Google’s new update hit in May, Core Web Vitals or Page Experience.  This update focuses more on technical aspects of the site than content.

However, at the same time Google discontinued AMP, which publishers had to invest heavily to maintain their presence in the search results.  These changes will strain the Google-publisher relationship even further.

Even more, because of the technical nature of the update, many businesses are simply unable to do much to accommodate this. Either legacy code that can’t be changed or 3rd party Content Management Systems that all have their own nuances, it is mainly on them to accommodate this update.

But are businesses reacting to Google like they used to? Has the Big G lost credibility over the past few years?  With the push back on Google eliminating cookies and the massive revolt against Google’s cookie alternative, FLOC (WordPress, Amazon, to name a few), it had to be shelved.  It seems like people are pushing back on the Google dictatorship.

Our advice: Don’t panic, watch, and see how these changes play out.

Show Notes:

Article: WordPress 5.9 May Improve Core Web Vitals (Published after recording)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Ashley Schweigert: I think what’s unique about this update, yeah, it is more technical ’cause it’s getting more into the functionality of the web page versus just the content.

[00:00:10] Matt Bailey: And, and that’s the thing, but I’m a user, as a website owner, I’m the user of the content management system.

[00:00:17] Ashley Schweigert: Right. Right.

[00:00:17] Matt Bailey: And these vitals have everything to do with the content management system. And I can’t change those. So, I, I mean, that’s what I mean, it’s, there’s a problem that they, they have a solution for a problem I don’t have.

[00:00:31] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:00:31] Matt Bailey: Um, and, and if, if the content management systems don’t get on board, what’s going to happen? And this is where I think we’re going to see a lot more of that.

[00:00:44] Bumper Intro-Outro: Welcome to Endless Coffee Cup, a regular discussion of marketing news, culture, and media for our complex digital lifestyle. Join Matt Bailey as he engages in conversation to find insights beyond the latest headlines and deeper understanding for those involved in marketing. Grab a cup of coffee, have a seat, and thanks for joining.

[00:01:11] Matt Bailey: Ashley Schweigert is back with us today. Ashley, so good to see you. How’re you doing?

[00:01:15] Ashley Schweigert: I’m good. I’m good. I’m so excited to talk to you and your listeners and ready to, to just get back at it.

[00:01:21] Matt Bailey: Right.

[00:01:21] Ashley Schweigert: ‘Cause I feel like it’s been a while, right?

[00:01:23] Matt Bailey: It has. I think it’s been a couple of months since, well, not since we last talked…

[00:01:26] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:01:26] Matt Bailey: …but since you’ve been in the studio, so.

[00:01:27] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:01:28] Matt Bailey: Yeah, lots of things going on and probably one of the biggest things, as far as SEO, we already caught up on everything else.

[00:01:36] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:01:36] Matt Bailey: Uh, but the Core Web Vitals, the latest update went live and yes, you immediately sent over an email saying, “We need to talk about this.”

[00:01:46] Ashley Schweigert: Yes. And the, the reason why I wanted to talk about it is we had that podcast. I, what was it? Was it last year or maybe the year before talking about what has really changed with SEO, and we always go back to quality content, and that is still very much the case. That will never change. And quality is still, um, being evaluated today, but this new algorithm update is very interesting, and that happened in May. Uh, I mean, it was technically happening throughout, but they wanted to really roll that out within Google, um, in May.

And you could see that a lot of this gets into technical and obviously user experience. So, that needs to be top of mind. So, it’s more than just looking at mobile friendliness. This is really, um, getting into the weeds of your website and making sure that you have a developer that understands the technical side of SEO and that you, you do understand some of these pieces that we’re going to be diving into today.

[00:02:44] Matt Bailey: Absolutely. I, I thought it was interesting when it was first announced that it had everything to do with user experience. And, but what I noticed is it’s user experience from a very technical standpoint, uh, page speed of, and, and now I can get behind the shift. There’s nothing I hate more than when I am loading a page, especially on my mobile, and I start reading the article and everything moves because ads are loading. And so, yeah, I can get behind some of this, but then you start digging into what it means and what it requires. And all of a sudden, it, it, the learning curve is dramatic. I, it’s not like typical SEO.

[00:03:27] Ashley Schweigert: No, it’s really not. And that’s something that I am definitely an SEO person, and you know where my background is. It goes into the writing piece. I, I think we talked about this, how there’s two schools of thought with SEO. Either you’re more on the technical side and that development piece, or you’re a content writer, and SEO does really require both. And I’m feeling that with this algorithm update, it’s getting into the, into the technical side, for sure.

[00:03:55] Matt Bailey: Oh, absolutely.

[00:03:55] Ashley Schweigert: Um, I mean you have safe browsing. You have, you know, your SSL certificate, which I would hope would already be in place, but it’s definitely something that you need to have if you’re really looking at the security of your site and, uh, making sure going into that user experience that the user does feel safe when, um, he or she is entering the site and looking around.

[00:04:19] Matt Bailey: Right. Right. I mean, and that’s part of the user experience that if, especially if you are tracking data, getting data, credit card data, uh, they, users need to know everything is secure. Um, but this gets into so much, and, and we were just talking about that. It gets into the weeds rather than things that are very visual or understandable. Um, and, and again, I think some of this is a good idea, but the more I started looking into it, I, I mean, I use WordPress. I love WordPress.

[00:04:51] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:04:52] Matt Bailey: Love WordPress, but part of this is I really can’t manage a lot of this using a third-party platform. And so, and, and, it was interesting ’cause I saw an article that, that compared WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Wix, all your…

[00:05:12] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:05:12] Matt Bailey: I think it was like the big 10 of content management systems and some perform better, some perform worse, they, it wasn’t crazy consistent, but ultimately what the article concluded is you’re kind of locked in. Whatever you’re using, you’re locked into whether they, as a platform, choose to develop around Core Web Vitals. And I believe at this point, like WordPress and I think a couple of others have even come out and said, “We’re not going to change anything.”

[00:05:47] Ashley Schweigert: No, I mean, I think the only thing that’s really good about, I’ll just, you know, use WordPress as an example, that we know that your images should be optimized whenever you’re adding them on your site, but it has gotten a little bit, um, I, pickier, I’ve noticed.

[00:06:05] Matt Bailey: I like that, yeah.

[00:06:06] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. Yeah. I’m trying to think about it like properly, we’re this, because you’re, I mean, you’re going to find, if you’re thinking, “How’s my site been impacted by this update and how…?” I mean, just go into your Google Search Console, and it will show, it will tell you basically what you need to fix, and a lot of times you will see, it does have to do with, um, image optimization.

[00:06:26] Matt Bailey: Right. Right.

[00:06:26] Ashley Schweigert: But if you’re checking the page speed of your site anyways, uh, which you should have been doing even before this update, you’ll notice that image optimization has always been important, but it is pickier today than I think it was before. And, I mean, you can use plugins on your site, and WordPress, I know, has several plugins for image optimization. But the reason why you just don’t want to go in and download a plugin and start utilizing this, I mean, if you have a staging site, great. Um, you can go ahead and test that before you push that live.

But not everybody does, because they’re like, “Well, I have backups, so who cares? I’ll just do this, you know, in the evening or whatever, right?” Um, that’s not always great, but you’ll notice that if you’re just using one of these plugins, you’re going to have some things break.

[00:07:13] Matt Bailey: Yeah. Well, yeah.

[00:07:14] Ashley Schweigert: And especially since it has gotten so picky. So, I know recently I just been really evaluating this is say, okay, like I’ll just use, when I’m trying to speed up a site, how much do I really want to focus on with speeding that site up? What is going to be the most important piece? So, I know you, you touched on it, but like the pop-ups, right? Those can slow down your site, having all those ads. So, really digging into what pertains to user experience and what doesn’t.

[00:07:45] Matt Bailey: Well, and it’s interesting. So, the, the, the elements of Core Web Vitals, there’s the, you know, the speed, the shift, um, and the, the area, how long it takes for the first bit of information of the largest, uh, bit of information to show up. Uh, going through those, those are almost all effected by ads. Advertising.

[00:08:09] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:08:09] Matt Bailey: And so, if you put ads on your pages, this is going to affect you more so. And so, this is why, you know, we were kind of talking about small businesses and how…

[00:08:21] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:08:21] Matt Bailey: …how are they going to respond? But I think this is actually going to affect publishers more.

[00:08:27] Ashley Schweigert: I was just thinking that because…

[00:08:28] Matt Bailey: Who rely on ads.

[00:08:28] Ashley Schweigert: …who really puts, yeah, who really puts ads on the site? But I do think that if you’re a business and you’re relying on publishers to help you, you know, get some customers, ’cause you’re spending money on these ads, I think it’s important to know that you may not want to invest in that revenue stream as much as you did in the past.

[00:08:47] Matt Bailey: Well, and to me, and, and so this is where, I, I, I don’t know. Whenever Google announces something new, I tend to take a very, I, first of all, I don’t, I don’t jump in.

