In this episode, we cover:

Today, we speak to Mr. Jake Fox, the Search Optimization Specialist from Revenue River. He’s been doing digital marketing for more than five years and a HubSpot Certified digital marketing professional.

In this episode, Jake talks about SEO jargon busters in 2020.

Stay tuned for the next podcast episode, where our guest, Marko Sipila, discusses the common SEO mistakes to avoid in 2020.

Show Notes Explanation

Hey guys, welcome to another episode of SEO On-Air. This is Senthil and today we have with us Mr. Jake Fox from Colorado. He is the Search Optimization Specialist from Revenue River. He’s been doing digital marketing for more than five years and a HubSpot Certified digital marketing professional.

His specialties include on-site and off-site SEO optimization, and he’s really good at creative solutions. Mr. Fox hates jargon and breaks down things into simple perspectives to make it easier for people to understand.

Time Stamp: 01:43-02:56

Senthil: So, Jake, why do you think that the SEO industry is full of jargon?

Jake:  I think there are lots of reasons for the existing jargon. One of the reasons can be the fact that there are so many precise rules that folks have to follow while implementing different SEO strategies.

A real easy example of this is the metadata, which consists of the title tag and meta description. People tend to add a lot of jargon to that, which is why I’d like to talk to my clients and demystify the fact that it doesn’t need to be that complicated.

Time Stamp: 03:31-05:22

Senthil: For any industry owner who is interested in learning SEO, what are the main things that he needs to consider?

Jake: If you look at SEO as a whole, it can be overwhelming. But, if you break it into on-site optimization, off-site optimization, and technical SEO, it gets much easier to follow. The most important of these is on-site optimization; you have to choose a set of right keywords that needs to be optimized into your metadata and content.

In terms of off-site optimization, you need to ensure that there are links back to your website from other sites. For local businesses, besides backlink building, they must set up their Google My Business profiles.

Perhaps the most jargon element is technical SEO. Business owners must be aware of the technical SEO basics like website speed and other similar aspects.

Time Stamp: 05:29-07:28

Senthil: Yeah, I think people have the habit of getting free technical audits done, and then they get a bunch of recommendations to fix various technical aspects on their website. What do you think are the common things people must be aware of concerning technical SEO?

Jake: Yeah, I’d like to focus on mobile-first indexing because if a website is mobile-friendly, you can expect huge traffic, and another aspect is site speed, which determines good user experience. I think these two aspects are fundamental for website owners to consider.

Another aspect I’d like to recommend is to emphasize having the HTTPs protocol and securing the user experience.

Time Stamp: 07:41-09:59

Senthil: Yeah, I think 70% of the SEO game is based on content. Now with the BERT update released by Google, everybody seems to talk about it.

So, what do you think is the BERT update, and how does it make content a critical aspect of SEO?

Jake: Content is definitely going to play a huge part in SEO. The BERT update uses Natural Language Processing  (NLP) to understand the intent of the search query.

Presently Google can understand the context of a sentence much better than before. This means that keyword stuffing doesn’t play a part in manipulating the search results after the BERT update.

Time Stamp: 10:14-12:36

Senthil: A famous example of this is the search query for the term “Apple,” where the results showed previously will be related to mobile phones and accessories only instead of the fruit.

I think the major problems that the content team faces are issues with plagiarism and content duplication. Is there a difference between the two?

Jake: I think there is a difference between content plagiarism and content duplication in SEO. Plagiarism can be caused due to copied content on the web, but content duplication is more of a technical issue.

For example, when there are multiple versions of the homepage where one version is using www. and the other is not, it can really confuse the search engines.

So as an SEO expert, we must ensure that we’ll clear up any issue related to duplicate content. Content syndication is another excellent practice that is being followed these days.

Time Stamp: 12:39-14:39

Senthil: That’s great to know. Another aspect that we haven’t covered yet is the off-site SEO optimization. What metrics do you suggest a business owner should consider when it comes to link building activities?

Jake: I know that Domain Rank and Domain Score have been important metrics in the past. As Google evolved and started understanding search queries better, there are two things that webmasters should consider for link building. One is the relevance of the site, and another is to analyze the toxic links of the websites you’re approaching to.

Time Stamp: 12:39-16:24

Senthil:  So, Jake, can you share some white hat SEO tricks for people listening to you?

Jake: That’s a great question. I will just continue with off-site optimization. One key aspect that is overlooked is leveraging existing relationships. I noticed that a lot of specialists in SEO will focus on outreach strategies, but fail to consider the relationship they already have.

I think when you leverage these already existing relationships, you don’t need to do the groundwork from scratch and you can directly start with Step 2 of link building activities.

Time Stamp: 16:25-18:27

Senthil: Right, I remember we conducted a podcast with a guy called Roman, who also said that link building is actually relationship building, and I can see that you are also speaking along the same lines, so it must be really important. Is there anything else you want to add?

Jake: I think when you’re working on a big website where you have to work on thousands of pages, it can be quite overwhelming to optimize all of them.  So taking an approach where you can automate the process with developers’ help will be very useful.

Time Stamp: 18:45-20:05

Senthil: A lot of changes are happening lately in the field of SEO, from voice search, feature snippets to AI integration. So, where do you think the future of SEO is headed?

Jake: I think Google will continue to push mobile-first. I also feel that there will be more advancement in the line of BERT update and NLP in the coming days. There is going to be more focus on the user intent of online searches as well.

Time Stamp: 20:11-22:59

Senthil: We already know that many industries are suffering in the wake of COVID, especially the hospitality, travel, and construction industries. Would you like to share any input about the same?

Jake: I think companies will take a closer look at their digital marketing aspect. Many business owners have already been forced to dial in their digital marketing values in the present situation.

I believe considering buyers’ persona and buyers’ journey is going to be more critical than ever before. You can read our case study and see how we’ve helped an international construction company grow by 215%.

Senthil: Thank you, Jake. I think we’ve covered a lot, and whoever is listening to this will be benefited from this podcast session. We have added a link to Jake’s case study in this podcast so that our viewers can check it out.