Podcast With Zack Kadish

AI’s Game-Changing Role in SEO: Insights You Need with Zack Kadish

Show Notes

Are you ready to dominate search engine rankings in 2025? In this video, SEO expert Zack Kadish shares his top strategies to help you master SEO, rank your website #1, and drive more organic traffic! Discover actionable tips on leveraging AI, optimizing for user intent, crafting human-centric content, and navigating the ever-evolving world of search engine optimization. Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned marketer, this step-by-step guide is packed with insights to elevate your SEO game and future-proof your website.

Learn how to optimize for AI-driven search, create content that ranks, and understand the importance of technical SEO and user-generated content to stay ahead of the competition. Don't miss these expert tips to achieve a #1 ranking and enhance your digital marketing strategy.

Subscribe now for more expert insights, and start applying these proven techniques to boost your organic traffic today!

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

02:10 - AI Impact on SEO

04:00 - User Generated Content Strategies

05:20 - Clickless Search Trends

06:45 - Understanding User Intent

08:20 - Voice and Visual Search Innovations

10:38 - Effective Keyword Research Techniques

12:25 - Voice Search Optimization

13:31 - Fragmented Content Challenges

17:02 - Strategic Content Placement

18:11 - Importance of Visuals in Content

19:59 - AI's Influence on Content Creation

21:00 - UGC Platforms and Content Strategy

24:17 - Using TikTok and Reddit for SEO

26:59 - Technical SEO Best Practices

28:04 - Structuring Scalable SEO Teams

29:45 - Human-Centric Content Approaches

32:25 - Navigating Conversational Queries

34:14 - Measuring SEO Success Metrics

35:30 - Demonstrating SEO ROI

38:03 - Future of Backlinks in 2025

40:11 - Updates in Local SEO

41:16 - Rapid Fire SEO Round

43:22 - Final Advice for Listeners

43:55 - Thank You for Joining the Show

Transcript

Intro

0:00 welcome to the agency Insider show I'm your host NAIT kosel and today we have a special guest who is going to share his

0:06 insights on the ever revolving word of SEO and content marketing please join me

0:11 in welcoming Jack Kadesh senior SEO strategy director at

0:17 [Applause]

0:24 [Music] conductor hey everyone Jack welcome to

0:31 the show yeah thanks for having me excited to be here Jack it's great to have you on the

0:36 show you have been making waves in the SE industry and I'm excited to dive into your expertise before we get started

0:43 could you give our listeners a brief introduction about yourself and your journey in the digital marketing world

0:49 yeah absolutely so you know um I'm Zach haes I'm a senior SEO strategy director

0:54 here at conductor conductor is a website optimization and intelligence platform

0:59 really focused on the Enterprise market and know I've been in the industry for a little over eight years now and I've had

1:06 a bunch of different roles that kind of got me excited and interested within the space you know I really just started in

1:12 the space doing keyword research setting up you know accounts to figure out what

1:17 phrases they're relevant for and what phrases they want to rank for but then I wanted to kind of put more energy behind

1:23 like the other side of it like how do they get to rank for these keywords how do they actually start to you know show

1:30 up and become more visible so I had a lot of great mentors here at conductor I read a lot of Publications and books

1:37 related to SEO then actually put some of this stuff to the test with some of the clients that we had and you know on on

1:43 my own personal side as well which I've kind of started to then move up in my career in in different positions within

1:49 the SEO space you know I was an analyst then a strategist and now I'm you know a director here at conductor in terms of

1:56 SEO strategy but it's really great because I get to work with a lot of cool interesting clients in a lot of

2:02 different Industries which I feel has really helped me learn what works and what doesn't from both the content and

2:08 the technical side okay now now how has your approach

AI Impact on SEO

2:13 to SEO strategies evolved over the year especially with the rapid advancement of

2:18 AI and llms and machine learning yeah absolutely I mean you know that's one of the best parts of SEO is it's never

2:24 mundane it's always evolving it's always changing you always really have to stay up to date with what's happening I mean

2:30 you know obviously content is a very big thing when with websites with visibility

2:35 and with Ai Ai and llms that is really taking up some of that market share and

2:41 traffic and clicks from competitors or from your your own site even as well you know it's taking up a lot of real estate

2:47 so it's changing a lot in terms of you might see a decrease in traffic you might see a decrease in clicks moving

2:53 forward now because of what's happening but in my opinion it's better to still be visible in these llms in these a

3:00 overviews by creating content than not having it because now if you don't have it you're NE you're definitely not going

3:05 to be sourced by llms and by Google or these AI

3:10 overviews okay are there any specific AI tools or applications that you find

3:16 particularly promising I mean yeah you know obviously here at conductor we we are you know

3:21 helping you track and monitor your presence within AI overviews there's obviously other tools out there that are

3:26 doing that as well to help you better understand not only are the keywords that you care about are they generating

3:32 an AI overview but are you actually ranking and are you present in those spaces so you know I definitely think

3:37 it's important that if you are within the SEO space that you're using one of these platforms to help monitor your

3:43 presence there because that's still a really good way to prove out are you relevant are you authoritative around

3:49 this topic because you know if you don't have these tools how are you proving out that you're showing up in these spaces

3:55 and how are you monitoring if you're being relevant or being referenced in these