[00:09:00] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:09:00] Matt Bailey: You know, I’m not, I’m not all on board with the Google. Alright?

[00:09:03] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:09:04] Matt Bailey: I, I, I look at their announcements very suspiciously because one of the things that was announced that as Core Web Vitals is being implemented, AMP is no longer being supported.

[00:09:17] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:09:17] Matt Bailey: And, now wait a minute, if you’re a publisher, you, for the past, how many, five, eight years, have been investing heavily in AMP. Lots of publishers have had to hire programmers to create AMP friendliness for Google.

[00:09:36] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:09:36] Matt Bailey: And then all of a sudden, without warning, gone.

[00:09:40] Ashley Schweigert: Well, and that’s where it gets into check, you should be checking your traffic anyways, like every month you should be going into Google Analytics and seeing are you dropping in traffic, and if you are, what’s happening? Now, I will say, I did see with some of my clients that haven’t invested as much in the user experience, maybe they’ve done some other things, um, that they were impacted by, by the algorithm update. Um, it wasn’t huge, um, for some, others maybe more than…

[00:10:00] Matt Bailey: Well, and I, it’s going to be across the board.

[00:10:10] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:10:10] Matt Bailey: I mean, it really is. And, and first, so, yeah, I think publishers got jobbed…

[00:10:15] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:10:16] Matt Bailey: …because they invested in AMP, it got yanked out from under them, and, and now AMP was not without its controversy because they, you know, at first they were not getting credit for those page views that Google was showing in the results, and now the publishers, if they rely on ads, they’re the ones that are going to be, you, now you need to invest in speed. Now you need to invest in these Core Web Vitals. So, it’s like, there’s this, you, you know, if I, if I was a publisher who relies on ad revenue, I would be furious at Google…

[00:10:52] Ashley Schweigert: Oh yeah.

[00:10:53] Matt Bailey: …with, with this change. Uh…

[00:10:55] Ashley Schweigert: This where you might want to just like sit back and kind of watch it.

[00:10:58] Matt Bailey: Just watch. That, that was my, that’s my advice, honestly…

[00:11:01] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:11:01] Matt Bailey: …let’s just, let’s just watch this for a while because Google has a history. They have a history of doing things and then switching midstream.

[00:11:10] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:11:10] Matt Bailey: Now, let’s say it’s, it’s usually five years or so, you know, four to five years. Um, well, look at what happened with cookies. They reverse course on that real fast, didn’t they?

[00:11:20] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:11:21] Matt Bailey: I’m like, “Wow, they blinked.” Um, yeah, it was supposed to happen. Nope. Two more years of cookies.

[00:11:28] Ashley Schweigert: Well, yeah, and there’s just a lot of things that will happen in updates that they don’t always come out and say, and that’s, whereas your SEO person should always be testing and just kind of, you know, digging around a little bit. Like I remember when Penguin, like, had that big update and, you know, everybody was saying you can’t have a lot of links in your, your um, your footer area. You remember that?

[00:11:49] Matt Bailey: Mhm.

[00:11:50] Ashley Schweigert: Like, you have to be really careful with that and, you know, how many duplicate links you have on your, on a single web page and, you know, that was the case actually at first, but that did start changing, and that’s not the case today. And that’s why you do want to like, just monitor this and see, I mean, this just rolled out. Yeah, you’re going to see a fluctuation in your traffic, but maybe just go ahead and make some updates, but I wouldn’t panic.

[00:12:16] Matt Bailey: No.

[00:12:16] Ashley Schweigert: I would see how you do maybe next month and the following, just kind of track it a bit. Now, if you are using…

[00:12:24] Matt Bailey: So, actually, I like, I think that’s a great point. Don’t panic.

[00:12:26] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, right.

[00:12:27] Matt Bailey: And, and that’s my number one advice to people is, “Okay, algorithms change, don’t panic.” And honestly, you’re like, “Don’t give it a month. Give it a two.” I’m like “How?” I mean, I’m trying to think, like the last time I went and looked at anything. And honestly, the algorithm changes daily.

[00:12:42] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, it does.

[00:12:43] Matt Bailey: I mean, it, it’s constantly being revised and let’s be honest, there’s humans behind the algorithms. Humans make mistakes. It’s not always going to be the same. I honestly have not tracked rankings of any sites that I manage or anything for probably years.

[00:12:59] Ashley Schweigert: See, I still, I still track some mornings.

[00:13:01] Matt Bailey: So yeah, I, I, personally, I don’t panic. I don’t even go look.

[00:13:05] Ashley Schweigert: Well, because it’s very, it makes sense why you wouldn’t, because…

[00:13:08] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:13:08] Ashley Schweigert: …there’s always fluctuation.

[00:13:09] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:13:10] Ashley Schweigert: Always. Like keywords, the keywords that you’re ranking for right now, you might not be ranking for those, you know, later. I mean, there’s always, they’re always going to go up and down, up and down, up and down.

[00:13:19] Matt Bailey: Well, and, and you, but here’s the thing, you’re looking at a single data point.

[00:13:23] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, you are.

[00:13:24] Matt Bailey: So, it could be the trend. You know, there are keyword trends. Some are very drastic. Some are not. So, I, I…

[00:13:31] Ashley Schweigert: But look at 2020, right?

[00:13:33] Matt Bailey: Right.

[00:13:33] Ashley Schweigert: You’re going to, you know, the state of the environment was obviously very different.

[00:13:37] Matt Bailey: Yep.

[00:13:37] Ashley Schweigert: People are at home, um, I have a client that’s does flooring and, uh, it was very interesting to see because a lot of people were working on home projects…

[00:13:45] Matt Bailey: Yep.

[00:13:46] Ashley Schweigert: …and some of their keywords could be used for like a consumer and for a business. So, we really had to analyze that and…

[00:13:54] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:13:54] Ashley Schweigert: …you know, really see, “Okay, why is somebody going here?” And it’s this really…

[00:13:58] Matt Bailey: Yep.

[00:13:58] Ashley Schweigert: …you know, what this page should be about.

[00:14:00] Matt Bailey: See, and that’s the danger. You can’t just take like a single data point and say, “Oh, well,” and build a whole case around it and, and now we’re going to change. No, there’s, there’s drastic changes in when keywords are important, so yeah, naturally you’re going to see demand fall and rise. That’s why I, I love looking at analytics more than ranking reports.

[00:14:21] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:14:22] Matt Bailey: And again, and, and this is something I, I have to really teach people. The amount of visits you get does not have a direct impact on the amount of revenue you produce or the amount of leads you produce. There is not a direct line from visits to conversions or visits to sales. It may look like there is a direct relationship, but there really isn’t. In between someone coming to the site and converting, there’s a lot that goes on. We don’t know why they’re there, what they’re looking for. And that comes down, yes, to usability, user experience, and all those things.

[00:14:57] Ashley Schweigert: I was just going to say that.

[00:14:58] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:14:59] Ashley Schweigert: It’s going to get into some of the other, um, and this wasn’t really talked about as much, I don’t think, with, um, ’cause yeah, I was just kind of going through my notes ’cause there’s just been so many, uh, factors in this, um, algorithm update…

[00:15:11] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[00:15:11] Ashley Schweigert: …and I just wanted to make sure I had them all. I know when we were first talking, um, about this podcast and, but what you’re speaking about is going into those user signals that are like bounce rate, time on the page, all those things that do impact your rankings, um, but I mean, yeah, you’re absolutely right. You can increase traffic and it could be irrelevant traffic. And so, you do want to make sure that those other pieces that are found within your Google Analytics are up and where they need to be.

[00:15:40] Matt Bailey: Yeah, absolutely. It’s, and, and the other side of this whole thing, too, is I’ve got a friend who works for a, a very large brand and always, he’s trying to talk about page speed. But the problem is because this is a legacy brand, they’ve been around, there are things, there is code, legacy code that will never be changed.

[00:16:02] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:16:02] Matt Bailey: Because he’s in SEO. There are other people that run the website, and, and, and they’re kind of a technical, technically oriented company. Nothing will change. Those pages will not change the page, the, the weight of the page or the size of the page. He’s never going to affect that. It’s not going to happen. And so, how many very large enterprise level companies have that sort of issue…

[00:16:28] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:16:28] Matt Bailey: …where there are other people managing the website and managing parts of the website and there’s legacy code that will not be moved regardless of what Google says. And so, you know, we talked about the small businesses, there’s also the enterprise level businesses that, there’s, as it, if you’re in SEO there, you don’t want to affect a lot of change.

[00:16:51] Ashley Schweigert: No, you don’t, ’cause they’re relying on other types of marketing…

[00:16:53] Matt Bailey: Right.

[00:16:53] Ashley Schweigert: …to really bring traffic to their site…

[00:16:55] Matt Bailey: Right?

[00:16:55] Ashley Schweigert: …like referral, direct, and they’re not really relying on or, or on organic.

