Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello, I'm your host, Jeremy Rivera on the Unscripted SEO podcast. I'm here with Laura Lee. Why don't you give yourself a quick intro and then we'll get started.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Great. Thank you for having me. My name is Laura. Like you said, I've been in SEO now for just over 17 years. Got my start back in 2007 when I was a full time employee of WebMD in Atlanta and we started the SEO team for them.
So we just, it was kind of the wild west. Like we were self taught, we went to conferences, we learned how to do it, we tested and built a really good program for them. And then for the past 10 years I've been in a director of audience development/global SEO director role with my current company and working with big brands, helping them create a content and SEO strategy.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: About working with WebMD. So were you working with them at the time when Medic Update occurred or was that after your tenure with them?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: I believe. Gosh, you're taking me back a long time. I left with them in 2014, so you'll have to remind me when that update was.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: When was Medic Update? Let's see if I can Google on the fly. That was 2018.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Okay, so that was after me.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a pretty big shakeup. I was working with subcontracting and consulting with Josh Axe, who, he was rising up the ranks, had a really big footprint in that space and I think really was one of the reasons why Google came in and put their thumb on those metrics to try to force and surface more medically oriented, you know, validated content sources.
Because, you know, I, I subcontracted and I worked for HCA and they made me take a drug test and sit on the campus and have a security guard just to edit like 10 pages of their site.
So there's a lot of red tape.
It sounds like you are familiar with the enterprise level SEO. Like what's your experience with that and process for handling big organizations?
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the really tricky things when you start an enterprise and I'm really lucky that I did get to start out with such a big company and learn this early is such a big part of the job is just working with people. And I know that sounds like common sense, but really if you go in and think that you're going to get a lot of things done and they're going to love your ideas, I mean, that's really optimistic and maybe they will, but. But you've got to be willing to like share the share the wins, like find out what's important to the sales team and to the marketing team and to the IT team and to the video team. And you know, in those big companies, those areas are often so siloed that, you know, in a small company you get the benefit of having sort of everyone together, working together, collaborating, but in a big company like that you don't. And so you have to show that what, what you're doing is valuable to their team and giving them that credit saying, hey, you know, if we do this, you're going to get more ad impressions, you're going to make more money. Let's try it. Let's try a small test and measure the results. And then if it works for you, then we can roll it out bigger and you know, take those small wins and then say, oh my gosh, it worked, we did great. Here's how what you did impacted the bottom line. And once they feel like you're on their team, you're giving them that credit.
You're part of the sales team now, you're part of the IT team now. And then you can get so much more done and get that buy in from people. And you know, it's not just about getting that for yourself, of course, but being part of that collaborative culture, you just have to take that as like, this is what I'm going to do and just, I guess, try to be as cross functional as possible.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I really feel, you know, because I've worked at, in enterprise directly and worked as a consultant into enterprise and subcontracted for agencies who worked with enterprise. And I can definitely agree that understanding the motivations of the manager of the department, their goals, and being able to use either their KPIs or their specific metrics that they're measuring, knowing what they're, what outcome that they're trying to get and what measurements they're trying to use to gauge their success is like learning their same language. You know, if you come in, you're like, oh, I think we can get a bunch of rankings and traffic. They're like, yeah, but how does that impact my ROI of, you know, PDQs on, on the XYZ scale that.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:57] Speaker A: The CEO, CFO and CMO are all on the DL about.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Exactly. I had that happen a couple years ago. I was working with Ronstad staffing and the ADS team. You know, they were, they had these goals that they were supposed to meet by the end of the year and I was working specifically with the content team and that, you know, SEO strategy, but we were Able to say like, okay, if we create this specific content that answers these questions, you use those as your landing pages because they're much more targeted and they were able to increase, and I'm not going to remember the percentage now, but they were able to increase just the, the efficacy of those ads by so much. By working together between the ads team, the content team and the SEO team and aligning all of those goals together.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah, I think some of the cowboys like me who are freelancing in kind of forget what it's like at a bigger agency to try to push and pull these levers and where you have to justify the budget and justify the human resources time to execute on these things. What are your strategies from that internal SEO perspective to be successful?
