Question

I get a lot of applicants looking to join our team and we talk to a lot of people. During the feeling out process, I look for things that people say and tools they use to judge their real experience (because most of us are full of shit when talking about our skill level). I also look for trigger phrases. Two of those trigger phrases are: Content is King Top-rated content is around X amount of words If you never want to work for me, come at me with that when talking SEO. What are some phrases that you look for when talking to prospective new hires or hiring someone to take over your SEO work?  

Answer 1

I've watched all Of Chase Reiners videos  

Comments

If I had some rum in me I might have taken the bait, thumbs up given

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@bowyer673  

Answer 2

One thing that puts someone right out of the running: calling themselves an SEO Guru on their application. The End.  

Comments

Or ninja. or samurai. or rockstar

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@nila17365 exactly

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I've actually started seeing that trend, its weird

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I think it's been going a while now tbh. It's like people who declare "I'm crazy and wacky and fun fun fun! ". Fuck off and stay away from me is always my first reaction to those peeps.  

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Exactly, they should just say "been crushing it! "

Answer 3

All you need is good content to rank

Comments

It's true to a point when there's 0 competition. :v

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Haha yeh then you probably don't want to rank for it

Answer 4

Man, almost the entire SEO scene is full of either conspiracy theorists or fluff. Most of them talk nonsense and are fed by their hunger for money. They take on every client, and pump out the same shit as always hoping something sticks and book results. But yes, as @driftwood59058 said. We all do it differently. I personally don't look into phrases as I look at the person themselves. I have no issues training someone if I see the potential in the long run. It is your business, investing in longevity is a must. If the guy has no SEO experience but is eager to learn, and shows me that he hasn't been sitting on his ass. is Loyal, honest and transparant. Then Hell yeah, I'll mold him into EXACTLY what I need. If he is creative, even better! I'll gladly train employee members, and take on a beginner if it benefits me in the long run.  

Comments

@wagstaff been training a friend of mine who's a maths tutor. She's got the right logical brain and inquisitive nature.  

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@vanda I have no doubt she'll perform greatly, and hey if I can help her out tell her to send a pm! I'll gladly help people out if necessary!  

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@wagstaff I've got her doing redirects and planning URL structure and categories so far. No need to code for that, but it needs consistency and massive attention to detail.  

Answer 5

'Optimize your SEO'

Answer 6

If they say anything about DA, Neil Patel, Content is King, authority hacking, growth hacking, or utter the phrase "I don't like beer or scotch" I peace out.  

Comments

@boatload ^ This

Answer 7

I dont really care too much about experience more about attitude. I once ran a series of interviews and in each one asked the question: "we have four million pages how long would it take you to rewrite them all? " Gave the job to the guy that told me to "f*ck off! "

Comments

Omg that's funny

Answer 8

I’m an SEO 10 years sir will rank your page 1 in google

Comments

At least a . yellow flag.  

Answer 9

If they say “it depends” for every answer, hire them.  

Comments

And if they can suggest several ways to do something

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You're hired!  

Answer 10

Not so much trigger words, just people who project an air of authority because they think they have social currency to do so. I just admire people who share thoughts, ideas and data, who generally understand how things work, that's the spirit I saw when I first got involved in SEO. As for skill level, that technical understanding, a bit of ingenuity, good networking skills and a hefty budget is what to have! I suppose the trigger is pretense about themselves

Answer 11

Seriously though - who I’m looking for: “I’m a Google sheets project management expert who understands taxonomy, HTML, and proofreading. ”

Comments

@vershen43670 omg that's meeeee! Lol

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You forgot to add consumer psychology, UX and a strong commercial outlook  

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@vanda are you serious? Seriously PM me

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@vanda if u want lol. No joke hiring rn

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@vanda when can u start?  

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@vershen43670 I'm not looking for a job though.  I'm too busy with my own clients  

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@vanda not surprised. But let’s stay in touch. Maybe we can refine a better hiring system / criteria : )

Answer 12

Yeah but some of it is on companies not knowing what they’re hiring people for. Like hiring seo specialists and asking them to do ppc ads and have knowledge of it  

Comments

@roadway @majoriemajority this is typical LinkedIn recruiter territory.  

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Specialist in all three 18/hr now ask yourself if you’re a specialist in any one of these would you accept 18/hr only?  

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@roadway @majoriemajority "because you love computers" we'll also expect a bit of networking, hardware installation, database admin and you even get a personalised company screwdriver!  

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@vanda lol seen that too. So now we’re in 5 different skill sets  

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@vanda I’m good at a few things and great at a couple only because i grew up with computers but still rather have the best at every position and have them only handle work within those prospective positions and then collaborate as a whole team thats what builds healthy culture in a business. But still can’t image if i was just getting into this field being good at more then one thing!  

