Featuring Stephen Aidoo
In this episode of Colours of Social Media, we dive deep into the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) with our special guest, Stephen Aidoo, a renowned SEO expert and industry thought leader. Stephen shares his invaluable insights, strategies, and tips on unravelling the mysteries of SEO and boosting your online visibility.
[0:00] Hi, this is Enoch, and before I start with this episode, I want to thank you for tuning into Colours of Social Media podcast every week. And the feedback that you give, they go a long way to help me produce awesome episodes. And for that, I want to thank you. If you are new to this show, Colours of Social Media podcast is the podcast for digital marketers and small businesses who want to utilize the power of digital in their marketing efforts. If you love what you are hearing and you want to support, share this episode with your network.
[0:32] They go a long way to help me. Thank you once again. Now, let's get the ball rolling. Welcome back to Colours of Social Media. I'm thrilled to have you join us today for an episode that delves deep into the realm of online visibility and digital success. I'm your host, Enoch RobotBoy, Appiah Jr., and in this installment, I'm going to unlock the secrets behind a digital strategy that's both an art and a science, search engine optimization, or SEO.
[1:11] Whether you're a seasoned marketer or a small business owner, understanding SEO is crucial in today's digital landscape. It is the key to unlocking higher search engine rankings, attracting more organic traffic, and ultimately growing your business. To get us through this intricate landscape, we have a special guest with us today, Steven Ado. An expert in the field of SEO who has helped businesses of all sizes skyrocket their online presence.
[1:41] Together, we'll be embarking on a journey to uncover the fundamentals of SEO. We'll explore the nitty-gritty details, break down complex strategies into manageable steps, and learn how a small business can harness the power of SEO to ride through the ranks of search engine results. So, whether you are eager to grasp the basics of SEO, looking to optimize your website for better rankings, or aiming to stay ahead of the ever-evolving digital curve, you are in for a treat. Get ready to take notes, because we are about to demystify the world of search engine optimization and equip you with the insights you need to shine brightly in the digital realm. Without further ado, let's jump right into the conversation with Steven Ado and unlock the secrets of search engine optimization.
[2:37] Okay, so Steven, thank you once again for joining me on Kaleso Sushamiya podcast. It's also my pleasure to be part of this podcast. I hope it becomes very powerful.
[2:46] You get more people to listen to us. Yeah, so let's get it on. Awesome, awesome. So basically, I mean, let's start with the general overview of search engine optimization, because it has become the topic of town. People, a lot of people are talking about SEO here and there, left and right. So I want you to give us the brief overview of what SEO is, and why is it essential for businesses? All right. So once again, I'm Steven Ado, I'm an SEO specialist. I've been into it for quite some time now. I can say yes now.
[3:23] So you're talking about SEO. You know, SEO, there is that academic part. And to me, there's also the practical part. The academic part is when I say academic, that is what is always being explained or defined online. Like you go online, you search for SEO, which is search engine optimization. And then most of the time has been defined as the, it's a set of strategies and practices that help websites and online content rank higher in search engine resource pages.
[3:59] Or you can say, cut it short and say SERPs. So that is the academic part. Yeah, it is just a strategy or practices that we use to rank our content higher on search engine resource pages.
[4:14] But then there's also the practical part. Let's put it there now. Let's put it there like this. It's just the strategies that we use to boost images of websites to higher ranks on the search engine resource pages. So Steven, talking about this strategy, when eventually you affect these strategies for your website, do they only reflect on just one particular search engine or a sort of a reflex on, let's say, Google Bing, Dab Dab Go, all these search engines out there. Okay, so it's a two-edged sword. So you can decide to create a website and then submit your site map to Google, which is the main one. And then as time goes on, I don't know how they do it, but Bing and other search engines will come and crawl your website if you have a robot text on your page, which allows all search engines to come on your page.
[5:20] Most of the time, they will come and crawl your page and they will have it. But it is more prudent if you submit your site map to most of the top search engines, like Bing, like Yahoo, like Google, which is a giant. So I think the best way is to, or the process is to, after you've learned the website, you set up your site map, then you submit your site map to the top search engines.
[5:50] With this question, those two parts, that is, why is it essential for businesses? But see, let me put that question onto the site. With what you are saying, right, you've made mention of a technical term here that is site maps. You mentioned it three times I counted. So I think it is such an essential term here that I will want you to explain it to our listeners. What are site maps? All right. All right. So, so site map is a certain, okay, site map is just a file. Okay. In a layman's term, it's just a file, just like a text file, or is this a file on your website? So most of the time they are in XML format. When I see XML, you know we have extensions like .txt, which is a text file that we type on, or Microsoft Word, which is also another .dox, and then we have Excel, which is .xmlx. Now, site map is XML. So XML is some sort of syntax. So should I see, it's some sort of element that we use to describe pages and their URLs in a file, which is saved on the website so that the Google, when the search engines come to your website, they will assemble all your pages on that simple, simple, single file, and they will have all the list of all the URLs on your website, and then you can know. So you don't have to always come and crawl. So if you don't have a site map on your website, then it means Google is going to take more time to crawl on all the pages. Then Google is going to use what we call internal links. So if you have internal links and you don't have a site map, the only way Google is going to use to get to other pages is to use internal links. But when you have your site map, your site map is the map of the entire content, the pages, and everything on that single file. So Google will come to that page and then see all the pages on that site map file, and they need to pull all those pages, the links, and then those pages into its database. So now it has to just look through the site map and then come to your page. Okay, Stephen, if I get you in, let me, I'm trying to explain site maps, right?
