The Edward Show

Edward Sturm
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Daily SEO advice, hacks, and interviews with some of the top voices in search engine optimization, as well as sit-downs with many undiscovered talents.

  1. 1 day ago

    The "Cheap" Keyword Trick Brands Are Too Proud to Use

    E1133: Most brands don't want to call themselves "cheap." That's exactly why the word can be such a powerful SEO modifier. I break down an SEO tactic James Dooley shared during our recent three-hour podcast: targeting words like "cheap," "cheapest," "affordable," "low cost," "budget," "inexpensive," and even "free" to stand out in Google and attract searchers who actually care about price. The opportunity exists because there's a disconnect between how brands want to describe themselves and what customers want. Brands want to be "premium." Searchers want something they can afford. And when almost every competing result is using the same words like "best," adding a price-focused modifier can make your result stand out. We cover: - How brands avoid words like "cheap," even when customers search for them - Why "cheap" can make a Page Title more attractive in the search results - Alternatives including affordable, inexpensive, low cost, budget, cheapest, and free - When you should put the modifier at the beginning of your Page Title - When your primary keyword should still come first - How search volume changes the way I would structure the page - How site and page authority affect how aggressively you can change your Page Title - Why lower-volume, bottom-of-funnel keywords often require far less authority - How relevance and search intent fit into the strategy - Why this tactic probably makes no sense for luxury brands - Examples for service businesses, e-commerce, and SaaS - How I would target "best web design agencies" - How I would structure a page targeting "carry-on luggage" - How I would use "affordable" for residential general contractor software - How freemium SaaS companies can use "free" as the modifier - How to combine this strategy with my Page Title formula The basic idea is simple: Most companies are fighting over the same obvious wording. "Best." "Top." "Leading." Meanwhile, customers are thinking: "How much does this cost?" "Can I afford it?" "Is there a cheaper option?" "Is there a free version?" That gap creates an SEO opportunity. I also explain why this gets more nuanced as keywords become more competitive. Sometimes you need the exact target keyword at the beginning of the Page Title, in the URL slug, in the H1, and prominently on the page. With more authority, you have more freedom to write a title designed primarily to win the click. And for under-targeted bottom-of-funnel keywords, the strategy becomes much easier. This episode is a practical breakdown of how I'd actually execute the tactic rather than simply adding the word "cheap" everywhere. ⭐️ Ep 1131 - James Dooley & David Quaid: The SEO "Best Practices" We Ignore - https://youtu.be/jW8hYUn99Uk  ⭐️ Ep 1130 - The $50 Micro-Influencer SEO Strategy Nobody Is Using - https://youtu.be/8jHGa95T0GY  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Cheap Keyword Hack 01:13 Synonyms and CTR Boost 02:04 Agency Keyword Nuance 04:07 Authority Volume Intent 05:04 Ecommerce Carry On Example 06:53 Low Volume High Intent 07:54 Page Title Template 11:10 Final Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #onpageseo #digitalmarketing

