The AI SEO Changes Are Coming

The AI SEO Changes Are Coming

This is Stephan’s podcast appearance about The AI SEO Changes Are Coming on the Superfast Business Today.

A lot of times, people will ask Google questions, they’re talking to their Google Home device or to their phone, to Alexa as well, and they’re asking questions and they want answers. They don’t want a list of 10 blue links read to them over their device. So you need to also be focusing on trying to get that position zero, the featured snippet answer that preempts all the organic results.

This is Superfast Business with James Schramko, helping you build your business fast. James Schramko here. Welcome back to Superfast Business Today, we are talking about SEO, that is, search engine optimization. And for that, I’ve brought in perhaps the best SEO expert in the entire world. Welcome, Stephan Spencer.

Hey, thanks for having me.

Well, that’s according to Tony Robbins. That’s a pretty good accolade.

Yes. I even have an audio recording of him saying it, which is pretty awesome.

Well, you’ve earned your stripes. I remember buying your book about SEO. I have built and sold an SEO business. It’s something I was really passionate about, especially when I started online because I realized that Google was a praise system. If you did good work, it would praise you with a top ranking. And I realized that I was able to make it give me that reward by doing certain things that it wanted. Now, of course, this is 13 years ago, a decade ago, and I did that for quite some time and a few years ago, sold out of that business. And in the meantime, while everyone’s talking up chatbots and remarketing and all this cool trendy stuff, isn’t it interesting to see how Google is still a very important piece of the puzzle? It certainly is for my own website at Superfast Business.

Here, we publish the transcriptions of our episodes. We have a massive amount of original content being published. We focus on having a fast-loading, mobile, friendly, easy-to-navigate website, and people do invariably link to us from time to time. But what we’re going to be talking about today is how can someone listening to this podcast get a number one ranking in Google today? Like what is the current best practice for ranking a website in Google’s search engine? And just to start off with Stephan, is Google still where the action is at?

I think it is. Now, people who are into Facebook advertising may argue that there’s a captive audience on Facebook, and that’s true, but it’s kind of a walled garden, kind of like the olden days of AOL. Where you don’t own the race course, and to use one of your analogies, you have to play by their rules. Not that Google doesn’t make you play by their rules, too, but it’s more of a case where Google is the shortest distance between points A and B. A being wherever somebody is on the internet at the moment that they think they need to solve a problem and your website. So if you’re not on page one, ideally in position one, you’re dead to them. You’re invisible. 

It’s like you’re not there if you’re on page two, which is still seemingly pretty impressive being positioned, let’s say, number 11 or 12 out of hundreds of millions potentially of pages. 95 plus percent of the time, Google searchers will not go onto page two, and they will not see you. Even the bottom half of page one is a problem. Because people don’t scroll as much and they are really looking for Google’s endorsement of this is the top answer, the most important or trustworthy search result. And now Google is answering questions primarily with these featured snippets because voice search is really the future.

 So now we need to be concerned about being in what SEOs refer to as position zero in the search results. So that preamps even being number one. So it’s definitely a shifting sand sort of landscape with SEO, but it’s one where it’s doable if you just understand some pretty simple principles. So that’s what I hope to convey in this episode is how people who are not necessarily SEO experts or super technical even can make huge inroads into the top spots in Google.

Right. And I’ve noticed they’ve changed the way they display paid ads in Google. Now, it seems sometimes, for some of the commercial intent words, there are quite a few ads at the top.

Yes. And if you’re on a mobile device, most of the time, searchers are on mobile devices more than half the time. Google search will be conducted on mobile. And that occupies the entire screen. So you’re having to scroll as a user just to get to the organic results, which is just the way that the world is these days. But like I said, it’s all doable. You don’t need to pay Google for Google Ads, but if you do, then that gives you an additional opportunity to take up shelf space in the Google results.

Google has made it so kind of not that obvious that the paid results are paid results because they want you to click on paid results as much or even more than the organic results. But still, that doesn’t happen. Most of the time, people click on organic results, not paid results. And there is no implied endorsement effect. When people click on those paid ads, they know they’re ads, and they know that you aren’t necessarily the best out there. It’s just that you had a budget to spend. The first organic result does get that implied endorsement from Google from the user’s perspective.

Right. So there are already some really big lessons so far. And we’re just a few minutes into this. So far, what I’ve got is Google is still the dominant search engine. Mobile is what you really want to optimize for that. You really need to be in that top spot, and even if there are ads, it’s still worth being in the top spot because people know the difference between an ad and an organic result. Google is the place where people have the intent to search. They’re there because they are typing something into Google, as opposed to if you’re just hanging around on Facebook, which is a different type of campaign. So, if I’ve got that correct, let’s move on to why Stephan. Firstly, I’ll start. I bought your book about SEO. You literally wrote the book on SEO, and it’s a thick book. I was describing it to someone the other day. It’s a little like the old Yellow Pages.

