SEO in 2024: Striking a Balance Between User Experience and Google's Algorithm

Hey, hi everyone. Now, welcome to your show E-coffee with experts. This is your host, Ramay here. And today we have Rick Saake, who is the head of digital and digital results with us. Hey, Rick, how is it going?

It’s very good. How about you?

All good, yeah. I can’t complain. Great. Rick, before you move any forward, let’s start by knowing the human behind the mic. Why don’t you talk us through your journey so far? How did you land in the digital marketing space? Because no one, as a kid, dreamed of getting to SEO and stuff, right? So How did you land up in the space? What has been your journey thus far? Also about digital results, your agency, what do you guys specialize in, and what are your core competencies? Let me take it forward from there.

I would say one of the benefits I had at a young age, my dad knew that computers were going to be very important and like the next big up-and-coming thing, even before our schools had computers, we had a computer in our house, so I was able to learn programming. Some of the first programming we had were punch cards that we worked on, and then also programming on old systems that you record things on cassette tapes before there were even floppy disks that were being used. I’ve been doing it for a long time. Also, after I graduated and got out of college, there was a lot of push for the internet just starting up. I had friends that were asking me, Hey, can you help us out with this? And creating a page. Back then, it was like you’d have one image on the page and a bunch of text. It was more information and got to the point where specializing in that. It just grew from there. I found that I was good at it and had a way of looking at and finding the right information. Over time, I’ve worked on both the client side and the agency side.

I love the agency side. It allows us to work with all kinds of different industries. The big blessing, I think, that I have is I don’t think I’d like one of those jobs where things never changed. As digital, if you’re worried about something not changing, just wait for five minutes. So if something new will be popping up.

Absolutely. And then talking about time, 27 years of managing a website, you have seen enough summers and winters, that Google algorithm updates, massive shift. In the digital landscape. How have you been able to adapt and also enhance your skillsets to stay ahead of the curve through some light on the learning there?

Yeah, I would say one of the biggest things is I am an eternal learner. I’m constantly going out and looking to see what other people are saying, what people are thinking are going to be the next big thing. We talk about AI now, but we were working with different AI tools and machine learning tools 2-3 years before the industry was even really talking about it. We even built our own IP and digital results that work with different tools because we felt like one tool doesn’t give everything. Everybody said, Let’s just do a ChatGPT. Chatgpt is going to focus on things in a specific way. We’ve had our developers build API connectors for all of these different tools to bring in and help us build better content based on that. It’s constantly learning about what’s new. Over time, there’s been a ton of things that we thought were going to be the next big thing. Augmented reality for a long time, everybody has been talking about how augmented reality is going to change how searches are done and everything, and it has become less known. But there have been these different types of technological changes over the years that have changed how people look at mobile being warm, social being another, AI coming now is another one that’s coming on.

We’ve seen this progression that’s happened with digital advertising and digital marketing that will continue to grow. Again, you wait five years from now and AI will be on the back burner and something new will be on the front burner, and we’ll be focusing on Absolutely.

I remember a couple of years to this state when AI, the storm hit us with ChatGPT and all coming in, people getting scared for their jobs. Now, the best-paid ones are the ones that have adopted it and have become more tech-savvy in terms of adopting and using AI. When you’re talking about using AI, what are, let’s say, give us the top three tools that really can you feel have made your life or job easier? And what exciting is it being done with the AI platform to have digital results?

I would say that some big ones that we’ve used before, we’ve used tools like it used to be called Jarvis, not called Jarvis anymore. But copy AI and ChatGPT, are all great tools for the actual content creation. And then whether we’re looking at Semrush or you’re looking at Conductor or Bright Edge, all those tools for how do you pull in and find that information that’s going to be working, where’s the intent of searches, what are other terms that people will use on pages that we’re looking for, even tools that Google provides. A lot of people ignore things like search consoles and even the analytics data that they’re looking at. All of those can be incorporated to give you a better or well-undergrounded view of what needs to be included on pages.

