Staying strong during the ebb and flow of SEO
Bonjour mon petite SEO beasts.
Today we’re talking about longevity in SEO.
These days everyone is looking for a quick fix, fast engagement, the dopamine hit of an easy like.
But the truth is that a solid SEO strategy takes time.
As I like to say, SEO is for life, not just for Christmas.
It can take a long time to get the needle moving, undo previous bad work and build up authority.
But once you get your SEO firing, the results last a very long time.
I have posts I wrote back in 2009 that still deliver consistent traffic to my site.
And my SEO has weathered the storm for 13 years, through a gazillion algorithm updates, with very little movement.
Our friend Rand Fishkin refers to SEO as a heavy flywheel; difficult to get started, but once it’s going, not so much effort is required.
So today I’m chatting with Alizée about how we ensure our SEO strategy is built for the long term and how to resist reacting to every little change.
Tune in to learn:
- Core SEO pillars and principles that have remained unchanged
- How long it will take to get results from your SEO strategy
- Keywords: should you update them constantly or stick with the same ones
- What your long-term keyword strategy should be
- How to react when a new competitor moves above you in the rankings
- Milestone changes in SEO in the last three years
- Updates in SEO that you should be aware of
- How iteration factors into a solid SEO strategy
- Alizée’s top two tactics to try out today
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And big thanks to JaneBartelJewelry from the United States for their lovely review:
“Fantastic show about SEO but so many other topics! I’m in Kate’s Digital Master Chef’s online course (love it) and am just finishing up her Recipe for SEO Success (as if you could ever really be done with this!) but today while I was busy cleaning my jewellery studio.
I listened to probably four hours of her podcasts with super stars like Rand Fishkin from Spark Toro, a brilliant LinkedIn expert, updates on SEO tactics and so much more.
Easy to listen to, frequently funny and I always learn something. Thanks Kate! ”
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About Alizée Baudez
Her goal is to make sure value-driven businesses are easily found by their future customers. She has worked with businesses from all around the world and specialises in e-commerce and international websites.
Alizée’s work is fuelled by good coffee and meaningful business relationships.
Fun fact: Alizée recently learned how to knit! As it turns out, it’s not an old lady’s hobby anymore, and it’s a pretty efficient solution to prevent snacking in the evening.
Connect with Alizée Baudez
Useful Resources
Transcript
Kate Toon:
Bonjour mon petite SEO beasts. Today, we’re talking about longevity in SEO. These days, everyone is looking for a quick fix, fast engagement, the dopamine hit of an easy like, but the truth is that solid SEO strategy takes time. As I like to say, SEO is for life, not just for Christmas. It can take a long time to get the needle moving, undo previous bad work, and build up authority. But once you get your SEO firing, the results can last a very, very long time. I have posts I wrote back in 2009 that still deliver consistent traffic to my site. And my SEO has weathered the storm for 13 years through a gazillion algorithm updates with very little movement.
Kate Toon:
Our friend Rand Fishkin refers to SEO as a “heavy flywheel,” difficult to get started, but once it’s going, not so much effort is required. So today I’m chatting with Alizée about how we ensure our SEO strategy is built for the long term and how to resist reacting to every little change. Hello, my name is Kate Toon, and I’m the head chef at The Recipe for SEO Success, an online teaching hub for all things search engine optimization and digital marketing. And I’m here today to talk with Alizée Baudez. Hello, Alizée.
Alizée Baudez:
Hello.
Kate Toon:
It’s good to talk to you. I’m doing my best French accent, although Alizée and I have just discussed that she doesn’t sound French at all. What’s going on?
Alizée Baudez:
Well, I grew up in the UK, so I have a British kind of posh accent going on.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, yeah.
Alizée Baudez:
And I kept it since I was six years old. So, here we are.
Kate Toon:
There you go. You see, I live in Australia, and I think everyone expects me to be like, “G’day, cobber.” But I’m British, and it doesn’t go away, does it, once you’ve got that accent installed? But anyway, I’m very impressed that you’re multilingual. Let’s get into who you are, for those of you who don’t know Alizée. Alizée Baudez is an independent SEO consultant based in France. She helps creative entrepreneurs regain control over their organic visibility. Her goal is to make sure value driven businesses are easily found by their future customers.