[8:12] Just as you said, okay, they are files, right? But then the extension is XML, right? So you save it as .xml, right? And in this file, you have your links, links to the various pages of your website, whether about, whether your shopping website, whether your contact web page, you have these names there, the links there, then the description of these pages on the same file, right? And the job that Google will do when it gets into your website is that instead of crawling, looking through the various pages of your website, Google would rather pick this file and read it. And it is faster for Google, for Google to rank your page, right?
[9:07] Exactly. So if I should come in again, for your website to be ranked at a faster rate, the best strategy is to, after the website is launched, you just have to create your site map.
[9:26] Okay, so let's put these two scenarios. We have Stephen and Enoch, who are trying to create two websites. Stephen's website, there's no site map within the first month. And then Enoch's website, there's a site map. So within the first month, Stephen's website will not be seen by Google, because Google doesn't know anything about Stephen's websites. Google doesn't know anything, unless maybe Google calls on somebody's website and there's an external link on that page that we are seeing, then we will take that external link and then come to Stephen's website.
[10:01] So that is the only way that Google is going to use to see Stephen's website. However, once you create your own site map, you're supposed to submit it to Google. So once you submit it to Google Search Engine, now Google has your database or has you in your database. So you know that, okay, now Enoch's website is available. So when I'm going around searching for websites, I already have their name. So I'll come back to your page. Then there's another thing, you see site maps to, after you've described all the links on the page, you also have to describe the time that you want Google to come back and search whether you have another article or any other content that you've published. So you can decide if you want to publish daily, you can tell Google to come to your page daily. But you have to be careful because if you say you want Google to come to your page daily and then Google comes and doesn't find any new thing on your page, after the first and the second time, Google will not be coming back and to go back to it before time, like weekly. So unless maybe, so this is something that I really like because if you want to create a news agency, site maps is very essential because news, you know, newsages is always published news. So whoever is doing the SEO have to make sure that the site map is done right in terms of the time. So there's a syntax that they use called last modified and they change frequency. So it's a change frequency that we use to tell Google whether we should come daily or weekly or monthly. And this is on the site map. It's sort of like a code on the site map also.
[11:42] Yes, that is the XML that I'm talking about. And it's not difficult. It's just a simple thing. Like, so on the site map, if this was visual, visual, I would have shown, but on the site map, let me try to use the better way to describe it. So on the site map, we have an element called URL. Okay, so inside the URL, there we have the location. So inside the location, that's where you put the location of that specific page that you want Google to come for. And then inside the same URL, you're also going to have the last modified. Last modified means the last time that that content was modified. That is a date. So the site map is supposed to save that thing there. Then we have another one called change frequency is the change frequency that you're supposed to put it there as daily or weekly. And the good news is, you see, you're not supposed to create a site map ourselves. Okay, now there are there are tools that there are tools that you can use to create your site maps. When you create a website, you can use if it's a WordPress, if it's a WordPress platform, you can just install some of the powerful sitemap plugins, like good page sitemap, you also have like, even when you go to WordPress plugins, and they just pay for sitemap, you see a lot of sitemaps. So most of the time, what I do is the ones that have been downloaded more and has been, should I say proven to be good, you know, they read them. So you see the one that has more ratings, I use that one. Okay, this work is easy, you can just use less than a minute to install your sitemap. All right, thanks. Thanks. Now, when the sitemap came in, that was in the direction of this conversation. But then the mention of sitemap, it's like, yeah, it's sort of click something in me. So I have a little bit of chat. Exactly. We had to dive in deeper. And you've done justice to that one, too. Yeah, thanks. Alright, so why is SEO as a shell for businesses? Because, come on, businesses are doing too much online. Why should they dedicate resources for SEO? Okay, so with this question, I would like to answer it with a scenario. Okay, then after the scenario, then maybe because I like to, most of the time, answer questions with stories, this out of story that really has the understanding.
[14:07] So let's still use the same example that I use. Steve, okay, so let's say, this time, I'm going to make Steven do the best than enough. All right, I can give you all the credit. All right. So this time Enoch has two websites. Enoch is an academic person. He learned, he's into, let's say, he did literature, he knows how to speak black, like he's very good, and he can articulate the words and the sentences and everything. So he don't think that, oh, you're just going to write articles on his website and then get more people to come. So Enoch started writing articles on his website. Enoch launched his website and everything.
[14:55] He did his, let's say Enoch did his sitemap, and then he started writing articles and everything. So Enoch used academic strategy, which is, oh, you know, academics, when you write, when they tell you to write an article, it's a little bit more, should I say, book, technical, you know, book long. Yeah, so Enoch wrote all the English, all the ways that he's supposed to put it, put it into his article. Made it very long, very good, very technical for all the top technical aspects to really like the article. But after some time, okay, let me, let me hold on there. And then Steven also launched his website. However, Steven is not all that academic into literature and all those good grammar and all those things, but Steven knows, Steven knows SEO. So Steven, after submitting his sitemap, now Steven used all the description of the SEO that we talked about as the strategies. So Steven used all the SEO strategies. So now I'm going to mention some of the strategies here. Steven used what we call title optimization, description optimization, what we call thin contents. He didn't put thin content. He did his keyword research well. He did all his, exactly, exactly. Yeah. So I'm just making a very short thing. So this story is Steven, Steven was able to put all the strategies that an SEO is supposed to put in his article. Even though Steven's article wasn't all that articulated in terms of good English and good ways and all that. But after two weeks, Steven's article went to number three on Google's position and then Enoch's website was nowhere to be found. Yeah. Now the key strategy here was while Enoch was just writing about anything that he was interested in. So I'm going to take a topic now. Let's say Steven and Enoch wanted to write about, let's say, how to be a good parent. Okay. Now, Enoch went and did all his research and then brought all the quality information that you're supposed to get from the library and then wrote a very nice, powerful, splendid article. However, the article wasn't nowhere to be found because he didn't put in all the strategies that he was looking for. So Google couldn't find that article. However, Steven just made some research about how to be a good parenting. The top 10 articles that have already been written about how to be a good parenting took out all those things that they were using, assembled them all together, and then came out with a better one of what these people had written. Did all this keyword well, and then we did three weeks. Steven's article came to number three. Now, Steven also didn't stop there. Steven also did what we call traffic optimization. So out of the, let's say, the title, how to be a good parent. You saw that if you can articulate more words into the title, like maybe Steven got to know that, okay, people are searching for best parenting strategies instead of how to be a good parent. Steven saw that there's a keyword that says best parenting strategies that was hitting more traffic. So Steven said, okay, if best parenting strategies was giving traffic of 10,000 pages per month, Steven involved with serving to that keyword, and only that keyword was driving Steven 10,000 pages every month.
