#89 Dale Bertrand from Fire&Spark: How to Increase Your Reach with Authority First SEO The Ecom Show

#89 Dale Bertrand from Fire&Spark: How to Increase Your Reach with Authority First SEOWant to increase your organic reach? Let’s talk Authority First SEO.
Dale Bertrand is an SEO Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Business Coach, and the Founder of Fire&Spark. Fire&Spark is an SEO firm that helps e-commerce and B2B brands leverage Authority First SEO to double or even triple organic search revenue.
So, what is Authority First SEO anyway? Tune in to hear Dale and our CEO and podcast host, Daniel Budai discuss:
✔️ Becoming a Founder in Digital Marketing
✔️ What is Authority SEO?
✔️ Why Does Authority First SEO Perform Well on Google?
✔️ Purpose Driven SEO
✔️ Technical SEO
✔️ SEO Advice for E-Commerce Owners?
Becoming a Founder in Digital MarketingDale has a very technical background. After graduating from engineering school, Dale worked as a software developer for 20 years.
In 2008, Dale decided to switch over to digital marketing. He began as a freelancer then founded his SEO agency Fire&Spark.
Fire&Spark began as an office of 20 people in Boston. When the pandemic hit, they went remote and, like many agencies, never looked back. They’re now stretched across many time zones from Europe to the US.
“We focus on SEO. We’re SEO all day, every day.”
And many of Fire&Spark’s clients are in e-commerce. Dale and his employees especially love working with mission-driven e-commerce brands.
Primarily, Fire&Spark focuses on Authority First SEO.
What is Authority First SEO?Authority First SEO makes brand authority the core focus. This means improving a website’s ability to post high-ranking content. Naturally, Fire&Spark also focuses on the technical aspects of SEO, but the authority side of SEO really moves the needle. Authority First SEO can double or even triple your organic traffic.
Dale identifies 3 fundamentals of SEO:
Building a high-functioning website where Google can index your site.Keyword visibility: targeting the right keywords and search intent so that you’re offering information or a product that people are actually looking for.Authority: building authority on Google so that your content is relevant to search intent. The reason why Google should choose your piece of content over your competitors' content.  Why Does Authority First SEO Perform Well On Google?Dale says that Google search results used to be far easier to manipulate. When he was just starting in SEO, you could just put lots of keywords in an article or blog, whether they were relevant or not, and your content would be favored in search results.
Now, those manipulations are useless. Google’s AI is a lot better at understanding search queries. For example, if someone types in ‘3D printing service’, they are looking for someone to manufacture parts for them on a 3D printer. If someone types in ‘3D printer’ into Google, they’re looking to buy a 3D printer. Google’s AI is now really good at discerning between the two. In other words, understanding search intent and queries.
“Fundamentally, an AI search engine like Google is about predicting human behavior.”
And the Google search engine is learning. It’s not just showing us the best results, it’s learning from what we click on. If we click on a website do we stay there? Or do we come back immediately to Google and click on something else?
This means that Google is better than ever at classifying web pages and ranking which ones it should show.
“At the end of the day, it’s all about making sure that you’re targeting the right search intent instead of keywords.”
As a marketer, therefore, you need to know what your customers are searching for. Google’s AI is excellent at understanding what people are looking for and finding the right content. That content needs to be good enough to satisfy your customers' queries and make them stay.
Your customers won’t just be looking for your product or service, they’re looking for information related to your pro