Join us as HLM's very own Christopher Parker discusses SEO Fundamentals with the Founder of Deytips.com, Sam Dey.
Sam is part of the LinkedIn Top Voices Program, an invitation-only group of experts across the professional world. Visit Deytips.com to learn more about Sam.
Hey Chris! Can You Tell Us a Little About Yourself?
Absolutely! I live near Phoenix, Arizona, and I've been in SEO for about 13 years now. I originally got into it when I was studying for an associate degree in computer programing.
Around that time my cousin got me into copywriting as a freelancing gig, and I discovered I was pretty good at it, so once I finished my computer programming degree, I pursued a degree in communication with a focus on journalism.
I feel like my blend of education gives me a focus on both the technical and content aspects of SEO, which are both equally important SEO aspects.
Tell us about some of the foundational things everyone should keep in mind when it comes to ranking on Google?
These days, one of the things I still see SEO professionals missing is not taking a people-first approach.
SEO professionals and marketers get so caught up in what search engines want - what will help them show up in search engines - that they completely forget about their audience.
The thing is, SEO rankings are useless if they're not converting. So keep the people first, because these days that's what Google is considering.
Google wants to provide the best experience for their searchers because if they don't, people might switch to Bing.
A lot of this comes down to keyword research, which I think is foundational to building an effective SEO plan.
It's through keywords you understand what your audience is looking for and what'll satisfy their needs.
Are there any current myths or misconceptions about SEO and AI?
Things are moving so fast right now, but I will say AI absolutely has a place in SEO and that's only going to grow.
We're still kind of figuring it out though, figuring out how exactly it's going to fit in with SEO.
I've heard of these content farms, where people generate entire websites with AI tools... it's possible that that could work right now, but even if it does, I can assure you that's not going to last.
Even now, Google is still trying to distinguish between AI content and human content. So right now, view AI as any other tool, and become familiar with it.
And generally, just be very careful with how you use it.
You as the SEO professional or marketer still need to have the creativity and the thoughts behind a strategy to rank well on Google.
What's a good strategy for a small business with just a few website pages to begin ranking?
Start looking for keywords that have a low difficulty rating but still have at least some amount of search volume.
Once you have those easier keywords, which we like to call low-hanging fruit, start creating blog posts and FAQ pages around your services or products and link those pieces of content back to the main service pages or your main product pages.
This helps increase the relevance of your website for those main keywords, and it also helps you rank for sub-topics related to your main keywords.
And of course, once you start creating more of that content, as long as it's good and people like it, they're more likely to link to it. And as we know, link building is huge for SEO.
Learn about Sam Dey's new series, "Be My Guest"
High Level Marketing strives to feature and promote our Partners every chance we get. Be sure to watch the last clip below, where Sam Dey describes his new interview series titled, "Be My Guest," and check out Sam's LinkedIn Profile, as well as his website deytips.com.
