Why SEO Is Not Just About The Search Engines But Better Websites | Kevin Wiles

2 Feb

Today’s Guest: Kevin Wiles

Kevin is a passionate technical SEO lead with a career history of working with big household names across New Zealand & United Kingdom.

Here’s a summary of the great stuff that we cover in this show:

SEO is not a dark art. It is just a methodical approach to understanding how Google works and what guidelines they give. SEO has been mis-sold in the past by statements that are not factually correct or slightly tweaked to push an agenda.
It is much tougher to compete at a national level for things like car parts, for example, against bigger brands, but where you can win as a smaller brand is understanding what your customers are searching for and what that search actually returns.
Creating less content that is well researched and comprehensive is more effective than lots of low quality content. This is because people are looking for authoritative sources of information that can provide detail and answer all their questions in one go.
From an SEO point of view, some strategy points to consider hitting are: understanding what is on the PDPs (Product Display Pages), making sure there is enough detail, and to go after supporting content.
A missed opportunity that many people face when it comes to product page SEO is not thinking about longer tail keywords that have lower search volume but would return a product that the user is more likely to buy.

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Just like this eCommerce Podcast episode, each Sprint is themed-based. So using this topic of Why SEO Is Not Just About The Search Engines But Better Websites as an example - here's how it would work:

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Week One: Coaching Session -> Optimisation.
Week Two: Expert Workshop -> Why SEO Is Not Just About The Search Engines But Better Websites. Perhaps Kevin Wiles would be the expert teaching this through a series of video presentations that show you how to apply the ideas and principles to your business.
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Matt Edmundson: Well, hello there. Welcome to the e-Commerce podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. The E-Commerce podcast is all about helping you deliver e-commerce. Wow. And to help you do just that I am chatting with today's guest, Kevin Wiles, about why SEO is not just about the search engines but better websites.
It's been such a while, such a long time actually, since we've had anyone on the show about seo. So I'm excited to get into this, Kevin, but before you and I jump into that, let me suggest a few other eCommerce podcast episodes that I think. You will enjoy listening to. So check out how SEO rankings can help you improve your customer experience with Nick Trueman, the legend.
That is Nick Trueman. Uh, and also check out the three pillars of SEO with Alina Ghost. Uh, that two episodes definitely worth checking out. You can find them, uh, as well as our entire archive of episodes on our website for free at ecommercepodcast.net. Uh, and on our website you can also sign up for our newsletter.
And each week we will email you these links that we mention along with the notes and the links from today's conversation with Kevin. You can get that direct to your inbox totally free. How amazing is that? Now this episode is brought to you by the e-commerce cohort, which helps deliver e-commerce Wow to your customers.
Kevin, I am sure you have come across a whole bunch of folks. Right. Stuck With that e-commerce website, or they've got siloed into one or two areas they're just working on and miss the whole big picture. Well, enter e-commerce cohort to solve this problem. It's a lightweight membership group with guided monthly, monthly sprints that cycle through all the key areas of e-commerce.
The sole purpose, uh, of which is to provide you with clear actionable jobs to be done. Yes. So you will know what to work on, uh, and uh, you'll get the support you need to get it done. So, whether you are just starting out an e-commerce or if, like me, you are a well established eCommercer slash e-commerce dinosaur, uh, I encourage you to definitely check it out.
Visit ecommercecohort.com. That's ecommercecohort.com. Uh, or if you'd like, just email me with any questions that you've got and I'll try my level best to answer them. You can reach me at uh matt@ecommercepodcast.net, and of course you can also email me with any comments or thoughts you've got about the show.
We'd love to hear what you've got to say. Now let's jump into the conversation with our fab guest. Kevin is a passionate, technical SEO lead with a career history of working with big household names across New Zealand. Oh yes, the Kiwis, uh, and the United Kingdom, including Halford's and Furniture Village.
Kevin, thanks for coming on the show. Great to have you here. Super excited to be talking about SEO. How are we doing?
Kevin Wiles: All good. Thank you. I'm recovering from brightonSEO, so my voice is a little croaky, but all good. Um, lots of knowledge takeaways from that. So yeah. Excited to be on the podcast.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Well, it's good to be here and thank you for, we were just talking before we hit the record button that you may be a little bit fatigued from the, uh, from all the stuff.
Kevin Wiles: I feel like if you're an SEO and you woke up today and you're not tired and fatigued, you didn't do brightonSEO properly.
Matt Edmundson: is that, is that how that works? Is that just do
Kevin Wiles: with the new model that they have on the website every year?
Matt Edmundson: the tagline, uh, on the, on the landing page. You guaranteed you'll be knackered and tired the day after. Pretty much. It's a sign up now. You'd be like, Okay, I'm in. I'm in. So what happened at Brighton SEO that made it so epic this year?
Kevin Wiles: Um, I think, I think for me it's just I typically go to Brighton and, um, use that time to a) go to some of the fantastic talks, but then also use at time to network with lots of people that live like Liverpool, New Castle, all across the different, the country.
Um, and typically that just means you start networking. You start talking, it's by the beach. Nice sea views that leads to a few beers, which then leads to a hangover in the morning. Um, and I think that just over a three day period, so I usually typically, um, head up on the Wednesday, come back, uh, on the Friday.
Um, it's a long way in a car.
Matt Edmundson: Oh yeah. I mean, where did you drive down from?