User Generated Content Strategies

4:00 areas right now what's the most significant change you have witnessed in the SEO practices in let in the past

4:08 year yeah I mean you know obviously AI overviews is probably the biggest one since we've already kind of touched upon

4:14 that I think the next biggest one is kind of just like the quality of Google search results and how it's changing

4:19 very you know some people say negatively other people say you know it's it's just kind of becoming it's evolving and it's

4:26 different for instance user generated content has become more and more prominent within Google than ever before

4:32 you know I'm sure if you've Googled anything whether it's related to you know restaurants health insurance whatever it might be you're seeing user

4:39 generated content you know one of that one of the biggest players in the space is obviously Reddit where you can't go on Google without seeing Reddit nowadays

4:46 but it's also interesting to see these other forums that are very Niche that are very specific to your topic also

4:52 appearing you know obviously you know there's some forums out there I've never heard of but I'm seeing them more and more often for my clients and those are

4:59 technically competitors now so you know we started to try to use those to help figure out what content might we want to

5:06 add to our site what things do we want to talk about on our site that are related to these Forum topics that are

5:11 ranking and showing up on Google right we're going to talk more

5:17 about the user generated content as we go further in the show now we have heard a lot about the concept of clickless

Clickless Search Trends

5:23 search so how do you think this trend is affecting the way we approach SEO and

5:29 content creation yeah you know it's it's definitely impacting it because obviously when we want to create content

5:35 one of the main things that Executives want to see is like how is it producing you know are you getting clicks are you getting traffic is that helping with any

5:41 conversions what's what's happening with the content that we're investing in obviously with zero click searches and

5:47 how it's becoming more and more prominent there's going to be likely a decrease in your Clicks in your traffic

5:53 because of this but in my opinion I still think it's important if you want to be an authority in your space around

5:59 a topic you care about around your service line you need to create this type of content on your site you just

6:05 need to start to think about what type of content is worthwhile to create so I'm still a big proponent and I still do

6:10 recommend to all my clients to create content that is is relevant to their industry that is relevant to what they

6:16 care about because that's the best way for users to still find you that's the best way for Google to understand what

6:22 you're talking about because yes while there is a decrease in clicks and traffic a lot of consumers don't

6:28 necessarily trust AI fully they still want to read it from a website they still want to better understand what's

6:33 going on and also if your Brand's being referenced or present in those spaces that's also kind of a signal to users

6:39 that hey this domain kind of is authoritative around this topic and maybe they'll click into your site right

Understanding User Intent

6:45 right right right let's let's talk a little bit more about the uh content strategies of course user intent as well

6:52 now in your experience how has user intent evolved over the past year and how should content marketers adopt their

7:00 strategies accordingly yeah you know obviously search intent user intent is probably one one of the most important

7:06 or the biggest factor in terms of when you're thinking about what type of content to create you really need to

7:11 figure out okay what does Google feel the user wants in this instance or what are my consumers looking for when

7:16 they're typing in these queries user intent has changed a lot in the sense that I've seen people actually search a

7:22 lot more conversational a lot more longer tale more frequently now whether that's due to the rise of smartphone

7:28 searches and you know they're just that they're used to that kind of conversational manner whether they're just they know what they kind of want

7:34 nowadays when they're searching so they're typing in very specific longer tail things so it is really interesting

7:40 when you're doing this type of research to see how people are searching in terms of user intent though you really need to

7:46 make sure that the content we're creating is aligned to what the people are searching for so you know at different stages of the buyer Journey

7:53 people are looking for different types of content so it's really important in that beginning stage when you're doing that research to make sure that the

7:59 content you have is aligned to what the user is searching for but yeah I think the biggest evolving shift is that

8:04 people are typing a lot more longer tale a lot more conversational and sometimes that doesn't necessarily mean they're in

8:10 the informational stage they could actually be in a later stage and still typing in very specific things okay

8:18 right that that's uh that's an interesting take because normally people

Voice and Visual Search Innovations

8:23 associate searches with the intent right exactly now with the rise of voice and

8:29 visual search what adjustment do you recommend for optimizing content Beyond

8:34 traditional text based approaches yeah you know I mean obviously the way that people are searching isn't just on

8:41 Google anymore people you know I it's very interesting actually because like know as we were growing up people would

8:46 always use the phrase you know Google and search as like synonymous like if you didn't know something go Google it

8:52 you should go Google this if you don't know it that's not the case anymore a lot of people are actually saying like search it now or you know maybe they go

8:58 to Tik Tok maybe they go to Reddit maybe they go to Instagram or these or podcasts to even start just learn about

9:03 a certain topic so it is actually important that you are focusing on these different mediums whether that's video

9:09 search whether that's podcasting or audios it is important that you're focusing on other mediums and formats

9:16 for your website because people are consuming content in a lot of different ways now and if you're not visible or

9:22 you're not relevant in these other areas then you're definitely not going to be found if someone isn't just going to Google or isn't just going to the more

9:29 TR addition forums so it is important to actually focus on these other types of areas to be referenced and to be

9:36 found okay so so do you have any tips on how the content creators can go about

9:42 being found in these uh different search engine so it's similar to when you create any type of content like one of

9:48 the first things you want to do obviously is see like are these keywords that I'm targeting do they do they

