with keyword variations. So there used to be a time where you would actually make shorter content or just throw up any content that you could that had the keywords in it, and that would be effective. That's no longer effective. It's better to make really in-depth content that covers those keywords, and you're more likely to place well. So that's the tip. Yeah, I mean, you can't stuff keywords anymore. You've really got to use semantic learning. Google is really looking at the context of what you're writing. I've actually seen some things where if you're writing quotes, bullet points, facts, the better that you can kind of frame what you're talking about, the better Google is going to rank you. Absolutely. Subscribe, follow, boom! All right, back to this. Please remember, we are broadcasting live here from Houston, Texas, and Matt and I, we are your Results Rebels! Woo! Yeah! I wanted to get this. Somebody got onto our SoundCloud feed and actually put in a comment, so I don't want to read this. They're a long-time listener of the podcast. It's Pet Portrait Artists. Cool. And it's this excellent podcast. Note, I did share it, but wasn't able to use the email share facility here that's on SoundCloud, so I sent the link myself to a friend. Still counts as a share. No more tear tattoos. We have this tradition.

I get a tear tattoo when I don't get a review, and we're counting that as a review because I really wasn't interested in getting a tear tattoo under my right eye. So, if you haven't seen this podcast before, howdy, we're in Texas. Welcome to the podcast. If you've seen this podcast before, you know what we're about to skip. We run a contest each and every week, and the contest is if we get 10 shikos. What's a shikos? A share, a like, or a follow. If we get 10 shikos and a review, then we move this piece to the end of the podcast. We will, in fact, move this piece to the end of the podcast. So, we're not going to tell you to leave us a review on Yelp. We'll tell you that later. We're also not going to tell you how you can connect with us. We'll tell you that later. We will tell you that later. If you've listened to this podcast before, you know you get value out of this. You're probably interested in our five online marketing mistakes that can tank your business and how to avoid them. You can get that for free. All you need to do is go to our website, eWebResults.com, slash SEO tip, and you will get there. Also, if you would like a free website analysis, it is back. It went away for a little while. It is back. Just go to our website, eWebResults.com, slash, what is it? No, you'll see it right there. The button's right there. Yeah. Excellent. Everybody's loving this. And, I mean, people are still jumping into the profit plan. The profit plan. We have a program called the Problems to Profit Plan. We'll dive into your website, identify the problems, figure out how to lead those to profit, and you get a plan. And that is risk-free. Yes. It applies to your services. It's only $4.99. And it's totally risk-free. If you don't get value out of it, we will give you your money back. That's just what we

do. And no one's asked for it yet. So we're doing a great job. We're doing a couple of them every week. Everybody loves them. All three of them we've done. Nobody's asked for that much now. All right. So let's jump into this content where, you know, sometimes we talk a little bit about news. We're not going to do that today. We have even better than to talk about news. So if you don't know, if you go ahead and pull Lauren up here, Lauren is the founder of Search Engine Journal. I think one of the founders, as I was looking at some of the bio there. And he has joined us today. We're excited to have him. Lauren Raker, welcome. You're right there, right there behind us. Look at that. How's it going? It's going wonderful. So what I'd like, maybe what some people might not know about you, if you could kind of give a little bit of an introduction. And then, you know, we've had a little bit of banter about what we want to talk about today. So if you could just get us started with a little bit about your background. Yeah, sure. So I got into internet marketing about the same time you guys did, right? 98, 99. And it started, back then there was really no definition of what you did. You did enough to get your clients really good traffic and hopefully it would convert. So in 99, 2000, I really got into SEO. I was doing that a lot. And then in 2001, I was like 26 at the time. I decided to quit. I quit my job. And I wanted to go live abroad. So I lived in Japan for a couple of years and then Brazil. In 2003, right, I wanted to get back into what I was doing previously. But I had been out of the game for a while. This is a long time ago, but still, it was a pretty emerging industry at the time. So I started getting updates and participating in