  2. 1 day ago

    Are Bot-Managed, CMS-Less Websites the Future of SEO? TJ Robertson & David Quaid

    E1134: Are traditional CMS platforms like WordPress about to become unnecessary for SEO? TJ Robertson and David Quaid join me to talk about a very different way of building and managing websites: CMS-less sites where bots and AI agents handle publishing, technical fixes, internal links, site updates, analytics, and eventually even parts of optimization themselves. TJ has already been building websites with Claude Code and believes that for many companies, moving away from WordPress will make sense within the next 6-12 months. We get into what these websites look like, what they can do today, where the technology still falls short, and what happens when websites no longer need humans making every individual change. We discuss: - Why TJ is building websites with Claude Code instead of relying entirely on WordPress - How a client could edit a CMS-less website simply by asking an AI agent to make the change - Why changing hundreds of pages at once becomes much easier when the site is controlled through code - TJ's work on a one-button WordPress-to-Claude-Code migration - Why Shopify may be one of the major exceptions to moving away from traditional platforms - How to stop AI-built websites from having the same generic "Claude Code" design - Using Figma with Claude Code to create more customized designs - Why bot-managed websites could automatically update themselves multiple times per day - Websites that update content automatically when the underlying product or database changes - Self-healing websites that detect broken links, broken forms, tracking problems, outdated information, and other issues - Building an SEO bot trained specifically on your website - Replacing parts of the traditional Semrush/Screaming Frog → SEO → developer ticket workflow with automation - Why David thinks there are opportunities to build custom analytics instead of relying entirely on GA4 - Tracking customer journeys and changing pages based on what returning visitors previously viewed - Why AI-generated content itself is not necessarily the problem - The difference between useful automation and dumping thousands of low-quality AI pages into Google - How Google might respond as high-quality automated content becomes possible at massive scale - Why obvious AI writing patterns are becoming a liability - AI satellite sites, exact-match domains, and third-party industry sites - Why having multiple websites could give brands a larger footprint in AI search citations - How satellite sites can give marketing teams room to experiment without changing the main company website - Whether you should connect AI satellite sites to the same Google Search Console account as your main domain - The risks of building third-party sites primarily to promote your own brand - Why websites may eventually expose structured company data directly to AI systems instead of creating thousands of keyword-variant pages - David's argument that LLMs are not actually "AI" by themselves - What SEOs and businesses should start experimenting with right now, even if they have no intention of leaving WordPress yet TJ makes the case that for roughly $200 per month, you can already have AI doing work that previously required an engineering team, and that we are only beginning to figure out what websites built around that capability will look like. The question is no longer just whether AI will write SEO content. It's whether AI will eventually run the website itself. ⭐️ TJ Robertson on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tj-robertson-seo/  ⭐️ TJ Robertson on 𝕏 - https://x.com/SeoRobertson/  ⭐️ TJ Robertson on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TJRobertsonDigital  ⭐️ TJ Robertson on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tjrobertsondigital/  ⭐️ TJ Robertson on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tjrobertson52  ⭐️ TJ Robertson's Agency - https://tjrobertson.com/  ⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid  ⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/  ⭐️ David Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid  ⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 CMS-Less Vision 02:11 Building With Claude 03:55 Clients Edit With AI 05:55 Rapid Prototyping Wins 09:24 WordPress Tradeoffs 12:25 EMDs For GEO 18:40 Avoiding Scale Penalties 25:12 Migration Timeline 27:44 Designing Beyond Generic 29:40 Editing Workflow Debate 33:35 Automated Content Quality 42:04 Google Indexing Limits 43:28 LLMs Not AI 45:06 Scale Spam Signals 47:38 Programmatic SEO Line 50:26 AI Search Changes Content 54:08 LLMs Not True AI 59:03 Satellite Sites Risk 01:05:26 Cheap Sites New Innovation 01:11:02 Avoid AI Content Tells 01:13:33 Skills And Knowledge Base 01:23:03 SEO Bots And Automation 01:25:35 Final Takeaways The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #aiseo #seopodcast