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@roadway @majoriemajority yeah me too. I've been desktop support, hardware engineer, project manager, DBA, software auditor, service manager, SEO, marketing manager, technical consultant. and all round geek. But I now just do SEO really well, and call on my past to put it all in context

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@vanda Nice  keep up the good fight!  

Answer 13

We are doing strictly white hat link building.  

Answer 14

But tell us @bowyer673. What SHOULD we put in there.  

Comments

Thats a creepy baby

Answer 15

Matts cutts was always my bitch

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@lamia4 go on.  

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Honestly. That’d get my attention lol

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@sabella you’d want to know more killer start to an interview the ultimate hook  

Answer 16

I challenge them to a ranking duel.  

Answer 17

And email that starts with “Dear”

Comments

@irritating or deer lol

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@roadway lol. oh shit, so true, ive actually gotten those

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@irritating me too, I get about 10 bs emails a day. Deer sir/mam I white hat link building guest opportunity. Lol

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Or Hey [first name]

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@irritating I got "Hey girl" today.  

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Or Dear Hiring Manager.  

Answer 18

Ninja or rockstar anything lol

Comments

@kyle6 what about ninja rockstars?  

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@kyle6 evangelist is my personal bug bear

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@bhili lol yes. The best is job postings where they are looking for an evangelist, guru, rockstar, ninja and the pay is 20 per hour.  

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@kyle6  it is the going rate for an evangelist/guru/ninja/rockstar/warrior. I believe Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Lee were on roughly about the same

Answer 19

«I don’t need to spend time on keyword analysis» would end the interview.  

Answer 20

Google says.  

Answer 21

@bowyer673 I ask for real world examples. show me what you’ve built, where do you rank, how’d you get there etc . I wanted to ask u something off topic. what Vid software are you using to create the cool background in your YouTube videos ? Thanks if you respond !  

Comments

@munger0 @kyle6 that's what I do as well, however you have to careful because this niche has jokers who like to claim things that are not true. And that's a green screen with WireCast or Zoom depending on how I'm streaming

Answer 22

For me, it’s more about what they don’t say when I ask. “A brand new client walks in the door tomorrow, you know nothing about them. What do you do & what tools do you use? ”

Answer 23

I had an online argument a few years back with an egotistical (naive) local businessman who had started offering SEO because he did it for his own business. He proudly bragged that he'd optimised his site for "best opticians in the world". I'm like. Right. So. Who's gonna travel from Dubai to come see Gary in Enfield for an eye test and some new glasses?  Seriously, dude.  

Comments

@vanda i might need glasses. Enfield hm?  

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Ego and SEO seem to go hand in hand with too many SEO's. There's a difference between being confident and straight-up cocky and egotistical that many would benefit if they learned that difference. Your story reminds me of someone I knew who thought they were ranking, but all they were seeing is their page on the 1st page since they clicked it so many times from their profile. Of course, checking it from any other location/device proved they weren't ranking, but they were so adamant and angry. thinking their "skills" got them there.  

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@kyle6 this guy actually hired work experience trainees to write blogs targeting the phrase "best opticians in the world". That's some seriously misguided technique there  

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@vanda  that's even worse! What an oversight! Some people just never learn or listen though.  

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Used to rank in the top 100 for "click here". Not even a vanity term! Wonder if the local businessman ever figured it out.  

Answer 24

Believe me now when I say if anyone uses the word Guru to me again, I am going run away.  

Comments

Even worse "Ninja"

Answer 25

If someone claims to be an SEO master, that is something which is a warning sign for me. If they aren't, and are willing to learn and claim they're still learning. My interest peaks

Comments

@boatload I swear to you a guy came and said he's amazing at ranking sites in a photography niche? I said how. He said social media Yes, I'm serious

Answer 26

Content Is King if you need to look busy doing things that don't matter.  

Answer 27

If they tell me that every scenario is different and theres no “one size fits all” solution.  

Comments

@decimate well that's me out then. This is exactly how I operate. Every client is unique.  

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@vanda me too . different industries are completely different, even related industries are different .  

Answer 28

So true. Content is king is my definitive ‘you don’t know what you’re talking about’ phrase. That and ‘keyword rich content’

Comments

Keyword rich content and stuffing can still work though.  I feel you though. I wouldn't want to hire someone who's focused on that.  
http://www.seoinvancouver.com/

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@kyle6 problem is when you ask them to define what they mean. normally they just heard the phrase somewhere or the recruitment agent told them to throw in some buzzwords

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@bhili bingo

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@kyle6 to be fair anything can work - put yourself in Google’s position, if all sites are incorrectly formatted (language tags, canonicalisation, header structures, content duplication, missing meta etc etc) it has to make a decision as to which is the ‘best of a bad bunch’

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I agree Peter. In this case of the site I linked. Do you think it's a case of "best of a bad bunch"?  