[00:17:00] Matt Bailey: Right. Well, and I think that’s something we can learn, you know, even a small businessperson can learn is, yeah, you may be getting 50% or more of your traffic from search. Do other things. Do other marketing. Do other methods that if search went away tomorrow, what would you have? Um, and, and, you know, and don’t throw it all onto social media. Please don’t do that.

[00:17:19] Ashley Schweigert: I know. I was just thinking that ’cause we were just talking about that earlier.

[00:17:22] Matt Bailey: We talked about that before we got on the mics, yeah.

[00:17:23] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. That’s why, I mean you, that’s why it gets into the conversion funnel, right? And just looking at where your traffic is going on your site, I personally believe that every web page, um, fits within the funnel. Like it’s either on the awareness stage or it’s on the, um, consideration stage, and so thinking about where it fits and the type of content that is on your page, and if that makes sense to that stage, that will tell you that, “Okay, am, am I going to be able to bring a person to the next stage and convert them or not?”

[00:17:57] Matt Bailey: Right, right. It’s um, and so I think because of some of this, I, I, I think Google has lost a lot of credibility in the past year.

[00:18:08] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:18:08] Matt Bailey: So, you know, they, the cookies are going away, and they’re going to be replaced with FLoC, the Federation Learning of Cohorts. And then one by one, you see WordPress say, “No, we’re going to block FLoC.” So, Google can’t use any WordPress sites to gather data on users. Then Amazon comes out, they’re going to block Google’s FLoC.

[00:18:31] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:18:31] Matt Bailey: And, you know, more and more, I think eBay was one, but major web properties saying, “No…”

[00:18:39] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:18:39] Matt Bailey: “…Google. We’re not playing the game.” And now all of a sudden, Google says, you know, after major companies, “Okay, cookies for another two years. We’re not going to do…” Better than I thought. So, Google blinked when the rest of the industry said, “We’re not going to play your game.” And I think Core Web Vitals, it, it’s, as someone pointed out, this is not an industry standard. This is not like W3C. It’s not like, uh, the Web, um, Accessibility Initiative.

[00:19:10] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:19:10] Matt Bailey: It’s, this is Google’s standard that they have created, themselves, um, but nobody else is on board. Nobody else helped to create the, it’s their own standard that they are trying to apply across the board to everybody. And I have to wonder if there will be people who say, “No. Doesn’t work for us. We don’t like it. We don’t want it.” Just like what happened with FLoC. I, I think, you, you know, already, you’ve got people angry about AMP being discontinued.

[00:19:44] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:20:00] Matt Bailey: And then Google’s saying, “Here’s a new standard.” Well, what’s going to happen five years from now, Google? Are you going to tell us there’s a new standard? And, so, I think they’re losing some credibility in the marketplace. I don’t think people are as willing to play the Google game, especially when it’s as intense, and it requires us, you, you know, I think, well already, like WordPress, “We’re not going to respond to, to uh, Core Web Vitals. We’re going to change what we’re doing.” And other CMS systems have said the same thing, so, wow.

[00:20:21] Ashley Schweigert: Where’s that going to go?

[00:20:22] Matt Bailey: I mean, I, I think we’ve seen a shift in the past year about people just kind of fed up with playing the Google game.

[00:20:30] Ashley Schweigert: I’m glad to see it personally, because, you know, I’m just hoping that this isn’t, it’s not just with Google, I’m hoping that this happens with other types of things like Facebook and, you know…

[00:20:41] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[00:20:42] Ashley Schweigert: …right? I mean, I just want to see, um, I do want to see companies stick up for themselves and say, “No, I’ve had it.”

[00:20:49] Matt Bailey: Yeah. Well, and, and as someone said that, they said Core Web Vitals, Google created a solution for a problem no one had.

[00:20:57] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:20:58] Matt Bailey: I was like, “Wow, that’s a,” well, and, and so here’s the thing. And, and I explain this to people that, so it was years ago, years ago. Um, I’m trying to think what it was. This was so early, this was in the early 2000s where, um, Google started image search.

[00:21:16] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:21:17] Matt Bailey: However, they also at one of the conferences, “let it slip,” and I’m doing air quotes. They quote unquote “let it slip” that if you added the title of what an image was in the image tag, like…

[00:21:33] Ashley Schweigert: In the alt tag, yeah.

[00:21:35] Matt Bailey: Image and, and title, what named the image and described it, uh, it would help your rankings. So, what did every SEO do? What did every SEO blogger do? It, “Tag your images!” And less than a year later, Google Images came out. And, you know, so some of us are, “Whoa, wait a minute here.”

[00:21:56] Ashley Schweigert: That’s why SEO has theory. There is so much theory in SEO.

[00:22:00] Matt Bailey: Oh…

[00:22:00] Ashley Schweigert: It’s like, think it’s one of the most debatable pieces of marketing…

[00:22:04] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[00:22:05] Ashley Schweigert: …out there.

[00:22:05] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:22:06] Ashley Schweigert: Because everybody has an opinion about it. Everybody says that like, “Well, this is going to impact your rankings. This isn’t.”

[00:22:11] Matt Bailey: Right.

[00:22:11] Ashley Schweigert: And you can find an article saying, “Oh, well that’s not true. Doesn’t…”

[00:22:14] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:22:14] Ashley Schweigert: “…well, this is true.” Well, that’s where you really get into testing your site. You have to test your site. You have to watch. You have to see what works and what doesn’t.

[00:22:21] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:22:22] Ashley Schweigert: You can’t just go along with what everybody’s saying, but it’s so interesting that you said that ’cause I remember, I remember another SEO person was saying to me, “Well, alt tags aren’t as important anymore.” Who cares? Well, and I’m thinking, “How is Google even crawling that, that image?” I mean, think about that. So, and I remember I still put them in.

[00:22:40] Matt Bailey: Right, yeah.

[00:22:41] Ashley Schweigert: And…

[00:22:41] Matt Bailey: Well, it’s an accessibility issue.

[00:22:42] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:22:43] Matt Bailey: It’s, it has nothing to do with, and, and I think, honestly, alt tags do matter.

[00:22:48] Ashley Schweigert: I think so too.

[00:22:48] Matt Bailey: Because it’s an accessibility issue. It’s…

[00:22:51] Ashley Schweigert: But see, that, that is debatable. You know…

[00:22:53] Matt Bailey: Well, it’s just a matter of how…

[00:22:54] Ashley Schweigert: …that’s still debatable.

[00:22:55] Matt Bailey: Well, and we are caught, I talked about this on another podcast where it’s, it’s not one thing that matters.

[00:23:01] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:23:01] Matt Bailey: It’s a hundred things on that page that you have done to create context, and…

[00:23:08] Ashley Schweigert: Google’s looking at, “What is this page about?”

[00:23:10] Matt Bailey: Right. Yeah.

[00:23:11] Ashley Schweigert: Ultimately.

[00:23:11] Matt Bailey: But to say one factor that is, not just that, and this goes back to the standard. Web Accessibility Initiative, alt tags are a standard.

[00:23:20] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:23:21] Matt Bailey: Google uses that standard because for, we’ve always said if your website is accessible to screen readers, to anyone with disabilities, it’s accessible to Google.

[00:23:32] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:23:32] Matt Bailey: And so, yeah, absolutely. It’s, it’s, that’s where we’re looking at different standards and how they apply. Uh, but yeah, I, it just, it, it’s hilarious. Now I completely forget where we were on that.

[00:23:44] Ashley Schweigert: I know. I know. It’s so easy to…

[00:23:46] Matt Bailey: So, so, someone from Google let it leak about image titles.

[00:23:50] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:23:50] Matt Bailey: Six months later, they come up with Google image search. Well, now, did they use the SEO community as a tool to get something done that they needed done, which was millions of images with a tag describing what it is, and now all of a sudden, they launch image search. I, I tend to believe that was not an accident.

Um, and, and maybe I’ve got the tinfoil hat on and all that, but then a little bit later, Google starts talking about page speed. Well, okay, but if you know how Google, how search engines work, they download copies of your webpage.

[00:24:31] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:24:32] Matt Bailey: You can go in and you can look at the cached version. Now the cached version is the copy of your website that is on Google’s server. Now, one of Google’s biggest expenses, servers. Why? Because they are downloading copies of everything they find online. Millions of websites, of images, of pages.

[00:24:57] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:24:57] Matt Bailey: Now, if your number one expense is hosting and storage, what happens when you tell webmasters, “You know, if your pages are a little bit lighter and they load faster, you go up in the rankings,” and they make that a signal in SEO. What are these webmasters going to do? Start lightening their pages…

[00:25:19] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:25:19] Matt Bailey: …which lowers how much space they need to store all these, all these pages on. So, that’s what I mean. This is, this is why I always view Google with a little bit of suspicion, ’cause there’s always that…

[00:25:32] Ashley Schweigert: They have an endgame.

[00:25:33] Matt Bailey: There is an angle.

[00:25:34] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:25:34] Matt Bailey: They always have an angle. Um, now I can’t prove any of this. This is just from my observation over the past years.

