I’ve started a new style of episode.    I’ve had an amazing run of interviewing other humans but often you don’t hear that much from me.    My tips, my advice. So I thought I’d start sharing that with you.    After a long 5 years, shorter more succinct episodes for easy learning and quick wins, 100% jargon and gobbledegook free.    Today I’ll be answering the question that comes up a lot from my course students: Should I target zero-volume keywords?   Freebies: Free webinar:...

Taking your brand global While many of us start small and want simply to be found locally, over time our desire to be found on the global stage increases. And even if we’re not directly targeting other countries, of course it’s likely that a fair share of your website visitors come from different countries and speak different languages, so it might be time to consider making your site more international. But if you’re looking to create an international website, what do you need to...

Taking on AI as an asset, not a threat Everyone is talking about ChatGPT. My LinkedIn is stuffed with experts providing tips and examples of how to use this amazing tool. (Everyone is an instant expert on LinkedIn). To some it’s the best thing since sliced bread. To others, it’s the end of the content marketing world as we know it. I mean, haven’t these people watched The Terminator movies, don’t they know how it all ends?   So today I’m going to give you my low down. ​​What is...

How to increase your site’s speed, performance, and quality There’s one thing that never gets old when it comes to SEO. And that’s speed. I’d argue it’s one of the most important technical factors.  A slow site isn’t going to please anyone, not least the Google beast. So, in this episode we’re going to revisit the basics. What’s the ideal load time What makes sites slow What tools can you use to test What’s the impact of Core web vitals And how the heck do you speed up your site? It...

Learning how the cogs turn behind the Google machine Wouldn’t it be wonderful to actually talk to Google?   To ask them all the questions you’ve ever wanted to ask? To find out why they do what they do. Why they keep fiddling. What they have coming up.   Imagine how great that would be. Well, imagine no more, for today we have John Mueller, head of Google Search Relations, on the pod.    We’ve spoken to John before in my first season on Episode 15: Ask Google: Q&A with John...

How SEO has changed this year and what you should do about it It’s been a busy year in SEO land. And Google has been experimenting as always. And if you’re a normal human, and not glued to Twitter every living minute of the day, you might find it hard to keep up with it all. So I’ve asked one of our most popular guests to come back on the show and give us the low down on what’s what in SEO in 2022. The big moves. The little tweaks. The things you can ignore and the things you better jump...

Scaling up from being an SEO freelance consultant Okay so perhaps you’re an SEO freelancer. Working job to job, helping clients on a small scale. But you have big dreams. You’d love to run your very own SEO agency. But the thought of setting it up and managing all the ins and outs leaves you cold. The risk is huge and let’s be honest, SEO agencies often don’t have the best reputation out there! So how do you overcome all this and make your agency honest, legitimate and profitable? ...

How to Yoastify your shop If you’re even vaguely into SEO and haven’t heard of Yoast, then I’m guessing you have been living under a rock.   But for those that don’t know, Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps your site perform better in search engines like Google.    It also gives you the tools to bring your content to the highest standards of SEO and overall readability.    It’s my favourite SEO tool which I use on all my sites and recommend in my course The Recipe for SEO...

How organising your content can keep customers coming back Have you heard about content clusters? They’re all about strategic internal linking. Creating little groups of content around a key topic. You create a pillar page and link to and from it, offering multiple internal links to keep readers entertained, educated and on your site. Benefits include more organised content, less overlap and more authority on a given topic and increased content production speed. Sounds good right? But...

Keeping up in the rankings by being mobile-friendly Did you know that half of all website traffic worldwide comes from mobile? I hope when you hear that you’ll understand how important it is to listen to this week’s episode. Google has been pushing mobile-first indexing for the past few years. It rolled out the first mobile-first index in 2018 but more recently announced mobile-first indexing for the whole web. So what does this mean for your little website? Well if your site isn’t fully...

What Google's latest update really means  Recently Google announced its Helpful Content update. And as per usual, the interwebs got their knickers in a twist. SEO agencies sending emails to copywriters telling them to stop using keywords. Business brands frantically worrying that they were going to get a penalty after stuffing their sites with useless space-filling guff in their blogs. But I tend not to freak out about these things. I like to wait and see. And today we’ll be...

Finding the right keywords to rise above the competition By now you’ve gobbled up a lot of SEO advice. But is it really all doable?    In my reality SEO episodes, I talk to real humans and get the truth about how they use SEO and digital marketing to improve their businesses.   Today I’ll be talking to a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, and eCommerce extraordinaire, Estelle Oliveri.    We’ll chat about how Estelle got her start in SEO, the digital marketing highs...