a lot of forums and things like that. And a lot of stuff had changed. Google became a powerful search engine. And not just a player, but a powerhouse, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yahoo kind of gave them the golden key to that. And so, you know, a lot had changed and I wanted to catch up on stuff. So I started participating in forums and email lists. And basically, I realized that I was contributing to other people's content, right, when I was doing that. So what I wanted to do was to start my own site where I could write about my thoughts about SEO and the stuff that I had to kind of relearn. And around the same time, Google bought Blogger. And blogging started to get really popular. So I'm like, hey, I'm going to start a blog about SEO. There wasn't really any out there at the time. So I went and I searched on GoDaddy for searchengineblog.com. And my buddy, Peter DeVanzo, had already gobbled that up. So I searched for the next logical thing, Search Engine Journal. And I started writing on Search Engine Journal, which used to be powered by Blogger. Then I transferred it over to WordPress and just started writing about the industry, writing about stuff that I loved, giving tips. And the next thing I know, about two months later, someone contacted me, wanted to pay me $35 a month to put their banner on the sidebar. Woo-hoo! Hell yeah, I'll do that. That's dinner, right? So next thing I know, I'm getting more queries, getting more traffic. And it just really exploded over time. My goals were to reestablish myself in the industry, to build up my personal brand, then also to build up a brand where people, where I could build trustworthiness. And over time, it kind of got bigger than myself. I brought in some other partners about six years ago. And it's grown ever since into much more than a blog. Now we're more of a, I like to think of it as a media network.

I agree. Very cool. Yeah. I tell you, I kind of went back through that because we keep a list. Most of what we do in this podcast is we choose an article. I'll actually read a number of articles from a number of different sites and then find one article that kind of, I think, is going to resonate with the audience and cover some really important information. And I was just looking at how many of them come from Search Engine Journal. And it's a lot. Like, I didn't do any statistics on it, but I'd have to say probably 50% or more have come from Search Engine Journal, you know, where they were published on Search Engine Journal. So it is, of course, great information. Yeah, we appreciate it. That's really cool to hear. Thank you. And we're excited because we're just starting 2018. 2017 just finished. Actually, our last podcast was covering an article about five things, five SEO processes or something along those lines that you should leave back in 2017. And so we wanted to talk about predictions. It's always fun to make predictions going into the new year. And so I wanted to turn it over to you for a little bit. I've got some ideas. But you know what? You just finished your story about SEJ. I wanted to ask this question. And what about your whole experience kind of creating and all the way up to this point? It's been a long time, right? What has surprised you the most about the whole experience? I think what surprised me the most was me on a personal level. I had started in 2003. And I think 2007, 2008, I went to my first SEO conference. And it was really weird to walk around because people were levitating towards me, right? And, hey, man, I read your stuff all the time. And for me, I was just some dude writing in my house or my apartment or whatever, my thoughts, right? And I never really experienced that component of it. You know, fast

forward to now, I would say kind of the most surprising thing and one of the best decisions ever made was to bring on great editors to expand and run the editorial staff. So I love hearing accolades, but I really have to give it up to Danny Goodwin, who's our executive editor right now. He used to be at Switch Engine Watch previously and has a background in newspapers. And he's really been able to corral, like, a great group of contributors, internal staff members. We have Roger Monti writing for us now whose stuff is, like, taken off like wildfire. So it's just been amazing. That's really been the most surprising thing. And one of the best decisions I've made, and I can recommend others do, like, learn when to step back a little bit and let the machine kind of take care of itself. So it's been fabulous to see that happen. I can tell you, and Matt's looking at me, I'm in the process of learning how to step back and letting the machine take care of itself literally as we speak as it relates to the company. And I certainly have, like, exact empathy to go to us every now and then we get people who call in, right, from our podcast. And they'll say something like, I feel like I'm talking, you know, to a celebrity. And so I know that feeling you had when people were, like, walking around looking and you're like, I read your stuff. And you're like, well, I'm just writing kind of stuff. Anyone could do it. It's kind of the fact that not everyone does. And you've just taken it to a whole different level. So you mentioned that you were a professor in Japan. That was probably an amazing experience also in Brazil. Is world travel something that you do kind of regularly? It is. It is. And, you know, in my 20s, I kind of just decided to pack all my stuff up, go out there, travel. It was great in Japan because I could make

somewhat of a living of it. When I got to Brazil, that's when I realized that you make a little bit less money teaching English in Brazil than you do in Japan. So that's why I brought the blog back together again. But now, even, like, you know, married, have a great kid, great family, and everything else, I still like to get out there at least once a year, maybe every two years, see other things and experience different cultures and introduce that to my kid as well. All right. Excellent. Well, I had a couple of other questions, but I'd really like to jump into predictions for 2018. I think it's great to get to know you and the podcast listeners. You're like, okay, let's get to the meat. We have a part of our podcast, you heard a little bit of it, we typically call it the potatoes, and then the meat of the podcast is, like, that content that people are looking for. So talk to us. Talk to us about 2018 and what you think is on the horizon. Well, here's my big prediction for 2018. I've been thinking about this a lot. I think Google is, my prediction is that Google is going to stop recognizing the no-follow attribute in links. Yeah. It's been around for 12 years. I think they have it figured out by now. More and more publications have done a sweeping no-follow across, like, all of the TechCrunch sites, Huffington Post, most AOL-owned sites, Forbes, for some parts of the site. And they've no-followed everything. And I can't imagine discovery happening without those key influential news organizations being able to introduce readers and the Google bot to authority-oriented links and sites. I think right now we're getting to a point where no-follow has been around for 12 years. I would not be surprised to see Google announce that they no longer recognize the no-follow attribute. I think with disavows, the Google search console, everything like that, people being able to report shady links or bad backlinks, I think they could