[00:06:13] Speaker B: So in what way? I didn't catch the first part of the question.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Like we talked about a little bit about metrics, but more about when it comes to SEO as an in house SEO, like what are some strategies you've, you've used to find success?
[00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so as I mentioned, just sort of, besides working across different teams, we have, I think. So there's, there's two things, like first, aligning the goals, like you said. So what are our company's goals for this year? You know, high level Q1, Q2, and making sure we're aligning everything with that. But then also I feel like you've got to get those small wins in between the big wins because people do tend to forget you're there.
And then you get to Q2 and they're like, where's our goals?
So finding the low hanging fruit to do in the meantime has been really successful for us. I can think of one international company we work with where, you know, you've got the, by the end of the year, here are some goals that we want to achieve, you know, or at least be really far down the road toward achieving those because realistically a lot of things happen. And then here's our sort of three or four goals along the way that we're gonna try to accomplish and the resources we need. And then even more granular than that, here's what we're gonna do in the next few weeks. Like we're gonna do A, B and C to make the site more user friendly or to update this content that's outdated or to, you know, align maybe just one other team with us, like get to know this team, what their goals are, reach out across those lines. And so it's, to me, it's not just the big goals that everyone's going to see, but those little things that are going to get you those wins along the way.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: So one of the hard things, you know, hardest things that I had to do when I was at that enterprise, you know, in house position was think about SEO and be able to predict for the business what the outcome was going to be of an organic SEO campaign.
You know, like I had a manager is like, okay for these keywords, you know, project how, how much better we're going to be performing on them and how much traffic and revenue that's going to be.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: No problem.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Sure, no problem. I mean I literally, I had to create an SEO tool of my own to try to do something like that. But what are your approaches for, for the, for matching that business side expectation of like do you, you use like, we hope to see like a specific percentage or do you create a SEO campaign based off of third party search volume data and say this is the whole market and we could capture this much. But you know, SEO is like an exponential thing. It's a long term and up curve thing. So how do you, how do you measure that or how do you interpret that for a business person who's more accustomed to much more predictability or much faster results?
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Gosh, that's such a good question. And I wouldn't be an SEO if I didn't say it. It depends.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Do it.
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Sorry, but it really does. And I think what it depends on is number one again, just what their goals are. If they're saying like, oh, we want to see more rankings, then I would, I would want to know why. So obviously, of course I want to see more rankings, but what, at the end of the day, what is our goal here?
And the answer is I've done all of those things. So at WebMD we created a tool. Essentially it was a glorified spreadsheet, but basically we were able to plug in a term and sort of the search volume. And keep in mind this was a long time ago, so things are, aren't quite the same as they were in 2007. Right. But you were able to plug in and we would take into account, you know, click through rate and competition and things like that and come out with sort of a semi viable expectation. So if we do this in three months or so, we could expect to maybe get about this much traffic to our site. And at WebMD, obviously the goal is information and then revenue through ad impressions. So. So that worked okay back then. Now, and especially in the search results landscape that we're in right now, I don't Know that that would be at all the way that I would go. In fact, even coming up with like where you expect to rank, I think is almost maybe I won't say not worth your time, but not worth as much time as it used to be. I would go much more for looking at, you know, brand and I know Morty has so much good information about that, much more than I do. So like shout out to go look at what he said. But looking at your brand and mentions and the sentiment around your brand, looking at leads and revenue, of course, looking at, I think where people are going before they are even thinking about coming to you. So an example I thought of the other day is I have two kids and before I was thinking about, let's see, I think I actually can't remember the example, but so I visit so many websites thinking about like for my kids, like whether it's toys or their health or whatever and to think about where someone like me would visit and what the thoughts in my head would be before I come to that decision point and trying to meet the audience there and be helpful and engaging. And so I think the way that we think about it has changed so much or it should. It should be constantly, you know, evolving and changing and thinking about how do we reach those people and become a trusted person, a trusted resource for them so that, you know, we are top of mind later. So I think it just has to come back to your brand and authority.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: I agree. I definitely, you know, I had that conversation with Morty Oberstein also Garrett Sussman. His interview isn't published yet, but we're definitely thinking about that. And even more interesting, you know, Michael Buckbee is on the edge of AI SEO and we were talking about how, you know, AI agents. You know, Apple just announced and added chat GPT to Siri just two days ago. And so we're going to start seeing that impact roll out. You know, it's not going to be too much longer until something like an AI agent is available on your Android phone too because it's, it's an arms race. And you know, there's a lot of things that those tools aren't good at, but sometimes they're, they are good at some of the more top level information which has kind of been the backbone of content marketing. You know, it's kind of like, oh, hey, we could write about all of these things that are like way 10,000ft above us, like with that happening more and more, like more of that pie being eaten up by, you know, no click Searches, as Rand Fishkin calls them, is the strategy just to like be more bottom of the funnel, be more middle of the funnel in comparative, you know, about, you know, thinking about content. No. So not so much as articles all over the place within the industry to make this massive funnel, but to try to reinforce your, that bottom piece. Like what really differentiates you, right?