9:54 generate videos do they generate different types of podcast results that are showing up you could do keyword res

9:59 search related to video results related to you know these other areas let's say in Social to better understand how

10:06 people are actually searching in not just Google but in other ways so you know the first step is if you're creating this content is are these

10:13 results actually appearing on Google on YouTube on these other areas what's relevant there and then you also want to

10:18 obviously structure your video or your podcast in a relevant way you know you want to use an engaging title engaging

10:24 descriptions and then a lot of times you can also repurpose already created content in in the video format or in

10:30 audio format and you're you're just kind of Reinventing the wheel with something you've already done but in a different

10:35 medium so other users can actually have access to an app okay so is there a tool

Effective Keyword Research Techniques

10:41 which does this keyword research or it's more of a manual approach right now so you know there's obviously tools that

10:47 are very specific to YouTube or to other you know social media engines you know

10:52 there's obviously specific social media research tools out there that you could take advantage of there's also instances

10:57 where if you have like an SEO platform form let's say you can actually see which result types are being generated

11:03 by the keywords you care about so there's definitely you know a kind of a plug-and-play model where you can kind of use a mix of both there to better

11:10 understand that you know obviously I'm using conductor to do a lot of This research but there's also social media engines out there like spark Taro or you

11:17 know there's other ways to kind of better understand how visible you are or how many mentions these phrases are

11:22 getting over time so previously I mean the the approach used to be you do a

11:27 keyword research and then you an intent it's which is commercial informational transactional now you actually make one

11:34 more column which says the type so it's like what kind of a Content you can create maybe a video a podcast this you

11:40 think would be a better approach when you have to look outside the text based search right absolutely yeah you know

11:46 it's always evolving there's always more columns we need to add to our our spreadsheets as seos but I think that's a big one is you need to also figure out

11:52 you know it doesn't just need to be a video format like you could also have it in multiple formats too and that's something that I would recommend it's

11:58 like we have have a high quality piece of content or a piece of content that we think is really important to us try to

12:04 repurpose it you know use it on social media use it as a video maybe you know if you have a podcast for your company

12:09 or your small business you know focus on that as well repurpose what you've already done in different format because

12:15 it's still worthwhile and people can still gain benefits from it in these different areas so try to repurpose your

12:20 content as much as possible for different forums if if it makes sense okay and and any recommendations for

Voice Search Optimization

12:27 voice search as well when we are doing this I mean you know voice search there's always been kind of this

12:33 popularity with it or people say that it's going to become more popular over the last years I haven't necessarily seen that voice search has kind of

12:40 become more prominent in in the last few years I again you know people don't necessarily rely on voice search all the

12:45 time but what I will say is a lot of times if you're going to be referenced in voice search it's because you're

12:50 being shown in the answer boook it's being you're shown in the people also ask you're shown in these AI overviews

12:55 so what I would recommend there is to make sure that you have content that very concise you know maybe it's in a question and answer format maybe you

13:02 know you're fragmenting your content in a really specific way so it's very easy for llms and you know Google to better

13:09 understand what you're talking about because if you're structuring your content in these you know very fragmented way that's very concise and

13:15 easy for Google to understand you have a better chance to be referenced in voice search and answer boxes and people also

13:21 ask so those are some of the tips that you should you know kind of implement as well as you know implementing schema

13:26 markup and some of these other technical ways kind of help you appear better you mentioned couple of time in a very

Fragmented Content Challenges

13:33 fragmented way so what what exactly do you mean when it comes to writing put

13:38 cont writing or putting a content in a fragmented way yeah exactly so

13:43 fragmented content is you know a very important thing to really focus on now within SEO one of the biggest things

13:50 within llms and within AI overviews is really you know retrieval augmented

13:55 generation this is an abbreviation for rag so it's basically one of the ways that Google and these llms can actually

14:02 better understand your content the best way they can do this is they need to retrieve this content and then generate

14:07 it in a relevant way and one of the best ways they can do that is by looking at the content on your fragmenting it out

14:15 so for example if you go to an answer box let's say and you click on the answer box you're going to be brought directly to the part of the page that's

14:21 relevant to you and that's because Google can understand what the user is searching for and it doesn't need to

14:27 show the user the entire page it will only show them the sentence or the paragraph that they care about so that's

14:32 an example of fragmentation in content and the best way to do that is to make sure your content is structured in a

14:38 relevant way it's concise it's using the right keywords and it's answering the questions for users in a very helpful

14:45 manner so one of the biggest things when you're creating content is not just to you know throw it all out there it's to

14:51 fragment it and structure it in a way that's helpful for users and helpful for search engines to retrieve it and then

14:56 generate it to the users now does it mean content always has to be long form

15:02 or a short answer could well rank as well yeah I mean you know typically like

15:07 it was always that like longer form content was helpful but that's not always the case honestly anymore like we are starting to see that even shorter

15:13 form content is actually appearing if it's helpful if it's useful and it's relevant to the user you know if you're

15:19 answering the question in a shorter form way like let's say as an FAQ or even one sentence on your site that could

15:25 actually Rank and that can actually appear obviously you want to make sure that it's on a page and it's in a relevant manner but that's not you know

