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. 21 hr ago

    Google Just Gave SEOs a New Ranking Signal (Do This Now) - Preferred Sources

    E1145: Google just gave SEOs a new feature that could change how publishers build visibility across Search, Discover, AI Overviews, and AI Mode. I break down Google Preferred Sources, how it works, why it matters, and why publishers should pay attention before everyone starts using it. Google Preferred Sources allows users to choose publishers they want to see more often in Google Search experiences. These selections become a user-controlled signal that works alongside Google's ranking systems. I cover: - What Google Preferred Sources is and why Google launched it - Why this could become an important signal for publishers and SEOs - How Preferred Sources connects with Google Discover, Top Stories, AI Overviews, and AI Mode - How to check if your website is eligible to appear as a preferred source - How to add a Preferred Source button to your website - Where to place the button to maximize the chances that readers select your site - How I customized my own Preferred Source buttons using WordPress and Elementor - Why this is not just for news publishers, but can also apply to brands with company blogs and product pages - How domain-level and subdomain-level sites are eligible while subdirectories are not - How SEOs can think about this as an audience-building strategy Google's documentation says Preferred Sources selections do not override relevance. Your content still needs to match user interests and provide value, but this gives publishers a new way to encourage users to tell Google they want more from their website. This is one of the few features where publishers can directly encourage users to create a signal around their website. If you run a website, publish content, work in SEO, or care about Google Discover and AI search visibility, this is something you should understand. I also share how to implement this on a website, where I would place the buttons, and why I think many publishers will overlook this opportunity. ⭐️ Search Engine Journal: Google's Preferred Sources Feature Is Now a Global SEO Signal - https://www.searchenginejournal.com/googles-preferred-sources-feature-is-now-a-global-seo-signal/573591/  ⭐️ Google Developers: Preferred Sources Documentation - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/preferred-sources  ⭐️ Compact Keywords testimonial insert - Rank & Rent SEO: How Ippei Built 130 Sites - and Made $240K From One 15-Hour Website - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muwrS4Dh_R8  💎 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 Preferred Sources Breakthrough 00:17 How the Feature Works 01:10 Old Button vs New Popup 02:51 Designing High Converting Buttons 03:41 Where to Place the CTA 04:29 Setup Guide With Claude 05:21 Discover and Ranking Limits 06:07 AI Mode and Global Impact 06:39 Domain Eligibility Rules 07:18 SEO That Makes Money The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #ecommerce