[00:25:41] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, this is your tin hat.

[00:25:42] Matt Bailey: This is, yes. This is my tinfoil hat with Google. I, I am deeply suspicious whenever they make a major, major or minor move, ’cause I’m like, there’s something they’re not saying. And, yeah. I mean…

[00:25:55] Ashley Schweigert: I think we talked about that even with advertising and, um…

[00:25:58] Matt Bailey: Oh, yeah, and the ads. Yeah, we’ve talked about that. Yeah.

[00:26:00] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. There’s, I think there’s a lie. I agree with you.

[00:26:03] Matt Bailey: Yeah. They’re a publicly traded company…

[00:26:04] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:26:05] Matt Bailey: …with shareholders, and their job is to create profit.

[00:26:08] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:26:09] Matt Bailey: That’s it. Um, even before then, and, you know, and the “Don’t do Evil” motto disappeared, like, within a decade of the, so, yeah, I, I tend to view some of these things very, very suspiciously, like, yeah, okay. I understand you’re going to make that part of the algorithm and you’re going to say pages need to be faster. I, you know, just the way I approach it, pages are lighter, which means they don’t…

[00:26:35] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:26:35] Matt Bailey: …you don’t need to store much, but you know. I could be completely off base on that, right?

[00:26:40] Ashley Schweigert: But that’s the thing, too, like I think most people use that tool, Google PageSpeed Insights to see, ’cause you know, it’s free and they look at that or GTmetrix, right? And they actually both measure different things on your website, um, to see if it’s, you know, see how fast it is. So, they actually measure different things. So, you, you do want to make sure you’re aware of that, but Google PageSpeed Insights actually changed when this algorithm came out.

Yeah, because, um, I remember I made a change on a site before it happened, before this started rolling out, and, um, I started looking ’cause, you know, I’m always checking and I noticed that, I’m like, “Why did the site slow down? This doesn’t make any sense. We did all these things.” And then I was talking to a couple developers who are always like, you know, checking this stuff out and they’re like, “Oh yeah, there were some changes with Google PageSpeed Insight.” And so, I was like, “Oh, okay, well, isn’t that awfully convenient?”

[00:27:39] Matt Bailey: I mean, it’s, I think it’s a good idea to, to have the Search Console.

[00:27:46] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:27:47] Matt Bailey: I think it’s a good idea to have those things because it’s information. However, the danger is in reacting to everything. Great example, I brought this up before that the, the Web Accessibility Initiative, the, the W3C for accessibility.

[00:28:04] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:28:06] Matt Bailey: If you were to run a website, even a well optimized, designed website through the accessibility checker, most sites would not pass 100%.

[00:28:18] Ashley Schweigert: Oh no, absolutely. You’re right.

[00:28:20] Matt Bailey: And, and if you look at where it fails, you can justify, “Well, we didn’t do that because there’s this functionality, there’s this, there’s,” that’s, you, you know, there is, there are clear and good rationalizations for why you don’t have 100% compatibility or 100%, um, uh, whatever it is, you know.

[00:28:41] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, I…

[00:28:41] Matt Bailey: I never comply 100%…

[00:28:43] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:28:43] Matt Bailey: …to, to the accessibility because there are specific reasons that you do things and not to say that some of those are wrong, just they’re not completely applicable. But again, that, where you do an automated check of your website, it’s checking the code. The code, and it’s the only thing it’s looking at is the code.

[00:29:07] Ashley Schweigert: And that is something that is really important, I think for everybody listening to understand, ’cause I think it’s common ’cause we are visual people that when we get on a website, we see pictures, we see all of this and…

[00:29:18] Matt Bailey: Right.

[00:29:18] Ashley Schweigert: … you know, we start changing all of this and that, this is a robot that is crawling your site.

[00:29:22] Matt Bailey: Yep.

[00:29:23] Ashley Schweigert: And it can’t see it.

[00:29:25] Matt Bailey: Right. Yeah.

[00:29:26] Ashley Schweigert: So, it’s, it is absolutely looking at the code.

[00:29:29] Matt Bailey: Any automated test…

[00:29:31] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:29:31] Matt Bailey: …where you put in your domain and there is something that happens, it’s looking at your code. It’s not a human looking at your website. And that’s ultimately where you’re going to make your money.

[00:29:43] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:29:43] Matt Bailey: From the humans. Bots don’t pay.

[00:29:45] Ashley Schweigert: Right. Right.

[00:29:46] Matt Bailey: They don’t do that. Um, so, the, the, the, so, that’s why I say, yeah, go ahead and, and, you know, connect your site to Webmaster Tools or, uh, Search Console, uh, get on Bing Webmaster Tools, get on, you know, get on as many as you can because it’s information. It’s information that will guide you, but please don’t feel you have to respond and react…

[00:30:00] Ashley Schweigert: No.

[00:30:12] Matt Bailey: …to every suggestion or every, uh, every area where it says you’re deficient.

[00:30:20] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. I, I mean, I think that waiting a bit is always a good thing whenever…

[00:30:24] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[00:30:24] Ashley Schweigert: …there’s a new update.

[00:30:25] Matt Bailey: Oh, wait for a year.

[00:30:26] Ashley Schweigert: Like just, just wait. Yeah.

[00:30:28] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:30:28] Ashley Schweigert: Like, don’t freak out. I mean, I think it’s good, I mean, I completely support what you’re saying, like go ahead and make some changes, but you know, you don’t have to do every little thing, so, that’s how you do want to weigh what’s more important, um, and what really makes sense for right now, especially if you’re a business that maybe has a smaller budget. You know, some of those things you, you don’t have to do right now.

[00:30:50] Matt Bailey: Right. Right. Um, and we were talking about that, that, you know, how many small businesses are going to get priced out because of all these technical issues, you know, like we were saying, if I, if I’m a small business with a WordPress website and you know, maybe a, a WooCommerce store.

[00:31:05] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:31:07] Matt Bailey: If I can’t do it in WordPress, now what? I have to hire someone who technically, hopefully, is proficient in this.

[00:31:16] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:31:16] Matt Bailey: I have no way of checking. I have no way of knowing, um, other than some report maybe that they generate. But that’s always been a concern of mine is that it’s, Google is asking for more and more technical things that as, even a small business, even large businesses where the SEO’s are mainly content producers, they’re not technical, and, and they have IT people running the site who, you know, “Google says that? No. Well, you know, we’ll, we’ll do our own thing.” You know, they’re, not everyone’s paying attention.

[00:31:49] Ashley Schweigert: They just don’t care, and…

[00:31:50] Matt Bailey: And, and not everyone can afford to react. That’s, that’s, I think, the big issue.

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[00:32:40] Ashley Schweigert: When you have a big company, you have an IT team, ’cause, you know, I totally get that type of culture, and the IT team is running the website. They’re going to look at it very differently than someone who is an SEO person.

[00:32:53] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:32:54] Ashley Schweigert: And, I mean, that is something to really keep in mind that those pieces have probably been ignored for a long time, and I mean, they really have, I mean, all these updates have probably been, probably been ignored. I mean, there are sites that I know that, you know, when you said there’s just some code that won’t change. It’s just going to be what it is.

And there are some, you know, companies that I know that, you know, they’re larger and their websites look bad and you’ll even like, you can crawl it and look at it, but guess what? Their domain authority is extremely high. And that’s why it’s like, that will never change.

[00:33:30] Matt Bailey: No.

[00:33:30] Ashley Schweigert: Your domain authority is essentially your popularity score with Google. And that comes from other marketing initiatives, and that will never change. And that will impact how, you know, you’re going to show up in rankings.

[00:33:45] Matt Bailey: The, the, I mean, it sounds so, so Marxist when I say this, the system is inherently unfair.

[00:33:52] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:33:53] Matt Bailey: Um…

[00:33:53] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, if you had the money, you had the power. I hate to say it. You are going to…

[00:33:57] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:33:57] Ashley Schweigert: …I mean, I remember years ago, um, and I think I might’ve even said this on our last SEO podcast, but I was helping a company that was a new, um, lingerie company, and, um, she was competing against like Victoria’s Secret.

[00:34:15] Matt Bailey: Yeah. Oh wow.

[00:34:15] Ashley Schweigert: And, I mean, I hate to say this, Victoria’s Secret’s gonna win. You know, they’re a big box brand. Everybody knows them. You’re not gonna win. So, that’s where, you know, you get into, when you have, I do believe in the power of having a good content person as your SEO. Um, ’cause, you know, I, that’s where I come from, because what I’m going to do is I’m going to look at, “Okay, what are your competitive advantages?”

[00:34:41] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[00:34:42] Ashley Schweigert: “And what is the niche here? So, is this just standard lingerie or is it, like…?” I mean, I hate using lingerie as an example, but…

[00:34:50] Matt Bailey: You dug the hole, Ashley.

[00:34:51] Ashley Schweigert: It’s the only one I could think of right now.

[00:34:52] Matt Bailey: You dug the hole.