[18:44] So Enoch didn't know anything about SEO, so Enoch's website was very good. It was hanging there, but Steven's, because he knew SEO, he moved out the ladder. So if you ask me, why is SEO important? SEO is important because, essentially, SEO is essential because when you learn SEO, Google is the one that drives all the traffic. Now, before Google will come to your website, Google knows all the keywords. So if those keywords are on your page or are on your content, Google will bring them out. So SEO means you place the right keywords on your content for Google to see.
[19:25] Moving on, right, I want us to discuss the evolution of SEO. How has it evolved over the years? And what are some of the key trends we are seeing in the field today?
[19:39] I started SEO around 2006 to 2007. Okay. That was when I came out, and then I was actually a software developer. And then I started with websites. And then with websites, I decided, okay, if I created a website, at that time I had this website called Best Game Fishing, which I've sold. And then Best Game Fishing, I had to optimize it. It was a website that was selling fishing products, kay, like kayaks and all those tools that we used to catch fishing.
[20:14] Yeah. So I was writing, that was when I started learning about SEO. And then at that time, it was very easy to rank your content. All you have to do was you just write an article that you put what we call keyword stuffing. You just have to put a lot of keywords on your page, just a nice content with a lot of keywords on the page, and then Google would just come for it.
[20:38] So it was very easy to rank your article. So, and then as time goes on, then Google saw that, okay, people were cheating, people were using strategies to get their articles up, which were not good articles. The content was very bad, but you see you write a very good article, but someone needs bad content to retweet you. So that was when the evolution of SEO started.
[21:03] So that's what Google started coming out with updates, like what we call Panda, like what we call a whole lot of Google's updates that Google did. So there was a point in time every month, Google was just giving us updates. There's one called Home in Bread. So what we did was we were able to, I mean, had to click and then learn through all the updates. Like there will be an update that will only tackle spam, link spam. There was a time that people were just creating links, a whole lot of backlinks, which was very bad. So there are more backlinks that you had pointing to your website. Google will push it up. Then Google said, no, now he's going to punish people who are putting a lot of backlinks onto their page. So now Google brought in what we call time. So you have to put in time between the links. So you cannot create maybe, let's say, more than five links within three days. And up to now, most people do it, they create websites, and within a week, they will be just doing backlinks, backlinks. And then before they know, their website will be hit by Google and their website, the page will start falling, and they don't understand how come your pages or your keywords are falling.
[22:17] You have to know what we call trust flow. And then source like trust flow means the backlinks that are hitting your pages, the time limit between them, you lose very, what I call organic.
[22:30] It has to be organic. It has, somebody has to link to you. So me, for instance, now, nowadays, I don't even invest all my time in backlinks. What I've seen is when you write quality article, and then the article start to get enough traffic, somebody will link to you.
[22:46] Because Google has, Google has done something we call ecosystem of links. When you create an article, you don't link somebody's quality article, your article will not even move up. So that sort of ecosystem is helping people to, yeah, exchange backlinks.
[23:02] So I was there, somebody even linked to my page. And that, that article was very strong, very quality article. And then when I just recognized that, okay, because I put in so much hours into that article, the person saw the keyword and then also linked to it.
[23:16] So he's going to get that trust flow. I'm also going to get that trust flow. So all these are some of the Google updates that were coming up that were hitting our pages.
[23:26] And as time went on, this evolution made us learn more. So the time will come. So even up to this stage now, we have high quality AI evolution in SEO. So I can say, yes, I can say two years ago, when you use AI to generate an article, Google will find a way to kill you. The website will just go down. I remember the first time I saw AI articles, it wasn't even up like this. And then I was just using the AI to write, I wrote about 10 articles, put it on my website. And then after two weeks, my website just kicked out. And then it was like, oh my God, I have to go and delete all those articles. And then after some time, charge EBT in May, and then even the first one charge EBT in May, it was still not working.
[24:15] We're doing it and it wasn't working. We had to write an article sending to online tools, which was going to check how strong the AI was. So what we're doing was we're just trying to use other tools to make it look more natural. So charge EBT will write an article, then we'll fuse in more other strategies for it to look more natural. But now it's like Google has been put into a corner that they have to accept AI. So now their algorithm has been down so much that now it's even assessing AI articles. And as I'm talking to you, I've written articles with AI that has even generated more traffic for me and Google is accepting it because I'm just still following the same guidelines that Google is using just to read that level. So the evolution is, it started with back linking and then 10 content and then Google started issuing updates. And then as time goes on, the rules were becoming difficult and difficult up to this level that now it's even more difficult to rank an article. You just have to get it right. You just have to get all the updates right.