  2. 1 day ago

    Google's August Spam Update Just Crushed Scaled Content - SaaS Is Winning

    E1144: Google's August 2026 spam update has officially finished rolling out, and we're seeing clear patterns in who got hit, who recovered, and who is winning. The update launched August 18 and completed just three days later on August 21. But the volatility started well before Google officially announced it. Throughout August, sites were reporting major ranking swings, sudden traffic losses, and unexpected recoveries. One of the biggest patterns: scaled content sites are getting crushed. I break down what happened during the August spam update using real sites, Google Search Console screenshots, Reddit posts, Ahrefs & Semrush data, and examples being shared throughout the SEO community. Topics covered: - How the August spam update started affecting sites before its official August 18 launch - Sites publishing 500 to 1,000 pages per day suddenly losing rankings and traffic - The difference between legitimate programmatic SEO and scaled content abuse - Google's policy against scraping, stitching, and combining content without adding meaningful value - A site getting roughly 2,200 organic users per day before its traffic started collapsing - Guru99 falling from an estimated 14 million monthly organic clicks in 2021 to roughly 50,000 today - The pattern of sites rapidly increasing their number of pages while their organic traffic falls - Why "Mount AI" happens when sites use AI to rapidly scale low-value content - Mike King's explanation for why Google may not need to detect AI-generated content directly - How user behavior and site-quality signals can eventually expose bad scaled content - Why generative AI at scale is not inherently spam if the pages actually provide value - An expired-domain case that some SEOs initially blamed on the spam update - Why redirects from acquired or expired domains aren't automatically expired domain abuse - The importance of maintaining search intent when migrating or redirecting pages - SaaS sites that appear to be winning during the August volatility - Why short bottom-of-funnel landing pages are continuing to work - Sites previously hit by Google spam systems suddenly reporting recoveries - Whether this spam update could be followed by another Google core update I revisit Mike King's explanation of Mount AI. His argument is that Google doesn't need to reliably identify whether content was written by AI. Google can initially rank a large new set of pages, collect signals about how searchers respond, and then adjust the site's visibility based on those signals. Publishing 100,000 pages isn't automatically the problem. Publishing 100,000 pages that don't give searchers unique value is. There is a legitimate way to do programmatic SEO at scale. The underlying data, usefulness of the pages, search intent, UX, and reason for those pages to exist all matter. Meanwhile, I'm seeing encouraging movement from SaaS sites. Our own vibe-coded SaaS has been growing throughout August without aggressively scaling content, and I share another newer SaaS using short bottom-of-funnel landing pages that has also been gaining organic clicks. The August spam update is finished. Now we get to see whether the volatility settles down or Google has something else coming next. ⭐️ SE Roundtable: Google August 2026 Spam Update - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-august-2026-spam-update-done-41906.html  ⭐️ Reddit: Who got hit - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO_Marketing_Offers/comments/1vsln4q/comment/p4mlfam/  ⭐️ David Quaid - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid/status/2090046206290386970?s=20  ⭐️ Expired Domain Comment - https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/1vrv11e/breaking_google_august_2026_spam_update_is/  ⭐️ Ep 1141 - Can You Launch 100,000 Pages and Survive Google? - https://youtu.be/wNtiygMsRfg  ⭐️ Donmend0 on 𝕏 (site recovery) - https://x.com/donmend0/status/2090438229635879068  ⭐️ Ganesh_S_007 on 𝕏 (site recovery) - https://x.com/Ganesh_S_007/status/2090502537741029874  ⭐️ Ep 1127 - Google's Biggest SEO Leak Changed Everything… But Almost Nobody Adapted - https://youtu.be/fIs1ZSmEJGU  ⭐️ James Dooley - https://youtu.be/EOkrLkKNDrY  💎 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 Spam Update Recap 01:03 Scaled Content Fallout 03:32 Spam Policy Breakdown 04:11 Programmatic SEO Wipeouts 05:31 Guru99 Case Study 08:15 Mount AI Explained 10:32 Expired Domain Confusion 12:49 SaaS Sites Winning 13:54 Recoveries and Core Rumors 15:13 Durable SEO 17:06 Episode Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #programmaticseo #seopodcast