Kevin Wiles: Uh, so I'm based in Stratford-upon-Avon, so it took about three hours there. Five and a bit back.
Matt Edmundson: That does not sound fun. Do you, have you heard of a train? I don't know. Uh.
Kevin Wiles: I have the, so about trains and with all the train strikes, I was like, I think I'd rather drive than be stuck at, at train station, just being like, I just wanna be at home now.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, fair play. Fair play. So did you, um, did you take lots of notes at Brighton seo? Have you got lots of new ideas.
Kevin Wiles: I did, I actually took some advice this, this time around. So typically I, I go and geek out and do all the tech things around artificial intelligence and machine learning and eCommerce SEO, and this time around there's actually some good advice about going to do talks that you wouldn't typically do.
So things like, Hey, I'm not a digital PR person, so going and sitting in some of those digital PR talks to just learn some new stuff, I guess. Um, and there's some fantastic talks specifically around, uh, agency growth, culture, uh, preventing burnout, that sort of stuff, which was, um, I don't think it's talked about enough. Mm-hmm, let's say seo, but digital as a whole about, uh, we, our laptops for enormous amount of time. Oh, we do? Yeah. Yeah. Every day. Um, so those, those talks are really insightful and good again, where some tips of, I should probably get out more. Doing less SEO and more walks and stuff. So I feel like a lot of my life is just, uh, work seo, and then you get FOMO missing out.
And so yeah, those, those talks were good. Uh, but it's, it's, it's fantastic. I think it's a great initiative particularly for, um, The younger people coming up in the industry to have an opportunity to talk and learn those things that essentially will keep SEO alive for years to come. That's if robots don't kill us off first. But,
Matt Edmundson: you never know, right? You never know. Never know. I've seen the Matrix, so I know what happens. Um, so what was your biggest takeaway from, from the conference?
Kevin Wiles: Um, I think that search is advancing is always the biggest takeaway I take from many of these events, whether it's Brighton, Search Love, Moscon stuff.
I think for me, the core principles of SEO haven't really changed since I started like 12 years ago, 14 years ago. And that was before Google even existed. I like left college and I fell into seo. Um, but I think that it's, it's advancing at such a rate, but actually it's, it's not in the same instance. I, Hey, the core principles around, is it technically sound?
Is the site optimized for speed? Is it. Is facet navigation from most point of view done for a customer and an SEO benefit. Yeah, I think those things have stayed the same, but I think it's just insightful to come away and be like, there's now GPT three to automate content. Kind of there's a big caveat there.
Don't go and do that on category pages and that stuff cause that's not great and Google doesn't like that. But I think just seeing how technology is helping the industry advance is the biggest takeaway. Um, but it's always learning something new. Always. Yeah. I think whenever you, you think you are at that point where there's something you can't learn, someone somewhere has done something that you're like, Oh, that's cool.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. That's the, um, I, I, and that's, for me, that's the appeal of going to things like that. They're usually far away. They're usually expensive, you know, in terms of time and just the cost of getting there, I suppose. And that's before you've paid the entry price, whatever that is. And so there, there are a few conferences that I would sort of entertain going to. And it's that, it's, for me, it's the whole idea generation. That's the value in going there. And you sit and you listen to other people, and I dunno if your mind does this, Kevin, but my mind certainly is I start to, I've sat there with my notebook and I start to wander in my thinking and I just jot down all my crazy ideas.
And you've always found something, you know, and it's like,
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, definitely. And I think, I think, you know, um, I dunno about you, but like I pretty much work from home full time now, right? Like before when I was at Halfords I was like full-time in the office and you're then talking to people, networking, talking about different, you know, bouncing things off merchandise about how you can do, uh, PRP, optimizing, et cetera.
And I think now going to Brighton, you actually get to speak to other SEOs, whereas at home, as much as I'm trying. I've got a nine month old kitten. She just doesn't want to talk SEO with me. She just looks at me like, I'm bizarre who wants her dinner. And then that's it. So going to Brighton SEO gives me the opportunity to actually talk and bounce the ideas off other SEOs and try and problem solve.
And I think that's with, with any event you go to, um, IRX in Birmingham, for example, it's happening this week or, or won't be when this is aired, but it's happening in October. You know, it's a great opportunity to go and talk to uh, eCommerce platforms and suppliers and see what some of those people are doing in the tech and advancements that aren't holistically within seo, but will have an impact for seo.
You know, you just look at things like split testing software where it's used for a user benefit, but those aren't implemented correctly, suddenly has an impact on site speed, which then from an SEO point of view, You're sat there going, Let's not do any of this. But there's different benefits and I think it's, it's good going to those events cuz you get to start to understand the wider picture of like, SEO isn't the only channel that exists and SEO isn't the only important thing that exists in eCommerce.
Mm-hmm.. Um, and just to network with cool people. There's lots of cool, fascinating people in SEO and tech and eCommerce that you just wouldn't get exposed to because as much as you wanna talk to 'em on Twitter, so do probably a hundred other people. Whereas in Brighton, you can bump into them, buy them a coffee, a beer, chips, whatever it might be, and start to just.
Just pick their intelligent brain apart and, and find something, which to your point, you then come away with ideas. And I think most of my creative ideas are always, they start at Brighton, but they sort of come to fruition when I'm back home on walks. Sat in front of the TV when I think. Oh, I could take that idea that I didn't think I could use for any clients and I could actually use it by tweaking it and doing this, this, and this.