15:32 long form content isn't you know the the end all Beall anymore we are starting to see that shorter form content is

15:38 actually okay in some instances so you know one of the things I recommend is when you're creating content see what else is out there you know see what your

15:45 competitors or whoever out or your organic competitors what are they ranking for and what kind of content have they created what the length what

15:51 is the length out there because a lot of times users might want to consume it in Aur matter so it's it's so because the

15:59 traditional approach was choose a keyword go in top 10 results what kind of results are coming and try to let's

16:06 say if the result is coming for on an average of th words try to create a content of 1200 words to beat that does

16:12 that approach still works or no I mean to some degree like if Google if Google is ranking top rankers at for a certain

16:19 content length it might make sense to like try to write that content in a similar manner because in that sense

16:26 Google feels like hey these user you know you users want long longer form content here I don't think you you know

16:31 take it with a grain of salt if you think it's you know you're just writing words to get to that length then don't do it you know I would try to make sure

16:37 that at least within the content we're answering the right questions and we're helping users and if it's shorter than what the other people have out there

16:44 that's okay then you monitor it you test it out you see if you're ranking well if not maybe it makes sense to add a little

16:49 bit more content to that page but I don't think it's necessarily you have to match what your competitors are doing in terms of content length anymore it's

16:56 more about relevancy uniqueness and authoritative and if you're doing that in a concise manner that's okay too and

Strategic Content Placement

17:03 does it also make a difference when you put where exactly is the content placement when user is looking for that

17:10 particular information does it make sense to give it right in the beginning

17:15 or is there a methodology or no science yeah no it's that's a good question because you know a lot of times I do say

17:21 like you want to really make sure that your most important types of information is above the fold is right away in the

17:27 in the like right when you're the user lands on the page they want to better understand what this content is about and they want some you know quick

17:33 answers around their content but it doesn't necessarily need to always be above the fold that kind of goes back to

17:38 that fragmentation piece because a lot of times you might be brought down to the end of the article or in the middle of the article but the reason you're

17:45 being brought down to somewhere else in that article is because that part of this article is answering the user's

17:50 question and it's usually answering the question in a relevant way because they've structured it in a good way you know they're using relevant header tags

17:57 they're answering the questions right below right below the question in the first sentence so even if you're not

18:02 doing it above the fold try to do it within the first few sentences of that new paragraph that way the fragmentation

18:09 and Google can retrieve it in a relevant way does including more visuals helps

Importance of Visuals in Content

18:14 when writing these type of content maybe a video or maybe more images does it help from an Su perspective I think it

18:21 can always help from a user experience perspective let's say because if you have engaging mediums if you have other

18:26 visualizations on the page one could stay on the page longer two they might actually like to ref like like that

18:32 Medium better maybe they're not always you know maybe they're a visual learner or they actually like to learn better

18:37 through reading so you provide them different options on the page and that's also another way to you know potentially

18:42 rank for more keywords you're giving Google more information around what the page is about but you know in a sense I

18:48 think it helps with user experience which obviously you know correlates to SEO and the eventually because if you're

18:54 providing a good experience to your user you're likely to rank better and become more visible because users are having a

19:00 good time on your page and learning more information around it so I always recommend to try to include some visuals

19:06 whether it's images audio videos whatever it might be try to include that on your site to help make the page a

19:12 little bit more of a better experience and when it comes to video does it make sense I mean do you have any specific

19:18 recommendation should it be a YouTube embed or should it be a wiu or it doesn't matter I mean I typically always

19:25 recommend to do a YouTube in bed just because Google does own YouTube so I feel they give it a little bit more

19:30 preference I don't necessarily know if that's the case but you know rather be safe than sorry so I always you know refer to YouTube YouTube is obviously

19:37 also you know I think the second biggest search engine now so it's like might as well create a content on YouTube as well

19:42 because if people are going to YouTube we want our video to be you know shown and surfaced there and that way you can

19:48 also optimize your YouTube video with relevant keywords with relevant description with a link back to that

19:54 article so that way you're kind of internally linking everything between your channels and between

AI's Influence on Content Creation

19:59 mediums right now how has the integration of AI in search engine

20:04 changed the game for Content creators yeah you know I mean AI has made I think

20:09 people's lives a lot more efficient I obviously don't think you should write content fully with AI you need to add

20:15 your own to your own tone your own voice you need to really show your The Authority around this instead of taking

20:20 you know hours to create a Content outline or you know think of what keywords to potentially include in your

20:25 title you can use AI to give you some recommend commendations to structure your content in a different way then as

20:31 seos as content marketers that's where we use our experience and our knowledge to make it sound better to you know help

20:37 create this content in a high quality manner but it's making you more efficient you know I don't think AI is here to replace digital marketers or

20:44 seos or content marketers but people that are using AI are going to replace the ones that don't because they're

20:50 being more efficient with their jobs and they're focusing on more strategic things and not getting you know bogged

20:55 down by the nitty-gritty of some of this more mundane right and so you you you've spoken

UGC Platforms and Content Strategy

21:03 before about the importance of ugc or user generated content now can you

21:08 elaborate on how ugc platform shapes content strategies and its impact on the Su yeah absolutely you know I think this

21:16 is one of the biggest things that's happening right now on Google is user generated content is really taking over