[00:14:07] Speaker B: I think it could be, I certainly would advise brands who have been focusing on top of funnel to branch out from that. Because the truth is even those searches that you would get, clicks for that were top of funnel, you're probably again depending on your type of business, but you're probably not getting a lot of actual leads from that. I mean those informational searches. So it's fine to still be there. And I think there's value in being seen in those AI overviews, having your brand recognized. Like, sure. Not saying to do away with it, but I think that you, you do. Like, you're right, you have to focus more on the mid and lower parts of the funnel. And with a lot of these companies, especially like in the business and tech and medical industries, like some people have relied for a long time on more general content that could rank and get you up there, whatever. But I really focus on more in depth coverage of topics and use SMEs for that. So subject matter experts and usually if possible, I love to use the in house experts because who knows your brand better than the people who, like this is their job to know the ins and outs of your brand. And so if you can create a relationship between, you know, whether it's you as an in house person or you're working with an agency, it could be, you know, that that contact person at the agency who is able to get credibility with those SMEs, establish trust and work with them on creating really great content. We've seen so much success from that. And I think one big obstacle is those SMEs, this is not their job to talk to you all day, so they're busy and they don't necessarily always see the value that you're saying, hey, well this would be great for whatever. And it's like, yes, but I am actually doing engineering work.
So if you can again just, you're showing how this is their win and you sit down. I saw a great piece of advice and I can't think of who it was, but like sit down, book an hour of their time, record everything you talk about, like keep it on topic, but record everything and then take that, you know, use AI to make it More efficient and create content from that one hour of dialogue that you had with them. And from that you can create all sorts of content, whether it's written content or case studies or, you know, graphics or just sky's the limit, honestly, and make the most out of their time and then say, oh my gosh, you did this, you created this content and look at how great it is. And you know, maybe you get, maybe you get information from them.
[00:16:58] Speaker A: Random guy asking for a restroom.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: All good, all good. No, but maybe like if you see a win come from the content you created with their help, obviously be sure that they get the credit for that and then you're much more likely to get them on board for next time.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: No, that's definitely true.
It's, it's funny because like you can get somebody talking about their industry, their expertise, their pain points, their challenges, but if you tell them that you need like an article about it, they'll like, half of them will like freeze up and then they'll spend like 10 times as much time trying to craft like one rinky dink little article. You're like, come on, you talked to me for an hour about this stuff, like, right?
So I totally respect that concept. Like, hey, get your SME, your internal SME book an hour with them. Because I think the stat is five minutes of conversation is 500 words.
So, you know, like, you do that for an hour and you have a ton of resources to go to. And in that conversation, you know, you naturally, as you explore it, you know, it's like this where I've come up with questions that I didn't have before. But what you prompted and your experience led to, hey, let's talk about SME subject matter experts.