probably do a better job of identifying quality sites without the use of that tag. That's my big prediction. I don't know if it's going to happen or not, but I'd like to see it happen. Well, and, you know, I think one of the things I would co-sign that, one of the things is just Google is getting more and more sophisticated. And so I use the example because it's in our reports about when we do an analysis for somebody, we're comparing, like, no-follow links and links, and you need to explain it to customers. And you talk about, okay, is the link in the article or is it in the banner that's next to the article, right? And one is more valuable. But, like, Google can figure that stuff out. It's not, we can parse the code, just look at the code and kind of understand it. So can Google. So that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, exactly. And another thing I'd like to add, too, is that, so, for example, if I have, if my client's PR company or if we end up getting a client featured on a site like Forbes and no follows, well, that doesn't mean people are not going to find that link, click on that link, and go introduce themselves to whoever that influencer is talking about. Because if you go and you look at your referral logs and analytics, you'll typically see that people do click over from those links, so there's still value there. And I just can't see there not necessarily being long-term SEO value from that kind of placement. Absolutely. Authority positioning, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that we kind of had talked a little bit about was, like, featured snippets and reduction of clicks. I know one of the new team members here, we actually, one of the more talented SEO consultants in Houston is Josh Belland. He actually called moments ago. We're on air, Josh. We won't be answering the phone right now. We won't call

five on a Friday night. He had mentioned, like, featured snippets and what impact you think that they're going to have moving into 2018. Well, I think we've seen at the end of last year, we saw Google implement more carousels, images, internal photos of people and influencers talked about in those snippets. So a lot of them still have the link to the source, but Google's integrating more multimedia into those featured snippets. And if you noticed recently, they've taken the link from the bottom to an according to link at the top. So you'll see this, there was a bunch of shares from Search Engine Roundtable and probably our blog, SEJ, the other day about this. So we'll say, like, according to WinePair or according to Forbes or whatever. And then I'll have the beaten potatoes of the snippet and then maybe some links to some other Google-housed information. So what I think we're going to see is a reduction of clicks coming specifically from Google citing the source in a different manner and then introducing their own knowledge, right, because they've been accumulating all of that through the knowledge graph, through Google My Business, through schema markup and everything else. So the Google AI, at the end of the day, is getting better at answering questions. So they can reference the site that they got it from, but it's no longer going to be a quote and a link to source. It's going to be more like, this is everything that we've merged together and these are our sources. It's keeping people on Google for longer and answering their question, especially when they're visiting on the mobile phone instantly. So there's really no need to click. Right. Yeah, I was thinking about that in some of the, I read one article about predictions in 2018, and some of them were talking about it's like the demise of your click traffic, right? Well, I was just going to say, like, with what Google Plus does with likes and shares and stuff like that, like, I think

it's an expansion of that, of trying to connect in where they know about the information, and that's the same thing with what's happening on Facebook. So, like, where the information's being cited from and the value of it to that person. Right. And at the end of the day, it's not necessarily that they're blocking us from doing marketing, but to an extent, they're introducing new KPIs that are different from what SEOs are used to. So it used to be that the KPI was a click and a visit to the site. Now, with Google Local and Google Knowledge Cards and Local Cards, the KPI is, if someone searches for your business, a call or directions, or even now the ability to send messages directly through the Google interface to your business. That's cool. If someone in your business answer them, that's a lead directly from Google. Right. It used to be that an SEO KPI was a visit to the site, someone fills out the form on the site, you get it, reply back. Now they're going directly through Google. So at the same time, yeah, at the same time, it may be a little bit less traffic, right? But the amount of opportunity is also rising. So I would say, everyone out there, especially if you have a brick and mortar or a small, medium-sized business, keep your eyes on Google My Business and making sure your Google My Business profile is updated, and you're taking advantages of the new things that are rolling out, such as messaging and video. Yeah, so Google My Business is incredibly important, so just keep it in your radar. It may be changing. You want to make sure that you're staying up to date with it. That makes perfect sense. One of the things that I was thinking as these predictions were talking about the demise of your click traffic when it comes to the knowledge graph is the knowledge graph tends to ask questions. So if you look, if you think about the sales funnel, and I'm sure if