21:21 Google because Google lacks firsthand experience and they want to try to make up for this with the user gener any

21:28 content that's already created out there what I would recommend for your brand or for you know any business out there is

21:34 if you're starting to see user generated content appearing for the keywords you care about see what's ranking see what

21:41 people are talking about if you don't have that kind of content on your site that could be an instance for figuring

21:46 out how we can get similar types of topics or content on our our site as well maybe we're not answering the right

21:52 questions maybe we're not talking about the right types of things that users actually care about obviously there's

21:58 also ways to integrate user generate content directly on your site you know you could have people leave reviews or

22:03 submit before and after photos or I've even seen some Brands creating their own communities and that's another way for

22:10 people to engage and create content and you're not even really doing that much of a lift in a sense because the users

22:15 are creating content for yourself but again managing and owning a community is kind of a full-time job so if your brand

22:22 doesn't have the resources for that I would I would recommend doing keyword research around these forums put those

22:28 URL into your keyword research tool see what they rank for and then create content related to that topic So when

22:35 you say create content related to that topic after looking those URL which rank so does it mean host that content on our

22:42 website or put on those platforms as well I would host it on your own website because you want to gain the benefits of

22:48 that from your own website and you want to become more visible so it's kind of reverse engineering what the fors are

22:53 already ranking for and then creating that on our on our own site as well because clearly users care about that so

22:59 it's just trying to write it from our own experience and our own perspective so now a lot of people say even let's

23:05 say hypothetically because Reddit is already ranking and then we go out and create a content on our web page how

23:11 will I be able to beat Reddit because that's not Google is prefering so how do how does it help if I create a content

23:17 if I can't rank for it yeah no that's obviously a great question I mean if we feel the keyword is to competitive or

23:23 it's not like a good chance then maybe that's not the right keyword to focus on in that instance there could also be in

23:28 say where maybe we already have content created around this topic so it's not maybe creating it maybe it's reoptimizing it or adding to your

23:34 content that's already high quality that's already relevant and maybe that's where you add you know a different

23:40 section because again you could get you could show up for a piece of content you're already ranking for but this time

23:46 it's you're being fragmented to only like the bottom half of that page where you added that new content there's also

23:52 instances where no a lot of times there it's not just Reddit that's showing up we also have bigname brands also showing

23:57 up side by side with Reddit so there's obviously a lot of volatility on Google so there's instances where you could

24:03 still compete you could still show up what I would recommend is if the keyword is something we care about and it's

24:08 something we want to prioritize test it out try it out if we end up seeing positive you know momentum keep it going

24:14 if we don't maybe we focus on something else okay now platform like Tik Tok and

Using TikTok and Reddit for SEO

24:20 Reddit are of course becoming essential for SE strategies can you share some innovative ways to use these platforms

24:26 to drive organic VIs ability yeah absolutely so you know one of the ways to do that is obviously there's a lot of

24:33 trends that are starting out on Reddit or Tik Tok before they even get organic traffic or before there's even organic

24:39 content created around that so what I would recommend for your brand or for your industry is stay you know relevant

24:44 stay like look on Tik Tok for these engaging Trends things that are starting up things that are new and see if it's

24:51 relevant to you see if anyone's created content around that right now if they haven't you know there's that's an

24:57 opportunity for us to potentially create content around an engaging Trend that's new to the world that's new to the

25:03 industry and then we could actually be the first to Market on Google to rank for that and create content around that

25:08 obviously there's also ways where you could create your own subreddit or create your own Tik Tok Channel and then get traffic organically by you know

25:15 because Tik Tok is showing up on Google so that could be one way to get traffic or you could obviously get some direct

25:21 traffic that way or branded traffic that way those are Al obviously ways to still compete what I recommend is monitoring

25:27 these forum Forum these Tik toks subreddits seeing what's relevant and trying to create content related to that

25:34 so the content let's say if I go and see on Tik Tok does it does it has to be a video content or it can be in any format

25:41 no not necessarily it could be in any format like take for example there was a a company that you know I was familiar

25:47 with where when it was a Taylor Swift concert tour you know people were looking for concert dresses you know

25:53 what to wear to the concert that this was extremely popular on Tik Tok but no one was really searching or creating

25:58 content around it on Google just yet so what they did they were an Ecom platform an Ecom company so they created a Blog

26:04 article all around the different types of alfit you could wear to the Taylor Swift concert and they listed you know

26:09 specific products that they actually own and that they're actually selling and the article start to ranked really

26:14 really well for you know that hundreds of keywords related to Taylor sft concert outfits number one number two

26:21 all on page one the keywords had thousands of people searching for it and they also got a lot of conversions

26:26 because they were internally linking their so that's a way to kind of actually look at what's going on Tik Tok and then

26:32 create content because maybe not everyone's going to Tik Tok to do the searches maybe they're going to Google instead maybe they're going to Reddit

26:39 but this way they're actually still relevant for these phrases and they actually took advantage of a trend that no one else was focusing on from the

26:45 organic Channel okay so that's an interesting take and interesting way to expand your

26:52 keyword clicks I would say yeah okay and now let's talk a little bit bit about uh

Technical SEO Best Practices

26:59 technical SE now what are some often overlooked technical aspects that can

27:04 significantly impact a website performance in search results yeah yeah I mean obviously some of the more