You’ve definitely put a lot of work into that one. Secondly, I introduced you to a good client of mine who had a real SEO challenge. He had a large site and a lot to gain from improving his SEO. And you have dealt with this person for years. And that speaks volumes because I know these people are quite fussy at that level. And you have to be good to sustain that sort of result that you got for him. So I know you’re a bona fide SEO that you do get the results. You’ve had all sorts of endorsements. What can you add to that, Stephan, that might give someone perspective as to how you know this stuff?

Okay. So, I started in the SEO game two decades ago. More than that, actually. I started in the 90s when people didn’t even know what SEO was. I also had a successful exit selling an SEO company in 2010. We were in three different countries. The Art of SEO, which is the book I’m most known for, I’ve got three O’Reilly books. But the Art of SEO is the biggest seller, and it’s 994 pages. So, it really is the Bible of SEO. And yeah, I worked with clients like Chanel, Sony, Volvo, Zappos, CNBC, Bloomberg, Quicksilver, yeah, some really great brands, and I know a few things. Now, I don’t wanna keep all that secret information and be in an ivory tower. 

I want people to feel like they know enough that they can make some inroads themselves without having to hire an expert, and also, if they do decide to hire an expert, it doesn’t have to be me. It could be anybody, that they have some tools and some knowledge to hire somebody without feeling like they are just taking this huge leap of faith. In fact, I created this thing called an SEO Hiring Blueprint and an SEO BS Detector, which are available on my website for free and the Hiring Blueprint has a seven-step process to make sure you hire a really good SEO and not a charlatan.

And one of those steps in that seven-step process is to sneak into the interview process certain trick questions. And those trick questions are not gonna sound like trick questions. They sound very innocent. And if you’re not an SEO expert grilling them, you’re just trying to find out how they do their services and what they charge and all that. It’s gonna seem very innocent, but you’re gonna know whether you’re getting snookered or not. So, for example, one trick question might be, tell me what your process is for optimizing meta keywords. Like how’s that work? 

Now, that’s a trick question because the only right answer to that question is meta keywords. What, are you serious? Those never counted in Google, and they never ever counted in Google. This is very important to know, and now you know that. So when you ask an SEO about meta keywords, if their answer has something along the lines, it sounds something like, well, meta keywords aren’t that important anymore. Google doesn’t consider them that important, and anything along those lines other than meta keywords never counted in Google. 

Whatever they’re saying is just not true. Okay, so they never counted in Google, Google never ever trusted meta keywords. So that’s a great little trick question. So there’s a half dozen of these trick questions that you can pull from in that BS detector, and they’ll never know that you just checked whether they’re charlatans or not. So I think that’s a good starting point. But yeah, if you work with an expert, you wanna make sure that that expert has been vetted and proven. They’ve got case studies on their website. 

So you mentioned your client that you sent to me, and I’ve been working with him for years now, and he was gracious enough to give me the ability to publish a case study about the results we’ve gotten for him. 500 and some percent increase in organic traffic over a period of a year, a year and a half, which is pretty good. And with the screenshots of the various graphs, Google Analytics, SEMrush and all that to quantify and prove it. So that’s another thing, too. Always make sure that you can get substantiated claims from those SEOs and not just claims. It seems there’s a lot of dodgy practitioners out there selling SEO services.

And even more than that, I get the impression that most people think and possibly the way that it’s sold is that SEO equals backlinks. What would be your comment around that?

That’s pretty old school. It is still a foundation of the Google rankings algorithm, but it’s not the one thing that you need to do. If you’re relying just on backlinks, then you aren’t recognizing that the future of Google and SEO is AI. It’s artificial intelligence. I mean, what’s the best way or the really the only way? To outsmart an AI. What do you think, James?

To involve some element that only a human could know?

Well, I would challenge that the only way to outsmart an AI is with another AI.

It’s interesting that we had a discussion on this topic very recently, actually, with Mike Rhodes in a previous episode, and he’s running an AdWords agency or Google ads as they’ve rebranded, apparently. He was talking about which functions they can beat humans and which functions they do poorly at. So there are certain things that can’t do well, but I certainly, the theme of the podcast was that there’s most definitely AI is the future. That’s where it’s happening.

Right.

Google especially has a very strong platform for that.

So, really, AI is the future. And if you think in terms of how things are changing technologically, they’re advancing at a faster and faster clip. This is called the law of accelerating returns, which is a term that Ray Kurzweil, the futurist, came up with. So the idea is that if you go a year into the future, it’s going to be advancing at a certain rate, but a year from then into the future, another year will be advancing at an even faster clip. So, the last 100 years would fit into the next 20 years at today’s rate of advancement, but because it’s continuing to advance, it would actually fit in the next 12.  So, think back to 100 years ago and how different the world is now versus 100 years ago. And that same amount of advancing will happen in the next 12 years. So that’s pretty mind-blowing. People think linearly, but we need to think exponentially. And so, AI, nanotechnology, and all the cool technologies that are advancing, like VR, AR, etc. 