  3. 4 days ago

    He Did 2,000 Podcasts in a Year Just for SEO Rankings

    E1143: He Did 2,000 Podcasts in a Year Just for SEO Rankings James Dooley has published 2,000 unique podcast episodes this year and is on track to hit 3,000 by the end of the year. But he's not doing it to build a traditional podcast audience. He's doing it for SEO. James breaks down the system he uses to turn short, keyword-focused podcast episodes into Google rankings, video rankings, backlinks, leads, and mentions across AI platforms. His episodes are typically only 5-15 minutes long. Instead of making broad, entertainment-focused shows, he treats each podcast episode like an SEO landing page: one search query, one tightly focused topic, and questions built around the attributes of that topic. We get into exactly how this works, including how James chooses topics, structures episodes, distributes them, and uses podcast syndication as part of a larger SEO strategy. We also discuss why he deliberately targets bottom-of-funnel searches such as "best lead generation company for plumbers," how he approaches competitor keywords, and why video has become such an important part of his search strategy. James explains how his team: - Creates podcast episodes around individual search queries - Keeps most SEO-focused episodes between 5 and 15 minutes - Structures podcast conversations similarly to SEO pages - Targets bottom-of-funnel keywords designed to generate inquiries - Uploads the video to YouTube before distributing the podcast - Uses Transistor to syndicate episodes across podcast platforms - Identifies podcast platforms that provide dofollow and nofollow links - Links podcast descriptions back to highly relevant pages - Works to get syndicated podcast URLs crawled by Google - Uses transcripts to reinforce entities and relationships between topics - Publishes supporting press releases and guest posts - Distributes episodes through social platforms - Uses IMDb as part of his entity and knowledge-panel strategy - Tests publishing similar videos across multiple YouTube channels - Uses slightly different titles and thumbnails when testing distribution - Tries to trigger Google video carousels for targeted searches - Targets competitor names, alternatives, and comparison searches with video - Uses podcast content to support Google rankings and AI visibility We also talk about an important distinction between ranking a video and getting a video recommended by YouTube. James isn't necessarily optimizing these podcasts to become viral YouTube videos. His goal is often much simpler: when someone searches a commercially valuable query, he wants his video to appear. That changes how he thinks about everything from episode length to entertainment value. James also explains why podcast syndication matters beyond YouTube. While YouTube transcripts may primarily be accessible within Google's ecosystem, publishing transcripts and related content elsewhere gives search engines and large language models additional text-based sources connecting people, companies, products, and topics. We get into: - Podcast SEO vs. traditional YouTube growth - Google video rankings - AI search and LLM visibility - Podcast backlinks - Entity SEO - Knowledge panels and KGMIDs - Semantic triples - Press release syndication - Google News and Google Discover - AI-generated podcast videos - HeyGen, ElevenLabs, and Higgsfield - Podcast sponsorships and monetization - Why James is publishing 3,000 episodes this year - How he built a team to handle editing, thumbnails, uploads, and distribution James also shares why he's doing such an extreme amount of content in the first place. After writing eight books in a year, he set himself the goal of producing 3,000 podcast episodes so that when he asks the business owners he works with to publish one episode per week, he can show that he practices what he preaches. This is a detailed look at what happens when podcasting is treated not only as content, but as an SEO distribution system. ⭐️ 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  💎 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 2000 Podcasts Results 01:41 Keyword First Podcast Model 03:27 Bottom of Funnel Queries 05:58 Syndication Stack Setup 08:21 IMDb Entity Boosting 10:11 Backlink Lift Explained 12:19 Episode Content Blueprint 15:13 Titles Descriptions Workflow 18:06 Transcript Keyword Seeding 20:38 AI Generated Episodes 24:09 Multi Channel Upload Tests 29:27 Video Carousel Domination 32:17 LLM Transcript Visibility 33:15 Transcripts Press Layers 34:22 Knowledge Panels Per Episode 36:10 Entity Indexing Proof 37:45 Press Release Providers 38:54 Old Google News Hacks 40:54 Podcast Transcript SEO 43:47 Scaling 3000 Episodes 47:34 Guesting and Podmatch 51:01 Monetizing With Sponsors 01:02:14 Avoiding Top Funnel Waste 01:04:39 Wrap Up and Next Debate The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #backlinks #seopodcast