On the implementation side, how are you approaching ensuring that Google understands that your SME is an E, is an expert? What are the check boxes? What are the signals you look for? How do you optimize to ensure that your SME, aside from like saying stuff, is seen as that expert by Google, Right.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: So I'll give you a couple different scenarios. One is for a company that's the international manufacturing, which is a really exciting vertical to be in, they have, most of them have their LinkedIn filled out like it clearly establishes who they are. And then we're writing content that they have essentially everything but written. They've enabled the content, right? And so we get the content out. We have one or two writers who are very in tune with this company and with SMEs, and there's a great relationship and it's attributed to the SME. And from there we. You click on the SME's name if you want to, from the article and there's a bio page all about who they are, where they've worked, how many years they've been in different areas. And then you can also go from there to their LinkedIn. So there's sort of a clear path of who is this person, they've been in this company for how long? Here's all of the different industries that they work in.
So that's one way, another way. And this is trickier, I think with freelance writers when you've got someone who you're bringing in and maybe you're just trying to establish them as an SME, but they write for all kinds of different companies. So ideally, I mean, there's again, this is not all encompassing but you know, ideally that they have an established presence already, a website, some kind of portfolio that you can show that this person has been in this industry for a while, they know what they're talking about and just consistently, you know, linking and speaking to that authority is really helpful.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: So definitely trying to avoid just publishing as a team, as a brand, or like actually having somebody, a person, like an attributable name for the author showing up and then like a viable link either to an author profile, linking off of that or linking directly to their third party profile from the article itself.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Because then you have portability issues though of, you know, turnover in the industry.
So do you recommend trying to forge out beforehand? Like, hey, you know, when you contribute it's going to stay on the site even if you leave. Or just having that conversations. Because I've had articles of mine attributed now to John Jones.
[00:21:15] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
Yeah, I think having those conversations like you're saying, I mean, it's not going to be 100% foolproof because people are going to do what they do. But most of the people that I have worked with, again with freelancers, I try to, ahead of time do my, do you know my due diligence and making sure that this is a person who's reliable, who has done this for a while. I get to know them, I give them sort of the test, like, here's one article, let's see if this is a good vibe between us. And then laying out at the beginning like this is how this project looks. It's going to go on for a long time. Here's what it's going to require of you. Are you down for that? Because I don't want to just get A few articles and then have that person quit. Like, I know life happens and that's fine. But I want you to understand that this is a relationship that I'd like to be ongoing. And most of our writers are that way. And I've worked with some people for over 10 years on the same project where, you know, I, I make sure it's working for them. I stay in touch with them on a regular basis. Like it's not just gone to the wind. And you never hear from me again. Like, I am your manager. So you're going to hear from me a lot and I want to hear from you. I want to know what's working and I want to hear from the client and make sure that's working for them. That also creates that trust with the SME. So again, having that sort of circle, the circle of trust where everyone's on the same page makes it a lot better. And then you're also not spending tons of time recruiting if you can get really good people up front.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: So what's the, you know, like as.
What are your tips for actually finding those people? Like to finding your subject matter experts is that, you know, are there any hubs you use or is it just kind of a general hiring process or where have you found your experts?
[00:23:13] Speaker B: So most of them have been word of mouth. So if I work with, you know, Amy and she's amazing and she's great, then I'll say, hey, Amy, I am looking to expand this project. I would love if you know anybody in your. Because all of, I mean, freelance writers have networks. That's how they get jobs. So do you know anyone in your network who's reliable, good, you know, in the hospitality industry who could join a project? And then usually it starts there. And almost all of my workers have come through me, reaching out to either a current or a former person who is really reliable and saying, like, who else in your network should I be working with? Who do you know that I need to know when I have not found people that way. I've used LinkedIn with great success and then I've used Workable as sort of my third option. And I found really great people through Workable too. So I think all of those are viable. But I 100% start with who, who you, you know and who they know.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: So what industries or niches have you specialized in and what kind of unique experience comes out of that or SEO value that others might want to hear about?