They’re happening faster and faster and we need to be more nimble than we’ve ever been in order to keep up. So that’s kind of the game that we have to play. But right now, SEO is not just about having machine learning on your side to try and outsmart Google; it’s about having a search engine-friendly website. It’s about identifying keywords that are relevant and popular and that are attainable for you in the Google search results. And it’s about achieving buzz and link equity by having people mention you and link to you. So those things still work. They’re still important to the Google algorithm. But on top of that, you’ve got to be willing to explore machine learning and be nimble about the future. I’m personally excited about the future. I think it’s an amazing time to be alive. The kinds of advances that we’re about to experience in our lifetimes are going to be mind-blowing.

Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting, like what you’re talking about. And I think the audience for this sort of podcast probably has a good feeling about it. I do worry about your Congress in the United States who can’t figure out why when someone types idiot into Google, the image of Trump comes up, and they were asking Google how that happens. And they were basically curious to know if it’s just someone sitting behind a curtain deciding what results to show. I mean, they seem to be a hundred years in the past.

Yeah. Pretty much.

They said so, and it’s not some little man sitting behind the curtain figuring out what we’re going to show the users. This is in Congress. So there’s a big gap between the general public and what you’re talking about in terms of how this works. Well, I have a big question for you. In that case, let’s say we have a great website; it’s user-friendly, works on a mobile, loads quickly and gets good scores on those site tool tests. It’s got a bit of buzz, and some link equity, and people are linking to it. How do we take advantage of machine learning? When it comes to SEO or what’s the action item there?

Yeah, so it depends on what tools you have because some tools have machine learning baked into them, and some do not. But let’s take Market Muse as an example. So that’s got AI, or at least machine learning, baked into its algorithms. It comes up with suggestions for new keyword themes to target, and it will analyze your entire website. Let’s say you have 1,000 pages on your website. Well, that’s 1,000 pages to optimize to improve the keyword themes and focus for each page. And it will use AI to figure out.

What keywords should you tweak each page around? Maybe you’re targeting a term that is not that popular. Years ago, when I was working with Kohl’s Department Stores, it was very hard to convince them that the term kitchen electrics was not a term worth targeting. It was a term they were just fixated on. They wanted to rank number one, and they probably still are on page one for kitchen electrics, but it doesn’t matter if nobody’s searching for it. I mean, do you even know what a kitchen electric is? I didn’t. It’s just industry speak.

Is that an appliance of some kind?

It is, it’s a small kitchen appliance that usually is a countertop, like a toaster, food processor, or blender. That’s the industry term. And they wanted to own that term, but it’s irrelevant if nobody’s searching for it. So, you need to know which keywords are popular. There are a lot of keyword popularity tools that will tell you like this keyword’s popular and this keyword is not. Like free tools as well, like Google Trends. Google Keyword Planner from, you know, it’s part of the Google Ads platform is also a useful tool. But MarketMuse uses AI to help figure out what keywords that you should focus on. And as time goes on, more and more tools will incorporate AI into the algorithm. 

I use a range of different tools, whether it’s for keyword research to figure out which keywords to target, or I’m trying to identify new trends or new opportunities writing on the coattails of trending topics, like looking at Buzzsumo, for example, seeing what’s trending there, or even just looking on Facebook or Twitter and seeing what the trending topics are, and seeing how you can write on the coattails of those trending topics. That’s also known as newsjacking. So there are lots of opportunities and lots of tools. Most of them do not have AI baked into them yet, but that’s going to be changing very quickly.

So, if one of your favorites is market muse.

Yeah. Well, as an example that uses AI currently, I’ve got dozens of favorite tools for different aspects of SEO. Like for competitive intelligence, I use SEMRush and Ahrefs. For link analysis and link building, I’m using link Ahrefs again. Moz Link Explorer, which replaces their OpenSite Explorer, and just so many. SEMrush is also a great tool for link analysis. It just depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and which tool is the right one for the job. You can’t just take a screwdriver or a spanner or whatever and use it for everything. It’s the right tool for the job. So, for keyword research, if you’re trying to figure out which keywords are popular and which ones are not, just start using some of the free tools as a starting point, like Google Trends. And also AnswerThePublic.com is another free tool that will give you suggestions of questions that users type into Google.

Then, you can start incorporating those questions into your page content, or you can even create FAQ pages around those questions. Also, identify which of those questions are the showstoppers that the buyer concerns and considerations that keep them from becoming a customer of yours. And make sure that you’ve addressed those questions amply on your website. A lot of times, people ask Google questions, and they’re talking to their Google Home device or to their phone, to Alexa as well, and they’re asking questions, and they want answers. They don’t want a list of 10 blue links read to them over their device, so you need to also be focusing on trying to get that position zero, the featured snippet answer that preempts all the organic results. That’s a whole other ball game, too, but if you’re not ranking on page one, it’s very unlikely that you’ll get that position zero.

I’ve been using those snippets lately, whether it’s how to know if my foot’s broken or all sorts of things. And you can see that it throws a few little suggestions at the top, which you can expand and has what seems to be quite decent advice. Do you have to do something special to your page to get a featured snippet? If you did have a top-ranking page?