[00:34:53] Ashley Schweigert: It’s the only one I could think of.

[00:34:55] Matt Bailey: I’m just going to sit back and watch what you’re going to do next.

[00:34:56] Ashley Schweigert: I know, ’cause I was thinking, well, you know, I was going to say, is it, it’s an appendage, you know, you know, it’s like, you just want to think about how is your brand, I know, I know…

[00:35:04] Matt Bailey: I’m just like…

[00:35:04] Ashley Schweigert: Don’t judge me, people.

[00:35:06] Matt Bailey: “What kind of example is she going to use? I’m going to figure this out.”

[00:35:08] Ashley Schweigert: I know, there’s one thing, and this probably isn’t the best example right now. It’s the first one that came to my head because, well, because that one was so heartbreaking because she was starting this business and um, she actually was a, this is an excellent SEO story because she was a journalist.

[00:35:27] Matt Bailey: Oh, wow.

[00:35:27] Ashley Schweigert: And, yeah, and um, for a very well-known publication and she wanted to start this business and she wanted to do it through e-commerce and, you know, that’s fine, but um, when, when you’re competing against those kinds of stores, you do have to think about…

[00:35:43] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:35:43] Ashley Schweigert: …how you’re going to stick out, you know, from them. And, um, but yeah, there were a couple other things, too, that happened, um, from an SEO perspective that, you know, you wouldn’t know about if, if you’re a writer, about duplicate content being an issue.

[00:35:59] Matt Bailey: Oh no, yeah.

[00:36:00] Ashley Schweigert: They were, there, there were a many, there’s…

[00:36:01] Matt Bailey: You were…

[00:36:02] Ashley Schweigert: …many lessons to be learned…

[00:36:03] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:36:03] Ashley Schweigert: …with that particular, um, situation. But, um, you know, it does get into just making sure that you understand what’s important to Google and, um, you know, how, at the end of the day, you’re going to stick out because the big brands, they have the money, they have the other marketing initiatives to back it up, they have that domain authority, which takes years to get.

[00:36:24] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:36:24] Ashley Schweigert: A new site, you’re not going to get a high domain authority right away. It’s just not going to happen. And what, what are those come from? It comes from links. Domain authority has, has a lot to do with your links.

[00:36:36] Matt Bailey: Yep. Well, and, so I think this was probably like 2010 I want to say, BMW got kicked out of Google, I think for like two weeks, because they were doing doorway pages. I mean, it was stupid.

[00:36:48] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, I remember that.

[00:36:51] Matt Bailey: Stupid. And at a conference, Matt Cutts was, when he was at Google, he, someone challenged him that, how is it that BMW does what other people have done, and they’re back in the index in, in two weeks, and with, you know, with a, barely an apology? And, and Matt Cutts, I, I don’t think this was the company line, but he says, well, to the effect, “You can’t, you can’t have, uh, search results without BMW. You know, if someone’s just searching for BM, BMW, you can’t have bmw.com.” And it’s like, “Whoa,” you, you know, everyone around the room, all of a sudden realized this is unfair.

[00:37:33] Ashley Schweigert: Oh yeah.

[00:37:34] Matt Bailey: That a big brand can do this, and Google’s line is, “Well, they have to be there. The, that’s, the web just expects them to be there.”

[00:37:43] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:37:43] Matt Bailey: And so, that’s where we’re like, “Yeah, this is not, this is not a, a completely democratic process.” There’s this, yes. You’ve, you’re trying to, you’re a small business and you’re trying to cheat? Yeah. You will get kicked out.

[00:37:56] Ashley Schweigert: Oh yeah.

[00:37:56] Matt Bailey: And that’s…

[00:37:56] Ashley Schweigert: And that’s where you get into local SEO, even if you’re a company that’s very well-known locally and you have the certain things in place that you should have, um, you’re going to do better than somebody who’s just starting, and, and that’s how you have, you have to really look at your marketing as a whole. You can’t just rely on one piece.

[00:38:15] Matt Bailey: Right. And, and that’s where, and, and, yeah.

[00:38:16] Ashley Schweigert: And so, this, this update should not kill you. I’m like…

[00:38:19] Matt Bailey: No, not at all.

[00:38:20] Ashley Schweigert: …if you’re looking at everything else…

[00:38:21] Matt Bailey: Not at all.

[00:38:22] Ashley Schweigert: …it should not kill you. Because, I mean, ultimately these other pieces that we’re talking about, they do like go into user experience because…

[00:38:30] Matt Bailey: Absolutely.

[00:38:31] Ashley Schweigert: …you know, if you’re thinking about how every webpage is used on your site, and you’re driving traffic to that webpage, that just makes sense, then you’re going to get the kind of results that you’re looking for.

[00:38:42] Matt Bailey: Yeah. Well, even, so John Mueller, it’s so funny, every time he’s, from Google, every time he says something, it’s like, people are parsing it. You know, “What did he mean?” and “What is he trying to,” I’m amazed. Now, one of the things he said, which made complete sense, but people are still breaking it down, which is, “Don’t focus on just one of these aspects.”

[00:39:02] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:39:02] Matt Bailey: This is part of a big picture. And so, if all you do is focus on Core Web Vitals, you’re going to miss the big picture.

[00:39:09] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:39:10] Matt Bailey: If all you do is focus on links, you’re going to miss the big picture. If, and, and, so yeah, your website is an, I like to say it’s an organic, uh, mechanism. It, it’s an organic organism that moves, lives, breathes, and you feed it different things. And, but I always come back, if I’m going to do one thing, I’m going to do PR.

[00:39:31] Ashley Schweigert: Oh yeah. Absolutely.

[00:39:32] Matt Bailey: If, if I’m going to focus on one thing, it’s going to be PR because it’s content, it’s links, it’s credibility, it’s traffic, it’s sales, it’s that I, I, if I’m going to do one activity to market my website, it’s PR.

[00:39:46] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you’re completely right. And, you know, that’s the thing, too, um, you know, unfortunately, depending on the type of PR you’re doing, it takes time. It is not something that you’re just going to get an immediate result.

[00:40:00] Matt Bailey: It’s marketing.

[00:40:01] Ashley Schweigert: I mean it’s…

[00:40:02] Matt Bailey: It takes strategy. It takes…

[00:40:03] Ashley Schweigert: It does.

[00:40:03] Matt Bailey: …you know, and, and I say PR, but wrapped up in that statement of PR, it is, yeah.

[00:40:09] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:40:09] Matt Bailey: It’s, it’s how are you going to do it? What are you going to do? What are you working towards? You, you know, it’s a strategy unto itself.

[00:40:15] Ashley Schweigert: Well, and it’s too, making sure you understand, like, don’t rely on a press release.

[00:40:19] Matt Bailey: No. No, that’s not good.

[00:40:20] Ashley Schweigert: Like, you should never rely on a press release. So, when we’re saying PR, we mean like byline articles…

[00:40:24] Matt Bailey: Yes. Yes.

[00:40:25] Ashley Schweigert: …or like, I mean, you can get away with doing like a press release and have like a good link come in if it’s like with the Washington Post. But typically, people are doing like mass press release distrib-, you know, distribution to, you know, smaller publications or, you know, they’re putting it on The Wire and, and that’s not going to do a lot for you when it comes to domain authority.

[00:40:44] Matt Bailey: No, but getting into industry publications…

[00:40:47] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:40:48] Matt Bailey: …getting interviewed, getting, uh, you know, whether it’s local, industry, regional, things like that. And, and even within an industry, there are so many opportunities to get stories out there. And the thing is, every, content right now is a currency. And I’m amazed at how many people are asking for content for free, um, anymore, I, I, I’m like, I am not going to write for you for free because my content you’re using it to make money through ads, through subscribers, through, you know, all these things. Um, you know, anyone, I, I like to say, yeah, if you’re writing content to get noticed, you and millions of other people are doing the same thing.

[00:41:34] Ashley Schweigert: That’s why you need SEO. You need to understand SEO. Yep.

[00:41:36] Matt Bailey: I, I, I am a firm believer this, this whole industry needs to shape up a bit and pay for the content.

[00:41:44] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, I agree. I think that, um, I was watching, I was watching something that I don’t want to get into conspiracy theories, but like, I was watching something about, um, you know, what the future is going to look like, you know, when it comes to content development and, you know, finding real news and finding like real information out there, because if, if you think about it, if our web is going to be dom-, dominated by, you know, influencers, by bloggers, like where’s the real data coming from? ‘Cause if those are going to be the people that are going to show up in search results, you know, what’s going to happen here? And, you know, I think less…

[00:42:24] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:42:24] Ashley Schweigert: …and less people are trusting, like, news outlets and…

[00:42:27] Matt Bailey: I, yeah, I, I don’t think it’s going to, I, I don’t think like that whole, a lot of the influencer stuff that we associate with social. I don’t think that’s going to influence search results. I’m still fairly happy with search results.

[00:42:39] Ashley Schweigert: I like talking about more or less like YouTube or, yeah.