And before, you know, you've got like these cool ideas. The downside to that is you've gotta put a commercial value behind those ideas. Or actually try and put a, Hey client, if we go and do this, is this a benefit? Rather than just, I've got this cool idea, it's gonna take a hundred hours, but it's cool. Um, which is the, the, the, always the impact of seo.
Like there's a hundred things to do. What, what do you need to do to actually. You need to be able to prove what you should and why. Yeah. Rather than just here's a list of things and go and fix them.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No. Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, so let's, uh, let's rewind a little bit and, um, let's not make any assumptions, uh, of, from, for people listening to the show because I think SEO for years has been one of those things where people have either um, ignored it completely or they've, um, they've succumbed to whoever calls them that day, uh, and promises to get them on page one for like, you know, uh, of Google. Um, and we've all had those phone calls from SEO agencies promising us a world and delivering absolutely bugger all. Um, you know, it's that kind of, um, reputation, isn't it?
So, Seo, is it? Let's start off with this question, right? Is SEO part of the dark arts? Is it just like a witchcraft? Uh, is probably my question .
Kevin Wiles: I, I think for a long time, if I look back at the days when I first started seo, which was, like I said before, it, it was SEO wasn't a thing. Um, I don't think it was a dark art.
I think that we, as SEOs did things that weren't ideal for, for the user, but knew we could get away with them, tech wasn't advanced back then, Altavista was the biggest search engine. I remember working on sites where white text on a white background with all your keyword stuffed at the bottom, and you could rank number one and like Yellow Pages site on your own website to get links.
I think we as SEOs have kind of sold this magic because we believe that's how it needs to be sold as a product to get sales in. Yeah. Um, but it, it's like most things, it's just a methodical approach of saying, Okay, if Google guidelines say this, what does that actually mean for me? And I'm not saying, Hey, Google's guidelines are always fundamentally correct because they're, there needs to be context behind what that recommendation is.
But I definitely don't think it's a dark art. I think, um, it's just understanding, let's take a retail shop, right, for example. Let's imagine you've got the best shop ever, but then what you've gone and done is blacked out the windows because you don't want anyone to see in. Well, probably customers won't come in because they might think you're closed to renovate.
And go actually maybe it's just a bit weird a shop, but they don't wanna go into that and SEO's the same, right? It's, Hey, you've got the best content in the world. But then you've not got your tech stack set up correctly and you've not got site speed set up, or there's issues with JavaScript. Well, suddenly Google can't see any of that content to help your shop front be visible for different keywords and then suddenly no one comes.
And I think it, it is just that simple. Um, I think we have just mis-sold it. There's been lots of kind of like statements released that probably aren't factually correct or slightly tweaked to push an agenda. Um, and that's made people, particularly with less understanding of seo, have this view to your point that is.
A dark art and it's magic. And for years it was like, well, I can just do PPC and I know exactly what I'm getting back because I spend X and I get X, Y. And it's much easier to, And even that's true today. When I was at Halford's, it was cool, but if we spend this at ppc, we can get this back. And what can you do from an SEO point of view?
And then you start doing forecasting. But none of that forecasting is robust enough and still isn't today. There's lots of modeling and stuff you can do, but I, I still don't think it gives. Actually, this is what you can get. Because hey, the caveat is, well, if devs don't go and do this, or the head of e-com goes and turns off the Black Friday page each year and then creates another one, suddenly that forecast is all thrown into doubt.
Yeah. Out of your control.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No, fair enough. I mean, if I'm if I'm Halford's, I get the value of seo, right? I'm a big site and I, I'm, I'm, I, I, I can see that. But if I'm, if I'm Rob's Car Parts, you, I've just got a little car part shop, uh, on the back streets of Liverpool, I'm thinking, you know what? I'm gonna set up a website.
Is SEO something that he should think about? Is it, or is he just gonna look at Halford's and go there's no way I can compete. I'm not gonna get on page one. Um, so why should I even think about SEO?
Kevin Wiles: Yeah. I think, and if this is where I was talking to that like the advancements of search, I think maybe many years ago that have been this, we can get you ranking potentially for these high volume search them, cuz we could do lots of sort of like obscure shady link building.
I think now it's much tougher to compete at a national level for things like car parts or mot for example, against Kwik Fits and Halfords, but where you can win as a like smaller brand is understanding what that search actually returns. And what I mean by that is if I go and search, um, Mot booking for example, what I'll probably get is Google saying, Hey, we think you're in Stratford-upon-Avon and here's some garages in Stratford-upon-Avon, which in some instances may not even have a halford or a Kwik fit.
Some of the big brands for term because they don't have a garage that close. And that's the kind of sweet spot is Google's now starting to understand different search queries. Actually we think that is a local query and therefore you have an opportunity to rank free maps or for the local stuff. So I think it is becoming more of a level playing field and definitely has more value.
Um, but it is still the big players typically rank and win across the big, the big sites. And the, the other is absolutely true as well. When I was at Halfords, we actually started to lose ground for things like mountain bikes and tires and stuff.
Um, local landing pages, and that meant that some of the smaller brands and that we then had to go and do strategy, we had to build our local pages out. And there's a post that I did recently about, um, a small convenience brand called Select and Safe near me, and they have the same issue. They have a main website, but no dedicated local landing pages for say convenience store. And people are trying to find those products or services close by.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. I was, when I was sort of coming through the ranks of e-commerce, Uh, I've seen stuff come and go around, um, seo and I've seen stuff come and go about, around a whole, and it seemed to me maybe about, I wanna say about five years ago, maybe seven years ago, content marketing was big on the scene.