Kate Toon:
She’s worked with businesses from all around the world, and specialises in e-commerce and international websites. Oh, goodie. I’m always getting questions about international e-commerce, so that’s great. Alizée’s work is fueled by good coffee and meaningful business relationships. Oh, I like that. Fun fact, Alizée recently worked out how to knit. I’m not sure this is fun. As it turns out, it’s not an old lady’s hobby anymore, and it’s a pretty efficient solution to prevent snacking in the evening. I like that. So, you keep your hands busy so you can’t be stuffing-
Alizée Baudez:
Absolutely.
Kate Toon:
… croissants in at six o’clock.
Alizée Baudez:
Exactly. That’s exactly it. It’s Netflix and knit instead of Netflix and ice cream or whatever I might get my hands on.
Kate Toon:
I think it’s Netflix and chill, isn’t it? I think that’s the rude version of Netflix.
Alizée Baudez:
Well, but chill does mean eating and snacking on the side, doesn’t it?
Kate Toon:
It does. It does a bit. I do like to knit, but I can’t do the beginning bit. I can’t cast on. So, I have to get someone else to do that bit, and then I can get going from there. But I have been knitting the same scarf, I kid you not, Alizée, I’ve carried it around in a plastic carrier bag, since I was 26. And I’m not going to tell you how old I am now.
Alizée Baudez:
How old are you now?
Kate Toon:
I’m old. I’m 48. I’ve just had my birthday.
Bon anniversaire to moi.
Alizée Baudez:
Bon anniversaire.
Kate Toon:
So, yeah, and it’s not finished. It’s like some kind of long Doctor Who scarf. Do you know who Doctor Who is? You’re British.
Alizée Baudez:
Yes, absolutely.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, okay.
Alizée Baudez:
Of course.
Kate Toon:
Le Doctor Who. How do you say Doctor Who in French?
Alizée Baudez:
Docteur Who.
Kate Toon:
Docteur Qui? Docteur Qui?
Alizée Baudez:
Well, no, we don’t translate it. Most French people don’t really know about it because it is a little bit of a niche British type of-
Kate Toon:
Yeah, it is a bit niche. Yeah.
Alizée Baudez:
… show.
Kate Toon:
It’s got even more niche now. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about knitting or Docteur Qui. We’re here to talk about longevity in SEO. So, as I said, I do believe that the more SEO changes, the more it stays the same. And I know that sounds a bit of a cliche, but the core pillars of SEO haven’t really changed for a long time. What would you say to that? Do you agree with me, or do you violently disagree? Do you think it’s changed a lot, or do you think it’s similar?
Alizée Baudez:
I think it evolves, the same way like as a child, you’re still the child you were when you were seven years old, but evolved. I think SEO is kind of the same. It grows with the internet. It grows with us and with our usage of it. I think the thing that has not changed at all is the philosophy behind especially Google. We can talk about other search engines too, but the philosophy behind Google has always been the same. It’s to provide the users with the best answer possible to whatever question they might have and to organise the information of the world, which is still pretty ambitious today, even if they’ve been doing that for a while now. So, from my point of view, the thing that will probably never change is making sure you have quality content, that whatever you deliver brings value in any way possible. And as long as you keep that in mind, that’s not going to change much, I believe.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I like that. No. You did say that it’s like evolving from a child. I think some people never actually do that. So, there is that. Some people are man-children or woman-children. No, I love that because that’s-
Alizée Baudez:
You still have to keep a little bit of childhood-
Kate Toon:
Playfulness.
Alizée Baudez:
… fantasy.
Kate Toon:
Playfulness.
Alizée Baudez:
Yeah, absolutely.
Kate Toon:
Yes, exactly. But like you said, you grew up in the UK for a certain amount of time. You’ve still got your UK accent. It’s the same with me. I like that the philosophy hasn’t changed, and it’s kind of like the backbone hasn’t changed, delivering great content to consumers. Now, for website owners, business owners, Google makes us jump through a few hoops to do that. And those hoops get more and more sophisticated. You’re focusing on e-commerce and international. I guess my focus is often been on content and copywriting. And although yet more algorithms come out, Google Bert, Google Hummingbird, Google MUM, the natural language processing gets better and better, at the end of the day, that’s a good thing. That means we can write better and better content that doesn’t have to be shoehorned into some weird SEO shape to feed Google if the same content feeds both people. So, I love that. The core pillars are the same and the principle is the same.