27:10 typical ones is like if they're you know missing pages from their sitap or you know they're not they're including irrelevant Pages within their site map

27:17 that's always one of the first things I'm recommending for clients to make sure they're cleaning up because obviously that's one of the first places

27:22 Google is going but more importantly I like to also really focus on the links within your own site and internal

27:28 linking specifically that's something we obviously have control over but if there's a lot of broken internal links

27:33 or redirects within your internal links or other linking issues there just not the best experience for users and

27:39 engines because obviously we we want to link all these pages together to help Google understand what's associated to

27:45 it so one that's one of the first things I try to recommend my clients to clean up is because it's one of the things

27:51 that they can control and they can actually make sure that you know they're improving their internal linking in their site architecture to make sure

27:57 that all the pages are not broken and are linked to each other okay now you often shared insights

Structuring Scalable SEO Teams

28:05 on structure structuring SEO teams for scalable success now could you give us

28:12 an overview of what an ideal SEO team structure should look like in 2025 yeah

28:18 you know absolutely and sometimes this might vary by like the size of your company if you're Global or if you're

28:23 Regional if you know you're you're just domestic but what I would recommend is let's say you're the the only SEO at

28:29 your company right now or one of the few you really need to get that buy in from your executive team to show why you need

28:34 more leadership or more resources available so what I would recommend is trying to have dedicated resources let's

28:41 say you are like the director of your SEO team you should have a dedicated resource for technical SEO you should

28:47 have a dedicated resource for Content SEO and then you should have a couple analysts below them maybe just one to

28:52 start but that way you're really showing that these people are focused on the cleanup of the site these people are

28:58 focused on you know the creating of the content related to our site and then we have analysts below them to help do some

29:04 of those other you know other specific tasks that could be related to either of those aspects but that way you're really

29:09 focused on both of the main you know channels within SEO let's say Technical and content to make sure that you're a

29:15 well-rounded team and by doing that you can actually start to get more buyin for other positions related to those teams

29:22 and start building up those teams individually so I think that's one of the best ways to initially structure a team obviously this could differ

29:29 depending on if you're a global team you might need to do that for different regions because you know different

29:34 sometimes you have different parts of the website sometimes you have different you know domains even that you're owning but starting off small and then building

29:40 up is the best way to scale and prove out this okay now how do you see the

Human-Centric Content Approaches

29:46 roles within SEO team evolving especially with the increasing overlap between SEO and other digital marketing

29:53 disciplines and now with the AI coming in yeah you know I mean there's obviously a lot of skills that seos are

30:00 trying sometimes you wear many hats in this sense where you're you're not just the SEO you're also doing paid search

30:05 you're also doing content marketing you're also doing social media I would try to say you know if that's something

30:10 that you're currently doing is to try to prove out why each of these roles while they they are helpful and it's helpful

30:16 to learn all that you actually need dedicated roles for each of them because all of those are technically full-time jobs I think it's important to make sure

30:22 that you're relevant and you have knowledge in those areas but it's hard to kind of do that fully if you're

30:29 only if you're focused on so many different channels it's hard to do that so what I would recommend honestly is trying to collaborate with these

30:34 different teams internally break down those silos that way you're all working together towards the same goal because

30:41 anyone that touches your website is having an impact on the website is optimizing the website in some degree

30:47 sometimes negatively sometimes positively so it's really important as seos that we stay sharp on all these

30:52 skills and knowledgeable in all these skills so we can talk to these other teams to show them why it's important

30:58 that we're all focused on the same goal of getting users to our website okay uh let's talk about future

31:06 proofing SEO strategies of course there's no word future proofing but just for the sake of it you know with the AI

31:11 and all this Google experiments now uh looking ahead to 2025 what do you

31:16 believe will be the key areas marketers need to focus on to stay ahead in SE

31:22 yeah I you I think one something that I always continue to preach and you know it's it's not necessarily future proofing it but it's more so just making

31:29 sure that no matter what happens we're still relevant is creating content for humans human Centric content is the most

31:36 important thing obviously you know there's the rise of AI engines there's the rise of AI overviews we shouldn't be

31:42 creating content for these AI search engine or for Google you need to create content that matches the heart and the

31:47 soul of your user you need to really focus on what the users care about and what humans care about so in the end of

31:53 the day you really need to make sure that on your site when we create content when we create any type of landing page

31:58 that it's built out for a user and that it's helpful for a user so it's answering their questions it's Unique to

32:04 them it's solving a problem it's sparking some type of conversation so we really need to make sure that the

32:10 content we create the websites that that you know anything that we have on our website is helpful to a user and helpful

32:15 to a human and really focusing on that something is a way to really make sure that no matter what happens on Google

32:20 you're going to still be authoritative and relevant okay now with such Behavior

Navigating Conversational Queries

32:26 shifting towards more conver ational queries as we discussed how should marketers adopt their keyword research

32:32 and content creation process around these conversation yeah you know that's why it

32:38 is it is kind of interesting that people are becoming more conversational more stream of Consciousness when they type

32:43 that's why I do think that like keywords in themselves in terms of search volume and in terms of rankings might not have

32:50 as much of an impact in the future anymore because there's no if someone types in something very longtail stream of Consciousness that's not going to