Yeah, you should have a concise answer to the question. I would also repeat the question. So let’s say that the question is, how much does SEO cost? And you have not addressed that question by providing that question again. You’ve just answered it. And you’ve answered it in a very roundabout, long-winded sort of way. You would not have the featured snippet probably, because it’s not a concise answer. It didn’t repeat the question. And also, you gotta think about what’s the right format for the answer. Like if it’s how does SEO works or how much does SEO costs, a paragraph type of featured snippet is very appropriate. But if it’s a how-to sort of question, like how do I boil an egg? How do I, I don’t know, how do I tear out drywall and then patch it up? Those kinds of user queries require more of a numbered list type of snippet. So if your web page is designed so that it’s just one big wall of text and there are no bullets like numbered lists or anything, and it’s a how-to sort of query. Good luck. Google is probably not going to reward you with a featured snippet if you’re in the wrong format.

Right, so in other words, you want to have an exact match phrase for that phrase that someone’s typed in or talked to and then you have an appropriate answer that will be more or less what you might put in a tweet to answer the whole thing in a few characters if possible.

Yep, and in the right format, whether it’s an ordered list, as in a numbered list, OL and LI tags, or if it’s the kind of snippet that would be best answered with a bulleted list, you know, like for example, what are some great movies on Netflix to watch? That’d be best answered with a bulleted featured snippet list. So, put it in the right format. And if you are identifying featured snippets that your competitors have, that you would like to steal from the competitors.

First of all, create a big list of those, and then identify which in those lists of keywords your competitors have featured snippets on which are weak because you want to go after the weak ones and steal those away first. A great tool for creating a list of featured snippets of your competitors is SEMrush. You just put in the domain name of the competitor, and then under the organic research section, there’s an option to filter just the keyword lists that are featured snippets. And then you can download that list and go through it and identify which of those the competitor has a really lame or they’re kind of lazy with their featured snippet answer and steal those first.

Wow, that’s really good.

I have an article I wrote about on Search Engine Land.

Gotcha. Now, it’s worth mentioning here as well that you have a whole bunch of resources people can access at StephanSpencer.com. I’m going to spell that S-T-E-P-H-A-N. And there’s a resources page where you can get access to all the PDFs Stephan’s been talking about. Obviously recommended by The Art of SEO, timeless classic. So what else can I do? I’ve stolen my competitor’s snippets. My site’s working great on a mobile. I’ve got feature rich images and text, original content. Is there any sort of go-to? Checklist that I might want to look over just to hand my webmaster or my SEO practitioner if I’m hiring someone and say here are the things that I think are important.

Yeah. So, if you’re going to do your own SEO audit, I actually have an online course on that at stefanspenser.com, but there’s also some free content around that in terms of articles and checklists and that sort of thing and webinar replays. So an SEO audit, a good one, will incorporate three major pillars of SEO, and that would be the content side of things, the linking side of things, and finally, the technical side. So, you got content, links, and the technical architecture. And so if you have somebody do that audit for you and then you hand that over to your developers and say, you know, fix all these issues, maybe the canonical tags are not set up.

Maybe the XML sitemap is not being updated, or the robots.txt disallows are incorrect, or maybe you shouldn’t be using them at all. And you should be using no index meta robots tags instead. All this geeky stuff might make your head hurt just hearing those things. Well, you don’t have to learn all that. You just need to know you need to hire somebody to do that analysis.

And then you hand over all the technical findings to your developer to implement or, you know, tweet and fix things.

And what about your meta keywords?

Exactly.

Just kidding.

Nicely done.

So Stephan, what type of website do you get the best results for when someone hires you, who is going to be very, very excited about what changes happen? I mean, there must be a good use case that you look forward to working on.

Yeah. I find that the most effective client to work with is somebody who’s nimble, willing to make changes to their website, and who has at least the willingness to publish remarkable content. Content that is worth remarking about because that’s the kind of content that’s going to get links, and without links, you’re not going to rank. So it’s really hard to get a nondescript, boring online catalog that’s just like everybody else out there on the internet. Lots of fantastic high-authority, high-trust links. But if they’re willing to be nimble and creative and create something that is worthy of people’s links and buzz and time and attention, now you’ve got a real opportunity to just crush it on Google.

We had a lot of e-commerce stores looking for SEO when we had that service. I noticed that plenty of them had the exact same pictures, even names the same, and descriptions as 50 other e-commerce sites with the same product. I was wondering why Google would care less about saying the 60th version of it, you know?

Exactly, right? So have unique content, but also have remarkable content. Like if you have a product that’s a boring product, but you have something above and beyond what everybody else has, not just customer reviews, because everybody has that now too, but having something that’s really fun, novel, interesting, worthy of people’s links. Like for example, you’re selling shoes, and this is like a category page about stilettos, and you have the history of the stiletto and not necessarily some huge content piece, but it’s just like some teaser content around the history of the stiletto. When did the stiletto start being a thing, and what have been the stiletto trends over time over the decades that stilettos have been around? 

That’d be interesting link-worthy content, and if you’re teasing the consumer with that content but you’re not overwhelming them with it so you’re still your primary focus is on selling your products, and you’ve created something that’s more remarkable and stands out from all the other e-commerce sites selling shoes. Now you’ve got something that is worthy of links because what makes you different from any other e-commerce site selling the same products, and you’re the 60th site selling? It’s tough getting great links to your site when you’re just like everybody else. And thus it’s going to be hard for you to rank in Google without those fantastic links.