[00:42:41] Matt Bailey: Well, exactly. Now, when I, and, and maybe this is just me, but when I search for how to do something, and I see a YouTube video that’s 10 minutes long, no.

[00:42:51] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, I know.

[00:42:52] Matt Bailey: No. I’m, I’m looking for an article that will give me steps 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 that I can, I can read in 40 seconds.

[00:42:58] Ashley Schweigert: And it’s on like a good publication.

[00:42:59] Matt Bailey: Right. Right.

[00:43:00] Ashley Schweigert: I hate to say it, because some of these are, you’re just like…

[00:43:01] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:43:01] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, I can’t trust you.

[00:43:02] Matt Bailey: And, yeah, in most cases, yeah, I’m not, I don’t want to watch a YouTube.

[00:43:06] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:43:06] Matt Bailey: I, no. I, and part of it, too, is I don’t want my YouTube algorithm all of a sudden flooded with how-to articles and how to do that same thing.

[00:43:13] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, well, yeah that, too. Right.

[00:43:15] Matt Bailey: And so, exactly, right? It, it, it’s kind of like, no.

[00:43:17] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:43:17] Matt Bailey: Go, leave me alone. Uh, just give me what I want. So, yeah. And again, Core Web Vitals, that, that doesn’t address attitude. It doesn’t address trust. It doesn’t address a lot of these things. Um, but yeah, especially as you were talking about with, with influencers, I, they’re taking over many other areas. Um, I can’t stand Instagram. Um…

[00:43:42] Ashley Schweigert: I know you can’t, that’s why I was laughing earlier. I’m like, if I get into this other stuff, you’re going to go on a tangent.

[00:43:47] Matt Bailey: I can’t stand Instagram. I, the interface, the, I, just everything. I, I am still grudgingly on it.

[00:43:57] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, so don’t, I thought you were getting a Tik Tok.

[00:44:00] Matt Bailey: I will not get a Tik Tok. I am sorry. No. I have no, no desire at all to do that, so.

[00:44:07] Ashley Schweigert: Oh.

[00:44:07] Matt Bailey: So, no. Um, and there is no Tik Tok on any phone in this house.

[00:44:13] Ashley Schweigert: Oh my. Yeah.

[00:44:14] Matt Bailey: No Tik Tok. No Snapchat. No.

[00:44:16] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, I don’t get into the Snapchat as much, but…

[00:44:18] Matt Bailey: Or Facebook. There’s no Facebook apps. Those have all been removed.

[00:44:21] Ashley Schweigert: Oh.

[00:44:22] Matt Bailey: Well, they were removed years ago. Let’s say that.

[00:44:24] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:44:24] Matt Bailey: So, wow. We’re on an aside and I’m just like, “No, no, no.”

[00:44:27] Ashley Schweigert: I know. I have something I want to say about this, like Facebook. Well, you know how, like you’re getting the notifications about, like, I don’t want ads to pop up that, you know, reflect my results or, you know, you’re trying to protect your privacy. I still get them.

[00:44:40] Matt Bailey: So, you’re, you’re going to laugh. We are so off topic, but I don’t care at this point.

[00:44:42] Ashley Schweigert: I know, we are. That’s why I’m like, I just wanted to bring that up. Anybody else?

[00:44:46] Matt Bailey: So, I had to, I had to do a Facebook campaign for somebody, uh, over Christmas and I broke out a computer that I don’t use anymore, and I completely wiped it. And, and, and, and I, and I, um, that’s what I did my Facebook campaign on.

[00:45:04] Ashley Schweigert: Oh my gosh.

[00:45:04] Matt Bailey: So, it would, so, ’cause I did not want to bring it up on any of my browsers or anything like that.

[00:45:10] Ashley Schweigert: No, ’cause…

[00:45:11] Matt Bailey: This was its own device and set up an account just to do all this, and um, yeah, ’cause I, I didn’t want to keep associating stuff with my account.

[00:45:21] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:45:21] Matt Bailey: It’s like, no. Just, I’m done.

[00:45:22] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:45:23] Matt Bailey: I’m done. So, yeah, and I didn’t want any footprints at all, anywhere on any machine.

[00:45:29] Ashley Schweigert: No, it’s, I, I know. I was, I was just kind of shocked, I’m thinking, “Wait a minute, here. I thought that I had the right privacy in place. What?” Yeah, that’s scary, isn’t it?

[00:45:38] Matt Bailey: It, it’s, it’s weird…

[00:45:40] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:45:40] Matt Bailey: …how everything’s coming down. I’m very, very interested. I think privacy is going to be…

[00:45:44] Ashley Schweigert: Well, and that’s…

[00:45:44] Matt Bailey: …one of the biggest things.

[00:45:45] Ashley Schweigert: Well, and that gets into this with the Core Web Vitals. I mean, it talks about safe browsing and, you know, your SSL certificate, but you know, I think at the end of the day, if you’re just looking at like what you were talking about with, um, you know, look at the themes, right? Look at what it, what is it really all about? It’s about efficiency and functionality, right?

[00:46:06] Matt Bailey: Well, Google talking about safe web browsing is like the guy in the web, in, in the white van telling you his candy is healthy, okay?

[00:46:15] Ashley Schweigert: Oh my gosh.

[00:46:16] Matt Bailey: I, I’m sorry. Didn’t Google just try to pull FLoC over our eyes, where they were basically tracking everyone with a Chrome browser and what they did and the segments.

[00:46:28] Ashley Schweigert: Oh yeah.

[00:46:28] Matt Bailey: So, Google, please, don’t talk to me about safe browsing because, you know, how many websites is your code on? You know, whether it’s analytics, ads, you know, it, it’s the same tag everywhere.

[00:46:42] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:46:42] Matt Bailey: You are gathering data like nobody’s business, and so to bring up the, the safe web browsing things, I, yeah right.

[00:46:50] Ashley Schweigert: I think it gets into, you know, what we were talking about in our last podcast, when we were talking about SEO and what’s really important hasn’t changed.

[00:46:55] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:46:56] Ashley Schweigert: Quality content, is your content spammy going into, you know, your, your ads, how it is going to affect publishers, because that doesn’t look like a credible source anymore if you’re getting slammed with a bunch of ads. So, it’s like just thinking, you know, just stepping back and using some, an element of common sense. Does this look like if I’m new to this site, does the, does this look like a credible source? Like, am I getting my 1, 2s, 3s for your how-to’s?

[00:47:22] Matt Bailey: Right, right.

[00:47:23] Ashley Schweigert: Right? You know…

[00:47:23] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:47:23] Ashley Schweigert: …am I getting what I need as soon as I go here? I think that’s really what this is about. And so, that, what’s, I think what’s unique about this update, yeah, it is more technical ’cause it’s getting more into the functionality of the web page versus just the content.

[00:47:41] Matt Bailey: And, and that’s the thing, but I’m a, as a website owner, I’m the user of the content management system.

[00:47:48] Ashley Schweigert: Right, right.

[00:47:48] Matt Bailey: And these vitals have everything to do with the content management system. And I can’t change those. So, I, I mean, that’s what I mean, it’s, there’s a problem that they, they have a solution for a problem I don’t have.

[00:48:01] Ashley Schweigert: Right.

[00:48:02] Matt Bailey: Um, and, and if, if the content management systems don’t get on board, what’s going to happen? And this is where I, I think we’re going to see a lot more of that, but I, it’s not that I’m anti-, well, it’s not that I’m anti-Google. I, I think Google, hey, how many websites and businesses have been affected by the amount of traffic that Google sends them?

[00:48:23] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:48:23] Matt Bailey: I’m onboard with that. I, but here’s the thing. I am not going to, I’m not completely in love with everything they do. Just like any company. Um, and I think there’s a danger to just kind of mindlessly, “I’m going to use everything Google has.” I, I, I can’t sign on to that.

[00:48:43] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, I shouldn’t tell, I use a lot of Google stuff. So, like, I’m thinking…

[00:48:47] Matt Bailey: I know, everything you send me is Google Drive…

[00:48:48] Ashley Schweigert: …I agree with you, but I am like…

[00:48:50] Matt Bailey: …and I’m like, “Ugh, Ashley.”

[00:48:51] Ashley Schweigert: It is Google Drive, that’s why I’m laughing over here. Even my notes, I use like the Google notes, like everything’s on there. I even use the photos. I use, everything’s Google.

[00:49:00] Matt Bailey: I know. I, yeah.

[00:49:00] Ashley Schweigert: I know. But you know what I like about it is that I could be at another computer at somebody else’s house, or I can be in a client’s office and I could pull it up right there and then, and that’s why I do like it, all I have to do is sign in, but I, I understand where you’re coming from. I just give up. So, I’m like, “Alright, Google. You got me.”

[00:49:23] Matt Bailey: Wow. Wow.

[00:49:24] Ashley Schweigert: I know. I know.

[00:49:26] Matt Bailey: Oh man.