You know, HubSpot kind of came across and said, Do content marketing. Um, inbound is the way of the future. Get everybody coming to you rather than doing the megaphone and sharing out. The whole idea being you go on the web, you do some research, you find a question that somebody is asking, and you write a blog post with the question as the title.
In theory, you would then rank for that on Google and that would bring traffic back to your website. And it was always, that was a stage where you were told that was easy to do than say, rank for a product. So, um, I have, uh, a company vegetology. The products sat on my desk here. It's a vegan supplement, an Omega 3 supplement, which is awesome.
Um, and so there was a whole strategy then done around, let's just write a load of blog posts around Omega 3, does omega 3 work. Why should I take Omega 3, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you do all these blog posts and you put 'em on the blog. And yes, they do bring traffic in, but is that still something that is relevant for today or is that kind of gone by the wayside as well?
Kevin Wiles: I think it's, it's definitely still relevant. I think it, its only relevant if you're gonna do it and be the expert in that content. So I'll use a Halfords, for example, when I first joined halford's, we owned pretty much all the commercial terms related to all the bike categories. Mm-hmm. , but we didn't have anything that would be like, uh, how to find the right size bike or how to measure your child for your bike or the Mountain Bike buying guide, or whatever it might be.
Yeah. And then when we started to do that content, uh, for caveat here, just so people don't think I'm a terrible SEO content sat in a completely different team, um, those articles were basically created to be maybe 200, 300 words. Mm-hmm. . But if you then flip that, and I use a example, I remember when I was a a kid, I used to go into Clark Shoe store and, and parents would be like, Cool, we need to get some new trainers, whatever that is.
And that whole experience would be someone measuring my feet in their little, um, electronic machine and clamping it either side, and then they'll be like, Cool, you can have these trainers with the light up thing because they've got a padded sole. It was a whole experience. But if you take that and put that into a blog content piece, you can't explain that journey about how to measure your feet in two hundred words.
And similar to the, the mountain bike example. And I think, again, we as SEOs have said, Hey, create loads of content and traffic will come. But actually what people have ended up doing is creating lots of terrible content rather than saying, rather than saying, um, okay, if you're talking about Omega 3, and you are explaining what is Omega 3.
If you go and look at like Healthline for example, that article is probably a couple of thousand words and the word count is slightly relevant, but the point of it is they've gone away and understood every question and sub question that's related and the benefits the side effect, the dosage. Yeah. And then come back with the most comprehensive piece of content.
And they've done that for a whole broad set of topics. And I think that's where we're seeing this pivot and sort of like change at the moment where for years we said we'll sell you 10 blog posts a month. Thank you very much. We'll create 10 blog posts without much thought or direction. It's just 10 blog posts.
We'll definitely get traffic. Cool. Tick in a box, and now it's going the other way, where people are doing content audits and actually removing a lot of content. There's just been done because SEO said we should do content, and it's kind of got to that place where it's like now less is more and of that less content.
The more well written it is, the more well researched it is, the better. Um, and then you start tying in the FAQs and you mark that with FAQ scheme and you get the, like the feature snippets in Google and stuff. There's still a play here to get traffic from those. But I do think it's a less is more. And if you can be the authorities, so, uh, particularly in certain industries for the omega3, for example, if I wrote a piece of content about omega3s, I wouldn't rank anywhere.
Mm-hmm. I'm not authority. I don't have the accreditations and education to be the right person to talk about omega 3. But if a doctor did it and had those profiles marked up and Google understands actually, uh, they've written it, they've got the right degrees, et cetera, there's probably a higher chance they'll rank for it. Yeah. Um, so I do think it is just about understanding the audience and then creating detailed content that is what you would get if you went to the pharmacy or the doctor and got the same advice. Mm-hmm.. Um, but again, we have SEOs that have just for many years gone. How do I cut the corner?
What's the little loophole? I can go around and get some rankings and stuff? And it works for a long time, right? Like there's always this view of SEO should be about getting traffic, but. I before joined Halford's was always agency side, and I lived by that for a long time. It's like, well, traffic's up 30%.
We've done a great job. Thank you very much. When I went to Halfords, it shifted my whole mindset a lot to be like, I don't care if traffic is actually down as long as revenue is up, because revenue is what keeps stores open, which keeps the staffs in job and helps the business grow. Um, but to do that we actually started declining the amount of traffic, uh, the amount of content we were doing right to make that content useful because otherwise it's basically just gonna sit on a shelf, like an old toy in a toy story that no one plays with anymore.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, that's fascinating because I think, it sounds like Kevin, and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like, uh, for years, and this is not just peculiar to SEO, this is, you know, every aspect of e-commerce has fallen foul to this.
We've always looked for the shortcut. We've always looked for the hack, you know? Yep. Um, how to hack life, How to hack seo, Do you know what I mean? We want the hack. We want the quick, easy, dirty win where we don't have to do anything. The put in all the keywords in white text on a white background and just, and just, you know, that, that was the hack, but the more complicated um, technology has got, it feels like the more Google has gone actually guys, we're gonna cut the hacks. It's not that we wanna stop divvying up the content, but we want to divvy up the right content and quality content. And it seems to me that if we invest in that quality side of things, long term, that's the winning strategy.
Would that be a fair reflection?