  4. 5 days ago

    Reddit Citations Just Collapsed in ChatGPT. What SEOs Do Next

    E1142: Reddit citations in ChatGPT just totally collapsed. Promptwatch data shows Reddit's share of ChatGPT citations dropping dramatically in August, falling to below 0.5% after previously sitting around 3-4%. This is the third major Reddit citation drop we've seen, and it raises a bigger question for SEOs: what happens when an AI search strategy built around one platform can disappear overnight? Klaas Foppen, co-founder of Promptwatch, joins me to break down what changed, what may have caused it, and what SEOs should do next. We cover: - Why Reddit citations suddenly fell in ChatGPT - The difference between an AI citation, source, mention, and visibility - Why Reddit can still be accessed by ChatGPT even though it is being cited far less - The August 8 query fan-out change that appears to have reduced Reddit citations - The much larger August 14 drop that Klaas believes may have involved a more deliberate adjustment - Why nobody outside OpenAI knows whether licensing negotiations, user feedback, search quality, or another factor caused the change - How this same dramatic Reddit decline is not showing up across Google AI Overviews and AI Mode - Why SEOs should not abandon Reddit just because ChatGPT is citing it less - The danger of building an entire AI search strategy around Reddit, parasite SEO, or any single third-party platform - Why your own website remains the part of your SEO and AI-search presence that you control - How technical SEO, complete product information, feature pages, comparison pages, landing pages, and fresh content can affect AI visibility - Why listicles are still frequently used for commercial-intent AI queries - Why product pages and landing pages may become more important as AI systems increasingly search official websites directly - Why old-school evergreen informational content may be less valuable when an LLM already knows the answer without searching the web - How OpenAI, Bing, Meta, Exa, and other companies developing or using different search indexes could reshape SEO - Why new AI search indexes could create opportunities for SEOs before their spam detection becomes as sophisticated as Google's - Whether PDFs, research papers, and sites like arXiv could become important sources for AI systems and training data - Why AI search is much less stable than traditional SEO and why tactics that work today can change very quickly The biggest takeaway is not that Reddit is dead. It's that "post on Reddit and get cited by ChatGPT" was never a durable AI search strategy. Reddit can still be a valuable marketing channel. But if your visibility depends entirely on Reddit, another social platform, or one AI search tactic, a single change can wipe out much of that advantage. Build the website. Get the technical fundamentals right. Publish the information customers and AI systems need. Earn mentions across multiple sources. And treat AI search as a moving system that needs to be watched rather than a fixed formula. ⭐️ Klaas Foppen on 𝕏 - https://x.com/forgebitz  ⭐️ Klaas Foppen on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/klaas-foppen/  ⭐️ Promptwatch - https://promptwatch.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 Reddit Citations Vanish 00:38 Why The Drop Happened 02:11 Citations Vs Mentions 05:04 Deals And Partnerships 09:25 Other LLMs And User Backlash 11:10 Will Reddit Return 12:39 Diversify Your Marketing 14:02 Future Search Index Shakeup 19:53 What Content Works Now 23:09 Training Data And PDFs 26:10 Query Fanout Direction 27:23 On-Site SEO Foundations 29:53 Promptwatch New Automation 31:59 Wrap Up And Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

  5. 5 days ago

    Can You Launch 100,000 Pages and Survive Google?