Answer 29

@bhili wins the prize for the best insight (PM me your address and I'll send you an SIA hat! ) "problem is when you ask them to define what they mean. normally they just heard the phrase somewhere or the recruitment agent told them to throw in some buzzwords" All to often the people out there selling SEO or trying to get gigs working as SEO's research the niche a bit and learn the common phrases or buzzwords. Then they follow the fake it till you make philosophy of life. The problem with this is, YOUR MESSING WITH PEOPLE'S BUSINESSES! Forget that you are taking money from them for what could only be measured as sub-standard work when compared to someone who really knows what they are doing. You hold that business's digital brand and existence in your hands. That brand puts food on people's tables. And if you're trying to get a job that has that level of responsibility, the least you can do is be honest. Now, I will hire new people, however, you have to bring at least ONE skill to the table. If you are stupid dope at image SEO, then let's go. If you are a madman at making IFTTT rings, let's do it. If you are the best outreach person there is because you're borderline stalker annoying, I'm game. What I don't hire is people who want to be handheld. @solanum can attest, if you tell me you can do something I tell you to do it and walk away, I am not a hand holder by any means. But I am more than willing to teach you new skills and ideas AS LONG AS YOU ARE WILLING TO DISCOVER SOME ON YOUR OWN. You have to imaginative in this business. And you have to be a problem solver. If you can't do those things, then you're out in my book. Anyway, that's how I do hiring for my staff and my personal agency.  

Comments

@bowyer673 am honoured sir! Thank you. Oh and I couldn’t agree more - the biggest failure of this industry is the lack of understanding of running a business - people have risked everything to get their businesses started and our job is to progress it further. I find it’s most telling in google ads management when agencies will a) just target the brand and claim the credit or b) think of someone spends £1, 000 and gets £2, 000 back that they’ve doubled the money for the client without any consideration for the cost of sale. SEO should be about integrity - building long term relationships by providing valuable return. Not just churning over clients who leave after 4-5 months because they don’t see results. The problem is those agencies affect the reputation of the industry as a whole, meaning we all become associated with snake oil sales!  

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@bowyer673 well said

Answer 30

"Do you know how to read server logs? " "Why would I need to read server logs? " "Get out. Now. "

Answer 31

With VAs I just ask random retarded questions about semrush (inner things) and scrapebox and I ask them why wanna work as VA rather than selling crap links on Fiverr?  

Answer 32

I have also asked if they could read and rewrite HTML code. I just ask random retarded questions like about div, header, footer, etc. A good one is if they know the difference between a parent and a child theme.  

Comments

I'm not able to write html codes from scratch. but I can do SEO just fine. :D

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@darien I agree about HTML and CSS but parent and child themes are a Wordpress specific (maybe some other platforms too) development issue. Not really anything to do with SEO.  

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@boatload yeah agree but with me, people need to maintain my wp sites. That's why

Answer 33

Make sure they aren't typing and it's a Skype conversation with sound and visual

Answer 34

A good hiring test for someone who claims to be an advanced SEO: Give them a Cora report and tell them to implement the on-page changes.  

Comments

@bowyer673 I have used this many times.  

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@bowyer673 this is gold!  

Answer 35

If I hear page rank it’s huge red flag

Comments

Why? I would say it would have to depend on the context they use it in.  

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It can mean they have an antiquated understanding, but yes it can be rectified depending on their understanding

Answer 36

Also I don’t like hearing ‘well it depends on the keyword difficulty’

Answer 37

I feel like people who don't know how to do SEO can tell you all the ways your site might get penalized but can't tell you how to actually improve rankings.  

Answer 38

Remember you can train knowledge but not enthusiasm

Answer 39

Context Is King Word Count is Relative to those Top Pages Analyzed

Comments

The problem with testing that hypothesis is that you don't know if your ranking improved because you improved your word count or because your KD increased or the relevance of your content improved through LSI and entity additions. I can tell you that Word count is the last thing I change when doing on page even after running Cora, POP, or SurferSEO and often times I never change it.  

Answer 40

Maybe this is my outdated knowledge showing, but what's wrong with "content is King? "

Comments

@vanda which means?  

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@throes414 it's cheesy. Lame. Cringey. The concept is valid, just not the phrase

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@vanda okay. tell it to me like I'm 5. When I say, "content is King, " I'm not talking about pumping out 700 articles in a month. I'm talking about 5-15 high quality articles that hit all the points.  