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, the last maybe two months have shown that, right, like GPT three and content automation and, and machine learning stuff has been a big play to that. Where there's sites out there that purely exist and they only exist because they've got automated content.
None of it is reviewed, it's just completely automated. And Google's then obviously released the helpful content update, and it's been purely to say. This isn't good for the audience because it's autogenerated through machine learning. And that machine learning right now is not perfect. And that's where again, we as SEOs are going, Cool, I can build this API thing and I can do this machine learning stuff and then auto-generate the content.
Cool. I can then sit on my sofa for a couple hours in the evening and chill while my content's just doing its thing. Um, and that's again, we as SEOs are trying to cut corners. There's a place for it. That place isn't full automation. You know, with some tweaks, with some analysis with the keywords and all the internet and stuff taken into consideration, um, I think we'll get to a place where that becomes more, There's like lots of hot topics and Brighton had some great ones around AI and all that sort of stuff that are coming into content to help us build that at scale, but I don't think that will ever.
Or at least for the short term, take away from if you are a great writer, you understand your audience, you understand your product enough, you are the best person to create that content for your audience because you know, well, you know your audience, whereas a machine at the moment just doesn't. Yeah. And tools can only give you so much.
Right. Just because Google says these keywords are what you should include in content, doesn't mean you should go and include them 50 times.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a fair comment. I like that. And I, I like the idea that actually quality wins and it's less about creating 10 blog posts, but about creating one really good quality, uh, post for your content and, and so, If that's the case.
Right. And, uh, sorry, let me just, uh, go back a sec. You've mentioned this phrase GPT three a couple of times. What do you mean by that? Just let's just clarify that.
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, so I'm definitely in no expert here, but GPT three is a, um, like many others, sort of like. AI type based model mm-hmm. That can basically, you give it a load of inputs and it gives you outputs and, um, there's tools like phrase.Io, et cetera, that basically you go in type a keyword or a topic you wanna create, it will spit back a thousand word pieces of content.
Um, and that's a very broad, high level example. Um, and there are contents sites today that are purely generated. Hey, I've given a load of keywords. It's gone away and created content and there's a, I won't name drop them cuz they wouldn't be very happy. But there's eCommerce sites that I know that their whole category content today is completely automated.
It then goes through a manual process of someone internally reviewing it, but it saves them 80% time from someone actually creating that from scratch. And that's allowed them to rank and rank very well, uh, in one of the biggest eCommerce spaces. But there's different models out there. But I think Google's helpful content update was aimed at saying.
There's lots of rubbish out there that those things are doing because there's great models that take lots of time to train and, and tailor. And then there's lots of like lower end models that you can buy subscription for, for like $99. And again, we as SEOs are going watch us build loads of content with that $99 subscription, spin up a site, get it to rank, make loads of money, and then if it gets hit by Google's next update, I'd just spin it up again.
Um, so yeah, that's broadly, it's probably a terrible, um, explanation, but that's broadly what it, what it covers.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No, that's great. That's great. So what's your, If I'm, if I'm starting, let's think of the two, two sort of two, two words if you like. So you've got people who have been around, they, they're in eCommerce, they've been around for a little while.
So like Vegetology, you know, that website's been around for a while. Um, and then you've got the, the, the, the, you know, the guys and gals who are starting out, they're, they're starting out fresh. So what should, um, What should I think about, as someone who's been around e-commerce for a little while, for an from an SEO point of view, what should be some of the strategy points that I, I need to hit?
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, so good question and it, with anything in seo, it's gonna depend on the context here, but like, For me, I try and understand, a, if you have local stores, that's probably gonna be a different strategy altogether because you can double down on local. But for the purpose of this, let's just say you've got traditional Ecom with, uh, crps, PLPs, and then PDP templates, for example.
I'd be trying to understand what's on those PDPs. So one of the things I see lots of people do is build load of great products, great products imagery, and I work with a client right now that has fantastic product imagery. And then the description of that product is about 50 words. Now does that describe the product in enough detail?
In terms of the ingredients, the, if it's dosage, for example, if it's vitamins, um, all the benefits, does it link out to support and content? Does it have related products that you should take, like a vitamin stack in the morning, for example? And I think that's the biggest missed opportunities because as SEOs, we go after volume or traditionally we've always gone after volume, right? We've go here Omega three, that's got 10,000 search a month. Great. I'm going after that. Yeah, but actually what about, you know, touch upon a minute. Go vegan. So what about vegan Omega three tablets, or what about a Omega vegan three? Uh, vegan Omega three. Uh, Men's joint supplements or something that's much longer tail that has lower search volume, but actually would return a product that that user is then more likely to buy because they're in that mindset. And I think that's typically the biggest missed opportunities because doing product page SEO is hard.
Right. Particularly the big catalog your gets Yeah. How do you work out where you focus and Halfords had the same example, they had like 70,000 products. It's like cool. Where do we start? And then that, then that goes back to the same thing. It's like, okay, that goes back to the exact same SEO process that you would've done years ago, which is keyword research.
Mm. Group those keywords by the, the topic and then work out, okay, what's Google returning today in their, in their kind of like sub listing and then tailor that content around it. And then, you know, if I went into a store, people are getting more conscious these days to say, what's the ingredients? Where's it come from, where's it sourced?