    E1141: Can you launch a brand-new website with 100,000 pages and survive Google? That's the question at the center of today's episode with David G. Quaid. A listener sent me a problem he and his friends keep running into: they launch programmatic SEO sites with 10,000 - 100,000 URLs, organic traffic shoots up, and then the sites collapse back to zero. So David and I dug into whether large-scale programmatic SEO is still possible in 2026, where Google may draw the line between a legitimate database and scaled content abuse, and what separates sites that survive from sites that get wiped out. We cover: - Whether launching 10,000 or 100,000 URLs at once is automatically dangerous - Why David might launch a new marketplace or database slowly - The difference between legitimate programmatic SEO and scaled content built primarily to capture search traffic - Why empty location, category, job, or marketplace pages can become doorway-page problems - Why proprietary data can completely change the equation - Whether a site with genuinely useful data could launch at massive scale from day one - Why backlinks, press coverage, branded searches, and other signs of a real business may matter - Why user satisfaction could be one of the biggest differences between programmatic sites that survive and sites that collapse - Click-through rate, pogo-sticking, return searches, and other user signals we think Google may be evaluating - Why publishing 100 pages, checking performance, and then scaling may be safer than immediately publishing 100,000 - How to use Google Search Console to identify pages and queries that may be producing poor user signals - Why misleading page titles can create problems even when they initially generate more traffic - David's prediction for what Google's August spam update could target - Why some publishers may be blaming AI Overviews for traffic losses that are actually ranking losses - How to separate traffic lost to AI Overviews from traffic lost because Google moved your pages down - Why HubSpot's organic decline may have more to do with rankings and changing user behavior than AI simply taking its clicks - Whether Google Search has actually gotten better or worse over the last few years - How far a site can expand into adjacent topics before weakening its existing topical relevance The main question throughout the episode is simple: If you have 100,000 pages that genuinely deserve to exist, can you make all of them available immediately without Google assuming you built the site to manipulate search? David thinks there are conditions where it can work. The harder question is what signals Google needs to see before it trusts you enough to let it work. ⭐️ 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 Programmatic SEO Today 00:17 Listener Database Launch Dilemma 01:12 Spam Updates and Scale Risks 03:18 Slow Rollout Strategy 04:25 Empty Pages and Manipulation 07:51 What Scaled Abuse Means 08:34 Proprietary Data Launch Debate 09:39 Grokipedia as Edge Case 12:31 Authority and Brand Signals 14:46 pSEO Example Book Calculator 20:34 Doorway Pages and Permutations 28:09 Phased Scaling and Testing 31:27 When Big Brands Can Launch Huge 32:46 pSEO Shortcut Mentality 33:17 When Programmatic SEO Fails 33:40 Localization and Scalable Pages 34:39 Finding Real Value Add 35:35 Brand Search Entity Mixups 39:28 Crawlers and Cloudflare Blocks 40:20 August Spam Update Predictions 42:15 Recovering From Traffic Drops 45:01 Free vs Freemium Titles 46:04 GSC Iteration Playbook 48:56 Are Google Results Better 50:23 HubSpot and User Signals 55:27 Expanding Into Adjacent Niches 01:00:49 Can 100k URLs Work 01:02:27 Wrap Up and Next Episode The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #programmaticseo #seopodcast

  6. 6 days ago

    Claude Is Watermarking Everything It Writes. Google Doesn't Have the Key

    E1140: Claude is now watermarking everything it writes, and the SEO community is worried about what this means for AI content and Google rankings. But there's an important detail: Google likely doesn't have the key needed to verify Claude's watermark. I break down what Anthropic's new watermarking system does, why it's being implemented, what it can and can't prove, and whether any of this should change how SEOs use AI-generated content. Anthropic is adding machine-readable marks to Claude's output as part of its compliance with the EU AI Act. The watermark can remain in text that has been copied and pasted, and Claude-generated files can include provenance metadata. The system is being rolled out across Claude, including its API and third-party platforms. But a watermark doesn't necessarily mean Claude wrote something from scratch. If you give Claude your own writing and ask it to fix grammar, translate it, summarize it, or otherwise process it, the resulting text may still contain the mark. And if no watermark is detected, that doesn't prove Claude wasn't involved. In this episode: - Why Anthropic is watermarking Claude's output - How AI text watermarking works - Why the EU AI Act matters here - Why switching from Claude to another major AI model won't solve anything - What Claude's watermark can and cannot tell you - Why short passages and heavily edited text are harder to verify - Why Anthropic's secret detection key matters - Why Google currently can't validate Claude's watermark - Whether Google could use AI watermarking as an SEO ranking signal - What Ahrefs' research says about AI-generated pages ranking in Google - Why AI content and bad content shouldn't be treated as the same thing - Where AI watermarking could matter for agencies, clients, and contracts - The potential EU disclosure requirements for publishers - Why human review and editorial responsibility matter - My take on whether this changes anything for SEO - Why generic AI content could still create problems even without an AI-content penalty - Why trust, original data, strong opinions, fact-checking, and editorial review matter more than whether AI touched the content - An example of AI-generated content that I genuinely enjoyed - How we're using AI-assisted SEO content on a new SaaS while targeting bottom-of-funnel keywords I also discuss Ahrefs' data on AI content in Google. Their research found AI-generated and heavily AI-assisted pages ranking throughout the search results, including at the top. The bigger issue appears to be something SEO has dealt with long before generative AI existed: bad content. My view is simple: if the output is enjoyable, novel, useful, accurate, and properly reviewed, the fact that AI was involved doesn't automatically make it bad content. The bigger long-term question is what happens to brands that publish large amounts of generic AI content without developing a recognizable voice, adding original information, taking meaningful positions, or earning trust with their audience. AI can help make great content. It can also make a lot of mediocre content very quickly. The difference is what the person using it actually puts into the process. ⭐️ Ahrefs: Claude Now Watermarks Everything It Writes - https://ahrefs.com/blog/claude-now-watermarks-everything-it-writes/  ⭐️ My post on 𝕏 - https://x.com/edwardeachday/status/2089307227064500665  ⭐️ Ep 1110 - Google's Next SEO Apocalypse: The Scaled AI Content Crackdown Is Coming - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w66ME9-IRQ  ⭐️ Ep 1124 - YouTube's AI Detector Is Punishing Real Creators - Is Google Search Next? - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33QKtsBy9As  ⭐️ Super Mario Bros 3 Jazz Lo-fi Remix - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNjuiOd1c1I  💎 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 Claude Watermark Panic 00:31 What Watermarking Means 01:58 EU AI Act Compliance 03:08 How Text Watermarks Work 03:58 Limits and Detection Keys 04:25 Google Rankings Impact 06:07 SEO Community Reactions 07:22 My Skeptical Take 08:49 Real Risk Reputation 11:23 AI LoFi Success Story 13:24 Using AI for SEO 14:54 Wrap Up and Thanks The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #seopodcast

