How the Fxck SEO Podcast

This week, I welcomed Trish Seidel onto the show. Trish is "marketing's big sister" on LinkedIn, where she shares advice on SEO, content strategy and growth. We discuss: Scaling Springly's content to 100 articles per month Building content strategies & how to build clusters Setting standards for content quality Important processes for scaling Changing approaches to SEO now sh...

This week, I welcome Josh Spilker onto the show. Josh is a seasoned marketer, having been the sole or first content person at ClickUp, Friday, and several other venture-back startups. We discuss: Is Josh worried about AI in SEO and content marketing? How will our world change? Is this the end of Google’s dominance? How has Josh streamlined his content processes with Open AI tools? Taking 2 website...

"There's no search volume for what we do"—okay, well do THIS instead. In this case study, Aditya Vempaty (ex-Amplitude, current MoEngage VP of Marketing) shares his story of identifying an underserved segment of a competitive industry and building an SEO-led content strategy to capture it. In this conversation, we discuss: Why you should ignore your competitors.  Pain points and ‘the...

We're back, baby! In this episode, I jump on to do my first-ever solo podcast. Just me and you. I wanted to dig into a challenge my clients and network face regularly: How to craft your first topic cluster. Your first for a client is so important. I can't stress that enough. It sets the tone and dictates whether SEO and Content will be part of your go-to-market moving forward. So in this g...

I was so excited to welcome fellow Brit, Zoe Ashbridge , to the community today. We throw tips and questions back and forth, discussing best practices around these four topics:  How to write content that targets a specific keyword How to win featured snippets How to win HARO links How to work efficiently with freelancers (from briefs to workflows) In the newsletter this week, I’ll round up some of...

OMG. The Scale Package is LIVEEE for pre-order! Grab yours at a discounted price here. Benji Hyam and his team at Grow & Convert build SEO strategies that focus on conversion, not traffic. In this interview, we focus on the case study of Cognitive FX, which is a classic example of how to build a blog full of content that's high-converting, differentiated, and still outranks WebMD. Benji wa...

“60% of all our content ranks on page one.”—Jessica Lam Hill Young In this episode, we learn the three-part framework Jess and her team use to create high-quality content that ranks on Google almost every time. Expect to learn: The three-part framework behind content that ranks on page 1 How to balance self-promotion & helpful content Where to get subject matter expertise Listen to part one fr...

Supporting article (free): How to Refresh Old Content for SEO (and what NOT to do) This week's episode focuses on one of the most powerful tools in the SEO arsenal: content refreshes. Want to impress your clients or boss? Start revisiting your vast library of content. Be warned: hockey stick traffic growth awaits. As you'll hear in the episode, updating old content can take a blog post fro...

Our "raison d’etre" is to help marketers scale search traffic without sacrificing quality. This week, expect a ton of tips & ideas for doing just that. I interviewed Erin Balsa , who builds thought leadership-driven content strategies for B2B SaaS startups that sell complex, enterprise solutions. She, like me, has a strong aversion to putting out content that’s not unique and well-so...

Since launch in 2020, copy.ai has grown to 8M users in the fierce battle for AI content writing tools. But back in 2022, when they began investing in SEO, search volumes for their core keywords (e.g. "AI content generator") were negligible if they existed at all. Over that year, as we are all well aware, there was a rapid wave in demand for AI copywriting tools. The team at copy.ai corre...

We're joined again this week by Jacob from NerdWallet, this week to discuss a VERY important topic: high-converting keywords. We discuss: What types of keyword drive conversions? (It's not just bottom-of-funnel!) How to find high-converting keywords in your niche (Full article contains modifiers to use in your research) Why it's important to craft a targeted, compelling offer How to bu...

This case study is about an underdog website. A new company, launching into a competitive niche and winning some of those most difficult keywords. Maze broke through on topics like “UX Design” and “UX Design Tools” by focusing on: Thorough, well-crafted content Superior UI/UX designs Scalable link building CRO techniques These are the core tenants of the SEO revenue engine that has allowed Maze to...