Gosh, I know one of my listeners, Mark, will be very excited about this episode. He has a brand called Starletto, and he sells those little stoppers that stop stilettos from sinking into the ground. So, for outdoor weddings and going to horse races, the stiletto doesn’t sink into the mush, and it stays out, and he sells that product. So, we should make sure we put a link to his website from our transcript. He’s probably just got himself a backlink.

Very nice. Yes, and how he could make this more remarkable is by finding really funny examples of high-heeled stiletto kind of fails on the internet where women have sunk into the ground and tripped or whatever. Those are kind of called fails.

Yeah, with a comedic soundtrack and a little play reel of bloopers. It would be fantastic.

Yeah, and that’s link-worthy. And if you’re struggling for ideas for remarkable content because you think your products or your niche is really boring, go to, again, stephanspenser.com, but there’s an article on Search Engine Land that I’ve included on my site that is specific to e-commerce sites and link building. So there’s a whole bunch of really great ideas for link building if you have an e-commerce website.

Do you have to debate with Search Engine Land if it’s okay for you to put it on both sites? Is one of them going to outrank the other because it’s more powerful?

That’s a great point. I do not republish the entire article. I link from my website to the Search Engine Land article because they actually require that their contributors publish the content uniquely and solely on their site for at least a minimum of two years.

Right.

Yeah, you don’t want to compete with yourself, and if you have a great venue for publishing articles, it’s, I don’t know, the Huffington Post or whatever, and it gives you kudos to have that positioning to have that column on that popular website. The last thing they want you to do is republish that same article on your website, and now there’s duplicate content, and these two pieces are competing with each other. Google’s only going to want to rank one of them and not keep repeating this same content over and over again, multiple positions in the search results. So yeah, it’s definitely a point to bear in mind.

Another one that I think is an easy win is when you find that you’ll mention somewhere, but they haven’t linked to you, and you can ask them nicely to put a hyperlink. And we do get people asking us from time to time if we’ll link to them from our posts because we transcribe everything. For example, we’ve mentioned some keyword tools here. I’m fully expecting SEMrush, Ahrefs and MarketMuse to be in touch with us asking for a live link because of the field that they’re in, but that’s a very common thing to pick up a link that’s already there, but it just hasn’t been activated.

Yeah. But what’s in it for the person who likes it? What’s contacts you and says, “Hey, can you turn that into a live link?” I don’t think that’s a very compelling ask. Personally, I think it’s much better to make it so much in the recipients’ and the email recipients’ best interest to link to you that it’s a foregone conclusion. You don’t even have to ask for it. Let’s take, for example, if you had a really comprehensive study on what the best tools in SEO are. Why would you use them? What are the use cases? What are the prices and all that? And let’s say that, okay, so let’s take the opposite of the example you just gave and say that you’re the podcaster. 

So I’ve had my team do this. One of my guests on my shows, I’ve got two shows, Marketing Speak and the Get Yourself Optimized show. So what I’ll have is a mention of a tool or a service or a product or some sort of resource, and my team will reach out to those folks, and we’ll just mention that “Hey, we mentioned your product on the show. Do you wanna offer a discount code to my listeners or any unique content, like free resources or whatever, that is not publicly available for everybody on your website? Is there anything that you want to do that’s special for my listeners? You guys were mentioned on the show,” and I’m happy to do that. 

Even though the show that episode has already aired, I get people who’s like, Oh my God, that’s amazing. I would love to offer discount code, or I’d love to offer you a free year of the service or whatever, and you can trial it out. Lots of opportunities there. And if you start the relationship from the position of I want to give instead of I want to get. You’re going to end up with a much more of a partnership and a much greater opportunity for links in the future, rather than just saying, Hey, I noticed you mentioned me, and I would love for you to turn that into a live link.

Question for SEO: Does linking to resources like that help? Let’s say we have a podcast episode about SEO. We’ve got a known SEO expert. We’re transcribing it. Does Google value this article more if we link out to SEO-related tools? Does it build authority for the article, or is it just a waste of a link?

Well, every time you’re linking out, you are sending equity outside of your site, but I wouldn’t be worried about that because Google doesn’t wanna reward you for being stingy. They wanna reward you for being the best resource. And the best resource oftentimes is going to be linking out to relevant tools and services and so forth. So if it’s in the best interest of the user, think to, let’s say, two years in the future when machine learning algorithms, AIs, will be able to ascertain whether your article is awesome or not. 

Reading it as if it’s a human being and not having any context around links pointing to the page or just an educated person. You read a piece of content, and you don’t have any context of where that’s being published; you can tell if it’s nonsense, and you can tell if it’s fake news or legit, oftentimes. Now imagine an AI being able to do that ten times better, 100 times better than a human. That’s what we’re facing in the future. So if it makes sense to serve the user better to link out, then you should link out. If it serves the user better to not link out, then you should not link out. It just depends on what makes the article or the piece of content more awesome.

