The Impact of Google’s Instant Search

This video interview of Stephan was originally published in Search Engine Journal.

Hi, my name is Brent Satoris from Search Engine Journal, and I'm here with Stephan Spencer from Science of SEO. And what exactly is the Science of SEO? I know that's a new project that you're working on and whatnot. Can you tell us just a little bit about that before we jump into some of our other topics?

Absolutely. It's a video-based training program. It's going to cover the gamut: everything from link building to strategy to implementation of technical issues to content optimization, keyword research, and all that.

The Art of SEO

And you have quite a bit of experience in really writing about SEO. I mean, you have The Art of SEO book that you've done, which is now in its second version, right?

Yeah, it's in the second edition. Last year. It has stuff on Panda, stuff on new tools and so forth. It's got a glossary in it. So yeah.

And that's something that I've actually used as a reference point to a lot of people who are looking to really get in and have a good coverage of it. So earlier, we were talking a little bit about some of the changes and some of the different challenges that different companies were facing specifically. We started getting into a conversation about retailers and, you know, products.

Based retailers and stuff like that. And some of the challenges they were facing, you had some pretty good points. Can you kind of rehash some of the points that you think maybe small and big-size retailers are facing today?

Right. So, my clients span both small and large retail, and they tend to have the same sort of problems. For example, it's hard for them to get links because who's going to link to an e-commerce site? Not very many people.

It's not rich in content, and it certainly is not viral-type content. So that's one issue. Technically, they tend not to have a lot of the things implemented that they should have, like rel prev, rel next on, pagination. Their faceted navigation is not built in a search engine-optimal way. They're not using microdata markup, so they're not taking full advantage of the rich snippets that Google can provide. There are a range of different issues. Maybe they don't have images included in their XML sitemaps.

So many different things that I have to kind of troubleshoot for them. But you know, it's not just tactical. It's strategic. I like to say that, you know, there's, in The Art of War, the book by Sun Tzu, he said that tactics without strategy are the noise before defeat, right? So, working on all these tactics and avoiding the big-picture strategy is a colossal mistake.

The Art Of War by Sun Tzu

So, what would you say, you know, to a company? Let's say let's go for the smaller to midsize company that's looking at their site. They're looking at their retail strategy, and they're saying, "Wow, you mentioned like five or six things that I haven't been paying attention to." But then you said, "Oh, we also have to have a strategy." Would you say there are a couple? What would be the starting point? Like the first three steps, you would say people really need to focus their energy on.

Right. So, the first thing is, how are they going to be remarkable? And when I say remarkable, I mean like Seth Godin's definition of remarkable. Worth remarking about. It doesn't have to be the best, the most interesting, the lowest price. It just has to have something worth remarking about. And that, you know, can lead to viral marketing and content marketing and so forth.

So, how are they going to be remarkable with their videos, with their infographics, with their personality tests or quizzes, with their how-to's, their top ten lists, whatever they're doing that you know, they're going to be remarkable with?

Even their own product descriptions and things like that.

Right, so it could be just a product description like Vat19.com is one of my favorite retailers. Because they are just so remarkable with their product videos, they are viral product videos. They're hilarious, like the music video of this 20-pound gummy bear. It's hilarious.

Awesome. So, if anybody wanted to get in touch with you, obviously, you have a wealth of knowledge in this space, and we're barely scratching the surface. But if anybody wanted to get in touch with you and learn more about retail space, specifically, how would they get in touch with you?

Yeah, email me, Stephan@stephanspencer.com, so, STEPHAN, and, uh, also follow me on Twitter, SSpencer.

SSpencer, right?

SSpencer, yeah.

Awesome. Thank you very much, Stefan. I appreciate your time.

Thanks

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