Kate Toon:
But as I mentioned in the intro, again, most people these days want quick fixes and fast results. And as we know, with Google Ads, you get that. You pay your money, you get your ads. But SEO is more of a long game, right? It’s not just for Christmas, it’s for life. The question I get often asked is, “How long is it going to take me to get results from my SEO strategy?” So, what is your answer there? I think you’re going to probably give the classic SEO consultant answer, but I’m interested to hear.
Alizée Baudez:
Drum roll. It depends.
Kate Toon:
You said it.
Alizée Baudez:
I think-
Kate Toon:
I want to get a range of T-shirts for SEO that just say, “It depends.” But yes, keep going.
Alizée Baudez:
I think I’ll design one at some point. But yes, I think it does depend on the website. It depends on your goals, on the budget you have also, because we have to take that into account. Most websites today don’t have tonnes and tonnes of marketing teams to solve all those things we want them to solve. So, we have to take that into consideration. And what I usually say to my clients is that, “Don’t expect anything before three to six months minimum.” It can take up to a year. We might get really difficult websites that have been a bit in a slump for ages, where things have been done a bit in a best way for a while. It can take a long time. The effort is always worthwhile because the results are then really long-lasting. But if anyone comes up to you and says, “I can promise you a great result in less than three months,” be a bit wary. It’s probably not true.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I agree. I love the three to six months. And although a lot of SEO agencies and consultants have a bad name because they’re often seen to be trying to get you on board for six months, and you’re like, “Why do I have to commit to that?” it’s like, because for the first three months we’re probably undoing all the mess you already made of your site. And the thing is as well, the worse your site is, sometimes the faster you’ll see results, because if you have a site that’s loading in 22 seconds and I manage to shave it down to three, you could see yourself jump in the ranking pretty quick. But if you are already at the pointy end of SEO where you’ve optimised your site, you’ve chosen your keywords well, and we’re really into that kind of building authority and brand awareness stage, it can take a lot longer.
Kate Toon:
And as you said, it depends on the niche. It depends on the keywords that you’re going after and how competitive your competitors are. I was talking to a client the other day, and they were like, “Oh, I had another plumber, another plumber come to me and ask me to do their SEO. And I honestly just said, ‘I’m not going to do it because it’s just too hard.’ It’s too hard to compete in that space.” Unless you’ve got big ad budget, you’re screwed. And I think that’s so important to look at the business and make that judgement based on the business and their goals. I love that answer. So, three to six months, but as you said, it can take up to a year if it’s a competitive space.
Kate Toon:
So, here we are sitting thinking long term. Oh, what am I on? I’ve got lost. I’ve lost my thread. Where was I up to? Obviously, we need to keep our sites technically up-to-date and continue to build backlinks and authority. But what is your long term strategy for keywords? Often, people will do their keyword research. They’ll generate a list of keywords, organise them by search intent, assign them to pages, and then optimise the pages. And then they’re like, “I’m done with keywords. I’m done with my copywriting.” Do you stick with the keywords you have? Or how often do you do a refresh? How often do you spring clean your keywords?
Alizée Baudez:
So, there are two things here. First would be, if ever you have a new range of products you’re launching, a form of pivot in your business, you’re trying to reach a new audience, or if your business model may be changed slightly, this is a good opportunity to have a look at your keywords, to maybe have a look at this new audience you’re targeting. It might be phrasing the questions they have regarding the services or products you offer. So, any time there’s some sort of move around in the business, I’d suggest having a look at the keywords, making sure they’re still on track. And this actually goes with the market research you probably did to launch that new range of product, to go to launch the new change in your business, that kind of stuff.
Alizée Baudez:
The other thing would be to have a regular checkup anyways. Ideally, I’d say between every six months to a year, just having a look at the list you created, having a look at that Excel sheet, opening it once in a while and having a look at it and seeing just, are things actually still relevant to what you do? And then having a look at Google Search Console and see if your users think you’re still relevant to what you do at the end of the day. And that would be my answer. Every six months to a year, having a look at all those. Just reading through them can be already a huge advantage, a huge thing to do. And whenever anything changes in your business, be mindful of those keywords. Take care of them, they’re very precious.
Kate Toon:
They are very precious. Yeah, I love that. I mean, if you’re fortunate enough to be working with somebody like you, you’d be providing monthly updates on keyword rankings. And you, as the SEO consultant, are going to notice big shifts in movements. Like, all of a sudden, that keyword is not delivering how it used to. You’re going to notice that. But if you’re DIYing it, it can be harder to see that. And also often you get the report, you look through it and you go, “Meh,” and don’t take any action. So, I like that idea of every six months sitting down and really going through line by line, keyword by keyword, and looking at it. So, when you have a new product coming in, when there’s a shift in the business, when there’s a shift in your branding.