That’s an awesome tip that gave fantastic context to where we’re going with AI and why you introduced that topic.

Yeah.

So when we came into this, and we’re talking about being number one in Google, I think we’re really preempting how to be number one in Google in 2020. If you’re thinking of the long-term, and it’s certainly my approach to business, think long-term. It’s all about quality. I think the loophole tricks and the good old white text on a white background tricks are long gone. What do you reckon?

Long gone.

A lot of people still ask about that when they start out. What if I just put text with the same color background, as if something so simple could be effective? It’s certainly been thought of 50,000 times before as a minimum. So, Stephan, this is really valuable. I appreciate you coming and sharing. You’ve given us some highlights, something to think about, and also some great resources. We will link out to stephanspenser.com and check out the resources on that site. If you have a substantial size business and you think you want the best, then definitely reach out to Stephan. I would recommend him as the guy. In the meantime, I just want to say thanks on behalf of the value you’ve created for this episode, Stephan.

Oh, well, thank you for having me.

Stephan, I’m really looking forward to you visiting Sydney, and you’ll be sharing some SEO insights in April 2019 at Superfast Business Live. Are you excited?

I’m so excited. I’ve already got my tickets. I’m ready and raring to go.

The thing that’s special about this event is that we have a huge dinner for everyone at the event, with three course meal drinks. Everyone’s in the same room, all the participants, all the speakers, and it’s a networking function. We can really have a chance to talk to someone who knows what they’re talking about, find partners, and get ideas. We will have entertainment, of course. That’s why we’ve already sold over 100 tickets to this event, and we’re still in the pre-sales phase at the time of recording this. It will sell out, and tickets are available at superfastbusinessforward/live.com. It’s the first time we’ve run this event in two years. It’ll be my 13th big live event, and I’m so excited about it. I’ll see you there, Stephan. All right, see you there.

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Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last modified on November 8, 2024.

We at Koshkonong, LLC are strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a safe online experience for all of our visitors while offering a high-quality user experience here at www.stephanspencer.com (the “Website”), or/and any other websites operated by the Company, including but not limited to:

We know that you care about how the information you provide to us is used and shared. We have developed this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Information we receive from users of the Website. Koshkonong, LLC (the “Company”) operates the Website.

This Privacy Policy, along with our Term & Conditions, governs your use of this site.  By using www.stephanspencer.com (the “Website”), or by accepting the Terms of Use (via opt-in, checkbox, pop-up, or clicking an email link confirming the same), you agree to be bound by our terms and consent to this Privacy Policy.

Information We Collect

When you visit our Website, we will learn certain information about you.

In order to provide you with the most efficient and enhanced personalized service and attention, and to accommodate certain requests which you make, we request information about you in certain circumstances and collect certain information automatically.

Consistent with our previous practices, we will only collect and process your personal data when we have a lawful basis for doing so. These lawful bases include when you provide us consent, when we have a contractual obligation to collect or process the data, and when we have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data.

We may collect and/or receive the following types of information from you:

Information Provided Voluntarily

Personal Information. You may be asked to provide personal information including your name, address, email address and phone number when you sign up for any of our newsletters, respond to a survey, register for a class, or purchase a product or service. We will only request the personal information that is required in order to fulfill our obligations to you, i.e. in order to deliver what you have requested, as well as to comply with any legal obligations that may accompany such an exchange.

Order & Billing Information. If you place an order through our Website, we track certain information about the products and services you purchase. At checkout, you will also be required to provide additional information required for processing your payment. This generally includes a debit or credit card or other payment information, expiration dates, card security codes, your billing address or similar information.  This information is generally processed and captured by third-party vendors, such as payment processors and merchant account providers. To the fullest extent possible, we make an effort not to capture or retain this information ourselves (unless, for example, we are requested to process a refund, follow up on the delivery of goods or services, or work with customers or vendors on resolving any errors or other scenarios.) Third-party vendors who assist us in any of our business functions will also be doing so pursuant to their own terms and conditions, including privacy policies and terms of use.

Information Collected Automatically. In addition to the information described above, we may collect some or all of the following information:

Activity Info (Log Data). Information may be collected based on your use of the Website, which generally includes information about your computer hardware and software, such as:

Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses, operating systems, browser types, device types, URLS, access dates and times; Website pages that you visit; referring website information; universally unique identifiers (“UUID”), advertising identifier (“IDFA”), carrier and country location, hardware and processor information, network type, and other related data.

Use of Cookies.  Our website may use cookies in order to deliver a better experience for you. Cookies are files with small amounts of data that a website stores on your computer’s or mobile device’s hard drive so that certain information about your visit and web-browsing preferences will be recognized upon a return visit. Cookies serve functions such as “remembering” log-in names and passwords, or enabling or saving shopping cart contents. Like many websites, we may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to help us improve the experience you have with our Website. Most web browsers have a function that allows you to delete existing cookies on your device or you can set your browser options so that your device does not receive or accept cookies. Doing this may interfere with your ability to use the Website. [ ]

Third-Party Analytics. We use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to evaluate and aggregate visitor data. These services help us evaluate Visitors’ use of the Website, including time spent on certain pages, which areas of the Website receive the most traffic, how often visitors visit pages within the Website, and also provide general geographic location about visitors, the source of referred traffic (from other websites, vs search engines, etc). These third party analytic services use cookies and other technologies to help analyze and provide us the data. By providing your consent to this Privacy Policy, you consent to the collection and review of data about you by these analytics providers in the manner and for the purposes set out herein.