32:57 have search volume and it's going to be hard to track that and understand the rank so what we really need to do is understand the conversations that users

33:03 are having this could be through the social media forums like Tik Tok or Reddit this could also just be doing

33:10 your general keyword research and trying to expand on that in terms of how you would actually talk about this topic so

33:15 it's taking the keywords that you're doing the research around and then making it sound more natural and making sure that in within our content we're

33:22 not just keyword stuffing or using you know the same generic keywords that every keyword research tool spits out

33:28 but it's being more conversational and providing that firsthand experience because sooner or later you know search

33:33 volume is going to change a lot where we might not monitor it in the same way we might in the

33:39 past right and it is also true that search volume is something which is very

33:44 subjective you don't you would never get a real number from any of the tools including Google exactly you know and

33:50 that's why it's don't necessarily just focus on the demand if you find a keyword that's very longt and it's relevant use it you know if it's if it's

33:57 helpful for your users if it matches the kind of content we're creating put that in your content and make sure that it's you know it's showing up there because

34:03 there's obviously a lot of content out there that might not be ranking for stuff or for General keywords that we're

34:09 used to but it's still getting traffic and it's still helpful to have on our site right right right now let's talk

Measuring SEO Success Metrics

34:15 about measuring success and Roi as SEO continues to evolve what metrics do you think will be most crucial for meing

34:22 success in 2025 yeah you know absolutely I mean I think proving out the ROI of SEO is

34:28 always one of the harder things obviously when you're comparing it to other channels like paid or email or social might be a little easier on those

34:35 channels I think one of the things to focus on within organic space is like obviously with all these you know zero

34:42 click searches traffic and clicks which used to be one of the main things we focused on we might see a decrease there

34:48 what I would try to focus on for the time being right now is really your ownership of the of the real estate your

34:54 market share on page one how much how visible are we for the keywords we care about versus our competitors are we

35:00 consistently ranking on page one for the phrases that we we are trying to Target that we are creating content around and

35:06 then obviously trying to make sure that you're measuring in a relevant way the organic Revenue that we're getting from

35:11 our site and from these search engines too and then obviously we have the other metrics that we have previously cared

35:17 about such as clicks Impressions you know click the rating traffic but again there is some evolving changes with that

35:23 just due to everything we've talked about so I think it's really making sure that the keyword rankings you car about are on page one still okay now now how

Demonstrating SEO ROI

35:32 can marketers effectively demonstrate the ROI of their Su efforts to stakeholders especially when some

35:39 benefits may not be immediately quantifiable for example creating conversation

35:45 content that's one of the hardest things you know to really prove out what I would do is you need to make sure that

35:50 every time you're touching a piece of content like let's say you're optimizing a page or whether it's a product page or

35:56 Blog Page you need to make sure that you're tracking that very specifically so segmenting that out versus the other

36:02 pages on your site so you're showing leadership these are the pages we've touched this year in terms of

36:07 optimizations these are the pages that we haven't look how much better they're doing in terms of traffic Revenue

36:13 obviously you know not all that could be potentially due to the impact that we're having but it's still showing that what

36:19 we're doing is working and if you're specifically chargeing certain keywords trying to tie that to the page you're

36:26 optimizing around can help leadership see hey this keyword wasn't ranking before we did anything now it's on page

36:32 one and after it's on page one we've got x amount of traffic x amount of convergence to really tie it all

36:37 together that the work we're doing is having an impact again it might not necessarily be a onetoone but it's

36:43 better than nothing and it's way to make sure that you're having a seat at that table to show why we need to continue to

36:49 invest in SEO and why we need to really build out this team and continue doing what we're doing right right right now

36:56 in your opinion what's the biggest mistake you see marketers making when it comes to tracking and Reporting SE

37:02 performance yeah I mean the big the first bigest mistake is that they're not doing it honestly they like they don't have it set up properly another one I

37:09 see is that they're not setting it up like I recommend to track and and create like track all this stuff before you

37:15 even make a change on your site because if you do it after you made a change sometimes it's too late to kind of see

37:21 the impact in a sense because you really want that before and after Story you want to see how this keyword or this

37:26 page was doing well before you touched it and then you want to compare it while after so you want to see that trajectory

37:31 out there I also recommend you need to continue to monitor it you know you can't if you make a change you need to

37:38 keep looking at it every single week if you're not seeing any positive momentum for the first few weeks or a month maybe

37:43 go back and change it you know it's not working necessarily so you need to kind of learn from what you're doing and kind of change your strategy I see way too

37:51 often that sometimes marketers wait way too long and it's you know we've already wasted half a half a year and nothing's

37:58 happened so you have to really take action earlier and consistently monitor what's going on okay and let's talk a

Future of Backlinks in 2025

38:05 little bit about backlinks and of course so how how much do you think backlinks building backlinks will be relevant in

38:12 2025 you know I mean I think it's definitely an important factor obviously you know something I always kind of say

38:17 is if you're creating high quality content the backlinks will naturally come because people will want to link to

38:23 your content if you're doing it in a relevant manner obviously it also depends what industry Tri you're in

38:28 Sometimes some Industries are a lot more authoritative than others so that like if you're in the insurance space a lot a