Et cetera, et cetera. That information should also be online. Mm-hmm. , I think retailers are getting better, but then it's about what's the differentiator between you and like my protein, if it's vitamins or Holland and Barrett in those in instances. And I think that's, then it ties back to the content to say, well they are covering a huge catalog of products and they're going after, let's say my protein is going after whey protein, cause that might be their best selling product.
Mm-hmm.. So they're probably not supporting the omega three section as well. They're not probably looking at supporting content and the health benefits and stuff. It's like that's your niche Double down. Yeah. Think four supporting content and then go from there and, and I think that's just where people are like lacking because everyone tries to do everything too fast and it doesn't typically work unless you've got huge budgets and then that's different story.
Matt Edmundson: Yeah which none of us really have. Yeah. Uh, but it's, it's, no, I like that. It's interesting because people ask often ask me, actually, you know, how do I compete against Amazon? It's one of the big questions people ask, and I'm like, well, Amazon's commodities, right? It's a website. It could, you can put this product on Amazon and it's just gonna be one of 10,000 Right.
Uh, of a omega 3s on there. And it's like whoever gets that page, you can put the content on there that Amazon doesn't care. What Amazon can't do. Um, and where I can absolutely kill it compared to Amazon is with the knowledge, is with the passion, is with the personality, is with the authenticity, is in answering the questions.
It's in the, you know, all that information on there. And so back to Halfords, you know, Amazon may sell a mountain bike. Halfords may sell a mountain bike, but if I'm, if I've got a little mountain bike business man. I can totally rock my website because I can put so much more into that, that Amazon's not doing that.
Halford's can't do it cause it's got 70,000 products. Amazon just doesn't care because it's got 4 billion products on there or whatever the amount is these days. So I, I, I think you're right. I think that that.. Investing in that, investing in, in that kind of content to me seems like a really smart strategy.
And actually what you are saying, Kevin, if I'm hearing this right, is not only is that a smart strategy from just a, a brand voice point of view, from differentiating from Amazon, from differentiating from your competitors, but it's also a smart strategy from an SEO point of view.
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, for sure. And I think your, your example is, is a great one because hey, if I'm a, um, let's say I run a small bike shop off Stratford-upon-Avon and I wanna own that space, well, like instantly I've got new topic opportunities, which is cool.
Well, my audience may be looking for repairs. They may be looking for same day repairs. Well, they may be looking for, uh, I've got a family of three. I want a bike journey that's maybe an hour. On a flat surface, on a tarmac. And I, as a specialist, because I run in my small bike shop, can create some content that's like top five bike rides in Stratford-upon-Avon, which a big retailer isn't gonna do because they're gonna go, Well, who cares?
You know who I am, You're gonna come buy to me. And I think the other part is if I pull on a different example, I, um, one of my friends, um, runs a kind of Michelin star gastro pub, which I went to on Saturday, which was lovely. But um, they were like, Hey, we wanna start ranking for things like Michelin Star restaurant Cotswolds, for example.
But actually when you go and Google that, There aren't any pubs ranking for that because Google's interpreted that search term as, Hmm, maybe it's not fair. We just return one result. So what they've done is returned sort of like inspiration blogs where it's like, here's the top five restaurants in the Cotswolds, et cetera, etc.
Mm-hmm. My job as SEO is to get bookings into that restaurant. So it's while I can optimize that website for that search term, actually the smart play here is understanding what that page is being returned from Google and saying, Well, actually here, I just wanna get their website into those top five articles.
Because either way, SEOs, a byproduct is gonna get them, hopefully to then have a booking. I think that's the smart place, just understanding what are people searching for? And if you then run a restaurant in, in the Cotswolds, and it's a country pub, for example, or most people are gonna go to the Cotswolds potentially for a hike, So then why don't you start providing hiking routes and information about that that says, Oh, actually, if I plan my route from this pub, do a hike and then come back for dinner.
That's my journey and that's my day out. And then the pub takes that booking. And I do think that's the smart players, just understanding what the customer, particularly if you are localized, is looking for, and then answering that, creating content, whether that's video, articles, lists, whatever it might be.
And just being the expert in that. And, and before, you know, you'll start to build up awareness. You'll start to get traffic and stuff, you know. A mechanic, it could be we're heading into winter. What other things you need to check in your car? Creating videos, putting 'em on social, put 'em on YouTube, put on whatever it might be, and being that useful person.
And before you know your start to get traction, start to get reviews, which have you rank locally and so on and so forth. But Halfords probably aren't gonna sit there and go, um, How to, uh, stay safe in Stratford-upon-Avon in the winter on the roads because they just don't care. And I'm sure that's maybe is, that's a terrible piece of content that you could create.
But there are other examples where, you know, that is exactly the sort of stuff that smaller people could, should be doing. And they probably don't need much guidance from an SEO to say, go write this in terms of this keyword, this structure. They know that stuff. That's, that's why they're in that business they're in.
Whereas, we as SEOs are just going, Here's a load of keywords. Go and build some content. Yeah, yeah. It's got, it's got better. But I think there's still loads of gap where it's just like, here's a spreadsheet, here's some keywords. Build some content with no real thought to the audience piece. Or actually, what is that content gonna lead to a booking or a product buy?
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, I, The more you talk, the more I agree, Kevin, in the sense that, um, I like it because you're thinking about the customer, you're thinking about the customer journey, and you are thinking about how you are to get your story and their story to overlap.