[00:49:26] Ashley Schweigert: Hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

[00:49:28] Matt Bailey: Oh, no, come on, Ashley, please. No, you got to go back and listen to the Free is Bad podcast that I did with John Marshall, yeah…

[00:49:37] Ashley Schweigert: I know, I know, I do, I, I should.

[00:49:39] Matt Bailey: …just, you are locked in.

[00:49:40] Ashley Schweigert: I, I am locked in.

[00:49:41] Matt Bailey: You are locked in, wow.

[00:49:41] Ashley Schweigert: I have a lot of Google stuff. I, I’m a fan, I guess.

[00:49:44] Matt Bailey: And, and, I, I can understand. It’s easy, you know, it’s easy to use. They made it that way. Um, but yeah. I’m, I just can’t.

[00:49:54] Ashley Schweigert: I know, I know, I know a lot of people like you and I just am like, “Whatever.”

[00:50:00] Matt Bailey: Well, and part of it, too, is I can get away with a lot of things as far as what I choose to use and don’t choose to use. There are, you, you know, being independent and training for a living, I can get away with a lot. Um, not everyone can, has the freedom to, you know? “I’m not going to use that.”

[00:50:16] Ashley Schweigert: I’m just always in a hurry. That’s my problem. I’m like, “I’m in a hurry. I need something now, and I need this to be…”

[00:50:22] Matt Bailey: Yep.

[00:50:22] Ashley Schweigert: “…accessible wherever.” ‘Cause it’s so easy. That’s the thing.

[00:50:25] Matt Bailey: Um, I, well, so, we’ll, we’ll start…

[00:50:28] Ashley Schweigert: But think about what I’m saying though.

[00:50:29] Matt Bailey: Oh, absolutely.

[00:50:30] Ashley Schweigert: Like efficiency, it gets into this algorithm, right?

[00:50:33] Matt Bailey: Okay?

[00:50:33] Ashley Schweigert: Like getting sucked in by efficiency and functionality. Like, that’s why, that’s where it all comes down to. Making sure that your audience knows that, um, it’s getting the content that it needs. Like, if you want to rock in SEO, you know, make sure that you’re providing the content that your audience needs. So, make sure you know your audience, and make sure that your website is, um, functioning correctly and that it’s efficient because nobody wants to wait for, you know, content to load that they want to hurry up, like me…

[00:51:05] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:51:06] Ashley Schweigert: …and get, get their stuff done. Um, because there’s a lot of people that I’m sure are like me and they just want to just get it done.

[00:51:12] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:51:12] Ashley Schweigert: I want to move on to the next, next task. Yeah.

[00:51:15] Matt Bailey: So, I reacted to Core Web Vitals. I did react to that when it was coming out, because like I said…

[00:51:20] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, we all did. Right.

[00:51:22] Matt Bailey: …it’s some good ideas. Good ideas. Number one, images. I went ahead and, you know, got the Smush.

[00:51:30] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:51:30] Matt Bailey: Smush Pro.

[00:51:31] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, the, the plugin.

[00:51:33] Matt Bailey: I did that. Um, and the second thing was the JavaScript. Moving the JavaScript to external files, which honestly, we’ve known we should be doing that for a decade or more.

[00:51:42] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:51:42] Matt Bailey: You, you know, that, that stuff you just know, but when you start using content management systems that don’t always do that, you have to go into it manually. So, those were two areas where, and now, granted, I, I will be completely honest. I paid someone to do it.

[00:51:56] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, yeah.

[00:51:57] Matt Bailey: So, I didn’t, it, it comes to the point where…

[00:51:59] Ashley Schweigert: It’s tedious technical work.

[00:52:00] Matt Bailey: It is.

[00:52:00] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:52:01] Matt Bailey: Like at one point, I think I went three years without doing anything in WordPress. And then when I got back into it, I was like, “What just happened?”

[00:52:09] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:52:09] Matt Bailey: You know, the interface changed, everything changed, so it’s taken awhile to get back into it. Um, yeah, it’s like, I, this is not my specialty. And so, I need to find people who this is their specialty, build a relationship with them, and allow them to advise and make recommendations, and then, yeah, it’s, “Okay. I’ll do that. I’ll do that. That,” like we were talking about, “That, I’m going to wait on.”

[00:52:34] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. That’s how, you just have to make sure you’re prioritizing correctly and you understand it. So, that’s…

[00:52:38] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:52:38] Ashley Schweigert: …why, you know, you do want to make sure that you’re talking to somebody that has a strong technical background when it comes to SEO and, when you’re looking at this.

[00:52:45] Matt Bailey: Yep. And, and the thing is, so, a couple of the technical issues, yeah, we put them on the shelf because I have some user experience issues. Uh…

[00:52:53] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:52:53] Matt Bailey: …I have some design things that, it’s more specific to the, to the audience, to the users, where I want a consistent experience.

[00:53:01] Ashley Schweigert: That’s going to impact your conversions more, yeah.

[00:53:03] Matt Bailey: Right now, yeah, it’s, it’s more important to me than some of the technical stuff.

[00:53:07] Ashley Schweigert: Yep.

[00:53:07] Matt Bailey: So, yeah. As a business owner, yeah. You’ve got to pick and choose your battles, what you’re going to focus on and do.

[00:53:11] Ashley Schweigert: And I just think you, like, listed an excellent example because that’s getting into, you know, what’s more important? Making money or is it getting traffic to your site? Now, you could argue, say if I get more traffic to my site, I’m going to in turn make money, right? Well, yeah, but you want to make sure that you’re making money on the people that are currently visiting your site.

[00:53:29] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:53:29] Ashley Schweigert: So, if your, if your design…

[00:53:31] Matt Bailey: Which you just described as step one, get people to my site, step five, make money.

[00:53:36] Ashley Schweigert: Well…

[00:53:37] Matt Bailey: There’s a two, three and four in there, but…

[00:53:38] Ashley Schweigert: Well, the design that you were talking about, like goes into that because if people don’t know, like you’re, you know, good, good design is really important…

[00:53:46] Matt Bailey: Yeah.

[00:53:46] Ashley Schweigert: …because it does, um, you know…

[00:53:49] Matt Bailey: Absolutely.

[00:53:49] Ashley Schweigert: …people are going to act certain ways when it comes to certain colors and where things are positioned on your pages and, you know, you do want that to be in place, and, you know, the, um, I think the recommendations that come up in Google Search Console as it relates to design are important, um, it is going to impact that area.

[00:54:07] Matt Bailey: Yup. Yeah. There’s just a, you know, a lot of moving parts. Like I said, it’s a living organism, your website is, and it’s never done. I, I remember telling people that, and, you know, working in a design firm is just, you’d have to let people know that, “Okay, this is the site. It’s being delivered to you. We are done with this phase of development. It’s now yours.”

But the website is never done. It always needs changed, it always needs updated, always needs, optimized, always needs more content. Um, you should always be looking at your analytics and figuring out from there, “What can we improve?” So, it’s never done. And I think for some reason, because of maybe just the evolution of how everything came about, like you go get a website, it’s “done,” you expect everything to be perfect.

[00:55:06] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:55:07] Matt Bailey: And very rarely, you know, what have we learned? We have learned that just because that’s the way it was delivered to you does not mean it’s in its optimal state.

[00:55:16] Ashley Schweigert: Right, especially, yes. I think we were talking about that, you know, earlier, when it comes to whenever you’re thinking, like you may have bought a website, but is it optimized and what kind of package did you buy? Like, I, you know, I know when I work with clients, I have different levels of SEO packages and, you know, some people just want the basic. And the basic actually might not factor in some of the stuff that we’ve been talking about.

[00:55:40] Matt Bailey: Yeah. There was always some pushback, I mean, and years ago it was a lot of pushback is, “I just paid for the website. Why do I have to pay for ongoing…”

[00:55:47] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, that’s a common one. Yep.

[00:55:48] Matt Bailey: “…service?” And, and that’s when I would talk to them about, it’s just never done. There’s constant improvement. Um, and so, yeah, I think that maybe sometimes people aren’t prepared for that. Um…

[00:56:00] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, I think they think it’s going to be like a marketing brochure and, you know, that’s not really how a website should be used, and if you’re using that, if you’re using a website that way, you know, maybe you can get away with it as a larger company, because like what we were just talking about, you’re gonna win either way. Um, you know, if you have like, um, you know, a high domain authority, but if you’re like a smaller company and you’re just getting a website to just have it out there, it might not really pull the performance that you’re looking for and really give you that ROI if you’re not going to keep investing into it, because eventually you’re going to get hit with something.

[00:56:39] Matt Bailey: Well, and, and I think it’s important, and we talked about that. Keep it in mind, one signal is not enough to change everything. It’s not enough to focus just on one signal and make decisions based on that. Um, you’ve got to watch, you’ve got to watch everything. I, friend of ours, Brian, uh, Brian Mathers over in Scotland.

[00:57:01] Ashley Schweigert: That’s so funny, I just heard from him actually the other day.