Absolutely. Dan, talking about assembling a high-performing digital marketing team, which can be a task in itself, right? And you have formed quite a few there. So what are the key skills and qualities you’re looking for in your potential hires? Now, this question is specifically for those listeners. You started that entrepreneur journey and tried to build a team to get going from there.

Yeah, I would say that probably the four that are foundational that people will look at is they’re looking for people that have either analytical or creative mindsets, but that they’re good with both the technical and the communication side. So whether it’s content or how things need to be laid out on pages, all of that can be incorporated. But the two that I think are the primary ones that I always look for when I’m hiring and I’m building out teams. First of all, I’m looking for a person that’s a learner and adaptable. That person is always looking to make themselves better, and they’re always willing to ask the question of why. We always talk with our staff and we say that when you see a number that goes up or down, when you’re reporting it to a client, don’t just report the number. Tell them why that’s happening or things that you believe are causing that. Because everyone can look at analytics, right? But it’s that person who knows and can strategize things properly and knows why those things are going up and down, that makes a really good value. Then the other one is just customer-centric, always bringing it back to what’s going to work for the client.

A lot of times you can come up with ideas and you can say, This is great. But if that client’s team can’t take that information and make it come to fruition, You can create the best content in the world, but if they can’t get it up on their website easily, what is it that we need to be doing to be thinking about that and thinking about what’s going to make them successful? Because again, from the agency standpoint, the agency And everyone is only successful if our clients are successful.

Absolutely. If they are growing, you’re growing up. It goes hand in hand, right? Correct. Absolutely. And then talking about your background, Rick, such a strong background in SEO, and you have been there for quite some time, right? You would have met business owners across domains, industries, and niches, right? So what do you feel are some of the common mistakes businesses make when it comes to SEO, formulating that strategy if they don’t have an expert like you?

Yeah, I would say, I would joke with my staff about this. People, a lot of times, they’ll go to a conference and they’ll come back from that conference. They’ll say, Oh, we need to have more organic traffic or we need more keywords. Then they’ll go out to an agency and say, Hey, we need to grow our organic traffic or we need to grow our keywords. My first response is, Most likely that may not be the case. You’ll tell them, That may not be the case. You don’t want more organic traffic. What is the result that you want the organic traffic to do is that thing that iso be the perfect thing that you’re looking for? You may say, Are you looking for more sales or more leads? What is it that you are looking for that traffic to do? And they’ll say, Oh, I’m looking for more leads, and I’m looking for more qualified leads. Then you say, Great. So if I produce less organic traffic, but I gave you those organic leads and high-quality leads that you’re looking for, would that be what you’re looking for? And it is a mindset that has to change because their first thought is that more simply signifies better.

And that’s not necessarily the case. We can drive a ton of organic traffic to a site, but if it doesn’t match the intent or the audience that they’re looking for, that seems a good word. Then I think from the rest of it that the mindset is usually, let’s create more content just to create more content. A lot of times we will tell people that this is not necessarily the best thing you’re looking for. You’re looking for great content that’s going to help your site. Even bringing it back and saying, how technologically sound is your website right now? Do you have a lot of errors that exist throughout it? Do you have things like the same title on 20 different pages? Are you using keywords within your titles and your descriptions? And are you making sure that you have all the attributes for all of your images? And how are your images named? How big all kinds of things can be looked at even before you get into the content side. And then when you build content, we are strong proponents of building authoritative content. So not just a splattering of different pieces that they think they want to write, but let’s talk about specific types of content that are going to work together and are going to inform Google that you are an authority in the subject matter.

Because if you just write one or two pieces about something, Google is not going to see you as authoritative. But if all of a sudden you have 12 to 15 pieces of content and it’s all around a little subject matter, Google starts to recognize that you are an authority, and that will help you grow immensely more for the traffic that you’re looking for.

Absolutely. With AI content creation, has become easy up to an extent for businesses, and they feel that that would do the trick for them.