And in that space, you can really do some great stuff. And I think that's where we win. and actually everything you said, I'm sat here thinking, Well, I, the first question to ask you is, I've, I'm established in e-commerce, what's my strategy? My second question was gonna be, I'm new to e-commerce. What's my strategy? It sounds like actually it's the same strategy.
Kevin Wiles: Yeah. I think the only difference, I mean, both of them will have some aspects of technical, right? If, if I play back the three pillars of sort of like where I look at SEO in terms of technical content and then sort of digital PR and marketing. I think if you are a new e-com site, It's looking at what's the tech stack and making sure that it's lightning quick.
Because again, the issue you have when you're more established is the bigger you get, the more sort of like corporate red tape that comes into those things. And then there's more tech partners, or Bazaar Voice, or Cubeit or Hotjar or any of the other big providers that want code, and you've got e-com, you've got merchandise, you've got all these different people wanting tracking and stuff on the site.
I think when you're let's say a startup, you have the ability to scale and, and pivot and go, Right, We don't want that on the site, or We can do this without building that, that provider. And that gives you the ability, in some instances, to do better than the big players. Because when I was at Halford's, they, their site speed was horrendous.
It was terrible. They ranked purely on the fact they had just the solid backing profile. Yeah. But then we had competitors like Pure Electric coming up that were on a Shopify platform that was streamlined. Their site speed was like under two seconds. And that's all the things Google wants. Right? And that's the things users want.
Mm-hmm. , while they might not rank for the competitive terms, when they rank for a specific product term, the customers going, Man, this checkout is lightning quick click, click thanks. Yeah. And, and they start to take market share that way. Um, so it slightly differs, but then. If you are new it, it is about going after the longer tail keywords, lower volume, easier for you to rank with, start starting shop as a competitor with the long term view of 6, 12, 18 months, whatever might be, you can start to compete on some of those, like head tail product terms that have just high volume.
Matt Edmundson: So where would I, um, I'm sitting here listening to you think about this and I, and I I'm going, Well, if I'm starting out in e-commerce and you're saying go after the long tail keywords, how do I, how do I know what they are?
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, so I think, I mean, I think you can learn a lot by just Googling what you think a customer is searching.
And it's what I always say to customers when I'm like, So tell me what you think a customer is searching. Because if I went and searched for mountain bikes, for example, Cool, I'll start to understand more. Most of those category pages, and those are quite broad, but then. What if it's a different size Mountain Bike.
So it's, I need a 21 inch mountain bike. And then you've got the different size variance. You know that because you've got that product range sat in your warehouse or whatever, and then you're like, cool. And my bikes are orange. Oh, cool. So it's 21 inch orange mountain bike. Cool. And it's full suspension.
So you should start like putting this pattern together. Like, well, someone might search them. And that, that when you start to get the, the much longer tail stuff, there's obviously tools, there's keywords everywhere, which is just a Chrome plugin you can, um, pull in that says, Hey, you search this, but here's related to things you could do.
And there's obviously Moz, SEMRush, Ahrefs that you could just pull in that then gives you the long tail variations. But I do think it's just, you know, what do you actually think someone is searching for that product term? If we take a tyre example, If I go and check my car on the drive, I won't just search car tires.
I'll search, Cool. I need to replace one, and I've got Toyota tires and their 225 R 18, whatever the rest of the speed rate is. Suddenly that query's much, much smaller than just car tires. Mm-hmm.. But the benefit here is if you build the best product page that ranks that tyre, You're probably gonna rank, which means you're gonna get sales, which means you can reinvest that money back into SEO or PPC or whatever it is.
Mm-hmm. and then do that 10 times, 20 times, 30 times, 40 times, et cetera. Suddenly a lot more money coming into the business where the big players are like, Well, we rank for tires, so like we're always gonna capitalize on the market. Yeah. And I think that, I think that's the sweet spot. And the example I always have is, I had a car client once that was like, We wanna rank for cars, but they only sold Audis and I was like.
But why? They're like, Well, it's got a hundred and odd thousand search a month, whatever it was back then. But they were just fixating on the volume thing. They had the budget, they just wanted to be known for cars. And I was like, But the amount of people that are gonna come to the website and go. I actually wanted a bmw.
I wanted Volkswagen, I wanted a Peugeot and you can't service that, that client. So you'd much better refine it and be an Audi and then look at the types, the models, the variations, the doors, the engine sizes, et cetera, and then own all of those different long tail stuff.
Matt Edmundson: Does it, um, I dunno if this is still the case, Kevin, but it used to be, um, if, you know, let's take that example. Someone ranks, they invest heavily in ranking for cars, but they only sell Audi. And so that means a lot of people are gonna come to their site and disappear again quite quickly. You know, the bounce rate is, people call it, they, you know, people bounce. Does that still affect your SEO ranking?
So if people are coming to your site and disappearing quite quickly are Google going, We don't like this website.
Kevin Wiles: That's a difficult question. And the reason I say that is there's um, lots of theories and, um, actual case studies and stuff that say bounce rate technically does have an impact. Google's official stance is we don't take any Google Analytics metrics into account when we're looking at SEO rankings. Um, I'm unsure is my honest answer.
I think they right in some degree have an understanding that if you are clicking from search and then clicking straight back, that probably doesn't enter in the intent and that impacts things. But I don't think we'll ever get a firm answer from Google to say it does. Um, but again, why? Why would you want to build content or landing pages that aren't good for your customers?
