I’ve been doing SEO for a long time — even before Google came onto the scene — and so I maintain a strong interest in keeping my finger on the pulse of the industry (and yes, the industry continues to have a strong pulse!).
I’m also interested in keeping ties strong with some of the great folks in the SEO industry, including my guest Shawn Huber, a fellow who’s been successfully optimizing sites – large and small — for many years.
Shawn will be presenting at the Brighton SEO Conference that’s happening this week in San Diego; an event I’ll also be attending, and I wanted to quiz him about the contents of his presentation, which focusses on things that one can do to help Google efficiently and effectively crawl one’s website.
Shawn and I cover a lot of ground in this conversation, including the question of whether the frequency of Google crawler visits correlates to traffic, and whether it’s prudent to prune content that’s outlived its usefulness. (Shawn is a strong advocate of this practice and has seen it work successfully for several clients).
Then we tackle the topics of best practices for sitemaps and strategies for hyperlocal businesses. Shawn advises that proprietors of new sites lacking developed link profiles make full use of Google Business Profiles, as well as exploring content co-creation opportunities with local entities, for example, local chambers of commerce and local volunteer organizations. Other techniques, including making creative use of Google Streetview, can also be valuable in terms of elevating the potential visibility of small business clients.
We trade notes on mistakes that are made during SEO audits and then move on to debate the pros and cons of individual branch offices in multibranch organizations maintaining independent social media footprints.
Shawn is keenly interested in what SEOs may learn from the various lawsuits that have been filed against Google, and we briefly explore the nature of possible revelations and what they might mean to the SEO profession. Then we chat about how clients might “future-proof” SEO via content syndication and digital PR initiatives.
It was great to get Shawn’s take on these issues, and I’m looking forward to hearing his talk at the Brighton SEO Conference later this week.
