The Edward Show

E1067: Most e-commerce founders believe they need more traffic.
In reality, most stores already have enough qualified visitors. They just fail to convert them.
In this episode, I sit down with David Schomer - former CPA, Amazon seller, founder, and now CEO of Build Grow Scale - to break down why most e-commerce sites waste organic and paid traffic, and what actually increases revenue.
We go deep into conversion rate optimization, SEO strategy in the AI era, Amazon data advantages, and the practical changes that move the needle.
If you run a Shopify store, sell on Amazon, or are building any online brand, this episode will help you rethink where your growth is really coming from.
What we cover:
- Why "more traffic" is often the wrong goal
- The simple homepage mistake that costs sales
- Why putting your phone number at the top of your site builds trust
- How to reduce buyer risk and increase conversions
- Using customer service emails to improve product pages
- Why FAQs and sizing charts matter more than most founders realize
- How Amazon PPC data can improve your Shopify SEO
- The return of the blog and when top-of-funnel content actually works
- Bottom-of-funnel SEO and targeting high buyer intent searches
- How AI tools like Claude are changing how founders analyze data
- Finding wasted SaaS spend inside your own P&L
- Why mobile optimization is still a major issue in 2026
- What e-commerce brands should steal from Amazon reviews
- The 30-minute audit any founder can do today to improve conversions
David also shares:
- How he built and sold Amazon brands
- What separates profitable stores from struggling ones
- How to think about cross-sells and upsells strategically
- What he's seeing with AI-driven search and new ad platforms
This is a tactical episode focused on practical improvements.
If you are serious about building a profitable e-commerce business, watch this all the way through.
⭐️ Build Grow Scale website - https://buildgrowscale.com/
⭐️ David Schomer on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-schomer-b08a0a41/
⭐️ Build Grow Scale on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/buildgrowscale
⭐️ Build Grow Scale on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/BuildGrowScaleEcommEducation
⭐️ Firing the Man podcast - https://firingtheman.com/
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 Meet David Schomer
00:36 From Finance to Ecommerce
03:26 Amazon First Success
05:26 Stop Wasting Traffic
06:38 FAQs That Reduce Risk
07:25 AI Mining Support Emails
09:00 Claude Connections Workflow
10:52 QuickBooks Cost Cutting
15:39 Website Trust Basics
17:32 Upsells and AOV Growth
19:47 Amazon Data for SEO
21:34 Blog SEO Makes Comeback
24:36 Answer Questions Like Sales
26:31 AI Search Conversion Path
28:47 ChatGPT Buyer Journey
29:45 Blog SEO Comeback
30:36 Complex Products Need Content
34:17 Bottom of Funnel SEO Focus
38:38 Buyer Intent Keywords
41:13 Paid vs Organic Balance
46:16 Evergreen SEO Value
47:39 CRO Mobile Pitfalls
51:58 ChatGPT Ads Testing
55:06 Amazon Reviews Playbook
57:29 30 Minute Fixes
58:48 Wrap Up And Links
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#ecommerceseo #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing #dropshipping

E1066: Breaking down exactly how Jotform built an SEO engine that consistently drives traffic, rankings, and high-intent users - and what you can apply to your own business.
Jotform is getting a whopping 2.7 million clicks per month from Google.
We're looking at real numbers, real pages, and real strategy.
Jotform has:
- 92/100 domain authority
- 21.2 million backlinks
- 108,000 ranking keywords
- 35,000 keywords in positions 1-3
- 2.1 million non-branded clicks per month
But the numbers aren't the real lesson.
The real lesson is how they structure their site and how they turn product pages into SEO assets.
What you'll learn:
- Why template pages outperform blog posts for high-intent keywords
- How Jotform ranks for terms like "pay stub template," "contract template," and "AI quiz generator"
- How they use subfolders like /pdf-templates/, /form-templates/, and /ai/ to scale
- Why internal linking from linkable assets strengthens the entire domain
- How they protect branded traffic by bidding on their own keywords
- Why pruning blog content can increase traffic instead of hurting it
- The rise of self-promotional listicles and the risks involved
- Why informational traffic spikes can become dangerous if topical authority stretches too far
One of the biggest takeaways:
Stop trying to rank blog posts for keywords that require a product.
If someone searches "pay stub template," they don't want a 2,000-word article. They want the template immediately. Jotform gives it to them above the fold.
That is why they win.
We also discuss:
- How their AI subfolder is rapidly gaining traction
- How competitors try to intercept branded searches like "Jotform pricing"
- Why some companies see traffic spikes from aggressive listicles - and then collapse
- What happened to companies that overextended their topical authority
This episode is about long-term SEO strategy.
Jotform has been consistent for years. Their backlink profile, their structure, and their product-first SEO approach show what is possible when you commit to the long game.
If you want to build SEO assets instead of publishing blog fluff, this breakdown will give you ideas you can apply immediately.
⭐️ Jotform - https://www.jotform.com/
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 Why Jotform Wins SEO
00:46 Authority and Traffic Stats
02:17 Template Pages as SEO Assets
02:54 Pay Stub Template Breakdown
04:07 Product Pages Not Blog Posts
04:57 More SEO Subfolders and AI
05:58 Defending Branded Keywords
07:04 Blog Growth and Pruning
08:02 Self Promotional Listicles Risk
11:11 Informational Keywords Spike
12:20 Wrap Up and Next Steps
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #seo #growthhacking #saasmarketing