[25:27] So it looks like Google is driving because you see, just as I've displayed it on YouTube, it looks like Google is driving SEO because they have the biggest market share when it comes to search.
[25:39] Sure. Yes. But the whole thing is, even though Google is driving SEO, the ecosystem, most people are not using derivative AI to write articles. Okay.
[25:53] So Google has no choice than to accept it. You just have to make sure that whatever that, the prompt that you put in is very strong. It tackles the article or the content or the subject that you are talking about in so many ways. And then that is when Google is going to really take you serious because you can't just go to charge a video and throw that to YouTube, write you an article about a certain subject and then you just go and paste it there.
[26:22] No, no, no, no, no. You still have to do all that. You still have to do all the necessary meeting with you that Google is required of you to do.
[26:30] Correct. Correct. All right. We've been talking about SEO, right? And one word keeps on coming back. That is keywords. So let's talk about keywords. Can you explain how businesses should go about choosing the right keywords for their content?
[26:47] Okay. So with this, with all the years that I spent. So the first thing is you have to, you have to look at what you want to achieve. Okay. Now, at first I didn't know. Yeah. What you want as a business, as a business, your business logic, your, your, your, your key ways, your business logic should determine the kind of keywords that you want to write about.
[27:12] So let me give another example. This time we're going to use a different, different example. Let's say you want to sell watches. Okay. So you've contacted somebody in China who wants to bring ship you some watches. Let's say you want to start with a hundred pieces of watches. Maybe you've gone to Alibaba or Alia Express of this stock, this Chinese companies.
[27:34] And then you said to ship in a hundred watches to start your business. So you want to start it with a website. And then, um, the question is, are you going to write about watches?
[27:49] Are you going to, I just went to write about the watches that, uh, your business partner is going to give you or your supply is going to give you, or you are going to write about a specific topic that is going to drive you, uh, traffic. So let me give the scenario. So you have your watches, let's say you selling Casio watches, but you've learned the website and everything you've launched casio.com. And then, uh, you brought in the watches, you've launched your, uh, e-commerce system and everything is on point. Your website looks nice. Everything looks, it's looking splendid.
[28:25] Now the next thing is you're going to have to drive traffic. Okay. So you need key ways. Yeah. Yeah. Most people, the right, the, the one way is you, you can just decide to write about Casio, uh, watches, but maybe that is a brand double keyword. And when I say brand double keywords, it means that that keyword Casio itself is very high. We have top top companies who have already invested so much into that keyword. So there's no way that you can compete against that keyword. So what, what are you going to do? You have to think around it. Okay. So you have to look at who is going to buy. So you have to look at what I call persona. You have to identify your persona. Uh-huh. Who is going to buy the watches. And once you identify that persona, the key ways will come around that persona. So let me see watches most of the time. Okay. You want to target somebody who is around from 25 to let's say 45. Maybe he said business man, and then he likes to wear certain shoes. He likes to go to certain business environment. So around that, uh, persona, you might get a keyword about, let's say a leather box. Okay. Quality leather box or maybe suits or maybe business plan. Because you know that maybe that person wants to maybe, uh, create a business plan. Uh, it's a very business person. He moved to certain, he watches certain businesses. So you don't just center your, your, your keywords around just the watches. Okay. You have to go all around that persona. So what I do is I write around the persona just to cut that attention of that person.
[30:16] I hope you get me. I get you perfectly. Or you can go straight to the keyword, what I call low hanging fruit. So let's say, uh, what's up waterproof cashew or, uh, all the low, low hanging fruit of the keywords, you list them down. Then you start writing about it, but you have to be very, very, very, should I say, uh, comprehensive about everything that you write around those keywords. So you become more authoritative thing. You have that authority over that keyword and you write extensively around it. So the first thing is you can write extensively around a specific niche or you can write around the persona of your niche. And then the last, and then the last thing is you have to look at what I call, uh, uh, traffic around the keyword. There are some keywords that will give you a lot of traffic per month. So let's say you go to Google and search for, let's say, best cashew for grown up man. Okay. And then you see that that keyword maybe within a month, 3000 people are searching for it. Then you can filter your tool. Let's say your country, your area, how many people are searching for that keyword? Then maybe you can say, okay, we did a month that keyword 500 people are searching for that keyword. So, okay. Now you just wait to target only that keyword. So you went to write extensively around that keyword, make sure that every single related keywords around that article is targeted is written on the same article. So you write a very long article around that keyword, make sure that you don't need that keyword.
[32:02] So maybe after three, so after one month, you see that Google has seen your article, you've pop up to maybe number eight, number eight or number seven. Then when you reach that level, then you come back to that page again, you start doing your backlinks, you start doing all the necessary things that are supposed to push that keyword to number one. So you follow the same strategy until you have enough keywords around your niche. So to me, keyword strategy is all about either you go around a persona or you go around certain smaller, smaller, low-hanging keywords until you meet your target. Got it. One more question before we jump on to the next topic. You may mention of research, the traffic around your chasing keywords, right? Quickly, can you name a couple of tools for doubt we can use for these research?
[32:59] Sure, sure, sure. Okay, so at first, I used to use normal to do my research. And I know some of the most people wouldn't understand. I used to use other ways to do my keyword research. You know, other ways is very, very simple. People don't even know that you can use other ways to do research.