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Because content was never king. In a moderately competitive SERP, you can rank total trash or gibberish with enough good links. You can’t rank a good piece of content with no links or trash links.  

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@boatload good content gets links naturally. It was always important. Just because people gamed the system, didn't make them right

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@vanda not if nobody knows it exists.  

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Saying that is a strong signal the applicant has spent to much time reading SEO blogs rather than testing stuff for themselves.  

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Without content, there's no seo. So it is kinda true in a sense that content is king. I know a lot of people who thinks seo is installing yoast. And yet, they are generating lots of views. Could it be improved immensely with the proper seo strategy? Of course it could. The point is, if you are blindly pumping out content without even thinking of seo, the road will be much harder. But the statement content is king remains true, whatever what anybody says.  

Answer 41

Hmm. I'll actually accept a word count estimate, but be fully prepared to defend your assertion with data to prove your point. And perhaps a hat tip to diversity of content types and the fact the right answer will vary by topic. (in my world, you can spout whatever bullshit floats your goat as long as you can defend it)

Answer 42

I simply ask for sites they say they have optimized, pull up "SEO Meta in 1 Click" and check basic elements of on-page SEO (URL, Title, H1 - H6 Tags, Alt tags, file names, etc. ) and 99% of the time they fail. Its sad and requires us train people who think they already know what they're doing. Words are less valuable. But if I were to rely on words, I would ask which SEO professionals they follow and what shows and blogs they consume. If they say "Rand Fishkin, Neil Patel or Brian Dean", they would be immediately disqualified.  

Comments

But you are not just accepting people who are following @grizzly ;-)

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@grizzly problem with the first technique is the client often "dabbled" after the SEO SEOd it

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@grizzly if they can't do basic SEO they don't deserve to be trained to be a real seo simple as that.  

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@disputable4 Then I guess we don't deserve to have any employees because we can't afford the people that are super good. So we have no other option but to train people.  

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@grizzly when I mean basic SEO I mean looking up h1 tags using SEO 1 click. I'm all for training novice seos since I was one and technically still am in some areas of SEO. I'm just against the people who apply for SEO gigs and lie that they know SEO but haven't even bothered to do some leg work on their own blog or similar projects.  

Answer 43

When someone opens with “Hello dear”

Comments

@mast95101  

Answer 44

We have a filter that automatically trashes applications that have "guru", "ninja", or "wizard" in them.  

Answer 45

If they talk about PAGE RANK then the conversation is over. But if they mention LINK JUICE, I'll start to listen closely.  

Answer 46

The one who say "i do article submission and rank the site"  

Answer 47

@bowyer673 - just ask them 'What SEO test have you run and what were the results? ' - it shows how they think and that they like data :-)

Comments

That's actually a great tester, good way to find people who like to challenge things.  

Answer 48

Dear sir/madam  

Answer 49

I remember running into a fellow SEO at the bar once, and asked him about mobile optimization. he proceeded to pull out his phone and show me the mobile sites he built on GoMobi. This guy had years of experience on me and tons of clients  I was blown away. he knew nothing about the inner workings of SEO and what really makes it click (at least in present day SEO. He was stuck in the past it seems). So now, whenever I talk to an SEO "professional" - I ask them about how they handle mobile performance and optimization. Clear and easy way to tell who knows their shit and who doesn't.  

Comments

@stun93 Im eager to know what is the latest go to seo technique for mobile optimization. Care to share? :)

Answer 50

I normally say tell me exactly how you would rank this, I've got all day to listen. If Im then told: great content, quality links, post engaging content in social they are gone. save the fluff for your future speak I want nuts and bolts

Comments

@majoriemajority Whyte Jeeez bit harsh lol. That's an intro to the nuts and bolts.  

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@vanda no time for BS. I do the same for my devs and system admins. I'm nice about it and them not doing stuff I like isn't a guaranteed no hire either, but I gotta see the goods  

Answer 51

When they give you a response from something they found on a moz 101 seo pdf  

Answer 52

That guy probably had lots of clients because he built pretty websites and not because he got them customers.  

