Why SEO Is Not Just About Search Engines But Better Websites

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
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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.