Yeah, I see a lot of sites that are putting out a bunch of I would say that a lot of it comes back to the prompts that are being written for ChatGPT. Then it’s like, Hey, I just need 500 words about XYZ And they just give a subject matter. They haven’t told ChatGPT, What are the focus areas that need to be in here? Or even ask the question, look at the top sites and what do they have on their pages that makes them rank in the top positions? What are the questions that they answer for the user? Again, this content doesn’t have to just be good for It has to be good for the user when they get there, and it needs to have great engagement metrics. Then you need to talk about all of that needs to be dealt with and not just ask one big thing to be splattered out because, yes, you can then take that and throw it up on your website. But if it doesn’t answer the questions that people are looking for, it’s not going to do good for you.

Absolutely. Can’t agree with you more. Now we have it in SEO. We understand that SEO is not a one-size-fits-all solution. I mean, not only across the industry but also for different companies in the same niche. They have their brand vision. They have their brand statement. They have their ideas of things, and how they want to be represented in terms of how the customers look at them. How do you tailor your SEO strategy to meet the unique needs and expectations of these clients and the goals as well? Because at the end of the day, they want the phones ringing, right?

Yeah. So When we first sit down with clients, some of the first questions are, how are you going to determine if there is success in what we’re doing for you? Because it usually brings about things like, What is the most important thing on your website for you? Is it that you want more traffic to a specific section? Is there an audience right now that you’re trying to grow? What are those areas? And sitting down and just listening to the client explain what they’re looking for. That, to me, is the first thing, and that’s the listening part of it. Then what we do is we try to create a roadmap to get them to those points, and we’ll show them, Here are the steps that will happen to get you there. Sometimes we’re like, I want to jump to step four, and you’re like, You can’t do that. You have to start with the steps and follow them in order because this is how we’re building this out. It’s like building a home. If you go out there and all of a sudden you start building walls on the ground and there’s not a great foundation, stuff is going to start to sink, and then you end up with things like the leaning tower piece are not working.

The joke about it is that it tilts. We would look and say, Here, let’s look at the foundational things that we have to get right first. Then we can start building walls and then we can decorate the inside and make it look all nice and all those things that can happen from that perspective. We produce a roadmap then that is for them to follow. It gives them insights about what are the next steps. It’s not just like, I got a deliverable, and that deliverable is a list, and I don’t know what to do with it. When we do things from a technical perspective when looking at it, we don’t only provide them with information about, Here are the issues that are on your website, but we also give them an effort and an impact relationship on each one of those things that are happening on there. And we’ll tell them some things are going to have little effort and give you great impact. That’s going to be your quadrant in one area. And then go two and three. Then the last thing is, if you have time left over, these are the ones that take a lot of effort and very little impact.

Here are the things that you want to work on first, second, third, and fourth, and that’s going to be from your technical standpoint. Then when we work on content, here’s how we’re going to produce content. We’re going to produce them in these blocks so that when we launch them, we will see a lot of good content with great internal linking back and forth, and that’s going to show them what we have here and show them the authority that we have.

Absolutely. I mean, strategizing those quick wins there to make them see the need to move and then take it from there.

Right. And some clients are like, and it’s different. When we talk about different industries, when we talk about restaurants, their focus is much more on both. You want to be talking about things about not just I’m in the city, but what neighborhood am I in and what things are around me and talk about them in that aspect because when people are doing searches and you’re looking for those near and Google is looking for relationships on this, they’re looking at all that information. That way, you may start ranking for something that you weren’t thinking you might rank for. I think over time, we’re going to see a lot more changes to the algorithm. I think algorithms. Some of the talk that we’re hearing from Google engineers is that there ultimately will be different algorithms for different types of searches. I praise all of them who are looking at doing that because if you use one algorithm to rule them all, it is a problem. We see that an example would be when you look for a recipe. Right now, you look for a recipe and it’s got all of this information about whose grandmother made the recipe and everything.

What you’re looking for is, I need the chocolate chip cookie recipe. You have to scroll through a bunch of information to get to that actual recipe. Eventually, hopefully, there’ll be a better algorithm for recipes and for sports and everything that’s It’s going to be a little bit different to fit that intent and what that person is looking for so that somebody doesn’t have to write a recipe to look like a blog and then to make it rank.