you're like us, we think about the sales funnel all the time, there's that direct response marketing that they're about ready to buy. That's probably not as subject to the knowledge graph. It's more subject to carousels and other things. And when you're looking at higher up in the funnel, when they're just kind of entertaining the idea of a product or a service and asking questions about it, that's where you might not be able to get the introduction as easily because the knowledge graph is going to carry so much weight. Yeah, I think so, and it's just ways to utilize what's there, right? So there's one strategy, which is trying to do what used to work previously, and the other one is organizing your content, organizing your strategy to be able to hit people where they are in the funnel in the same way Google serves that information during that funnel from an intent perspective. So if someone's just doing investigative information, they're looking for informational content, they may not necessarily land on your site, but you can get content placed on other sites, which Google is serving in that sequence, right? As it's closer, drop more breadcrumbs, right, on the way to the transactional money page at the end of the day. And really, this all leads into better AdWords spend and more AdWords management. Absolutely. Funny how that works. Exactly. Just like Facebook, right? Facebook's announcement today that business pages are not going to necessarily show up as much in the news stream. Well, that's great if you want to hear more from your friends, but it also means that if you're in business, you have to pay a little bit more of Facebook. Same with Google. And really, if you consider SEO to be part of the marketing journey, then it's not a problem. It's a question of connecting the dots across the board to make sure at the end of the day, hey, SEO may have been an assist, but it led to you getting that sale through a follow-up paid campaign. Or

pay may have driven that user to the site, but when they looked at the landing page, they read information that led them to search after the fact and then find the business again. So if it all is connected. Yeah. Yeah, I think just the days of pure just SEO and that's all you need to do, it's just gone. It's one of the decisions we made with our business is we've got to have multiple services because they really all tie together. Well, you know, I just started to think about like the attribution of like is it last click? Is it first click? How are you breaking apart? Like how are you valuing that lead? Because I've had a lot of conversations as we bring on new clients on what's important, right? And how that person comes in and, you know, essentially, where do you attribute that lead coming from, right? And so I think Google's starting to kind of tell you what they want, right? And how you're going to get a hold of that click. Exactly. That makes sense. So the next thing I had on my list was the importance of video. It could be a really short answer, but go. Yes. I think video, to add to what you were talking about earlier, there's two. Google serves Google properties first, right? So being on YouTube is incredibly important. We're on Facebook now. We're going to be on YouTube soon. Yes. It might be on YouTube now. Chances are you found that via Google search. Also, video is important in the customer review process as well. I think we're going to be seeing more of that. Yatpo, which is a customer ratings company, has rolled out the ability to crowdsource video reviews for your e-commerce site. So people can see people like them not only writing reviews but talking about you. So content makes sense for discovery, but content also leads to conversion. Video is content. It's some of the most effective content out there on the web. We're doing it right now. Integrate

video into your conversion process and your commerce process. Yeah, we're constantly pushing our customers to get those reviews. Have you read any studies or any stats on the difference between like a high production, whether it's regular video or review, versus just the cell phone, again, regular video, maybe content video or review? No, I haven't. I haven't. I like to read into that. I know with me personally, when I see someone on their cell phone, I think of it, even if it's set up, I think of it as being real. Like someone's really talking to me or I'm talking to them through my device and I trust them a little bit more. Therefore, I'd probably go over to that cell phone kind of homemade video angle as opposed to production value. And I think production value may have its benefit and more enterprise and things like that. But in order to make something look real 100%, sometimes you have to add some value into that too. So I don't remember where this stat came from. I think he made it up. I'm just going to be honest. But I did read like homemade contents three times more likely to be viewed or to, you know, everybody just thinks everybody out there's, what is the word I'm looking for? They're really skeptical of everything that's out there on the internet. And so any homemade material is like three times more likely to be viewed and watched and believed and that sort of thing. So I think I believe that too. And it sounds like you do as well. So it's kind of interesting to see that, you know. Did you write that article that you? No, no. But I've been reading a lot like about men versus women. Are they looking at the product? Are they looking at the button? Are they looking at you? Like what happens with conversions? And so there's just a lot of data out there with big data now that you can find out, you know, what's working and what's not. And