  3. 2 days ago

    They Outranked Apple for "iPhone" in 1 Hour - 5 Insane SEO Stories

    E1132: Somebody asked on Reddit: "What are some of the craziest, most interesting SEO stories and tactics you've come across?" The answers were incredible. I go through the best stories from the SEO Growth subreddit, including a Danish telco that outranked Apple for the keyword "iPhone" within an hour of a keynote. We also look at: - How an article about a random PS5 rumor reached #1 in Google and won the featured snippet - Why answering controversial or highly debated questions directly can create SEO opportunities - How to find strange rumors and unanswered questions people are already searching for in your niche - Why giving a clear answer beats huge publishers, Reddit threads, competitors, and even the manufacturer itself - How marketplace websites have used vendor badges to generate backlinks from businesses across an entire industry - Why badge-based link building has worked so well for directories, marketplaces, awards sites, and other businesses - How some affiliate SEOs have used expired domains and 301 redirects to rapidly increase rankings - Why expired-domain strategies can produce fast results but also carry serious risk - Why you don't necessarily need a powerful domain or thousands of backlinks to rank for valuable keywords - How under-targeted, high-intent keywords can give smaller sites opportunities to compete - Why pages that directly satisfy search intent can naturally earn backlinks over time - How deleting thousands of weak, outdated, cannibalizing pages can actually improve a site's SEO performance - Why content pruning can help sites that have expanded too far beyond their real topical authority One of my favorite lessons from these stories is the PS5 example. During the peak of the PS5 hype, an SEO noticed people debating whether the console should be positioned vertically or horizontally. Major media sites, Reddit threads, competitors, and Sony itself were discussing the subject, but nobody was giving searchers a simple, definitive answer. So he wrote an article targeting the question directly. Within days, it ranked #1 and captured the featured snippet. The lesson is simple: pay attention to the questions, rumors, disagreements, and problems people in your market are already discussing. Then look at the search results. If everyone ranking is dancing around the question instead of answering it clearly, there may be an opportunity to create the page that actually gives searchers what they came for. ⭐️ Reddit: What are some of the craziest, most interesting SEO stories and tactics you've come across? - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1vhv8si/what_are_some_of_the_craziest_most_interesting/  ⭐️ Ep 1120 - You Don't Need 1,000 Backlinks to Rank on Google (Here's What Actually Works) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dwPZu9rjt8  ⭐️ Ep 976 - The AI Clickbait King: How One SEO Built 9,000 Websites - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8w4-MOG_0M  ⭐️ Ep 1030 - Keyword Cannibalization: Why Your SEO Pages Compete (And How to Fix It) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jrXrau6kE  ⭐️ Ep 989 - Google's Helpful Content Update DESTROYED the Internet (What Actually Happened) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YLUFjYrIEA  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Reddit SEO Stories Intro 00:16 Outranking Apple Fast 01:54 PS5 Rumor Snippet Win 03:18 Turn Rumors Into Pages 04:40 Earn Links Naturally 05:15 Badge Backlink Strategy 06:21 Expired Domains and 301s 07:17 High Intent SEO 08:41 Delete Content to Grow 10:08 Wrap Up and Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking

  4. 4 days ago

    James Dooley & David Quaid: The SEO "Best Practices" We Ignore

    E1131: James Dooley and David G Quaid join me for a three-hour discussion about the SEO "best practices" they ignore, the advice they think gets repeated without enough testing, and what they really look at when trying to rank websites. We start with a simple question: which accepted SEO practices do you not follow? That turns into a much broader discussion about how Google works, why SEO checklists often fail, and why tactics that work on a large authority site can be useless on a new domain. James and David agree on a core principle throughout the episode: test what works, understand why it works, and avoid treating SEO advice as universal. We get into: - Why James largely ignores standard SEO best practices and relies on in-house testing instead - Why doing "more SEO" does not necessarily produce better rankings - How adding more pages can create cannibalization instead of improving topical authority - Examples of pages ranking with almost no content - James' story of ranking #1 with a page that was accidentally published before the content was written - Why a technically poor website with an unnatural links penalty could still rank for extremely competitive terms - The relationship between authority, relevance, traffic and rankings - Whether Google actually understands content quality in the way many SEOs assume - Why "just write good content" is incomplete SEO advice - EEAT and what James and David believe it does and does not affect - Why simply adding author bios is unlikely to fix a struggling website - Google quality raters, RaterHub and manual transparency actions - When EEAT considerations may matter more for finance, gambling, medical and other high-consequence searches - Why YMYL may need to be considered at the query level rather than treating an entire industry the same way - Schema: where it is necessary and where adding more schema probably will not improve rankings - Why job, flight, hotel and similar structured search features are different from ordinary webpages - Backlinks, PageRank and why authority still matters - Why comparing backlink counts alone can give you the wrong conclusion - Branded search and whether increased branded searches can influence broader rankings - Using search behavior, autocomplete and suggested searches to strengthen associations between a brand and a topic - Click-through rate and how James approaches CTR testing - Why advice from SEOs working on huge brands may not translate to a brand-new website - Exact-match domains and partial-match domains - Why both James and David dislike having a single website as the only source of SEO traffic - Using multiple sites to reduce single points of failure - How James evaluates aged and expired domains using data from multiple SEO tools instead of relying on DR or DA alone - Why looking at trends and historical data matters more than blindly trusting a single authority metric - Contextual bridging and how to move from easier topics into increasingly competitive search terms - Why topical relevance determines which keywords a website realistically has the authority to target - How Google Search Console can reveal search demand that traditional keyword tools miss - Ranking social profiles and videos in Google - SEO in an AI and LLM-driven search environment - Why David believes SEO remains one of the best ways to reach someone at the exact moment they are looking for something A recurring theme in this conversation is that SEO is contextual. A tactic can be useful on one site and pointless on another. Schema can be required for one search feature and irrelevant to another. An author bio can matter in a transparency review without being the reason a normal commercial page ranks. A change that produces huge results across one million pages may have almost no practical value for a small local business. Instead of building SEO around a checklist, James and David argue for understanding the underlying system: relevance, authority, search behavior, internal relationships between pages, external links and real-world testing. This is the longest conversation I've recorded, and we had enough time to get past the usual surface-level SEO arguments and into the reasoning behind how both James and David actually approach ranking websites. ⭐️ James Dooley's website - https://jamesdooley.com/  ⭐️ James Dooley on 𝕏 - https://x.com/james_dooley  ⭐️ James Dooley on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameszdooley/  ⭐️ James Dooley on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jameszdooley/  ⭐️ James Dooley on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/james.dooley1/  ⭐️ James Dooley on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@JamesDooley  ⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid  ⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/  ⭐️ David Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid  ⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Best Practices Debate 01:44 Checklist SEO Myths 04:15 Authority Over Quality 06:20 SEO Case Studies 12:02 Content Quality Reality 21:21 EEAT Framework Clash 24:23 Why EEAT Falls Apart 32:25 Branded Search Signals 35:58 Brands Win on CTR 36:53 Autosuggest Brand Seeding 38:06 CTR Manipulation Done Right 39:56 Real Case Study EMD Launch 42:42 EEAT Myths vs Reality 44:02 RaterHub and Transparency Penalties 48:18 When EEAT Applies YMYL 01:01:53 Schema When It Matters 01:08:14 FAQ Schema and PAA Pages 01:12:40 Relevance Times Authority Framework 01:14:32 CTR Weakens Authority 01:15:19 Stop Anthropomorphizing Google 01:16:19 Bad Advice From Big Brands 01:20:07 Tribalism And Schema Wars 01:23:16 Debate Culture And Testing 01:26:47 CDN Fight And Ego 01:30:04 Penalties And Core Updates 01:31:35 Google Engineering Under Hood 01:38:07 Intent Shifts And Traffic Tiers 01:39:48 Listicles And SEO Creativity 01:42:26 LLMs Feed On Lists 01:53:58 AI Mode And Ad Economics 01:56:20 Index Moat And AI Race 02:00:03 Why Google Still Wins 02:00:42 Search Is Not The Real Battle 02:01:43 LLMs Need New Vectors 02:03:28 Best Time For SEO 02:05:09 SEO Demand From CEOs 02:07:36 AI Makes Building Easy 02:10:05 SEO Interest Explodes 02:11:22 Brand Building Myth 02:13:18 Chunking For AI Overviews 02:14:31 Using Every Tool 02:17:55 No Perfect Tool Stack 02:20:35 Data Driven Domain Buying 02:24:20 LLM Citations For Outreach 02:27:58 EMDs To Reduce Risk 02:31:59 Republish And Reuse Content 02:33:18 Steal Winning Slugs 02:35:11 Cheap Keyword Modifier 02:35:46 Search Console Goldmine 02:37:05 Social Linking Risks 02:39:56 Google As Traffic Engine 02:43:34 Tools Cost And Trials 02:47:17 Starting From Zero 02:51:16 Blogspot Ranking Playbook 02:54:16 Topical Bridging Explained 03:00:17 Strategy Over Keywords 03:04:05 Thanks And Wrap The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #seotips #seostrategy