Yeah, absolutely. I don’t think of this in terms of strategy. That is one way of looking at SEO, where we are still focused on what Google is looking at, right? How can we rank our clients right up there, right? There is another way of looking at it is, the end of the day, consumption of content or whatever we are doing is being done by a human being or by those consumers who are, who end of the day will make that decision to either buy a service or buy a user service or buy a product. There are certain complications there in terms of focusing on Google algorithms in terms of trying to help our clients rank and also looking at creating that consumer-centric SEO strategy. How do you strike a balance there?

I think in the past, there has been a big gap between those two. Everybody said you have to write for Google, and then you have to write for the end user. And I think Google has gotten lines because as they try to become more of that answer engine,and we’re seeing this through the API week that we had on Google just last month. What is it that Google is tracking that they’re looking at? And we’re starting to see those lines start to come together. And I think that’s going to be a really beneficial side because Google is realizing that if it’s good for a user, it’s good to be seen in search for it. I think that we’ll start to see things that are written well and answer what clients are looking for and users are looking for when they’re doing searches. And those things are all of a sudden going to become hyper-important. I think as we’re looking at what these ranking signals and ranking factors that are out there, I think that we’re going to start to see the number of things that are tied to both customer experience and user experience on a website are going to become larger and larger pieces of the puzzle that Google is looking at.

We’re starting to see a little bit of a problem, I think, in search right now where you’re seeing 25 types of major websites that show up in the top results for a lot of these types of searches that were being done. It gives them, right now, grief to Reddit, and Reddit’s showing up for almost every search that people are looking for. But I think we’re going to get away from that eventually. And that if somebody happens to write a great article that has great user experience, a customer, and when they get to that page, it’s getting the information they’re looking for and engaging with it. I think those pages ultimately will start to do better. I think Google has still got a lot of things built into their higher-end ranking factors. We all say domain authority, but that site authority is being pulled in on Google’s side. I think that site authority will start to take quite more of a back-end to what’s happening. Google will start to say, If somebody has a mom’s blog, and that mom’s blog is excellent on one specific subject matter, that should rank in the top position over Forbes.

It really should because that means that the end user is going to be getting the information they’re looking for. I think that right now there are some penalties for being smaller or that are out there that Google will eventually have to get rid of and/or make them less of a high priority in the algorithms that they’re using.

Absolute one question or piece of advice rather for our listeners today, especially the ones who are starting and trying to make a mark in the SEO and digital marketing space.

Oh, wow. If somebody is trying to make a mark in the SEO space, I would say, don’t try to do too much at once. A lot of times people will say, I want to rank for these 100 keywords. How about finding 10 keywords that match the intent of your users and your audience and focus on those 10 to start with and build around those? You could even say, I only want it to be one. I’ve worked with Fortune 100 companies before, and their focus has been on 15 to 20 keywords. Even though they track 20,000 keywords, their focus was on those because they knew that if they could rank well for those specific keywords in the long run, that was equal to millions of dollars for them over a lifetime of clients coming in. I think that that’s an important mindset that a Fortune 100 company has, they may track a lot of information, but they’re very focused on some very specific areas that they want to target.

Absolutely. Point taken, Rick. Lovely. Good, Rick. This has been a brilliant conversation. For our audiences, if they want to reach out to you, how do they do Sure.

They can visit our website, and get digitalresults.com. They can also find us through all the social platforms that are out there. They can find me on LinkedIn and just reach out to us. And again, if they’re looking for something, even their small sites or something like that, that we don’t know what to do next, or we just were being told we need to get SEO help or PPC help, whatever it is that they’re looking for, they can even contact us through the website, and we’ll give them a free 30-minute consultation, go through their site, talk about things that we see that are benefits, things that we could help them with, and give them some recommendations.

Lovely. That is brilliant. Good, Rick. Thank you so much for doing this with us. Appreciate it, man. Cheers.

Thank you very much.