[00:24:30] Speaker B: The, the ones I work the most in. So I started with medical and I, I Still have that relationship. Right now I'm working with Stanford Healthcare as well, so. So keeping that medical knowledge up to date. I also work a lot in tech manufacturing, B2B. B2B manufacturing and a little bit, I'd say it's actually a lot more now in hospitality and we work for the umbrella companies that operate, you know, lots of different hotel brands. And so we work with like for example Fairmont and then there are now under the Accor umbrella. And Accor hotels would be luxury like Raffles hotels which are amazing to write about and I'll never get to go to one, I'm sure all the way down to like, like an M Gallery or a Sofitel or something like that. And I've worked with Marriott so I am kind of spreading the hospitality wings a little bit more these days too. So I kind of all over the place. And to be honest, I get a lot of unicorns, like things that are just little weird, odd industries that don't make a lot of sense.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: Can you name one of the your unicorns?
[00:25:48] Speaker B: Sure, I and it's one of my favorites so I'm really happy about them. But Rave computer and they are really tiny little B2B manufacturing. They do ruggedized computers and specifically the type of computers that are used in like military applications or maybe manufacturing factories, maybe architecture, things that require really fast high rendering. So you know, you need to see a picture of something super quick and like that's the kind of computers they make. You can't call them and get a computer. I guess if you paid a lot you could. But I mean we're talking about like very large orders of you know, these high grade computers and they're based in Detroit and they are just really fun. They're so fun to work with and it's such a cool challenge because I mean they can get leads through SEO and we've helped them with some of that. But so many of their leads come through relationships and face to face events. So we're helping them not just with SEO but also with pr, with brand, with you know, actually like things printed out to show at an event. So that's probably my most odd one at the moment.
[00:27:11] Speaker A: So it sounds like, you know, like I've worked in several different B2B spaces and I think it is a challenge to be like siloed in heavily to just the SEO aspect of B2B because the volume is going to start off being really low and then like thinking about how do we actually, like how do we write an article to expect to rank for, you know, bulk orders of doggy poop shovels. You know, like, maybe you're, you're, you're a manufacturer of doggy poop shovel shovels and you need to get a, a ton of them sold. So you need to get like, get in with like the apartment complex managers of, of America. So it's, you know, it gets crazy niche. So I think, I think that ties into a like cross discipline, you know, and thinking about stepping back a little bit from SEO from the keyword research side, stepping back from SEO from the link building side and thinking, okay, as a marketing channel, these, these components of, of a website and links and visibility and digital authority also play roles in other parts of the business. You know, like if you're scheduling a trash cleanup in, in a particular area, you know, that's going to have a perception and impact on the attendees. How well it surfaces up in the community can have an impact depending on the size.
So thinking through, you know, what are some more real, what's more real world stuff that SEOs can promote, engage in support or you know, go beyond just using keyword research tools.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. I think we can be, and I'm speaking for myself, we can be so quick to think, to go straight to the SEO plan and think, oh, what are we going to do to increase our rankings and get more organic traffic? And I think we have to step back and say, where is our audience? What's important to them?
Are they Google Googling something? Yes, probably at some point they are, but what else are they doing?
And it could be AI. I mean, maybe they're doing that, but it also like, it could be Instagram, it could be TikTok, which is a whole thing right now. It could be Reddit, you know, it could be Facebook.
Think about where the audience is going and where they're having these conversations.
For some things it could be, it may be somewhere that like, you can't even rank for these things. Like think about all the conversations happening on Discord.
And so it's not gonna just be about, oh, I got X percent increase in rankings, which again, there's value there. But we have to start thinking much broader than just our SEO plans. And that's hard to do, especially if you've been doing this for a long time to be like, oh, I've got to learn something else.