Kate Toon:
I think another thing is when you notice a new competitor has come into the space. I used to rank number one for copywriter in Australia for a very, very long time, but then now I’ve taught hundreds of copywriters how to do SEO. So, often I’ll see my students stealing my ranking, which is a beautiful thing. But when I was still a copywriter, I would notice a new competitor come in. Sometimes Google does reward the newness and gives them a bob up. And you’re like, “There’s no reason for this person to be ranking this well. They’ve got nothing,” but sometimes Google just… I spoke to John Mueller about this, and I’m like, “There’s this site. It’s got no authority, it’s got hardly any content, and it’s ranking quite well.” And he’s like, “Yeah. Sometimes we just like to mix it up.” And I’m like, “You can’t say that!” But it’s fair, right?
Alizée Baudez:
Typical John Mueller.
Kate Toon:
Typical John. I love John. He’s coming back on the podcast to do the kickoff episode in 2023.
Alizée Baudez:
How awesome.
Kate Toon:
But yeah, new competitor comes into the space. But I also like what you said about just the environment changing, looking at Google Trends, thinking about what’s happening in the world. Five years ago, if you’d have typed in, “Harry and Meghan,” into Google, it would’ve been meaningless. It would have had no meaning because there was no cultural meaning attached to it. Now “Harry and Meghan” is a hugely competitive term that people in the trash mag zones are fighting over constantly. So, things change. So, when things change, you need to respond to that change. I really, really like that answer.
Kate Toon:
So, another thing that I think is one of the reasons that people are put off doing search engine optimization is, “Oh, it’s changes all the time.” They’re always changing the algorithm. There’s always something new happening. And if we’re thinking long term and we’re trying not to make rash moves, what do we do when we hear about an algorithm update, or when we see a brand new site pop up in the search results, or we see ourselves dip a little bit, or our domain authority drops? How do we stop ourselves reacting? What are some things to think about before we change stuff and actually maybe change it for the worse by accident? How do we stop ourselves? What are some things to consider?
Alizée Baudez:
So, when it comes to algorithm updates, I always think of it as a lake, and the algorithm update would be a stone you throw in the middle of the lake. So, it creates ripples. Things are going to move, but at the end, it’s going to go back to a calm state. So, first of all, keep calm. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. I like to be pretty picky with the sources of information I consume. I’m not searching for updates or many things that might happen every single day on Twitter because that just takes a lot of your time and is not really rewarding at the end of the day. So, I subscribe to a few newsletters and I just check what’s been going on every week, and that’s way enough for me as a consultant to keep updated. So, as an in-house SEO, doing it maybe once a month might even be enough for you. Don’t chase the information. Don’t get FOMO.
Alizée Baudez:
And when it comes to having a new competitor coming in, your keywords and your result page, things moving a little bit around, I’d say a good rule of thumb is just to remember that it’s the same way as if you had a shop and another shop opened in your street. You would just have a look, maybe go in, see what they offer, understand who’s coming in, who’s coming out, the type of audience they have and see how that compares to you. And I don’t believe that if a shop opens in your street, you would shut your own shop for two weeks and repaint everything and reorganise all your shop. That wouldn’t probably happen.
Alizée Baudez:
So, don’t do that either on your website. Keep things smooth. And if you see that the features they offer, that anything they do might be a bit better than what you do, get inspiration, test it on your website. Give it a month or maybe two months to test it to make sure you have significant results, and from there on make a decision. But, at the end of day, it’s kind of the same process you should do all the time. It’s like, do little bits of testing bit by bit and see how things evolve. But yeah, don’t overreact-
Kate Toon:
Yeah, and gosh-
Alizée Baudez:
… and don’t panic.
Kate Toon:
Don’t panic. I love that. So many things I want to pull out of that. So, I like the idea of the lake and the ripples. And I think as well, because we’re in the industry and we are on Twitter, we do see everyone jumping on the algorithm update and saying, “Well, I’ve noticed this,” and, “I’ve noticed this.” And then often, three weeks later, you find out that that was nothing to do with the algorithm update. It was just something else happening to that particular site.
Alizée Baudez:
It was just a test.
Kate Toon:
Yeah.