Because if anything, the long term here is people are gonna get annoyed and frustrated at your brand for being a bit rubbish. And actually that's probably more important than thinking I can rank for cars, which mm-hmm. isn't gonna put sales and it comes back to that exact same conversation. It's traffic or, or cash.
And I'd rather have cash over traffic. Yeah. And it's kind of like, it is trying to get that like C-suite level, like ownership to say. Traffic means nothing if it's not converting. Um, because sometimes it's fixating on the numbers that are bigger.
Matt Edmundson: So, Kevin, listen, I'm aware of time and I, I regret to inform you now. It's just one of those where I could, I just feel like I'm scratching the surface on this. So if someone sat there like me and going, Oh, I've got the question about this, I've got a question about that. What's some good resources in terms of finding out more? Where's a good place to start?
Kevin Wiles: Well, that's a good question.
So I think the, um, it depends how. How detailed you want to go. So Google has its own like beginner's guide to seo. Um, then there's brands like HubSpot that have some great ideas around just building an SEO strategy. Things you need to look at, which can be more high level, but give you the calling to go look at keywords this way.
Um, Aleyda Solis has a great, um, she's spent a lot of time in the industry building out resources for people to understand SEO from tech, strategy, insights, analytics, reporting, which I think is, uh, learningseo.io. Um, so I'd definitely check that out. Um, and then just start to Google those things. If it's about starting in local seo, there'll be a good guide about how to build up your G&B profile to make sure you can rank.
It is difficult to say. This will be the ultimate guide for SEO that you'll ever need, because I don't generally think this one exists because I think there's so many disciplines of an SEO that like, Hey, local SEO is different to enterprise seo and therefore, Someone who specializes in enterprise SEO isn't gonna be the best person to go and follow for, for if you just say run a bakery.
Um, but I will try and follow up with some notes that you can put in the comments and, um, and send those up to users.
Matt Edmundson: That'd be great. That'll be great. Listen, Kevin, here's my, my crazy question that I've, I've started asking people and I'm really curious to know what your answer is, right. You've just given your best keynote speech in your life ever.
I always say to, to guests, imagine it's been to the e-commerce cohort who sponsor the podcast. So all the cohorts have sat in a hotel room. You've delivered your best keynote ever on seo. Yeah, the crowd's going crazy. Go, Kevin. Wow. Um, and you stand up, you take a bow and you do that thing that they do at the Oscars, which say, I would just like to thank, um, who would be on your list?
What? Would there be people, uh, a podcast, a book. Who, who would be on your list of, of people to thank.
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, so I think, um, I mean, when I first started there was definitely what I call the OGs of seo. So, um, people like Barry Adams and stuff were the reason that I got into SEO many, many years ago. And then I think more recently the people that have made me stay in SEO and keep motivating and stuff is, um, Martin MacDonald.
So he, uh, I work for an agency called MOG Media. Martin's the CEO of that agency. So, um, definitely him, but I think outside of that, a lot of it has just been, I'm honest, self-motivation because I wanna buy some land to not live near people. But, um, as bad as that sounds, that's, there's been, there's generally been lots of people I could sit here and thank, but a lot of it has also come down to late nights just learning, getting stuck into beds and stuff.
I wanna buy a field and build a house to not be near people.
Matt Edmundson: That, that's, uh, fair enough. I I totally get that. I, I wouldn't personally do it, but I, It's good to have a dream and a goal, right. Um, listen, Kevin, brilliant. How do people reach you? How do they get in touch if they want, If they want to do so?
Kevin Wiles: Yeah, sure.
So I'm on Twitter just at Kev Wiles, um, as my handle. Uh, I've got a LinkedIn profile, which is, uh, Kevin J. Wiles, uh, just on LinkedIn. Obviously my website, which is Kevin Wiles, And then the agency I work for, which is just mog.media, which is a enterprise, um, agency that has a SaaS platform coming up soon as well.
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic. We will of course, uh, link to all of those, uh, links in our show notes, and if you are subscribed to our email list, they will be coming to your inbox directly. If you're not subscribed to email list, subscribe. Uh, because you just get those things straight to your inbox. You don't even have to worry about it.
Right. Uh, so there you have it. What's a fantastic conversation. Thank Kevin. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much. I really appreciate you being here today. Uh, all good stuff. I'd like say I wish I had another two hours carry on this conversation. Uh, a big shout out to today's show sponsor the e-commerce cohort.
Do head on over to ecommercecohort.com for more information about this new type of community and membership, uh, which I really think you should check out. And, uh, join. Be sure to follow the e-commerce podcast wherever you get your podcast from because we've got some more great guests like Kevin, uh, lined up and I don't want you to miss any of them.
So subscribe, follow, I think follow is now the word we use, uh, because Apple Podcast ditched the word subscribe and changed it for follow. Anyway. Uh, in case no one has told you today, dear listener, you are awesome. Yes you are. It's just a burden that we all have to bear. Now, the E-Commerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media.
You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon, Josh Catchpole, Estella Robin and Tim Johnson. Our theme song was written by Josh Edmundson and my good self. And as I mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes, you can head over to the website ecommercepodcast.net, uh, where you can see them for free. And you can also sign up for the weekly newsletter that I mentioned and get all of this good stuff directly in your inbox totally free. Amazing. Yes, it is.
So that's it. A big thanks from me and also from Kevin. Thank you so much for joining us. Yeah, it's been brilliant, mate. Honestly, uh, we will see you next time. Have a great week wherever you are. That's it. Bye for now.