[33:18] Other ways has a certain page that is called keyword suggestion. Now that keyword suggestion, when you type in the keyword, Google is going to give you, yes, Google is going to give you the number of page views around a specific area or the number of traffic that is coming hitting that keyword. So when I wasn't having the money to buy the top paid SEO tools, I was using Google AdWords. And this is one that I linked those days.
[33:52] I've tried this sometimes I use it. Google AdWords is free. You sign up is free. Okay, but you sign up, you want to create an ad adverts or an ad, and then you set out a keyword that you want to use to do your ad. However, Google is going to give you all the traffic that those keywords are giving you. I would just export those keywords and use it with my article.
[34:17] Okay, so it's one of those. However, if you really want to go professionally, I think best to me, to me, I think right now, the best personally is SEMRASH. Okay, now SEMRASH, SEMRASH you're supposed to pay around 99 to $100 for a month. Which in our ecosystem is not easy for most upcoming SEO guys to use. Yeah, but I'm telling you, if you don't have the capacity to pay $100 a month, you can opt in. So let me tell you a trick. I used to, I know this is not ethical, but I'm still going to say it. I used to sign up to SEMRASH, like use like four DMLR accounts to sign up to SEMRASH just to get their trial version to get what I was looking for.
[35:29] Okay, yeah, so maybe, so let me tell you what happened. The time came that they were tracking the IP addresses of people. So if you use the same email to sign up within the considerable time, they'll tell you that. Maybe not what I was using VPN to do. Anyway, so let me come back to what we're talking about. SEMRASH, I think SEMRASH is the best. Okay, some people also use AHRIF. I don't know whether you've heard of AHRIF. Yeah, I know of AHRIF. Yeah, but to me, I think they are all having equal capacity. However, with SEMRASH, with SEMRASH, there are some things that I'm very confident and very comfortable using that I like to use. Yeah, especially SEMRASH will give you what I call keyword strengths. And to me, keyword strengths has really, really helped me. When you were starting up and saying, I mean, yeah, come again.
[36:35] I mean, the name actually spells everything out for the SEMRASH, search engine marketing brush. Yeah. So they are sort of the SwaySummy knife when it comes to SEO, keyword magickity, to the keyword manager, sparkling analytics, they got a bunch of stuff. Yeah, but let's just have a focus on just the keyword strength. Okay, let's say you don't know much about SEO, you just focus on the keyword strength. So you type in a keyword, then you look at the strength of the keyword. Okay, most of the time, if the keyword, if you start in AHRIFS, if the keyword is about 25, don't go there. Write some keywords that are below 25.
[37:21] If you start in AHRIFS, and it will give you a 40 in a month. I mean, I've gotten a lot of keywords that are below that I'm just ranking at number one and number two at number three.
[37:33] Hmm. Let's talk about this key activity when it comes to SEO that is on-page optimization. Sure. What are some of the protocol tips for structuring website content and eventually ensuring it's search engine friendly? Okay, so to me, there's one key ingredient that I tackle it first, even than any other thing. Before I even start writing on around a specific topic, I look at the website engine itself, the page itself, what I call speed. To me, speed is the page speed, right? If your website lose slower, my mother, you are dead because you see, Google is trying to cut costs. Okay, Google is trying to cut costs. So when I say cut costs, Google always says it's search engine to move around people's website to gather information.
[38:34] That is money. You are spending millions of dollars every day just to gather content. So if Google server is coming to your page to gather content, then it's taking a lot of time to get that data. It means Google is spending more data acquiring your content.
[38:52] Google is actually rewarding pages that are very fast than pages that are slow. For this speed, there is this example that I always give and it sort of clicks whoever is coming into SEO. I just want to run it by you if it makes sense. If not, then I'll stop saying that moving on. So imagine you have, I mean, you and your competitor, right? Your store is on a fast moving road, like all asphalt and everything, but then your competitor is on this rugged road, hot holes and things. Clearly, the traffic director will direct people to your website because it has this asphalt and everything, but then he won't direct it to your competitor because of the potholes and muddy road and all that. It doesn't make sense.
[39:57] I think that is a good metaphor. It explains everything. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same thing. And even, I can even go as much as say that when you are going, well, let's say somebody is selling something and then the person shows you their area and then you try to get to their place and then the place is known, which should I use that colloquial way? And you have to move through certain locations and then become so tired. Even when you read that place, maybe the next time you might not want to go there again, you would like to go to a place that makes you comfortable to buy whatever you're looking for. It's the same scenario.
[40:32] Google wants to find it very easy to come to your page to get the content. So if Google always comes to your page and your page loads very slow, Google is going to punish you.
[40:45] So that is the first thing when I want to talk about the structure of homepage optimization. So before I get a client who wants to slightly grow their website using SEO, the first thing I tackle is speed. I have a full meeting with whoever is in charge of the website, make sure that we use all the necessary tools to compress and remove and make sure to speed up the page. And I would go for 98 to 100% when you use all the online tools. Your page has to at least have 98 to 100%. Less is not good, 90 to 100%. Then from the speed, yes, from the speed, then we'll move to the next thing, which is content. So after the speed, the content itself.