Alizée Baudez:
It was just an algorithmic test that happened for a couple of weeks somewhere, and that’s it.
Kate Toon:
Couple of weeks. This is it. So, you can be too knee-jerk and following too closely. We also have to remember that, so especially for small businesses, a lot of these algorithm updates aren’t really even aimed at sites like ours.
Alizée Baudez:
No.
Kate Toon:
They’re aimed at people doing nefarious black hat activities on a grand scale. People freaking out because they’ve got one bit of content on their site that’s duplicate content thinking they’re going to get a penalty. Google doesn’t even care, doesn’t even notice. And I think you can’t ape huge sites doing things on scale and think that that applies to you. And I love that you have certain sources of truth. I do too. But I’m also very conscious of waiting and seeing. It’s like, I used to build a lot of WordPress websites. And WordPress would release a new update to the WordPress software. And you never updated when they updated that. You waited until version 0.3 or 0.4 when they’d ironed out the kinks a little bit. And it’s the same with these algorithm changes.
Kate Toon:
The other thing is we know, having been in SEO for a while, that often Google gives things or tries things out and then takes them away. Do you remember when they changed the meta descriptions to 230 characters? Everyone went out, changed their whole site, and then they changed it back again. And it’s like, “God damn it!” So, you don’t want to be creating work for yourself. You’ve got to take pause and also take notice of the changes that actually are going to impact you. A lot of the algorithm changes will have nothing to do with you whatsoever. They’re not even aimed at your type of site. So, I love that.
Kate Toon:
Now, most SEOs believe that while it’s hard work to get started with SEO, once your SEO is working, you don’t need to put quite as much effort in. So, if you’ve got a site to a reasonable point, you’ve fixed all the tech bugs, you’ve speeded it up, sorted out the crawlability, the responsiveness, you’ve picked some good keywords, now what are some of the monthly tasks you would recommend, as an SEO consultant, that that site thinks about to bob along, to keep their ranking? You’ve talked about checking keywords once every six months. What other things would you be looking at at a monthly basis?
Alizée Baudez:
So, first thing would be to monitor the changes that happen to the website. Sorry about that. To monitor the changes you made to the website. So, if you’ve put up new pages and things like that, just keep a track of them and have a look at how they perform maybe two weeks after. If they have been indexed, because we know there are some indexing issues these days. Google is a bit more scarce with their indexing of pages. So, it’s good thing just to make sure that whatever you put up is indexed. Having a look at how they perform. Just keeping track of what’s been going on and having a little monthly review of what happened on the website, just to remember what’s been going on.
Alizée Baudez:
The other thing I would recommend is to have a look at Google Search Console. Just having a quick look at what those graphs look like. Are they similar to what they looked like a year ago? What’s the seasonality been going on? So these days, this can be a little bit more tricky because we’ve been on a roll of three years that haven’t been looking like any other ever. So, things are probably maybe a little bit going back to some sort of normal. I’m being very diplomatic here, but-
Kate Toon:
Hopefully.
Alizée Baudez:
Hopefully. So, I think it’s starting to be reasonable to have a look at how your website’s performed last year at the same time, but not maybe two years ago.
Kate Toon:
Yes. No, I agree.
Alizée Baudez:
You can’t compare everything, like those things together. And yeah, that would be it. Just monitoring, and having a look at the Search Console, and keeping updated with a few news, seeing if there are new ideas that might be emerging from this. And keeping updated with what happens to your audience, what they are thinking, what they are talking about, because there might be a new subject that rose up in your industry that you haven’t talked about on your blog yet, that kind of thing.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. I mean, and another little really basic thing that I recommend, and people are always a bit funny about this, but giving yourself a little Google incognito-
Alizée Baudez:
Oh, yes.
Kate Toon:
… and seeing what comes up around you. If you’ve got some blog posts where you’ve answered some great questions, what other questions are coming up? If you are using something like Semrush where you can see what featured snippets you have or search features you have, what have you gained? What have you lost? If you were ranking well for a particular keyword, has the click-through rate changed? Why is that? Maybe another competitor has come in and they’ve written a really compelling title and meta description. Just constantly looking at your site as an outsider looking in as well. I think we forget to do that sometimes. We’re so in our businesses, we forget to look from the outside in.