Answer 53

I can understand how those statements might trigger you since they are constantly regurgitated by people, but I don't think there's any good reason to assume none of these people have any clue what they are talking about. First of all, if you're working with a client who has a solid domain rank already, content is in fact where the focus should be. I've been able to increase overall organic traffic for one of my clients from 100/day to over 1, 200/day in a relatively short time period by focusing on nothing more than creating highly optimized blog articles on a regular basis. So in that particular case, yes content is King. For $2k/mo I'm making them more than their $30k/mo ad spend and just landed them a $2M a client with a simple "content is King" mindset, so just because it makes you cringe to hear it doesn't mean it's the wrong strategy in all cases. Secondly, there are plenty of studies that discuss the correlation between article length and things like first page rankings, shareability, user engagement, etc. (Ex: ) So if you refuse to work with somebody who talks about optimal blog post length and you don't even bother to ask them why they came to that conclusion, you're doing nothing more than allowing your own bias to limit the people you work with. These two statements alone provide literally zero insight into how skilled a person is in the field of SEO. If you bothered to ask some of these people to elaborate on the subject you just might find one or two of them aren't total idiots and may in fact know a thing or two about a thing or two. But hey, you do you!  
https://torquemag.io/2018/04/optima...ngth/

Comments

I will do me, its been working very well for me

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For 20K a month I'm making them over a Mil a month and 99% of the pages have less that 200 words on them with one picture. in SEO, content isn't shit if you know what you're doing.  

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Sorry that image isn't accurate, here is the sites traffic right now

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@bowyer673 ecom or?  

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@millner Just trying to make sense of what both of you are saying, I don't think @bowyer673 is saying that content is not important. He's saying, and regularly proves that content is not King. So while good content is effective, there are other strategies that are even more effective. It seems to me that by you shutting down Clint's postulation on this, you are limiting your ability to expand your horizons and learn new techniques that are even more important than good content. Does that make sense?  

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@grizzly to be clear, I'm absolutely not trying to imply other strategies aren't as effective, or even more effective. And I'm not trying to imply in any way @bowyer673 doesn't know what he's doing, I'm sure he does. I was really only trying to play devil's advocate here with regards to the potential downsides of completely dismissing a person for nothing more than making a statement you don't agree with. I believe that is something we can all find ourselves doing from time to time, but that is in and of itself a limiting practice. Different projects can benefit from different strategies, and while I would agree that generally speaking if someone I was interviewing made one of these statements, I would not be impressed. But I wouldn't completely dismiss them altogether until I've let them explain their reasoning, and definitely not before looking at some of their previous work and actually discussing their strategy. I would argue that using either of these two statements alone as a disqualifier for any job is what is truly limiting. "Expanding your horizons" usually involves being able to look past the inherent bias one might have and realizing that even if 99% of the time you are correct in the assumptions you have about a person, that other 1% is surely worth exploring and hearing someone out.  

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@bowyer673 I wish you could tell me more, but I understand why you probably can't. I am curious though, do you think you'd be able to provide relatively similar results on a smaller budget of $2k-$3k or does your strategy require a $20k-ish budget in order to be effective? Obviously the results wouldn't be as drastic on 10% of the budget, but could you achieve something along the lines of 10% of the results of the $20k budget? I only ask, because I'm curious if your strategy would adapt much if a client had a smaller budget, and whether or not content might play a greater role within that strategy if it did.  

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A local site will never get that traffic, unless of course they post an image of them trophy hunting in Africa, then they might get it lol. But you can certainly get similar results in local as that local search volume allows, which is what drives my pricing. If there is only 4K a month in targeted traffic then I'll charge what is required to capture it.  

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@bowyer673 I once had a client who had a smokehouse and specialised in making artisan pork products - bacon, gammon, sausages etc. They didn’t want to spend much, so we held their hand, built them a new site with a clean structure and simple UX. we were keen to set their expectations correctly according to their budget, and informed them we would be targeting the smaller, more specific, less competitive niches at first - choosing our battles wisely - going for product they sell such as ‘pork and black pudding sausages’ rather than generic terms which are dominated by supermarkets with £200k/mth digital budgets. the site went live and on day 3 the clients ‘digital marketing manager’ sent an email that read “I’ve just searched the word sausages and we’re nowhere near the top! ” ‍♂️

Answer 54

Anything that includes the word "whitehat".  

Answer 55

Would you accept "Content is King, and I don't believe in monarchies. "

Answer 56

"This is how data shows" , "Money and time" :)

Answer 57

Secret sauce would be the one that would be a deal breaker

Answer 58

PS content is king , rite daurn gud youll get rewardedd

Answer 59

What you do @bowyer673.  

Comments

@bowyer673 so overall Cora is like a SOP for on page ?  

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@hysterics sort of, think of it more like a double check on your implementation. It also might catch gaps you missed.  

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@bowyer673 cool.  

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@bowyer673 does POP count as well?  

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That's a good one to catch people claiming to be general SEO's. I gave one a POP report and he came back and asked me what an H tag was.  

Answer 60

Yankees or Red Sox? Is my go to .