[41:39] Okay, now, let me not even go to the content. I'll look at the structure of the page itself. I'll look at the menu. How is the menu arranged? It's also very, very critical. You see, sometimes you go to Google and search for a specific website, and you see that the website, Google will bring other pages to you. Like, let's say, yeah, like you search for a specific website name, and then you see that after Google brings the website's name, it gives you order to chart pages around the same website. So it will give you steps of pages on the same page, which is very good. So that is based on how you arrange your menu. So it's very, very important. You have to make sure that you put your menu into similar matches. So let's say, if you want to write about watches, you have to make sure that, okay, you have full dots and full dots. You have all the categories. So it has to be arranged in a hierarchy so that Google will know that, okay, when I'm going down this rabbit hole, I'm going just around a parent, which is also related to the same category. You don't have to mix the categories at different, different layers. A category has to be lower than another category, which is also related to the same parent. So you have to make sure that that hierarchy is arranged in a very nice way. So I look at a structure, I look at how accessible it is. And then there's another thing that people also don't take into consideration, what we call accessibility. Do you know that when you create a website, then you even make it accessible to even blind people, there are tools that you can even use, make sure your website is even accessible to blind people.
[43:28] Google award you. Wow. Yes. That's free. Free is bonus, bonus points like that. Yeah. You have to make sure that even when a blind person comes to the page, but they can't see. However, when you use certain tools on your pages, the blind person will hear because the page, they have certain tools that will read those pages for them. Okay. So all those things have to be done. And then after that, then look at a content itself.
[44:03] So I'm going to take a specific page and then walk us through this scenario of on-page optimization. So let's say you're supposed to write around a specific topic and the topic is around, let's say, why mangoes are good for your skin. Okay. Supposed to write about that topic. Okay.
[44:25] So the first thing is you've already done your competitive analysis on all the other pages that have written about that article. Then you've picked what is good out of those top three articles. And you also make your research and then you add it more to your content. So you know what you're going to do to beat them. So you have your content done.
[44:45] Everything is done. Now assembling this content together to have your masterpieces. First thing is what I call best paint content is very, very, very important. Now, but what I call face paint. Yeah. So the face paint means that most people, they will put a very huge picture or an image on the first paint. On their homepage. Not even on the homepage.
[45:15] Any other page that you want to rank a specific content. When the person land on the page, the first thing that they see is that huge image. And you see that image has a very, very, very massive weight, like an image. But the masterpieces, they are nice. They are nice.
[45:35] You see, it gives the website. However, listen to me. Listen to me. They look nice. Okay. But the size of the image, sometimes we'll go like one megabytes. Okay. So imagine Google trying to, imagine Google is trying to download your page and just the image is taking one megabyte to load. Okay. And you know, Africa to our area, our internet is not all that strong.
[46:07] Somebody is trying to use their phone to come to your page and then your page is taking like one minute to load because of one image. So what I do is the first paint is very, very important.
[46:18] And when I say first paint, you measure that you put an introductory content there, which is not too long, like at least let's say five to six lines of content, which is an ad copy, which will make the person rich. And then after that first introductory, they have a very powerful, attractive image. You have to have a very nice image, which is related to whatever you want to talk about. The image is very, very important. However, you have to make sure that you convert that image to a specific size. And there is a size that we always look for. For me right now, I don't even go above 200 kilobytes. I don't go above 200 kilobytes. Okay. So that's another tip there. Make sure your images are no more than 200 kilobytes. So that even mobile phones will be able to open it within the first five seconds, your page should open. So that image is very, very essential, 200 KB kilobytes. And then that page is very essential. It has to look nice and attractive, but still has to be lower or equal to 200 kilobytes. Okay. Now then the next thing is after that, you have to make sure that after you put in all those contents. Now I believe that at least your page shouldn't have less than three images. At least you have more images. It's very, very important. You have not too much so that your page will be too heavy for the page to load. However, yes, at least three very light images also looking attractive. And then you have your content. And with your content too, you make sure that when they are reading, it keeps them going. It doesn't have to be something that has to be out of the, should I say, we just talk about things that are not related to whatever you are trying to talk about. You have to just go straight to the point.
[48:26] Because to me, when I'm reading about an article, I have to make sure that within the first five seconds, I can decide whether to go on or not to go on. So it's very, very, very crucial.
[48:37] And then so all this is part of the on-page optimization. Then after your content is done, your images are done. You make sure that your images have all the alt tags, all the titles, and also all your internal links. So I've said three things here, alt tags, titles, and internal links. Very, very important. And alt tags, right? If I'm not mistaken, alt tags helps with accessibility, right? Exactly. That's what I was talking about.
[49:06] So if the person is a blind person going through the page, yes, if it's an image and they are scrolling, once they read the alt tag, the audio will tell the person there's that image and they need to mention the alt tag. So that's why your alt tag always has to be descriptive to the image that you put there. So if the image is somebody who is eating a mango, put it there. Part of black, female, beautiful lady eating a mango, you put it inside the alt tag as well as yes. But what I do is I will describe the image and I also add my keyword title as part of the image. This is also another bonus. Like you make sure that your main keyword that you're targeting for are repeated in all your alt tags. Most of the time, this symbol is extremely well. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about local SEO, right? They are vital for small businesses, especially small businesses in our locality, right? So what are steps that these local businesses can take to optimize their presence and eventually attract customers from their locality onto their website? Okay. So with local SEO, I think it's also one of the best and free strategies to even increase your branch and increase your conversion in terms of lease because local SEO can even give you lease. I've had some clients that I created local SEO for them that up to now they are getting the lease from those local SEO.
[50:45] It's like, so let's describe it. So local SEO is all about you go to a certain product that came out called Google My Business. I think now the name has been changed but it's called Google My Business. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, you go there. It will ask you questions for you to describe your business and then you even have to show them the location of your business and you have to verify your phone number on Google map and then Google pinpoint your location and all the other information about your business. Then you upload all your images and products.