Kate Toon:
And the other thing I think is from a tech point of view, I’ve got the coughs as well, often you’ll do a big audit and you’ll fix everything, but then maybe other people come in and they work on the site and they instal some random app or plugin. And so at least once a year, I think you need to do a solid tech audit of your site and make sure it’s still running fast. Because also, sometimes plugins just do a weird thing. I don’t know if you remember when Yoast suddenly made all the media attachments indexible again. And it’s like, “God!” Things happen. Sites are not static. So, you need to stay on top of it.
Kate Toon:
Now, you mentioned, I love that you mentioned this, we’re talking about how much SEO stays the same and the principles are the same and great content and all that kind of stuff, but it has been a funny three years, and there’s been some big changes from Google in the last three years. What would you say are some of the big milestone things that have happened in the last three or four years that maybe we should be aware of and we should be conscious of?
Alizée Baudez:
Well, as we mentioned a little bit earlier, the thing that is really impressive to me is how well Google is understanding content and context these days. As we mentioned, a few years ago you could just put the word garage everywhere on your page and you’d basically rank for garages, and that would be it. Today, semantics are so well-understood by Google, concepts, entities, everything. It’s like the algorithm behaves more and more like a human in a weird but also fascinating way, because that means what we are putting out there as website owners will be understood by Google and first understood by users more or less the same way.
Alizée Baudez:
And the improvements that have been made on that front are really impressive. I’m thinking also about the whole GBT-3 conversation and AI generated content. Even though some tests have been done by people and they are not satisfied with the results, it still means that there are a lot of things for which we can use robots for, actually, to fuel our human creativity. And that reflects on algorithm and on website performance and Google, at the end of the day. And I find that absolutely incredible to have, yeah, AI and Google and robots being able to help humans that way in creating good content and understanding content and understanding context, second degree humour even. It’s crazy.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. And the connection between words. I think Google used to just be aware of what we were searching for. Now it’s why we’re searching for it, and it’s also what the relation to the verb and the noun is within the sentence, understanding the syntax and how a preposition can completely change.
Alizée Baudez:
Absolutely.
Kate Toon:
But also emphasis. Which is the most important word in this sentence? Is it the subject? Is it the verb? Is it the adjectival modifier? It’s fascinating and confusing. Although, lots of people have said that the recent core update is actually a little bit anti-AI copy, but I think that’s still going back to that kind of Panda spun really basic, crappy AI content. And I still don’t think AI is quite there with tone and humour and slang and real problem-solving. I think we’re a way away.
Kate Toon:
I mean, there’s so much stuff. Even just the other day, I was reading up about passage ranking and how Google is now ranking elements within a page rather than a page itself, and highlighting content. And I’m going to include in this episode a list from Search Engine Journal, which is one of the good sources, that takes you through all the algorithm updates that you can look at for the last two, three years. I mean, obviously, Core Web Vitals was a big one, that usability piece around there. The Product Review Update. There’s been a few, and I think it’s good to have a read through them and just be conscious of them, but not necessarily to overly react, because hopefully most of us were already trying to do the stuff that Core Web Vitals was pushing before-
Alizée Baudez:
Absolutely.
Kate Toon:
… Core Web Vitals came along.
Alizée Baudez:
Yes. Yes. It’s what I call the ethics of web design and web creation. It’s, if you do it well, in a thoughtful manner from the starting point, you’ve got good chances of ranking well and for it to perform well. It’s as simple as that.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I like that. And I mean, looking forward, one of the things that’s been rumbled and tumbled about on Twitter is that maybe there’s going to be some kind of algorithmic update looking at accessibility, making sure that we have great contrast, that our sites are easily digestible by people who have site issues or hearing issues. And I think the thing is, again, everything you’re saying is right, because most of us are trying to solve that problem already. We’re not waiting till Google slaps us on the bottom and tells us off.
Kate Toon:
We’re like, “I already want my site to be accessible to people who have hearing issues.” For example, I always do a transcript of the show because often people can’t understand what the hell I’m talking about because I’ve got a weird accent. And look at you with your fake French accent. I’m joking. With your beautiful French accent. But also, you don’t want a podcast to be only accessible by people who can hear. What about people who can’t hear and want to read? We had a great guest on the show that was all about that. And so we think the accessibility is going to become a thing. Are there any other big changes that you think are coming down the pipe that we need to be aware of?