really at the end of the day, our job is to get more conversions for the clients. So that stuff's important to me. To add to that, I did read a study by CallRail where a local phone number, if served on a landing page, had a five, it was five times more effective than a toll-free number. So if you think about that, the local number in your area is almost like you know you're going to reach someone down the street. You see a homemade video of someone did on their cell phone, it looks like something that your neighbor did. You may trust them a little bit more. So, yeah, I agree. Yeah, and that's great you've got a stat because I've always, as soon as we get a client and some will have an 800 number and they're like, well, we service, you know, the whole country if we, you know, if anybody wants to use us. And I'm like, well, what percentage is in Houston in our case? And they're like, oh, like 95%. And I said, you need a local number. And now we've got an actual stat on that. So that's pretty good. Yeah, look at that. And the other thing when you see, I think maybe this is some of what goes into it, is when you do a full production video, like people know it's been edited. And I've partnered with a guy here in town who does videos, amazing, amazing guy. And he talks, his name's Nolan Davis. If I didn't mention his name, he would probably punch me in the face. In a bad way. In a bad way. He'd kick me in the shin. And he just talked about, like, your personality comes through in video. And so if you're a jerk, it comes through. If you're real, it comes through. And so, yeah, they're real people saying real things about, you know, real products. So that should be awesome. Also, I do. It's pretty good. We should start a video company. No, no. Go ahead. Go ahead.

No, no. And by the time something's produced, it might already, like, in today's age, right, information happens so quickly. Yeah. By the time something is professionally produced, it may even be old information. So the ability to just pick up the phone, tape yourself, show what your surroundings are like, it's so easy to put out there, et cetera, et cetera. And there's strategy to it. So there's still a need for your guy, Nolan, I think. Yeah. Well, I think the movement, right, the movement attracts, like, the eyes. It draws people into it. People are interested in what's going on in the background. You know, I think also it's beneficial for storytelling. Everything's about storytelling. You know, someone relating to what you're sharing as well as, you know, getting the emotions going to get them to take action. And so the most effective form of that is video. And so I can see how everything's already leading that way and kind of saw it coming. All right. All right. So we know that mobile is getting bigger. It's been getting bigger. It's big. It's going to continue to get bigger into 2018. Google has kind of given us forewarning that it's going to go mobile-first indexing. What is your prediction related to that? That's a tough one, man, because they've been telling us they're going to go mobile-first for a long time. And my prediction is we're going to see, at least from an SEO perspective, we're going to see some jumping around of ranking just until they get everything figured out. Right. Now, when you say they get it figured out, is that us as SEOers figuring out the new algorithm and, like, fixing the mobile version? No, that's Google. I mean, I think as long as you follow mobile best practices and you have a lineup of content on your mobile experience that syncs up with your web experience, you'll really be fine. But, you know, the other day I was doing a search, it was like a security system search in some town, and

I noticed that the number one listing in Google Local on my mobile device was a site with no website, a company with no website, and one review, which was a one-star rating. And there was just a link to call them. That was it. And then it goes against, like, everything that Google says they're going to do on the local mobile side, right? So it's going to take them a while to get it figured out. If you've noticed over the couple of years, they'll throw stuff out there, let us fix it, get all the information back, and put together a finished product. And I think they're going to slowly roll out mobile-first. So just really keep your eyes on it. And if you start to see movement, don't panic. Let them roll out the whole thing first, get it straight, and then move forward. But just make sure you have everything together. So one thing that I know that we're guilty of and we're really working on is when we're still designing a website, we're designing it for desktop experience and not for mobile. And we're really having to try to force everyone to think, hey, how is this going to look on mobile? And then we'll figure out desktop later. And so I can see even us kind of struggling with that. So you've got good processes and procedures to follow up with the mobile design, but really we should be starting with the mobile design in some real senses. That's a really good point. I have a client at 80% coming from mobile right now, 80%. 80%? Yeah, it's amazing. So hey, about that town with the one-star rating, was it a small enough town that they were like one of the only vendors? Or do you think that was like... No, it was Colorado Springs. Oh, wow. So don't... Small, not tiny. Don't plan on being secure in Colorado Springs? Is that maybe the message? Or their customer service is going to be really bad. So we've had a lot of forewarning. I