[51:25] Sometimes you may have to upload your products or your services and everything around your business to the local SEO at Google My Business. When this is done after a couple of weeks or maybe days, your location will be on Google map and with your business. Now, how does that thing help your business, your location? Now, how it helps is because you put in your website there, because you put in your phone number there, because you put in your contact and all your social media handles and those things there. When somebody searches for your business, Google is going to bring you your location map there as we've added to add your number and your website there.
[52:09] And let me give you a tip, okay? So there was a time that I was trying to hit a certain keyword and I found out that that keyword, nobody has created a location map for that keyword.
[52:23] That keyword was also related to a certain location that I don't want to mention. And then when I went to do the keyword research, that keyword was giving me, was giving 20,000 pages a month. And guess what? I went to sign up, created that location, put in that website period I wanted to run, that's the website location there. And after some time, that page started giving my big traffic. Within a month, I was getting like 10,000 pages only from that page.
[52:52] It was a real estate company that I did for. Okay, so this is very, very powerful. Local SEO, I don't joke with it. It's one of the key ingredient that I really use to boost my pages.
[53:04] I think one of the tricks that we, the experience SEO guys, we use, we use local SEO a lot because for you to go and pay money to do an ad, I'd rather do a local SEO, capitalize around a specific area. And then before you know, those pages are giving my website traffic. Interesting. All right. So what are some of the common mistakes and misconceptions and the line of the misconceptions that you've seen businesses make in their SEO efforts?
[53:38] Okay, so I think the advice I'll give them is when you want to create a website, but you are not all that savvy in this SEO team, because some of them, it takes years. You have to take years for you to learn all these things. So if you are starting afresh, how are you going to also compete with them? The advice I'll give you is make sure maybe you have somebody that you have related to who knows about SEO, and then they guide you. Because the smallest mistake that you do, you waste so much time on certain keywords that are not even aligned to what you want to do and you not be getting traffic. There was a time that I spent almost six months on a website that wasn't giving me traffic that I had when I was starting. So I think the best advice is you find somebody who is very good with SEO, they guide you on the specific keywords that you're supposed to write about, and then you write around those keywords. That should be a starting block. Like first thing is if you don't know anything about SEO, let somebody do a keyword research for you. Because keyword research, when they do keyword research for you, they are going to target certain traffic that is going to give your website traffic. So what you do is once they do those keyword research for you, you have at least 20 keyword research for you, then you start writing around those articles. That one is better than trying to do it yourself. That will not be able to target the right keywords because you will target certain keywords that are not in your strength and you will not be able to outrun them. So they have to show you the kind of keywords that are supposed to go. Then you do on-page SEO, because on-page SEO, there are tools that you can use to do. There are tools that you can install, plugins that you can install, your WordPress page. Once you do that, those plugins are going to help you, like they will take you through steps. Step one, remove this keyword. Step two, create internally. Step three, add images. Step four, do this. To me, I think that should be the best way to start. You just have to use those tools. These tools will guide you to do the right thing.
[56:00] I can give on to that, I think helps. I don't know whether you've heard about used SEO. Oh yeah, yeah, used SEO. A business that I worked with, I actually signed up for the premium because I started with trial. I realized, geez, this tool is powerful. Because I was starting with SEO 10, so I was just following the instructions they were giving me.
[56:30] Okay, but do you know something? I started using used SEO like a couple of years ago, but however, I found another one called RankMatte SEO. Since I found RankMatte SEO, I've fallen in love with RankMatte SEO now. Now, RankMatte is my girlfriend, I'm telling you, because RankMatte is using AI and so many strategies that guides me and so powerful.
[56:56] Yes, now it's using AI to guide you to do the right thing. It makes sure it gives you that. That's why it's called Rank. It will rank you. So every single page, it will rank the page, even before the page even goes out to tell you that this page is not going to do well.
[57:13] And to tell you why the page is not going to do well, you're supposed to do this, you're supposed to do that, you're supposed to do that. So even if you don't know SEO, unless you have an idea about what you're supposed to do. Okay, so if you are starting and you don't know, I think you can start with RankMatte. With RankMatte, I think- And I believe it's sort of really a bit of free oil.
[57:33] No, the free one, what I'm talking about, the free one wouldn't do what I'm talking about, is the free one. So if anybody listening to this podcast wants the pro one, they can contact you or I might find them the free one. It's worth it.
[57:50] I'm telling you, it's really worth it. Since I started using RankMatte, I've actually quadrupled my traffic. I'm telling you, some pages, some old pages that were there, now they have all moved because of RankMatte. Yeah. All right, so disclaimer here, guys.
[58:10] RankMatte and Yoos are by no way associated with this podcast. They are not sponsoring this episode. In any way, they are just spilling out to Saturday.
[58:25] I think they are quick tools also that you can just use here. I just have to put it there because people will start thinking that they are being sponsored by Yoos. They are not, they are not. Actually, I've used it because it's good.
[58:45] You can also go the hard way to maybe find somebody who knows SEO and then the person will teach you instead of using RankMatte if I choose to play that other way.
[58:57] Talking about finding someone, right? Clearly, you've proven that you know your business, right? So Stephen, where can we find you? Okay, so I think most of the time I deal with emails. My email is eduonline at gmail.com. Edu as in A-I-D-O-O, A-I-D-O-O, online, one-way at gmail.com.
[59:21] Or my website, which is websiteg.com, website in plural. So website with an S, websiteg.com. That's my website. Anybody can come there, hit me up or anything you want to do. If you want to also create a page there or if you want to sell your product or you want to put out a banner, you want to sell a property, you can just come to websiteg.