  5. 4 days ago

    The $50 Micro-Influencer SEO Strategy Nobody Is Using

    E1130: Micro-influencer SEO is one of the most overlooked ways to get your brand mentioned across Google, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and AI search tools. I break down a simple strategy: instead of paying for generic press releases or chasing influencers with huge audiences, work with tiny creators whose videos are already being indexed and ranked by search engines. A micro-influencer with only a few hundred or a few thousand followers can still publish content that appears in Google for months or even years. And in many cases, the cost can be as little as $25 to $50 per creator. I cover: - Why micro-influencers can be useful for SEO even if they have a small audience - How to check whether an influencer's videos are being indexed by Google - How to test their past content before paying them - Why follower count is not the most important metric for this strategy - Using high-intent keywords that competitors are ignoring - How to structure an influencer's video description around a target keyword - Why the target keyword should appear near the beginning of the description - How to coordinate multiple creators around the same keyword and brand - How to support those creator posts with a page on your own website - Where to place the keyword in your page title, URL, H1, and opening copy - Why YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok matter beyond their own platforms - How video content can continue ranking long after it is published - Why social platforms are increasingly being used as search engines - How video descriptions can influence what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and other AI systems cite - Why authentic creator content can be more useful than a generic press release I also walk through a specific example using the keyword "residential general contractor software." The basic process is: - Find a micro-influencer in your niche - Copy the description from one of their recent videos - Search that exact description in Google - Check whether the video is indexed - Look at older videos to see how long their content tends to stay indexed - Find a high-intent keyword that is not being targeted heavily - Pay the creator to make a relevant video around your product or company - Give them an SEO-focused description to use - Repeat the process with several creators - Create or optimize a page on your website around the same keyword The goal is not simply influencer reach. The goal is to create multiple relevant pieces of content that associate your brand with a specific high-intent search term across platforms that Google and AI systems already crawl and reference. ⭐️ The Gary Vaynerchuk episode - https://youtu.be/EUnV-xaH32k  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Micro Influencer SEO Edge 00:56 Find Creators That Rank 01:37 Pitch With Overlooked Keywords 02:04 Write Descriptions For SEO 02:50 Dominate With Multi-Platform Posts 03:44 Social Search Is Exploding 04:08 Benefits And LLM Impact 04:18 Fake Reviews And Citations 05:01 Why This Tactic Wins 05:46 Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #influencermarketing #generativeengineoptimization #seo