Enriching web dev and copy services with SEO Hearing great SEO advice is one thing but is it actually doable?    In my reality SEO episodes, I talk to real humans and get the truth about how they use SEO and digital marketing to improve their businesses.   Like Rachel Amies, a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, a member of the Digital Masterchefs, and a cat-pun enthusiast.   We’ll talk about how Rachel took her web design and digital marketing to the next level with...

Expanding your audience reach with the right voice Influencer marketing. Even the mention of it gives me the heebeejeebees. Visions of hot 20-somethings lying in a cossie on a rock in Ibiza spring to mind.  Your product lying next to them on said rock. And oh the horror stories. Small business owners giving away oodles of product, and splashing the cash only to be ghosted. So how do you choose a trustworthy influencer? And how do you see genuine return on your investment? Today we’ll...

  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 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...

Making informed keyword choices for my shopfront business   Hearing great SEO advice is one thing but is it actually doable? I started the reality SEO episodes to illustrate how the teachings here and in my course, really impact small businesses. You can hear the truth direct from real SEO beast’s mouths. Like Norelle Hentschel, a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, a member of the Digital Masterchefs, and an avid herbalist. We’ll talk about how Norelle was able to give...

Get creative in your marketing strategy   Are you content with your content? I’d say that most of us aren’t. And yet we know that great content is the key to building a brand, creating trust, and becoming well known for what we do. But there are so many options. Should we be creating blog posts, guesting on podcasts, creative videos, dancing on reels, or going live? How can we be everywhere? And yes I know we’d all love to go viral, but if you tuned into my episode with Mr. Rand...

Check out my new podcast, Clever Copy Chats for some in-depth SEO Copywriting knowledge. Whenever I’m in a copywriting group I see the same comments. “SEO ruins conversational copy.” “SEO ruins conversion copy.” “You don’t need to use keywords any more. Google will work it out.” “SEO copy is boring copy.” (Heavy sigh) These kinds of comments show a fundamental misunderstanding of what SEO copywriting is and how it works. And these copywriters who think that Google will magically...

Filling the appointment books by showing up in local searches   From feedback, I find the Reality Episodes are a crowd favourite. Yes, it’s great hearing from super-duper SEO and marketing experts, but what about the real humans chipping away at marketing goals, trying to woo Google, slippery up their funnel, and smash their socials? Is all this advice actually doable? Well, today I’m chatting with Anthea Digby-Smith, a former student of the Recipe For SEO Success Course, a member of the...

Stopping your site from slipping through the cracks   You’ve built a beautiful site. Your mum loves it. You’ve even paid your developer for a super SEO package. So everything should be right, right? But for some reason when you Google yourself nothing’s coming up, Or maybe just a measly page or two. And you have no idea why. Or perhaps you’re pumping out content on your blog and for some reason, it’s still not getting indexed as fast as you would like. This week we’re talking all about...

Hurrah back in the land of copy podcasts. It's been a while. So let me tell you what my new podcast is all about. I know. I know. There are a gazillion copywriting podcasts out there. I've made a few hundred or so episodes myself, but honestly, most leave me wanting. They're all so dry, so earnest, so teachy. All mega famous copywriters dispensing blobs of copy knowledge down from their lofty plinths. Most of the folk interviewed aren't even copywriters anymore, they've moved on to...

Turning those well-earned clicks into cash   Okay so you’ve listened to all the episodes of the Recipe for SEO Success podcast, you’ve done my fabulous courses, and put in the hard SEO hours. The Google beast finally understands who you are and the traffic is pouring in. But how do you turn casual browsers into sales? How do you move people from your page to a purchase? Today we’re talking about how to turn SEO juice into sweet sales nectar. How to turn cold chips into hot potatoes. ...

Appealing to the humanity of the masses   Have you noticed that your buying choices are often not defined by price or even product features but by how you feel about a brand? We want to buy from brands that we feel have values that are aligned with our own, but to do this, brands need to market intelligently and emotionally. They need to appeal to our humanness. So how do we do this? It might seem relatively straightforward if you’re a one-human band, but what about larger businesses? ...

Peeling the fiction away from fact to help Google find you   Keywords, we’ve covered them before and we’ll cover them again. Why? Because no matter how long I swim in the murky waters of SEO, I still see so much misinformation about how keywords are found, researched and eventually used. Especially on low-grade SEO copywriting courses (shh, naming no names). These so-called experts are stuck in the keyword past, talking about density and shoehorning them into every paragraph and meta...

Niching, knowing your audience & personal branding   In my Reality SEO episodes, I like to focus on real humans grappling with the Google beast, and Digital Marketing. I get all sorts passing through my slippery funnel of courses and resources: marketing professionals, copywriters, e-commerce owners, web developers, and real business humans. Today we’re talking to Jude Love, a former student of The Recipe for SEO Success Show, a member of The Digital Masterchefs, and an absolute...