Jacob Clarke joined the show today from NerdWallet's stupidly successful SEO team. He helps us define topical authority and drill down into how to achieve it to accelerate growth results. In SEO, the concept of topical authority is one that's relatively new in our lexicon. But it's one of THE most powerful tools to have in your belt when building an SEO-driven content strategy. Topics...

I had an amazing conversation with Ash Read this week on the show. For those of you who know the software company Buffer, Ash was their Editorial Director for 6 years. So, you know, this is going to be an episode where you'll about scaling traffic with quality content systems. Since 2020, Ash has been building a niche blog empire. Starting with LivingCozy.com, which focuses on home & furni...

Learn about E-E-A-T and how to demonstrate it with SEO expert, Olga Zarr. Topics: What is E-E-A-T? Does it matter for everyone? How can I demonstrate it to Google? Key Links: Mentioned SEO brief template Read this in article format . Become a How the F*ck member & unlock 30+ SEO case studies.

Eli Schwartz has advised the who's who of technology companies: Zendesk, Coinbase, Quora, InsightTimer, and many more. During his 7-year tenure at SurveyMonkey, his growth team of 5 was responsible for 2/3 of their annual revenue. In total, over $1bn in organic value (yes, that includes both branded search and content strategy). "By the time I left, we were generating an average $200 mill...

In the final episode with Adam Smith, we look at the keyword research system behind his "beast" SEO case study. Here's the background on the niche site: He bought an aged domain (DR 27) He wrote 4 million words (2,300 blog posts) It's currently at ~40,000 monthly visitors in <6 months We've already heard: How to identify a profitable niche to target. How to leverage aged d...

More with Adam Smith! This time? The hardest part of niche blogging: Actually choosing a sub-niche you don't regret. This is the best methodology I've seen to find areas of traffic you can win, quickly. Adam tells us how to take a data-led approach to this. The savvy ones of you out there will have already noticed—this methodology (for finding untapped, uncompetitive traffic to win) also a...

This week, I caught up with niche website expert, Adam Smith, to learn how to use aged domains to accelerate traffic-building success. Expert to learn: What is an aged domain? What use cases do they have in SEO? How can you evaluate them properly (9-step process) so you don't buy a red flag domain? How to implement them without Google knowing (the ENTIRE redirect process) — Get How the F*ck Pr...

In this week's SEO case study, we revisit a story we released in December 2022: How Monday.com Scaled its SEO (1,000 articles in 12 months). In part one, we lifted the hood of the content operation that underpinned Monday's very first major investment into SEO. We learned how Monday worked with the content production company, Codeless.io, to make up for lost time. In part two, we hear from two Mon...

Gaetano developed the strategy that took Aura's SEO traffic to close to ~1 million monthly visitors in 12 months. The blog started with zero content and low domain authority. Now, with only 100-200 pieces of content, Aura holds its own in competition against rivals like McAfee, Norton, and Experian. In this week's SEO case study, we learn how Aura approached content. Everything from their publishi...

Downloadable LEMA framework template: https://www.thefxck.com/lema-framework-template — In SEO, creating quality, experience-driven content has never been more important. It now takes 5 minutes to write a better-than-average article using AI. Which means we have just entered into an age of content commoditization. You need to differentiate your strategy. Fast. Great content that *actually* wins in...

eCommerce SEO expert, Louis Smith , came on the podcast this week to talk through one of his case studies.  He helped this company grow from £80m monthly revenue to ~£100m in 12 months. When he started working with this fashion brand, they'd grown rapidly through paid acquisition channels. SEO hadn't been a focus at all, so they had a ton of technical issues, content strategy needs, and best...

Andy Francos was the Group Head of Organic Performance at Cazoo from day one through to IPO. In this episode, we learn: How Cazoo built a customer-centric organic strategy for the long-term Why Cazoo's non-branded search traffic grew from 6k to 120k a month within 2 weeks The interplay between PR, national TV ad campaigns, high-profile acquisitions, and SEO This one's a real masterclass in SEO fro...

Bonus: Find the full content operations guide here. This week I’ve got a very special guest Gordana Stretenovic from Workello. Gordana and her team have grown multiple company's search traffic exponentially again and again from 0 to up to a crazy 1.5m visitors per month. At one point, her agency produced 800 blog posts per month for their clients with in-house 45 writers and editors. To get an...