feel like this is one of the things that Google has forewarned us the most. But, you know, it's not what I do regularly like you do. Is this one of those things that has been kind of foreshadowed the longest of any other trend Google has been planning on having, as you recall? As I recall, yeah. They've also gotten a lot better at warning us beforehand. And remember, we were supposed to have mobile get-in a year and a half ago and then some other stuff that kind of just didn't really happen. So I think they're willing to get it right because they know how much of a big deal it is. And if you think about it, if they were going to introduce a whole new mobile index, it was completely different, shifted around the rankings. It'd be kind of like that old Google Florida updates that we had back in the day that totally messed up a lot of businesses, right? So I really think that this is something they want to get right because they don't want to mess up or screw over, however you want to put it. Mom and pop shops that are relying on Google SEO traffic. So I think they're going to roll this out slowly. Yeah, it's a lot more responsibility. Well, it has been a lot of responsibility for quite some time. I'm glad with some of the things they did because, you know, you had this sense before they really got kind of hyper-local that somebody would just dominate an area and there was nothing you could do about it and mom and pop couldn't come in. And this, the hyper-local focus has really kind of opened the door to, it's just, it's a kind of, it was a relief actually as that was, you know, frustrating from an SEO perspective because now you've got to have different strategies and do different things. But that's, you know, that keeps us busy, but a relief because I was always concerned, you know, what, even if we're the ones

who make the big behemoth that nobody can supplant, it just doesn't feel right. Well, so that just got me thinking about the new doorway updates and building out. And I was curious to hear just kind of your opinion on that as far as doorway pages and what's going on with that because I can see, like, when I'm reading, I'm trying to, like, read in between the lines of what they're saying, what they're asking for, and, you know, what to stay away from. Well, I think there's two fronts here. One is the orphan pages. So doorway page, by definition, is a page that kind of hangs off of your site that's meant to be a landing page, maybe for, like, PPC campaigns or email or something else. And then people try to bring them in for SEO. So I think that, one, it's a clue that, hey, if you're doing a lot of other marketing, you should not be exposing those pages to Google because they can be conflicting with your SEO pages as well and bringing your whole site down. So, you know, by de-indexing, making sure those are disallowed, whatever it may be, and not introducing all those other landing pages to Google from an SEO perspective is smart and helps them clean up the index. Number two is that there's been a lot of content spinning on doorway pages for years, right? So find and replace city-state, the rest of the content is the same across the board. I don't know what you're talking about. Is that a problem? I don't know. So I've seen Google rewarding a lot of sites, whether they're large or mom-and-pops, that are actually writing real content about their locations. Airbnb, TripAdvisor, a lot of sites that have user-generated content or people have gone in and written reviews are doing a little bit better now. Sites that are just basically directory lists are not. So I think, you know, the doorway page update or whatever you want to call it works on both sides. Better content, not just

snippets written for keywords, but more in-depth, usable content that people will want to read and share. And at the same time, making sure that the pages that you want people to find via SEO are integrated into your navigation so it's easier for Google to find it and easy for a normal person to find it as well. So I like that. Yep. And then I've got to, well, we just kind of hopped into doorway. Great. What do you think about AMP pages? Because I, so, so what I look for, we haven't done much with AMP pages. I know in your industry, you guys do a lot with AMP pages. What do you think about AMP pages coming into 2018? I hate them. Tell us how you really feel because I feel like there's not enough emotion in that. We were an early adopter at SEJ for AMP, AMP, whatever you want to call it. And, you know, it took a, well, for us, we're a pretty nimble WordPress-oriented site. So it was a pretty easy, easy fix. We implemented some plugins. We tweaked them, et cetera, et cetera. We have a full-time WordPress developer on staff. So it was a pretty good fix. But I've seen companies over the past year spend a lot of resources and time not only trying to implement AMP, but also trying to make the decision whether or not to do it. So what does Google do? They roll out AMP at the top of news results, AMP at the top of local results, AMP at the top of mobile results. And they're really trying to push people to go over to AMP. And now all of a sudden they make the announcement a couple days ago that instead of serving sites, AMP sites, on the Google.com domain, they're going to show the real domain of the site in the results as well. My personal opinion and why I hate it or I don't like it, if I want to get kinder, is because I think it's kind of forcing everyone

into a box that they have to play around in and not become creative in. So the opportunity to add creatives that you may have been used to previously to the mobile experience isn't there as much. You have to really work on a brand-new template. You have to put in development time and something that's always changing. And I would much rather spend that time developing a fast WordPress-based or whatever the CMS is based interface that works as fast as AMP but isn't restricted to the AMP protocol, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does. And, you know, Google's, even in terms of mobile providing kind of guidance, they've got their mobile speed test, which is interesting. But they can give you guidance. Why not just double down on that kind of focus? It makes a lot of sense. Well, every speed test I do, the stuff that's slowing down the site is hosted by Google, right? So that's one of the things that's in our reports, too. And another thing, you know, not just explaining the no follow to the clients but explaining, too, here's the speed test. And it looks really bad, but let me tell you why it's not actually that bad. Your load time is under two seconds. I'm kind of okay with that. I don't mean it. It's just a go, no-go checklist. And they're saying no-go and the benefits of going might not, you know, might not be appreciable. So we don't really have to pursue that. Now, that's an interesting question because I had this debate with Josh. Do you think, one, are we in alignment? Like it's a go, no-go checklist, right? Your images aren't completely optimized. You've got more than, you know, one JavaScript file. Is that more important than the actual load time, or do you think they consider both? What do you think? I think it's a little bit of both. You know, I believe it's natural to have some third-party scripts and files load and take a little bit longer. But I think from a common