But it's, I mean we're, we have to do it because the world, it's all changing right now. And then we have to give these brands that we're Advising, like our best advice like to, to really reach the audience, here's where we need to be playing.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: I agree. I think it's as much about broadening the perspective, you know, and thinking about search because there's search function in TikTok, you know, and there's algorithms, you know, they're surfacing and showing up conversations. There's, you know, thinking of multi channel. Like one unexpected thing is I posted up on Reddit about an event and then I was checking in an AI tool about that brand and it mentioned the event that I had posted two hours before on Reddit because the brand name was there. Like, oh, they're also doing this beach cleanup. I'm like, that was two hours ago. So those type of secondary impacts I think are going to get bigger. As you know, Sundar Pichai said, you know, search is changing in 2025. I think there, there's multiple ways that that's true. But I think if we get us get hidebound and just long pine for the days of just 10 blue links to compete for, like it's now multi dimensional and cross channel and multi channel.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Right. And I would say, you know, just a word of caution for brands that are like, oh, Reddit, yes, we're going to do that. I mean I've been on Reddit a really long time as a user and please do not just go Reddit and start talking. Like, take some time and like absorb the community and what's going on. And if you're going to interact as a brand, do so like carefully and authentically and helpfully and do not just get in there and say, oh, we're the best, you know, come, come buy our stuff. That is going to backfire majorly. Just wanted to throw that out there.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: No, definitely. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it is.
There are definitely third, third rails when it comes to interacting on Reddit. I've been there 18 years and I've seen Transit View and then others do almost the same thing and go up. So you, you do have to have a strategy because they, for the most part Reddit hates being advertised to. Unless they like it.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Right, right. Unless they don't.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So the advice is not, I'm not saying go, go make Reddit posts. You know, we are seeing, you know, 2x3x4x in the amount of traffic that Google is awarding to Reddit, but that of the rise of, you know, their, their valuing of human conversation and you know, the reality is that, you know, more and more places are infected or More and more brands have used AI generated content. So to be, you know, to try to narrow that down. There's, they're continuing to try to surface ugc, which for the most part is not astroturfed. But not everything in Reddit, not every comment in Reddit comes from a real human being anymore.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: Look for any like beauty type question, like best hair dryers or what kind of face lotion should I. Oh my gosh, it's awful right now.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: And, and it's going to be interesting as the pressures that have been placed on, on SEO and then search gets pushed onto these other platforms, how they end up respond to that moderation of handling that spam. Because we saw it, you know, like the green fields of black hat SEO of like, I'm just going find any exploit and push it as far as I can go until I get burned. Like that is diminishing on search results. You know, the SEO is a lot less lucrative for black hats. And so, you know, that is getting pushed off to other platforms. Social media AI, I guarantee is going to have a learning curve of how to, how to handle how exploitative people can be when they get dollar signs in their eyes.
So as we kind of wrap up, what are, what's your biggest life lesson or your biggest value for SEOs that they can grab onto during the holidays? So I guess it could be holiday themed.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: That's a good question.
The biggest life lesson that I like that I, I guess it would be to just, I mean, this is going to sound all warm and fuzzy, so, you know, the Grinch's heart grew three sizes.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: You got a Christmas tree behind you.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: I do, I do. I mean, there's so many technical things, but at the end of the day we are people and we're working with people. And don't forget at the end of the day who you're working with. I mean, there are people just like you who have stuff going on.
Get to know them, get to know their goals and what motivates them and treat people well, you know, like, help them reach their goals. And as a leader, bring your team along with you. Like, don't make it all about you. Right? We're going to cross the finish line together. I've got my teams back.
I guarantee you that that will make your year so much better and you're going to have so much more success because you are thinking rather than, you know, I've got to get this goal, I've got to get this number you're thinking more about. I'm going to help the people around me and we're going to succeed together.
So that's my advice.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Don't do it alone. But I think that's, I think that's interesting. You know SEO is very different based off of your position in it too. So like as, as a subcontractor, as a freelance that looks and feels very different from in house SEO positions too.
So make sure your freelancer feels warm and welcome too.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And if you're a freelancer, you know, get to know that person that you're working with in house, create those relationships. Get to know that if you can, not just the in between person but the client as well and the people that work there, just establish those relationships and you're going to get so much more work done efficiently.
[00:37:07] Speaker A: I definitely agree. Thank you so much for your time, Laura.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Thank you for having me. I had a great time.
[00:37:13] Speaker A: Thanks.
