SEO Office Hours
Every Friday at 9:30 a.m. (GMT), we run SEO Office Hours aimed at helping people with their SEO and organic traffic problems. It’s a questions-and-answers format with somebody from Good Signals and special guests. It’s free to join or submit a question. We won’t always know all the answers, but hopefully, multiple heads thinking about each problem will help. It’s good practice for those trying to answer and a valuable learning opportunity for those asking.
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Don’t worry; this is a safe space. We will not share your name, business, or website URLs during the call without your permission.
Office Hours
Watch live on Friday at 9:30 am (GMT)
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Most recent SEO Office Hours
Questions discussed
They discussed the following questions:
• Tips for submitting work for an Award
• SEO for brands impacted by Safe Search
• Handling YMYL issues to qualify under safe search
• How to keep content EEAT compliant
• Free tools to analyse search ranking
• www vs. non www URLs
• Keeping websites ranking well when there's a Google update
• Review Schemas and Knowledge Panels
• Handling negative SEO
About Crystal Carter and Ulrika Viberg
Joining Michael Chidzey and Jo Turnbull on Friday 1st December 2023 for SEO Office Hours was Crystal Carter and Ulrika Viberg.
For those of you who don't know Crystal...
Crystal is currently the Head of SEO Communications at Wix, where she helps people get results with SEO and digital marketing strategy. Among hosting many webinars and podcasts, she is also a regular speaker at events in the digital marketing community, with some of her most recent speaking engagements including International Search Summit in Barcelona and Brighton SEO in the UK!
For those of you who don’t know Ulrika….
Ulrika is the founder and senior consultant of SEO agency DIGITAL UNIKORN AB, who work with a range of B2B and B2C e-commerce sites to achieve their organic search goals by adopting a user-centric SEO approach. She has an in-depth knowledge of all things Technical SEO and has been working in search since 2007. Ulrika is also a frequent speaker at digital marketing events all over the world, most recently including Brighton SEO and SEO Vibes Dubai!
Questions discussed
They discussed the following questions:
• Why do you and your guests focus on Google?
• Are news wires worth it anymore?
• I have thousands of 404 pages. I've added these URLs to my robots.txt file with the disallow directive. Is this good practice? Will Google percieve my website as unhealthy?
• What does the perfect SEO landing page look like?
• Migrated website: should we get external links updated?
• We miss Google Consumer Surveys, what other options are there for link building stories?
• What sample size is required for a PR stats?
• My website was affected by a Goolgle update, what are the top things I should check to identify the problem?
• Does the amount of code on a page matter?
• How do you get journalists to include links?
• Is it recommended to naturally encompass link building and digital PR into your SEO strategy?
• How do you get your story in front of a journalist?
• Does the data collected by Google Chrome have any impact on ranking a website?
About Kerstin Reichert and Andy Barr
Joining Michael Chidzey and Jo Turnbull on Friday 24th November 2023 for SEO Office Hours was Kerstin Reichert and Andy Barr.
Passionate about the internet, digital marketing, and helping businesses grow, Kerstin currently leads as the Head of Marketing at SeedLegals. Prior to that, she was the SEO Manager at Fintech Business Bank Tide and TSB Bank. Kerstin actively participates on judging panels for various industry awards, co-authored the best-selling book 'Mastering In-House SEO,' is a sought-after conference speaker, and serves as one of LinkedIn Learning's SEO and Digital Marketing course instructors.
If you haven’t met Andy yet, you’ll probably recognise him as the go-to person for various TV channels whenever a PR or crisis communications expert is needed. Andy is the chief executive of the award-winning PR and digital marketing agency 10 Yetis Digital, which has made a name for itself by developing and delivering creative and attention-grabbing campaigns that generate traffic, views, coverage, and links for their clients. Andy regularly speaks at conferences worldwide on topics such as PR, video, social media, and SEO. Additionally, he contributes to publications like The Drum, The Guardian, Vice, and many others.
Questions discussed
They discussed the following questions:
• Google Search Console says I rank number one for many terms, but I don't see it when I search.
• Do links (your website and local publications) pointing to your Google My Business profile help?
• Author stamps at the bottom of commercial pages. Is that want Google considers to be EAT signals?
• What should be the first thing to do when you start a new SEO project?
•Topics for my category pages (Pet Industry)
• Should I update pages or make new ones?
• I want to rank for 'Wedding Planner Manchester'. Should I focus on optimising the About Us page?