38:33 lot of times now like government websites are actually outranking you know regular companies so in that's in

38:39 that instance it might be helpful to work with you know whether you have it internal team or you're Outsourcing it

38:45 making sure that you're getting authoritative links to your relevant Pages using the right anchor text is

38:50 definitely a good way to help Google and signals to Google that you're an authoritative domain in the space so I

38:56 think you know it's help obviously in that sense depending on what industry you're in so it's definitely something that you need to keep in mind if you're

39:02 not really seeing any traction for your relevant phrases so are do you fan of any

39:08 specific type of backlinks building when it comes to building backlinks I I personally I like to focus

39:15 on the more natural way of doing it in terms of just making sure that you know obviously if you're creating content

39:20 people are going to link to you but I do think that in some instances it could be helpful to investigate what like let's

39:25 say you're top some of your top competitors where are they getting back links from and trying to reach out to those specific sources to try to get

39:32 links as well and and back to your site because it's just another way to increase your visibility it's also

39:37 another way for users if they're consuming those mediums to go back to your site instead of a competitor's so

39:43 there is some ways that you can kind of take advantage of what your competitors are already doing or just Happ to be

39:49 getting links from and trying to get links in that instance now uh are you a fan of paid

39:54 back Lings personally I don't I don't always do that necessarily just

39:59 because I I again I like to focus on the more natural way of doing it I do understand that you know everyone has

40:05 their own perspective on it but personally I don't necessarily focus on pidb links okay all right and uh when it

Updates in Local SEO

40:13 comes to local SEO is there any specific shift you start seeing in the local SEO

40:18 or it's still same way how it used to be done before yeah you know I mean local is becoming a lot more prominent based

40:26 off of the query type we've even start seen the last few days that Google is actually now starting to show like AI

40:31 organized local packs themselves so it is really important to really make sure that your you know your Google my

40:36 business profiles are filled out if we have store or loc locator pages on our site that they're you know properly

40:42 filled out with the right information they're indexable you know they're targeting with the right keywords because people do search very locally

40:49 and sometimes on their smartphones that's how they're searching they want to go somewhere they they're on the go already so they need somewhere very

40:55 close to them so it is really important to make sure that all those things are properly filled out it's another really

41:00 good way to bring people to your site even if they're not converting organically they're finding you from an organic manner so that's really why it's

41:07 important to make sure that if you are a brick and mortar store if you are focused on local SEO that it's built out

41:12 in a proper way okay now let's come to the final segment of our show which is rapid fire

Rapid Fire SEO Round

41:20 questions so I ask you a question and you give what answer com straight away in your mind are you ready let's go

41:27 okay what's one Su tool you can't live without which is not conductor I love that I would say Google

41:33 search console is you know the the one that I would go to okay how do you stay updated with the Ever Changing Su

41:39 landscape I you know I have a lot of I subscribe to a lot of different Publications like SEO fomo I script you

41:45 know uh you know a bunch of different other Publications like search engine land or search engine Journal so I kind

41:51 of you know just kind of stay up to date with different newsletters that are coming to my inbox every single day do you think voice search optimization is

41:57 still relevant in 2025 I don't necessarily think it's relevant or and never has been okay your favorite

42:04 content platform Tik Tok YouTube or Reddit I'm I'm a I like Tik Tok honestly

42:09 so but we'll see if it gets banned I might have to you know move to something else okay uh what's the most memorable

42:15 piece of advice you have ever received in your career you know it's okay to fail if you're failing it means that

42:20 you're trying and if you're trying it means that you're you know trying to learn so I think that's some good advice

42:26 that I've I've gotten okay brand you admire for its digital strategy oh that's a good one hm I would

42:34 probably say in terms of digital strategy I would probably say Palatine I I like how they always you know they're integrated in a lot of different mediums

42:40 whether it's you know YouTube Tik Tok you know Instagram I feel like they do a good job at you know kind of at least

42:46 for me targeting me okay and what's your goto Mantra when things gets challenging

42:52 at work good that's a good one what I'd say is just you know kind of take a moment to breathe you know kind maybe

42:57 disconnect and and walk away from your laptop or walk away from the situation for a little come back and reassess it

43:03 how large is your team you are managing right now at conductor so we have a we have a pretty big team we have probably

43:09 around 10 people right now on on on the team and you know I'm I'm really here to help Mentor these different individuals

43:16 in terms of Enterprise SEO and really help them you know with their Enterprise

43:21 clients Jack it's been an incredible insightful having you on the agency Insider show I really love love the way

Final Advice for Listeners

43:27 you explained the keyword research concept going Beyond user intent as well and before we wrap up what final piece

43:35 of advice would you give to our listeners who are looking to elevate their SU game in the in this year you

43:41 know what I would recommend you know obviously it's great to keep learning theory but try and practice it whether it's with smaller clients whether it's

43:47 your own site whether it's you know freelance work practice what you're learning that's the best way to actually put some things and test it out to see

43:54 what works or what doesn't okay thank you for sh sharing your expertise with us today and thank you for coming to my

Thank You for Joining the Show

44:00 show as well absolutely yeah yeah and to our listeners don't

44:06 forget to subscribe to the agency Insider show for more expert interviews and insights into the world of digital

44:11 marketing until next time this is NN koshel signing off