For more information on Google Analytics, including how to opt out from certain data collection, please visit https://www.google.com/analytics. If you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Other Third Party Tracking Tools. We may also collect or receive information from third parties, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and/or other third-party social media and similar sites.

How to Access Your Personal Information

If you have provided personal, billing or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review and make changes to it via instructions found on the Website or by emailing us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any related email from the Company. Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases (for example, if we have a legal obligation to keep it for certain timeframes).

How We Use and Share the Information

We use the collected Information to understand customer needs, including regarding our Website services to:

  • present you with information through our Website and email services;
  • provide our services, process orders, and administer our programs;
  • maintain and improve our Website;
  • respond to your requests, and provide customer service, including in response to any problems that may arise, such as difficulties in navigating our Website or accessing certain features;
  • solicit your feedback, and to inform you about our products and services and those of our third-party marketing partners that we feel may be of interest or value to you;
  • personalize or display advertisements to you on third-party platforms;
  • improve our services or offerings; and
  • fulfill our legal or contractual obligations to you.

As with transactions elsewhere, when you purchase products, services, or programs via our Website, your credit card company will also retain certain information regarding your purchase. We will not otherwise provide any personal data to your credit card company without your permission.

We may share the Information collected with joint venture partners, affiliates, agents, current or prospective business partners, businesses under common control, third-party businesses or partners participating in administering our programs or services, or to those providing business functions such as technical support, customer service, marketing assistance, etc. These businesses will only have access to information as necessary to perform their functions and to the extent permitted by law.

In the event of the sale or transfer of our business to a third party buyer, including in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation, we may, as necessary, share your data with the buyer or transferee.

In the event that we have to collect on a debt owed to us by you, we may, as necessary, share your information with an attorney or a court of law to enforce our rights and collect what is owed.

Under certain circumstances we may be obligated or compelled to disclose the Information: when required by law, court order or government agency, or when disclosing such Information is reasonably required to protect the Company, its property, the Website, the safety of visitors or others.

Retargeting / Personalized and Behavioral Ads

We may, using the techniques described above, and in conjunction with third party marketing partners, gather information from your visit to our Website for purposes of providing relevant advertising content to you in the future. This means that through third party marketing partners or third party sites such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, we may display advertisements to you (remarketing or retargeting), based on usage data collected during your visit to our website.

Google Analytics: As described above, we use Google Analytics on our website. We may utilize any of the following advertising features that utilize the Google advertising cookies: Remarketing with Analytics, Demographics and Interest reporting, Segments, and Double Click integration.

To opt out of seeing personalized ads via the Google platform, please visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

For more information regarding how Google uses cookies in advertising and how you can control advertising cookies, visit http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

To personalize the ads you see via the Google platform, visit http://www.google.com/settings/ads

For more information on how Google uses data when you visit its partners’ sites or apps, visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

Or, via an opt-out browser add-on, you can opt out of having your site activity available to Google Analytics. For more information, or to install the opt-out browser ad-on, please visit https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en  Please note that if you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Google Ad Words: We may utilize Google Ad Words, which provides certain of the information collected on our website to the Adwords advertising network. To opt out of Google Ad Words, visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

Facebook Custom Audience: We may utilize Facebook’s Custom Audience capability which allows us to display ads on Facebook to individuals on our email lists or in our database. We may provide personal information to Facebook, such as your name, email address and phone number to enable Facebook to identify whether you are a Facebook account holder. To opt-out of the Facebook Custom Audience, please email us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with (1)“Facebook Custom Audience Opt-Out” in your Subject Line, and (2) your name and email address in the body of the email.

Other Personalized and Behavioral Advertising Services: We may participate in other retargeting services that are similar to those described above.

Managing Cookies Via Your Browser:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences via your browser settings. Please visit your browser’s help section for assistance with turning on notifications regarding cookies, or disabling cookies through your browser.

Managing Cookies on Your Mobile Device:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences on your mobile device either via your browser settings, or via the settings (preferences) on your device. For additional info, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/mobile/

Use Caution When Sharing Information Online

When you voluntarily make your Personal Information available online in an environment shared by third parties – including in webinars, classes, online conferences, via email, on message boards, chat rooms or on blogs, or via telephone calls or conferences – that information can be viewed, saved, collected, heard, and/or used by others outside of the Company. We are not responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of information provided in these contexts. Please be mindful whenever you share any information online.

Security of Your Information

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we incorporate standard industry practices internally and with our services providers, which we believe is sufficient for the information involved, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Because we work with third-party businesses and vendors in various aspects of our business including operating this website, database management, website security, etc., we cannot guarantee the absolute security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that the Information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet. Any information that you provide to us via email should be treated with extra caution, as we cannot control the level of security available through email providers.