• My product pages rank for transactional keywords. What happens if the product is out of stock?
• Do links pointing to unindexed pages count?
• Is Google Australia just really behind?
• How critical are reviews to local rankings?
• How can I do AB testing for my website regarding SEO?
About Paddy Moogan and Claire Carlile
Joining Michael Chidzey and Jo Turnbull on Friday 17th November 2023 for SEO Office Hours was Paddy Moogan and Claire Carlile.
One of the nicest people in digital marketing, Paddy is co-founder and CEO of Aira, a digital marketing agency based in Milton Keynes. Aira specialises in SEO, paid media, content marketing and marketing automation, and works with clients in the UK, US, Europe, and Australia. Previously, Paddy was VP of the London office of Distilled.
A real local SEO specialist, Claire Carlile is BrightLocal's Local Search Expert. Her work at Claire Carlile Marketing, where she helps businesses of all sizes make the most of the local search opportunity, allows her to provide real-world skills and expertise to what BrightLocal does.
Questions discussed
They discussed the following questions:
• Is buying a website with a large backlink profile and redirecting it to our website a good strategy?
• Are newswires worth it anymore?
• I have been working in the local service/home improvement niche for the last 3 years. How should I structure our location/service area pages for rankings and conversions?
• How to strike a balance between informative content and commercial content in our blog post strategy?
• Why is Google overwriting meta descriptions for so many websites? It seems like there's only a 40% chance of your meta descriptions being displayed.
• What is the best strategy for local rankings? + How do I start ranking for terms like "bar in Farringdon"?
• How to encourage happy customers to review your business?
• Is it really necessary to include keywords in both the title tag and meta description?
• We know that we are going to launch a website next year (and the plan is to change it drastically). Should we hold off doing anything SEO until after that?
• How long will a website migration take?
• Does the location of your website's server matter? Does it matter what country your website is located? e.g. target audience is in the UK but the server is in the US.
About Natalie Slater
Joining Michael Chidzey and Jo Turnbull on Friday 10th November 2023 for SEO Office Hours was Natalie Slater.
Natalie is an experienced freelance SEO consultant who has worked both in-house and agency side before becoming an independent consultant. Natalie's expertise covers various areas, including strategy, technical aspects, off-page optimisation, and content, and has worked across various verticals. You can connect with Natalie on LinkedIn.
Questions discussed
They discussed the following questions:
• We've purchased a new, brandable domain. How can I quickly boost my Domain Authority?
• We are a health tech startup helping dental providers enhance their online presence. We've noticed that Google doesn't display the meta descriptions we enter into the search results snippet but generates its own. Do you know why?
• If I restore deleted pages with the same content, will they rank again?
• I've been informed that we have 938 external links pointing to broken pages on our website. What should I do?
• I want to divide one website into two separate sites. I wish to retain some content on one domain, but there are pages I'd like to transfer to another site while maintaining the same branding and structure, etc. Besides implementing 301 redirects for the relocated pages and posts, are there any other considerations to avoid losing rankings?
• I'm collaborating with a new web agency based in India that will also handle SEO. What questions should I regularly ask them?
• Numerous pages on the website receive little or no traffic. Does this negatively affect SEO?
• I'm preparing to launch a business. Which should I prioritize – developer, designer, or SEO?
• I have a highly popular website, and it primarily receives organic traffic. Users go deep into the conversion funnel, but when it's time to provide their payment details, they abandon the process. What should I do?
• Website traffic and rankings experienced a drop after the recent core update. What defines high-quality content? How does Google discern what users are seeking?
• Could having a significant number of no-indexed URLs impact rankings?
• How can a small business rank effectively when competing against larger organizations with ample resources for SEO?
• Does it matter if I have pages without internal links pointing to them?
• Regarding changing domains: does migrating domains affect rankings?
About SEO Jo Blogs
Joining Michael Chidzey on Friday 3rd November 2023 for SEO Office Hours was Jo Juliana Turnbull, known across the industry as SEO Jo Blogs.
Jo is the founder of the remote digital marketing consultancy Turn Global. She established Search London 13 years ago, an event that has since become a cornerstone in the SEO community. This year, Jo launched Search Barcelona. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Jo organised Turn Digi virtual events, where there was a diverse range of speakers, allowing search marketing professionals from all over the world to stay connected and informed during a time of uncertainty. Additionally, Jo serves as a mentor, judge, and a sought-after speaker, sharing her wealth of knowledge and insights at various industry events, conferences, and seminars.