  6. 6 days ago

    The Further You Are From Your Brand, The More AI Trusts You | Kaleigh Moore

    E1129: The further a source is from your company's control, the more likely AI systems may be to trust it. Kaleigh Moore explains her "Source Signal Stack," a four-level framework for understanding how brands earn visibility in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other AI search tools. A company can control its website, blog, and social accounts. It has less control over what employees, independent creators, customers, journalists, and online communities say. According to Kaleigh, those independent sources can carry more weight because they are harder for a brand to manufacture. Kaleigh spent 10 years running a content marketing agency and working with companies including Shopify, Stripe, and Amazon Business. After AI changed the content industry, she enrolled in a graduate program at Harvard to study how large language models are built. She now researches AI search visibility, creates content, and publishes the Context Window newsletter. We cover: - How AI systems form an impression of a brand across the internet - The four levels of Kaleigh's Source Signal Stack - Why company-owned content may be the weakest trust signal - Why Reddit discussions, podcasts, earned media, and independent mentions matter - How named experts can help companies become associated with specific subjects - Why brands should create original frameworks and repeat clear, consistent language - How LinkedIn articles can reach the top of Google quickly - How Kaleigh ranked LinkedIn articles at number one within 24 hours - How short YouTube videos helped her earn citations in Google AI Overviews - Why creators may become increasingly important for AI search visibility - What "Creator AEO" means and how companies can work with outside experts - Why one-off sponsored posts are less useful than long-term creator relationships - How to check whether an influencer's existing content ranks before paying them - Why a small creator with ranking content may be more valuable than a large creator - How long video descriptions can help search engines and AI tools understand content - Why companies should stop publishing anonymous blog posts - How scaled AI content can create poor user signals - Why readers can usually recognize content written entirely by AI - How Kaleigh uses AI as a research and thinking partner without handing over her voice - Why conversational writing, personal stories, and unusual details are difficult to copy - Why founders should publish from personal LinkedIn accounts instead of relying only on company pages - How six months of daily LinkedIn posting created inbound leads and speaking opportunities - Why brands need to think and operate more like media companies - How podcasts can build relationships with bloggers, journalists, and potential customers - Why offline events can produce online mentions, social posts, and backlinks - How AI is changing the way businesses research and purchase software - Why buyers increasingly use AI during long and expensive evaluation processes - Why citation counts alone may be an unreliable measurement The central lesson is that AI visibility cannot be created only through changes to your website. Brands need recognizable experts, useful content, independent discussion, trusted relationships, and evidence that exists seemingly outside their direct control. The companies that understand this are the ones that appear when people ask AI tools what to buy, who to trust, and which solution to choose. ⭐️ Kaleigh Moore's newsletter, Context Window - https://kaleigh-moore.beehiiv.com/  ⭐️ Kaleigh Moore on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaleighmoore/  ⭐️ Kaleigh Moore on 𝕏 - https://x.com/kaleighf  ⭐️ Kaleigh Moore on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@aisearchlady  ⭐️ The Source Signal Stack - https://www.kaleighmoore.com/blog/2026/4/22/the-source-signal-stack  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Kaylee Background Pivot 01:54 AI Changes Marketing 04:25 LinkedIn UGC SEO Hack 06:00 Repurposing Content Systems 11:51 Source Signal Stack 17:26 Future of Blogging Audio 23:30 Human Authors Beat Slop 27:17 Using AI Without Losing Voice 36:06 Creator AEO Partnerships 39:01 Long Cut Consistency 40:48 LinkedIn Daily Reps 41:29 X vs LinkedIn Posting 42:36 Which Platform Pays 43:09 Journalism Links Debate 47:30 SEO Needs Media Company 48:24 Podcasting For Backlinks 51:50 Offline SEO Flywheel 55:02 Ecommerce Community Lessons 57:48 Time Compression Burnout 58:53 AI Search Newsletter Workflow 01:02:19 Winning AI Evaluations 01:04:14 Micro Influencers Parasite SEO 01:09:21 Growing On X 01:12:49 Lightning Round Wrap 01:17:00 Final Thanks And Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #contentmarketing #generativeengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

  7. 5 Aug

    Local SEO in the AI Era: What's Working, What's Dying & What to Do Now - Joy Hawkins & Caleb Ulku