[00:57:03] Matt Bailey: Oh, that’s great.

[00:57:04] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:57:04] Matt Bailey: I’ve got to have him on here. It’s been a while. I, I might, he was like one of the first guests I had, and it was just a terrible recording atmosphere. There was air conditioning and noise…

[00:57:13] Ashley Schweigert: Oh no.

[00:57:13] Matt Bailey: …and it was terrible. So, I got to get him, I got to get him on. Uh, but he was, he was, uh, he was, uh, in the Royal Navy and he was in submarines and…

[00:57:23] Ashley Schweigert: Oh, I didn’t know that about him.

[00:57:24] Matt Bailey: Yeah, so…

[00:57:24] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:57:24] Matt Bailey: And, and, and he gave me the example that when you’re in a submarine, you can’t look out the window. Uh, so you have to rely on hundreds of gauges to let you know your position and the position of other things and everything around you. You can’t make a decision on one gauge. You have to make the decision based on all of the, the information here and then decide and interpret, what does it mean and how do I react? I thought that was just a great, great example of…

[00:57:58] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:57:59] Matt Bailey: …and that’s why he says he was able to transition from submarines into SEO, because it’s the same thing.

[00:58:05] Ashley Schweigert: That is so, that’s why I’m like, I’m trying to wrap my head around that. I’m like, “Wow.”

[00:58:08] Matt Bailey: Yeah, it’s the same thing. It’s, it’s making a conclusion based on limited information…

[00:58:13] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:58:14] Matt Bailey: …which happens to cover dozens or hundreds of data points. And you take that in and make a decision, but if you focus on any one of those too much, you’re going to sink the sub.

[00:58:25] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. And that’s how it gets into a lot of testing. I mean, I think SEO, you, you’re always testing and changing things. “Let’s see what happens if we do this, let’s,” and you have to be patient. That’s why, I mean, if you’re starting a new, a new website, you really should be investing in other types of marketing because SEO is a long-term strategy and it’s going to take time and it really does depend on your competitors.

[00:58:47] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[00:58:47] Ashley Schweigert: Um, just like I was giving the, you know, the lingerie example and I mean, it’s going to take you some time because if you have to do some remessaging and really make sure your competitive advantages are out there, that’s going to take some work and, um, so I just would be prepared for that, and I would maybe invest in advertising or some other, uh, initiatives for the short term.

[00:59:10] Matt Bailey: Yeah. Just keep your options open and keep marketing.

[00:59:14] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:59:14] Matt Bailey: I, true marketing. Uh it, it’s, and that’s one thing I, I keep talk, we, we’ve been talking about this, numerous people have asked about the cookies and all this and my, my opinion is I, I’d love it if cookies went away and…

[00:59:27] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[00:59:27] Matt Bailey: …programmatic, programmatic is reduced because it’s going to make people go back to real marketing, rather than buying millions of impressions and calling that marketing. All you’re doing is media buying. You’re not, you’re not doing, you’re not marketing. Marketing is a creative method of reaching people and converting them.

[00:59:47] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[00:59:47] Matt Bailey: So that’s, I, I’m, I’m looking forward to that. I, I am hoping that happens. I’m hoping that’s what happens.

[01:00:00] Ashley Schweigert: I, I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen here because, yeah, I just feel like it’s a miss the nature of the environment, it’s, there’s so much going on and we’re all just running, um, you know, a million miles a minute. And I, I think it is very easy as a marketer to say, “Well, I’m just going to buy a bunch of ads,” right? And I think this is going to force us to slow down and really be strategic with our approach.

[01:00:20] Matt Bailey: That would be awesome…

[01:00:23] Ashley Schweigert: Right?

[01:00:23] Matt Bailey: …if that would happen. I, I think all of us would benefit from, uh, you know, and, and, uh, Dr. Fou on here talked about ad fraud and all that.

[01:00:34] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[01:00:34] Matt Bailey: And this is his advice. Stop. Just stop. Stop your advertising. Stop it for a while. Just look at what happens. Um, I think it was out of the, out of the 50 companies that, uh, over the election boycotted Facebook, nothing happened. Only 2 out of the 50 saw a slight decrease in sales, but the 48 that stopped advertising on Facebook during the election because of Facebook’s stance, they didn’t lose any sales. And he gave that example and, and just take a step back. Evaluate. What’s going on? What are you doing? What are your, and, and I would even go so far as to say challenge your core beliefs.

[01:01:18] Ashley Schweigert: Well, it gets…

[01:01:19] Matt Bailey: Challenge those beliefs, things about what you believe strongly, that this produces this when you have no evidence.

[01:01:26] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. I love that. You know, have the data, have the evidence to back it up, but you know, it just gets into, you know, this all gets into some common sense, and I know I said that earlier, but like, what is social media used for, right? It’s a social platform. It’s there for people to talk, for, to vent, unfortunately, um, don’t like seeing those posts, but, um, that’s what it’s really for, um, I know that there are people that do follow businesses and, you know, it’s typically those that they, they feel really strong about. And I think it’s very easy for, like, say a larger company to get lost in the shuffle in that kind, on that kind of a platform.

So, I mean, it just depends on what it is that you’re offering and the value that you’re giving on a social platform and social platforms are in the awareness stage of the marketing funnel. You, that’s on the very top. These people may not even be interested in you. So, I mean, it depends on why they’re following you, the value that you’re serving, are they employees? So, I mean really evaluating your audience and just making sure that that actually makes sense.

[01:02:35] Matt Bailey: Yep. Yep. So, yeah, message today. Don’t panic.

[01:02:40] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, right, right.

[01:02:42] Matt Bailey: Don’t panic.

[01:02:43] Ashley Schweigert: Just wait and see what happens.

[01:02:45] Matt Bailey: Just watch. Yeah.

[01:02:45] Ashley Schweigert: Yes.

[01:02:45] Matt Bailey: Just watch, keep an eye on things and, uh, I’ll bring this up, like, so what? I’ve been doing this now 25 years, and…

[01:02:53] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[01:02:54] Matt Bailey: …sometimes people would call up, “I’ve lost my rankings. I had a penalty.” And I, I lost track how many times this would happen, and they would, they would, “We’re being penalized. We lost things.” Every time we would investigate, it was never a penalty.

[01:03:12] Ashley Schweigert: I was just going to say that. Do they really know what a penalty is or is it just…?

[01:03:15] Matt Bailey: It was never a penalty. It was a technical mistake.

[01:03:19] Ashley Schweigert: Ah.

[01:03:19] Matt Bailey: Usually 90% of the time had everything to do with the robots.txt file, uh, that someone miss-did it, or they forgot it, or something like that, uh, or something in the program. It was always a technical issue. It was never a penalty when they thought it was a penalty. Um, and, and I will say, those people who came to me who had a penalty didn’t know it was a penalty.

[01:03:46] Ashley Schweigert: That’s a different story.

[01:03:47] Matt Bailey: Yes.

[01:03:47] Ashley Schweigert: You’ll know that by Google Search Console will tell you…

[01:03:51] Matt Bailey: Well, nowadays…

[01:03:51] Ashley Schweigert: …because it will say manual actions. Yeah.

[01:03:54] Matt Bailey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nowadays we’ve got that. So…

[01:03:54] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah. Growing your manual actions and see, but yeah, penalties like…

[01:03:58] Matt Bailey: Yeah. Yeah.

[01:03:58] Ashley Schweigert: It’s just not great.

[01:04:00] Matt Bailey: No.

[01:04:00] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah, you don’t want that. But that usually happens with black hat SEO. I mean, you have to be really doing some stuff. So, it’s, it is rare.

[01:04:10] Matt Bailey: Yeah, much rare now I think, than, than it used to be…

[01:04:13] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[01:04:13] Matt Bailey: …but uh, Ashley, thank you so much for coming in today. It was a pleasure…

[01:04:17] Ashley Schweigert: Yeah.

[01:04:17] Matt Bailey: …just to catch up with you and yeah, talk a little bit about…

[01:04:22] Ashley Schweigert: Everything.

[01:04:22] Matt Bailey: …SEO and, and yeah, many other subjects, so, yeah, appreciate you making the time to come in.

[01:04:27] Ashley Schweigert: Yes. Thank you for having me.

[01:04:28] Matt Bailey: Absolutely. Listener, thanks again for just sitting with us on another edition of the Endless Coffee Cup. Uh, I think this was probably a two-cup episode, uh, with everything that we covered. So, Ashley, thanks again. Appreciate it.

[01:04:42] Ashley Schweigert: Thank you.

[01:04:43] Matt Bailey: Alright, listener. We’ll see you again next time on the Endless Coffee Cup.

Featured Guest:

Ashley Schweigert

Marketing Communications Consultant

LinkedIn profile: Ashley G. Schweigert | LinkedIn

Website: Marcom Content by Ashley

Past episodes featuring Ashley:

Are Marketers Ignoring the Impact of the Pandemic?

Searching for Keywords

Is the Sales Funnel Dead?

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