Alizée Baudez:
I’ve been researching a little bit about MUM because I think this is the next big step in the algorithm. So, I still don’t understand the full scope of it because it’s not out yet and we don’t have much information, but from what I’ve gathered, it’s going to, well, take accessibility, I think, to the next level, because it will mean that language is not a barrier anymore. Which, I mean, we’re on planet Earth. Language is the thing that has been separating us since ever. So, if Google is able to break that barrier and make websites understandable and correctly understandable for anyone anywhere, it’s going to massively change the industry.
Alizée Baudez:
It’s going to provide amazing opportunities for, yeah, people in countries that have languages nobody talks about or talks. I’m thinking about Estonia. Nobody talks Estonian except for a few Estonians, which I love, by the way. But if an Estonian shoemaker is able to rank on Google for customizable leather shoes, that’s going to massively change that person’s life. And, at the end of the day, those are humans we’re talking about that want to change their life for the better. That’s basically what everyone wants. And if Google is able to take that in a new direction and push it even forward, I’m all for it. And I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen then.
Kate Toon:
Oh, I love your enthusiasm. I love the positivity, because I so agree. I mean, we haven’t done an episode on MUM yet because I do think that it is still being worked out. I will include another reference in the show notes to a good article again on Search Engine Journal. But it stands for Multitask Unified Model. Gosh, Google comes up with the worst names ever.
Alizée Baudez:
Yes.
Kate Toon:
But it really is all about understanding language at its root level, regardless of what that language is, 75 languages I think it can process, but also understanding rich media in a way that’s never been understood before as well, and these really complex queries and long form questions. It’s fascinating where this is all going. And I think it’s exciting. Everyone’s always saying, “SEO is dead,” or, “You don’t need to worry about this, that, and the other.” I just think it’s going to allow us to, as you said, be more human, to stop trying to tick boxes and just create content because it’s a human connection. And I think AI-
Alizée Baudez:
Absolutely.
Kate Toon:
… as you’ve mentioned, which I loved as well, is a tool to help us. But the robots aren’t taking over yet. We’re-
Alizée Baudez:
No, not anytime soon.
Kate Toon:
… not in Terminator time just yet. We’ve got a little bit of time before the Terminators come in-
Alizée Baudez:
We’ve got lots of time.
Kate Toon:
… yeah, take over. I love that, Alizée. So, let’s finish up. What was my final question for you? I’ve actually got a couple more. Could you give us a couple of things? We’re going to experiment. What’s one thing that someone could fiddle with their site, like a tactic, a short-term tactic that might help them today? What would be something you might recommend?
Alizée Baudez:
Especially for international, yeah, e-commerce and small businesses, one thing I like to play around with is structured data and having a go at featured snippets and things like that. Because there are a lot of options you can choose from, and there’s something for everyone in the whole list of schema market and structured data we can use on websites. And I’ve been experimenting lately with FAQ-
Kate Toon:
Yes.
Alizée Baudez:
… structured data for a client. And this actually, it works. It’s easy to implement, and you can see great results from it. And from a user standpoint, it kind of feels like your business is owning the place on the result page. And that’s always a really good sign for the user and for the client at the end.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I love that. So two elements there, schema, structured data. People often get a bit of the heebie-jeebies about that, especially if you’re new to SEO. And I do think it used to be more complicated. I think it’s a lot more easy to implement these days than it used to be. It was quite hard for people to wrap their head around it. And as you mentioned, I love that you mentioned this, FAQ schema is one of the easiest ones to implement, and so powerful. Because a lot of people say that Google is less of a search engine these days and more of an answer engine. So, if you can get that FAQ content out there, fantastic.
Kate Toon:
And then also you mentioned featured snippets, which I just don’t think people try hard enough with. There’s so many options there. You’ve got your paragraph snippets, your lists, your tables, there’s video snippets, there’s all sorts. And all you need to do is restructure some of your existing content, bearing in mind what’s currently getting the featured snippet. Is it the best result, or is it all that Google’s got? You could easily move over that.
Kate Toon:
And I mean, obviously, they’ve changed it a bit now. It used to be position zero. Now you can only get one result on the… It used to be brilliant. Get position zero and position three. It was like, “Amazing!” But still worth doing. I read a lot on the Twitter things of people saying, “If you get that featured snippet, only a certain percentage of people are going to click through because they’ve had their question answered.” But they’ve had their question answered by you. And that brand recognition and, as you said, owning the results, is super powerful. It may not be immediate immediately powerful, but it’s subliminal. It goes in, and people remember who helped them, I think anyway. Okay.
Alizée Baudez:
I think you have to hear a message seven times-
Kate Toon:
Seven. That’s the magic number.