    E1128: Local SEO is changing as Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other AI systems influence how people find and evaluate local businesses. I'm joined by Joy Hawkins and Caleb Ulku for a detailed discussion about what is working in local SEO now, which common tactics are becoming less effective, and how businesses should prepare for AI-powered local search. Joy and Caleb compare what they are seeing across client accounts, ranking tests, Google Business Profiles, local packs, AI-generated recommendations, website content, reviews, links, and conversion rates. Topics covered: - How large language models evaluate local businesses and decide which companies to cite - Why local businesses may need content that clearly explains pricing, processes, outcomes, and service details - How awards and industry-specific directories can influence AI recommendations - Why winning an award is not enough unless the business also promotes it clearly on its website - How AI-powered local packs may reduce the importance of Google review volume and frequency - Why Yelp, Facebook, Reddit, and other third-party platforms are becoming more important for local visibility - How AI systems read the actual language inside reviews instead of only looking at star ratings - Why businesses should encourage customers to describe their experience and outcome in their reviews - The risks of asking for, buying, or incentivizing reviews on different platforms - Why fake listings, fake reviews, rank-and-rent listings, and other forms of Google Business Profile spam continue to create problems for legitimate businesses - How business hours can affect local rankings and why Google's written guidelines do not always match what works in practice - Whether keyword-stuffed Google Business Profile names will continue working as AI local results become more common - Why improving a local business website's design can increase leads without rebuilding the entire website - How AI tools can help businesses improve landing pages, buttons, coupons, images, page layouts, and conversion rates - How Joy and Caleb use AI to produce content without publishing generic rewrites of competing pages - Why original interviews, customer stories, project details, pricing information, measurements, timelines, and outcomes make content more useful - Why publishing dozens or hundreds of similar AI-generated pages can become a liability - How to approach location pages, service-area pages, and multi-location business websites - When separate location pages compete against each other and when combining locations may produce better results - Why press releases appear to have lost much of their previous influence on rankings and AI citations - Why exact-match anchor text, scaled link building, and guest posting have become increasingly risky - Which local link-building methods still work, including sponsorships, charities, community organizations, events, youth sports, and relevant award sites - What to examine when a website's organic traffic has been declining for several years - How excessive informational content, weak search intent, and expansion beyond a site's authority can damage performance - Why some websites need content consolidation, pruning, restructuring, or partial rebuilding - How local rank maps and Google Search Console data can reveal missing topical and geographic relevance - How Google Business Profile categories and services can guide website structure and internal linking - Where Joy and Caleb disagree about URLs, internal links, location pages, and duplicate content - Why CTR manipulation and driving-direction manipulation may work temporarily but can create serious long-term risks - Why tactics that stop working as soon as you stop paying for them are difficult to build a reliable business around This conversation is for local business owners, SEO consultants, agency owners, marketers, lawyers, home-service companies, and anyone trying to understand how local search is changing. ⭐️ Joy Hawkin's Agency - Sterling Sky: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/  ⭐️ Joy Hawkin's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/SterlingSkyInc  ⭐️ Joy Hawkin's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyhawkins/  ⭐️ Local Search Forum - https://localsearchforum.com/  ⭐️ Caleb Ulku on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@calebulku  ⭐️ Caleb Ulku - https://calebulku.com/  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Meet the Local SEO Pros 00:34 Getting Recognized IRL 02:02 Local SEO in the LLM Era 04:31 Awards as AI Signals 07:52 Paying for Credibility 12:34 Reviews Beyond Google 15:47 Yelp and Reddit Trust 18:50 Spam and Fake Listings 23:40 Loopholes That May Die 25:50 Big Missed Opportunities 31:35 AI Content That Ranks 36:38 AI Content Scaling Trap 37:12 Unique Content vs Relevance 38:24 Citygate Pages Risk 39:53 Multiple Locations Strategy 41:14 Press Releases Decline 43:08 Anchor Text Crackdown 43:55 Local Link Building Wins 48:46 Traffic Drops and Audits 55:22 GBP Landing Page Fixes 58:03 Citations and CTR Hype 01:02:27 Fake Reviews and Takedowns 01:05:44 Site Structure and URLs 01:10:00 30 Day Action Plan 01:11:25 Wrap Up and Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #localseo #localsearchengineoptimization #localmarketing #seo