  7. 6 days ago

    Image Backlinks Work Better Than You Think (Here's How to Get Them)

    E1139: Image backlinks work surprisingly well for SEO, and one old experiment found they could even outperform exact-match anchor text links. I break down an SEO experiment from Dan Petrovic that tested four different types of backlinks to see which had the greatest effect on rankings. The test compared: - An exact-match anchor text backlink - A naked URL placed after the target keyword - An image backlink using the target keyword as the image alt text - A "click here" backlink with the target keyword placed near the link The result that stood out: the image backlink with the target keyword in the alt text performed better than every other link type in the experiment, including the exact-match anchor text link. The experiment was conducted in 2013, so I also look at whether the idea still matters today: Linked image alt text is still treated as anchor text for SEO purposes. I also cover more recent research from Kevin Indig and Semrush analyzing 35,000 backlink data points across 1,000 domains, which found that image backlinks correlated more strongly with AI search visibility than text links. Then I get into the practical part: how to actually build backlinks using images. We break down: - Why image backlinks affect search rankings - What Dan Petrovic's anchor text proximity experiment tested - Why the image backlink beat the other link types - How Google uses image alt text as anchor text - Why image backlinks may also matter for visibility in AI search - How to use infographics, charts, photos, maps, and product images for link building - How reverse image search can uncover websites already using your images - David McSweeney's TRUST formula for creating images journalists and bloggers may want to use - How to find topics journalists are already covering - How to turn research and data into simple visual assets - How to find journalists and bloggers who may be interested in your images - Why niche-specific stock photos can continue generating backlink opportunities after you publish them - Why you should still be careful with exact-match anchor text I explain a simple image strategy: create original niche-specific photos, charts, data visualizations, infographics, or other useful images and make them available on stock image platforms. If bloggers, journalists, or other websites use those images, they may credit the source. You can also periodically reverse image search your work to find websites that used an image without attribution and contact them to request a source link. The important point is that link building does not always have to start with asking someone to link to a page. You can create assets people already have a reason to use. ⭐️ SEO Sherpa: SEO Experiments - https://seosherpa.com/seo-experiments/  ⭐️ Dejan Marketing: Anchor Text Proximity Experiment - https://dejanmarketing.com/anchor-text-proximity-experiment/  ⭐️ Growth Memo: How AI Really Weighs Your Links - https://www.growth-memo.com/p/how-ai-really-weighs-your-links-analysis  ⭐️ Ahrefs: Build Links with Images - https://ahrefs.com/blog/build-links-with-images/  ⭐️ Charles Floate's image SEO post - https://x.com/Charles_SEO/status/2021835662538813870  💎 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 Image Backlinks Surprise 00:37 Dan Petrovic Experiment Setup 01:56 Results Image Alt Text Wins 02:27 Still Relevant Today 03:09 Link Worthy Image Ideas 03:42 TRUST Formula for Visuals 04:46 Outreach and Promotion 05:02 Stock Photos Backlink Hack 05:50 Reverse Image Search Links 06:28 Avoid Over Optimization 06:38 Optimize Well Find Great Keywords 08:55 Sign Off The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #linkbuilding #backlinks