Children

We are strongly committed to protecting the safety and privacy of children who visit our website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 through the Website. If you are under 13, please do not give us any Personal Information. We encourage all parents to talk to their children about online safety and to monitor their children’s use of the Internet. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, please contact us, and we will make best efforts to immediately delete that information from our databases.

External Websites

While we have carefully chosen those vendors with whom we work, especially those involved in the transmission of data on behalf of our business, we do not control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party websites, including those of affiliates, business partners, sponsors, advertisers, or other websites to which we may link from time to time. When visiting any third-party websites, you are responsible for reviewing the privacy policy and terms of use applicable to each site. They may be different than those that you see here.

California Privacy Rights

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, residents of California have the right to request from a business with whom the Californian has an established business relationship, certain information with respect to the types of personal information the business shares with third parties for direct marketing purposes by such third party and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. To request a copy of the information disclosure provided by the Company pursuant to this provision, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com.

Our California Do Not Track Notice

Consistent with our policies described above, we collect information from our visitors on our website and across third party websites where applicable, to provide relevant content and advertising. We do not support Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals of web browsers.

DNT is a setting in your web browser that informs websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable DNT through the Preferences or Settings options of your web browser.

Visitors Outside the U.S.

Our Website and the servers that make this Website available worldwide are located in the United States. The Internet laws in the United States govern all matters relating to this Website. Any information you provide in subscribing to or visiting our Website will be transferred to the United States. By visiting our Website and submitting information, you authorize this transfer, processing, and use.

EU Visitors and the GDPR

If you live in the EU, certain of your data may be subject to protection by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), a privacy regulation intended to help you have greater control over your personal data.

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we extend to all of our website visitors:

  • to know what information is being collected, as disclosed in this Privacy Policy (“right to transparent information”);
  • to object on grounds relating to your particular situation to the collection or processing of certain kinds of information (“right to object”);
  • to withdraw consent even after it has been given, without affecting the lawfulness of the processing of your data prior to your withdrawal (“right to withdraw consent”);
  • to access, modify or update your information so that it is correct (“right to access” and “right to rectification”);
  • to have your information deleted or erased (“right to erasure” or “right to be forgotten”);
  • to have your data transferred or ported elsewhere (“right to data portability”);
  • and the right to restrict processing in certain situations (“right to restriction of processing”).

For purposes of the GDPR, to the fullest extent possible we do not directly collect or maintain personal data of our EU visitors or clients. This is done through partnerships with third-party vendors who have systems designed for the collection and storage of data on behalf of their clients (“data processors”). The data is only kept as long as is reasonably required to accomplish the purpose or purposes for which it was collected. Certain data may be expunged or utilized more quickly than others, and depending on your engagement and behaviors, including purchasing behaviors, we may be engaged in a business or contractual relationship with some longevity. (For example, if you purchase a course or program, or services that span over some time, you will continue to receive communications in regards to those offerings or services).

The categories of data processors with whom we work, and that help us in the collection of information that allows us to serve and interact with you include website analytics provider(s), website and web form plug-ins and related third-party services that allow us to maintain an up-to-date online platform and communicate with you electronically, an email service provider or providers to assist in managing email correspondence with our visitors, customers and list, as well as payment processor(s) and/or merchant account(s) to help us transact sales online and follow up with you regarding any purchases. For a list of specific data processors with whom we currently work, please visit our list here.

Those within the Company that may have access to the data include Officers, Directors, Managers, Supervisors, Salespersons, or those providing customer or technical support. Access to the data is provided for specific purposes, generally related to communicating with you, fulfilling our contractual obligations, providing customer service or technical support, collecting payment, or monitoring performance of marketing and sales efforts.

You may contact us at any time to have your information with us or any of these processors updated or corrected, deleted, or to obtain a copy for your records. Additionally, you may opt out of receiving any additional emails or marketing messages from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email notifications.

Further, if you feel that we have not complied with the relevant data protection regulations, please contact us by sending us an email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with your first and last name, your country of origin, and a summary of your concern or complaint. We will endeavor to respond at our earliest possible convenience to address your concern. If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you may have additional options.

Residents in Designated Countries may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant EU data protection authority. You may access a list of the Data Protection Authorities in the EU here.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

The Company may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as necessary to protect our users and to comply with a changing environment. Please review the Privacy Policy when you visit our Website to remain updated on our current policy. We have no intention of making any changes to our Privacy Policy and practices to make them less protective of personal information collected in the past. By accessing the Website and/or using our services after making any such changes to this Privacy Policy, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please be aware that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, our use of the Information is governed by the Privacy Policy in effect at the time we collect the information. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Whenever we make changes to this Privacy Policy we will update the date at the top.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with “Privacy Policy” in the subject line.

© 2015 – 2024 by The Legal Website Warrior® (www.LegalWebsiteWarrior.com). All Rights Reserved.  DO NOT DUPLICATE THIS PRIVACY POLICY (OR ANY PORTION THEREOF). THIS CONSTITUTES COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.