  8. 4 Aug

    Google's Biggest SEO Leak Changed Everything… But Almost Nobody Adapted

    E1127: Google's biggest SEO leak gave marketers more information about how search works than almost any event in the industry's history. But according to Mike King, most SEO strategies, tools, and reporting systems barely changed after the leak. Mike explains what the leaked Google API documentation confirmed, what it revealed about links and ranking systems, and why the SEO industry has failed to act on some of its most important findings. We break down Google's different index tiers, why a backlink's value may depend on where the linking page sits in the index, and why common third-party metrics such as Domain Authority and Domain Rating may not tell you what Google actually values. Mike also explains how Google uses vector embeddings to understand pages, passages, websites, authors, brands, and entities. This changes how marketers should think about relevance, authority, mentions, links, and content creation. We also go deep into AI search and how platforms such as ChatGPT retrieve and evaluate information. Topics covered include: - What Google's API leak confirmed about ranking systems - Why Mike believes the SEO industry failed to adapt - How Google separates content into different index tiers - Why links from pages with rankings and traffic may carry more value - Why Domain Authority and Domain Rating can be misleading - How vector embeddings help Google understand relevance - Why brand mentions can sometimes matter more than backlinks - The difference between optimizing for prompts and query fan-outs - How ChatGPT breaks a prompt into multiple search queries - Why comprehensive content can create more chances to appear in AI answers - How to inspect the searches ChatGPT performs behind the scenes - Why AI search should not be treated as another version of traditional SEO - How brands should measure AI visibility, citations, accuracy, and performance - Why Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, earned media, and your website all matter - How content format affects whether AI systems select your page or video - Why starting your own subreddit may help protect your brand's position - The biggest mistake companies make with AI-generated content - Why publishing an article from a single prompt often produces weak results - How human review, original sources, structured prompts, and subject experts improve AI content - Why Google may rely more on user behavior than unreliable AI-content detection - Which older SEO tactics are returning because of AI search - What "relevance engineering" means - Why future marketing teams may need SEO, PR, UX, content, data, and engineering skills - Why SEOs should learn to build tools and test AI platforms directly Mike also shares a specific AI search case study involving 499 response codes. His team found that ChatGPT was abandoning page requests because the client's website took too long to respond. After identifying the problem in the site's log files and improving response speed, the client's AI search visibility increased by roughly 300% over three months. Mike's practical recommendation is simple: Check your server logs for 499 errors. Identify the affected URLs. Improve page speed, especially time to first byte. According to Mike, fixing this problem can improve AI search performance in 30 days or less. This conversation is for SEOs, founders, content teams, PR professionals, and marketing leaders trying to understand how discovery is changing across Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Bing, YouTube, Reddit, and other search surfaces. ⭐️ Mike King's agency, iPullRank - https://ipullrank.com  ⭐️ Mike King's music - https://verywellversed.com  ⭐️ Mike King on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkingphilly/  ⭐️ Mike King on 𝕏 - https://x.com/iPullRankAgency  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Welcome and Setup 00:17 Google Leak Takeaways 05:44 Index Buckets Explained 07:50 Embeddings and Entities 09:19 Mentions vs Links 11:51 Earning Mentions Tactics 14:27 Black Mirror Launch 16:05 Seeding Clips and Ads 19:15 Leak Frenzy and Twiddlers 22:14 Optimizing for AI Search 23:50 Inspecting Query Fanout 26:18 Fanouts vs Keywords Strategy 30:01 C-Suite Measurement Framework 31:05 Input Metrics That Matter 31:43 Why It Is Not Just SEO 33:01 Tooling For Measurement 33:38 Query Fan Out Research 34:54 RAG Pipeline Visibility Gaps 37:06 Who Should Lead GEO 38:46 Pilot Win Fixing 499s 42:09 Getting Into Training Data 44:22 Relevance Engineering Explained 48:04 Content Formats For AI Search 49:29 Using Reddit Without Astroturfing 51:58 AI Content Mistakes To Avoid 54:10 How Google Judges AI Content 57:09 Future Of Niche Publishing 59:01 Unpopular SEO Take And Skills 01:02:44 One Action For 90 Days 01:03:04 Wrap Up And Where To Follow The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #seo #searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization

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About

Daily SEO advice, hacks, and interviews with some of the top voices in search engine optimization, as well as sit-downs with many undiscovered talents.

Information

  • Creator
    Edward Sturm
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1.1k
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026
  • Show Website
    The Edward Show

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