  8. 15 Aug

    How James Dooley Starts a New SEO Site (650 Industries Deep)

    E1138: How does James Dooley start a brand-new SEO site with 650 industries worth of SEO experience? James walks through how he evaluates a new SEO opportunity from the beginning, including when he'll use a fresh exact-match domain, when he'll buy an aged domain, how he evaluates the backlink profile before buying, and how he turns simple lead generation sites into larger brands. We also get into the economics behind local lead generation, why James thinks SEOs put too much weight on DR, and what "good content" actually means when the goal is to rank and convert. James explains why the strategy changes completely depending on the market. A low-competition local site might be built and earning quickly, while industries like finance or iGaming can require powerful aged domains, significantly more authority, and a completely different risk tolerance. We cover: - How James decides whether a new SEO opportunity is worth pursuing - Why his team analyzes search volume and CPC when entering new industries - Fresh domains vs. aged domains vs. exact-match domains - When an EMD makes sense for local SEO and long-tail keywords - Why competitive finance niches can require established authority - What James looks for before buying an aged domain - Why DR alone can give you a misleading picture of a domain - How he evaluates branded anchors, naked URLs, spam, trust, and backlink quality - The SEO tools and metrics his team combines when analyzing domains - Why an existing Google Business Profile can make a domain more attractive - The economics of buying high-value aged domains - How aggressive iGaming operators can rank repurposed domains extremely quickly - Why James is moving away from the churn-and-burn side of iGaming - How he approaches local lead generation sites - Why 50 targeted service/location pages can sometimes be enough to start - How a small lead gen site can fund the next site and eventually become a portfolio - James's definition of good SEO content - Why some pages can rank with only a few sentences - Why content should be "as short as possible but as long as necessary" - The problem with burying answers inside thousands of words of unnecessary content - How James turns an SEO site into a real brand - Citations, reviews, Google Business Profiles, case studies, awards, social profiles, and third-party reputation signals - How AI makes it easier to distribute brand assets across multiple platforms James has spent years repeating this process across hundreds of industries, so this episode is less about one isolated tactic and more about the decision-making process behind starting an SEO project from zero. If you're building your first site, launching another lead generation property, evaluating an aged domain, or deciding how much authority a new project actually needs, this episode gives you James Dooley's approach from the ground up. ⭐️ Ep 1131 - James Dooley & David Quaid: The SEO "Best Practices" We Ignore - https://youtu.be/jW8hYUn99Uk  ⭐️ 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  💎 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 Background 00:56 How James Starts Sites 01:19 New Site Context Matters 01:53 EMDs in Finance 03:06 650 Industries Explained 05:39 Aged Domains Strategy 09:05 Tools and Anchor Checks 11:35 iGaming Churn and Burn 13:46 Local Lead Gen Blueprint 14:37 Good Content Definition 16:51 Building a Brandable Site 18:50 David Quaid Call In 19:13 Wrap Up and Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #blackhatseo #digitalmarketing

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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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