sense perspective, Google should be able to figure out that, hey, you're working off of this CDN, or you're working off of this third party, or you're doing this. And that's just going to take a little bit longer. So look at what's really on the site and look at what really loads first in the experience. And then, you know, I guess go beyond that from the speed perspective. I do think that it's more, I think that more with things becoming mobile first and with more companies seeing a higher percentage of mobile traffic, they're figuring it out anyway. It's becoming part of the conversion experience. It's becoming part of the keep people on site experience. So I think it goes beyond just load time alone. It goes beyond, you know, how people can click around, how fast they get their information, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, that makes sense. And one of the things we always say on the podcast, as long as you're providing a good experience to the Google user, I think, you know, Google can be very technical but probably is not going to get bogged down in that technicality. They're more interested in is it good for the user. So it just gives us something to have to explain to our audience. Well, I've seen a lot of data on mobile sites. If they don't load in like five seconds or whatever, the bounce rate's like 90. Astronomical. Yeah. Like I don't know what the number was. Who's going to stick around? Yeah. Yeah. We have so much patience these days. It's just that they can wait. It's a whole video. So one of the things I read recently, and I don't remember the source and it wasn't really digging that subject, so it didn't stick, but was that, yes, we have more mobile traffic, but conversions are still significantly higher on desktops. Depends on the business. Well, that article, again, I didn't get into the nuances, right? There's a couple ways to look at that. What do you think of that?

And, you know, I've got a prediction, but what is your prediction? Is that going to shift? Is that right? Do you kind of co-sign that? And is it going to shift in 2018? I think it's going to slowly shift. From my own personal experience, I mean, I'm the kind of person that I'll do my research on something, but I won't buy it on another site. I'll go to Amazon and buy it because I'm already logged in. So I'll just like, hey, you can buy it here, or I'll just go to my Amazon app or whatever and search there. One click, done. They already have all my financing information. They're going to send it directly to my house. Two days. They don't have to spend time typing anything in. Yeah, I'm a Prime member, right, on top of that. So I think you'll see that shift for sites that have that together. Shopify does a good job of that with the PayPal integration. So if I'm a PayPal user, I already have my address in there. It makes total sense. Jet, Walmart are doing better jobs. So as we see either these platforms or these companies become more adopted, and people are more likely to actually save their credit card information, I think, now, because you get a hack or a leak like every other week, right? So it's not a big deal as it used to be. We're kind of immune to it now. Oh, another one. Okay. Hopefully I didn't get hacked, or let me change my card anyway. If I'm making a major purchasing decision, I'll do my research on my phone while I'm doing whatever, and I get home, sit in front of my computer, my trusted desktop, and really do my research and really make that sale then. Or call, right? So that's another thing that has to be put into the whole purchase via the phone or purchase via the mobile experience is really the ability. I found myself calling and making orders, whether it's a pizza or a sofa,

right? A lot more than I used to just from my phone or using AI. So it's interesting because this kind of goes against a piece that we said earlier, which was design mobile first. If the conversion is the key thing and the conversion tends to happen on the workstation, then it's not necessarily bad. The reality is you've got to do both. But it's not necessarily bad that we approach, you know, from the workstation first. And then, you know, maybe it's from what you've described, and I operate the same way, you know, sitting in the doctor's waiting room or whatever I'm waiting for, I'm doing research, and then I'm going back and making the purchase on the workstation. Well, I think it's where they are in the funnel, right? And like AIDI, right? And like where you're targeting and how you're trying to share content with them or value that's going to bring them in and nurture them. Yeah, so the mobile can be more about, like, fulfilling the knowledge and the content need and then, you know, becoming that trusted resource when you actually go to purchase. Yeah, and with cross-device retargeting and cooking and everything else, right? As soon as I get home, even if I forget that I want to buy that product that I saw when I was sitting in the doctor's office, Google is going to remind me instantly everywhere I go that I want to buy that product, right? Because I've already made that decision. They know it, and it's banned right to the product page. Yep. But it's fun describing how that works to clients because they're, you know, they're first, like, a little creeped out about it. And then I say, and when it happens for your business and they all, their eyes light up and they're like, yes, that's awesome. That's exactly what we want. Well, we've started to get into, like, venue replay and programmatic ad buying, and it just gets even creepier. Creepy 2.0. If I'm at a coffee shop, right, and I know their