[59:49] Stephen, let's go in. Sure, sure. What is websiteg? What do you do? Okay, so websiteg, what I do is normally is a directory. So what I do is I'm just trying to create a directory. Now, what makes websiteg different is with websiteg, when you sign up and everything, it helps you to do SEO on your page. So you're not just putting out content there.
[1:00:18] We guide you. We tell you what you're supposed to do to rank your keywords around your product. So that is the core nature of websiteg. You sign up, you're going to make sure your page gets traffic organically. If you want to do, should I say paid? That is fine, but we are into organic traffic. Something that you put time into it and yes, and yes, your page will still be getting you traffic. That's what we do. So in a nutshell, websiteg is just a traffic. And right now, we have about 5,000, 5,560 companies there. Yes.
[1:00:58] Wow, local businesses or globally? It's local businesses. Actually, what I can say because of a little bit of my background as a programmer, I would say the contents, most of the contents are not from the client themselves.
[1:01:17] So if we're a client or if we're a business owner and you see your content on websitegh, we've written for you, just come and claim it. All you have to do is just come and claim the content. It's free. Just claim it and we'll guide you. We'll just give it to you. So we've put your numbers there. We've been able to put your numbers and your point written for you based on what you put out there. Our website is also written for you. So all you have to do is come and claim it and start getting these. Because we have a lot of companies who have gotten the list and they at least are just targeting on our website. They're supposed to come and claim them. Yep.
[1:01:57] Now check the whole directory out and start claiming some businesses that probably is something that I worked on. But if you want to claim, you have to prove that you are the owner of the business.
[1:02:10] So let me give you an example. There was a time accepting clients, a customer, a potential customer call from the US. He said he owned a specific page and that somebody else uses content on the page.
[1:02:22] And then I told him that if he can prove that the content is his, then he sent me his business listing and then I gave it to him. So now he owns it and then when he set for that keyword, his website comes and he's so happy that our page has optimized his brand for him.
[1:02:37] So anybody that wants to claim, you can come there and claim. Also. And the website again is websites.com. Exactly. Websites.com. So W-E-B-S-I-T-E-S-G-H-E-S.com, right?
[1:02:53] Yep. Yep. Yep. Got it. Got it. Let's talk about the future of SEO, right? I want you to be a seer for us. How do you foresee the future of SEO and how should businesses be prepared for in terms of upcoming changes in this landscape?
[1:03:15] Okay. So that'll be my last question. This is a very strong one and I'm going to be honest about it. Okay. This question is not all that clear. When I say the answer to this question is not all that clear because right now there's a war, there is an AI war between Google and OpenAI.
[1:03:37] Okay. OpenAI is trying to take that tension. It's all about tension. This war is all about tension because now, so let me give you an example. Most of the time when I used to write code or when I used to write a program for a specific function, I used to go to what we call Stack Overflow. I go there when I have a problem. I go there and then I find solution from that page.
[1:04:04] Now I use ChargiPT. I don't go there. It's like almost three months now I've not been there because anything that I ask ChargiPT, ChargiPT, even though you still have to be savvy to know the writing that you're looking for.
[1:04:17] A developer colleague of mine is always on ChargiPT. I'm telling you, if I tell you the magic that ChargiPT has done for me, a code that would take me, should I say, one month to two months to write, ChargiPT made me write it within 24 hours. Okay. Even though it would make some mistakes, but because if you know how to read the code, you can just go to and see the mistakes. Then you see the mistakes, you tell it back, he made it and says, oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Forgive me then to do it again. Okay. So ChargiPT is more like it's sticking that attention. It's sticking that attention from Google. So if that attention is sticking, it means that that commodity that Google has, that power of commodity that Google has, is being taken away. So to me, that is what is threatening SEO. So if that power is sticking from Google, it means SEO is actually dipping its head. However, Google is also challenging ChargiPT now. Google has also come out with their own AI.
[1:05:20] You know, Google, they have tons of data. They have everything about us. Even in this quarter we are making, probably Google knows. Google has it because it's going through an Android phone and everything. Google has everything. They listen, they see all your academics, your location, how you move, your phone, everything that you do. Google has tons of data.
[1:05:39] So if Google is also going to use all this data to do AI and then within the next five years, Google is also going to come out AI. And if Google means that race, it means that SEO is too stable because that is where their food is coming from. Google's food is coming from SEO.
[1:05:56] There's no way that we're going to give up. So it's a little bit dicey. I always say SEO, the future of SEO is going to be dead or the future of SEO is going to go. However, all that I know is right now SEO is growing because now I'm getting more traffic. Now I'm getting more traffic. My page is doing well. What I could have done last year, I'm doing quadruple than last year. So it means that okay, if AI is coming to help me to be more productive, I think this thing is really going to be pretty. So there's a future. All we have to do is to be attentive and also always to learn and see new technologies that are coming. And then we'll just try to put ourselves into that technology and everything's going to be right for us.
[1:06:44] What I'm getting from this is there is a feature for SEO and that the introduction of AI will actually push SEO around. It's going to transform it. It's going to transform it.
[1:06:57] Stephen, thank you so much for joining me on this episode. I believe we've unraveled SEO, although we couldn't go through. I think I will call you back later because the questions that I jotted out, we couldn't go through because of time. But then there'll definitely be a part two of this conversation that will dig in, will further unravel SEO. But before that and everything, I just want to thank you for joining me on this episode. It's my pleasure. It's my pleasure.
[1:07:29] Thank you too. Bye. Because we actually planned 32.5. I think you've done more than an hour.