Alizée Baudez:
… before you actually take action.
Kate Toon:
Yes, yeah.
Alizée Baudez:
Well, here you go. Yes.
Kate Toon:
It’s funny because-
Alizée Baudez:
It’s got to be seven.
Kate Toon:
… while we’re recording this, I’m in the middle of launching my course. And as people join, I get anecdotal answers about how they found me. I mean, the final step might have been clicking on an ad or responding to an email, but the journey to get there… And someone today said, “I saw you speak at an event five years ago. I listened to some podcast episodes. Then I followed you on Instagram. I saw you speak on someone else’s thing. I read a tweet, and then I can’t remember why I finally…” And it’s like all these touchpoints. You’re just not aware of all of them. You can track and track and track, but you may not know the one thing that made someone take the final step, right? Yeah.
Alizée Baudez:
Yeah.
Kate Toon:
Love it.
Alizée Baudez:
And that’s why SEO is a long-term game is because if you have a featured snippet it now, maybe that means you’re getting a client in six months, one year’s time. It doesn’t mean you’re getting it now. It means you might get it later, because it’s one of the touchpoints.
Kate Toon:
Exactly. And we’re doing content that really helps people with that informational intent and that investigational intent. And yeah, they’re not going to buy right now, but maybe two years later, they’ll remember that they read that great blog post by you, and they’ll try and find you again. And then, when they’ve got conversion intent, oh, they see you and go, “Ah, I remember reading an article by her. She was great,” and you’re the one they choose to buy. I love it.
Kate Toon:
So, SEO is a long-term game. What I’m taking from you is it is a long-term game. We shouldn’t be knee-jerky. We should wait and see. We should experiment. But generally, it’s an iterative approach. Small changes, not melodramatic reactions to everything that’s going on in the world. And I love that, Alizée. Where can we find out more about you? Because I think you’re going to be one of my sources of truth. So, where can I follow you online?
Alizée Baudez:
My website is alizeebaudez.com. So, A-L-I-Z-E-E-B-A-U-D-E-Z. It’s kind of a mouthful, but I’m blaming my parents for this one. And it’s the same, it’s Alizée Baudez everywhere on social media. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, it’s alizeebaudez.seo for the-
Kate Toon:
Fantastic.
Alizée Baudez:
… SEO part of my Instagram world.
Kate Toon:
Yeah. So, I’m following you on Instagram. I’ll also include links to your website, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn in the show notes so you can follow Alizée there.
Alizée Baudez:
Thank you very much.
Kate Toon:
Look, it’s been wonderful to talk to you. Have a great day over there. I’m about to go to bed, but you’re about to start your day. So, merci. That’s as good as my French is going to get.
Alizée Baudez:
Merci beucoup.
Kate Toon:
Au revoir.
Alizée Baudez:
It was amazing.
Kate Toon:
All right. I’ll see you soon. Thank you, Alizée.
Alizée Baudez:
Thank you very much.
Kate Toon:
Ah, that was smashing hey? What a lovely lady. So, I like to end a show with a shout out to one of my lovely listeners. And tonight it is Jane Bartel Jewellery from the United States. Jane was a recent student on the Recipe course. She says, “Fantastic show about SEO, but so many other topics. I’m in Kate’s Digital Masterchefs online membership, and I’m just finishing up her Recipe for SEO course,” as if you could ever really be done with this. “But today, while I’m busy cleaning my jewellery studio, I listened to probably four hours of her podcast with superstars like Rand Fishkin from SparkToro, brilliant LinkedIn experts, updates on SEO tactics and so much more. Easy to listen to, frequently funny, and I always learn something.” Thanks, Kate. And thank you very much, Jane. You’re a superstar.
Kate Toon:
Thanks to you for listening. If you’d like to learn more about what we’ve talked about today, head to the show notes. I’ve included some great links there. And also, I highly recommend that you follow Alizée. She just approaches SEO with a real enthusiasm, positivity, and a human touch, which I think is very much aligned with how I approach it. If you want to check out the show notes, head to therecipeforseosuccess.com. If you’d like to leave a rating, that would be fab. You’ll get a shout out on the show. And don’t forget to listen to my new podcast, Clever Copy Chats. It’s out now. Go and have a listen. Everyone could write better copy. And as we heard on the episode, Google is all about writing great copy these days. So, get some extra tips. All right. Thanks very much for listening. And until next time, happy SEOing.