Wi-Fi is a little bit funny, I'm not going to make my purchase. I'm not going to pull out my credit card. I'll look around. I'll look for the creepy-looking dude. I'll put my credit card back in my pocket. I'm going to say, hey, I'm going to wait until I get home to the security of my own internal Wi-Fi to put my credit card information through there. And then Google can just make sure that happens accordingly. So I love it. Yeah, we, in a podcast a little while ago, there was a, we talked a little bit about news, and there was a Wi-Fi provider at a Starbucks in, I think it was in Argentina. And when you connected to it, it would mine Bitcoins on your device for, like, ten, five minutes and then, you know, release it. And I'm like, that's very crafty, very frowned upon and very crafty. So one of the things that I read recently of yours is the 20 years of SEO. I thought that was just a phenomenal article, the recap of everything. So just, this is a podcast parlance, punch in the face for you to that great article. We're about to wrap up here. Was there anything that we could do for you? Like, are you going on a circuit and need people to attend something or any way that we can help you, Loren? Well, I would say, first of all, visit Search Engine Journal. Have I frozen? You have frozen on the screen? It is actually a very good shot, though. It could have been much worse. You have frozen on the screen, but we can hear you. Yeah, we can hear you. It's recorded. Yeah. So I would say visit Search Engine Journal. Sign up for our Facebook page because we do a lot of our, just like you guys, we do a lot of our lives through there. And we take our lives and we record our podcasts from that and repurpose that content in the post and everything else. So in the same

way that you're currently getting this information first on eWebResults, you can also get that from SEJ as well. And I'll be speaking at HothCon in St. Pete on February 1st. That's put on by thehoth.com. Okay. And it's one of my only speaking engagements, really, until probably pub time. So in Vegas in November, I'm taking it easy from the speaking circuit for a while. So find us on Facebook. Find us on social. And looking forward to connecting with your audience and helping you guys share your message as well. Absolutely. We're constantly sharing your message. So that makes a whole lot of sense. So we're going to do a little, please stay with us. We're going to do a little wrap-up. We'll give you an opportunity to say goodbye. We do kind of have this wrap-up scenario. What we're going to say is we would like you to leave us a review. And if you could be so kind, leave us a review at Yelp. We've made it easy. Don't tell Yelp we're asking for Yelp reviews. But go to, yeah, there we go. There, you're back. Go to eWebResults.com slash Yelp. And that'll take you to our Yelp profile. What we would like to say is if you like this podcast, please tell three friends about the podcast. If they're in the industry, if they're a small business owner who really needs to know more about internet marketing so that they can stay on top of the subject and on top of their vendors, send them our direction, please. Share with three people. If you're looking to grow your business with the largest, simplest marketing tool on the planet, the internet, the internet, go ahead and give us a call. Your results will increase revenue in your business. 713-592-6724. And if you'd like, if you have a referral, so sometimes people get confused and don't realize that we do all aspects of internet marketing. That's from website, social media, search engine optimization, pay-per-click, whether that's on all the platforms. We're an agency. We're a full service.

If you've got a referral, send them to us. When they pay us, we will pay you. That's a referral program. Or donate to a good cause. Or we can donate to a good cause. Yeah, that's what I really want to do in 2000. I think that's a great way to send those referral dollars to charities. And then please remember, we were filmed live here at 5999 West 34th Street, Suite 106, Houston, Texas, 77092. You can get audio, video, and a transcript of this podcast at our website, eWebResults.com. Lauren, do you have any kind of wrap-up words as we're finishing here? Pretty good. Thanks, guys. It's been a great experience. You fall into the same thing I do, so don't forget, agency as well, right? Yes. That's entertainment. Yeah, good. Put in a plug, please. Foundation Digital, check us out. We won four different search awards last year, two on the U.S. Search Awards side, two on the Drum Awards side. So always a pleasure to help out my follow-up SEOs and to meet you, too. I feel like I've known you forever. I've only known you for about 40 minutes here, but I'll see you at an event sometime soon. Go Houston, Houston strong. Yes. Right? Yeah, hit us up next time you're in Houston. Texans, I will. Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Thank you. All right. We're wrapping up the podcast. We are the number one podcast on iTunes, the known universe. That is because of you all, all of you all. Thank you in 100 plus different countries. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. My name is Matt Bertram. And this is... Lauren Baker. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye for now.