E1065: Kalin Karakehayov owns more than 200,000 domains and operates a portfolio of roughly 30,000 websites.
In this episode, Kalin explains how the domain industry actually works, why expired domains can be worth millions to the right buyer, and what most SEO professionals misunderstand about backlinks, authority, and ranking websites.
We discuss how domains are acquired, how aged domains are evaluated, the economics behind large domain portfolios, and why some businesses are built entirely around acquiring and monetizing internet real estate.
Kalin also shares stories from nearly two decades in SEO, including a domain purchased for $30 that generated $150,000, a domain acquired for $10,000 and sold for $140,000, and examples of buyers generating millions of dollars in value from domains purchased for only a few hundred dollars.
Later in the conversation, we explore the relationship between chess, decision making, performance, and business. Kalin was an International Master in chess before entering the domain industry, and he explains why many of the skills that make someone successful in chess don't necessarily transfer to entrepreneurship.
Topics discussed:
- Owning and managing more than 200,000 domains
- How expired domains are discovered and acquired
- Why aged domains can outperform new domains
- What makes a domain valuable
- How backlinks influence rankings today
- Whether backlinks matter less in the AI era
- Private Blog Networks (PBNs) and how they've changed
- Common mistakes people make when buying domains
- How SEO has evolved over the last 20 years
- The economics of link building
- Why some domains sell for six figures
- The role of brand searches and authority signals
- Local SEO vs SaaS SEO
- Ranking websites in highly competitive industries
- Domain auctions and domain investing
- How large domain portfolios are built
- Google indexing and ranking behavior
- Why some websites rank while others don't
- Chess, performance, and decision making
- Building an eight-figure asset portfolio
About Kalin Karakehayov:
Kalin Karakehayov is the founder of a large domain portfolio company that owns more than 200,000 domains. His company specializes in expired domains, domain acquisition, domain valuation, and serving businesses that rely on organic search traffic. Before entering the domain industry, Kalin earned the title of International Master in chess.
Subscribe for more conversations with founders, operators, investors, and unconventional thinkers building businesses on the internet.
⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on 𝕏 - https://x.com/Karakehayov
⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/karakehayov
⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kalin.karakehayov/
⭐️ Kalin Karakehayov on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/karakehayov
⭐️ SEO.Domains (domains and backlinks) - https://seo.domains
⭐️ GigaLinks (AI SEO and citations) - https://gigalinks.com
⭐️ SEO.BO (SEO agency) - https://seo.bo
⭐️ I Grow Younger - https://i.gy
⭐️ I Grow Younger on YouTube - https://youtube.com/@growyounger
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 200K Domains Shock
01:02 SEO as Plunder
03:02 AI Website Factory
04:42 $500 Domain to $1M Lead
09:33 Restoring Aged Domains Safely
12:45 Churn and Burn iGaming Tactics
15:44 Aged vs New Domains
23:16 How Domain Catching Works
25:51 Buying Checklist and Indexing
29:21 Google Randomness and Sandbox
34:11 Best Deals and Crazy ROI
41:18 What Makes Domains Undervalued
45:01 Chess Lessons for Business
47:45 Chess as Athletic Performance
48:29 Mindset Hacks and Mantras
51:04 Why Chess Skills Mislead
55:13 Backlinks in Modern SEO
58:23 Gray Hat Economics Explained
01:03:36 PBN Evolution and Costs
01:07:00 PBN Mistakes to Avoid
01:10:35 Mundane SEO Pitfalls
01:18:40 Negative SEO Reality Check
01:25:08 AI Search and SEO Future
01:31:33 Rapid Fire Questions and Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #blackhatseo #seo #privateblognetwork

E1064: Most business owners think their niche is too competitive for SEO.
It's not.
I explain why most people completely misjudge competition, why keyword difficulty scores are misleading, and how bottom-of-funnel SEO is still wide open - even in 2026.
Top-of-funnel informational SEO has taken a major hit. Click-through rates have dropped. AI overviews are reducing traffic. Ranking #1 doesn't mean what it used to mean.
But high-intent SEO is different.
If you sell a product or service, there is still enormous opportunity - and most of your competitors are not optimizing properly.
I break down:
- Why your niche is probably not as competitive as you think
- The mistake of relying on keyword difficulty scores
- How to actually evaluate competition by looking at the SERPs
- Why relevance matters more than most people realize
- The exact on-page placements that influence rankings (page title, URL, H1, first sentence)
- Why overusing your keyword can hurt you
- How to use keyword variants to rank for more terms with less effort
- Why bottom-of-funnel, high-intent SEO is still a blue ocean
- How to find longer-tail keywords that are easier to rank for and bring qualified traffic
Most businesses emailing me don't have an authority problem. They don't have penalties. 
They don't have technical blockers.
They have a relevance problem.
And they don't know how to evaluate real competition.
This episode walks through how to fix that.
⭐️ Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58% - https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 Why Competitors Aren't Scary
00:22 Stop Trusting Keyword Difficulty
01:02 Top of Funnel SEO Is Crushed
02:15 Bottom of Funnel SEO Blue Ocean
02:48 Check for Real Ranking Blockers
03:57 Relevance Beats Authority
04:28 Avoid Over Optimization
06:05 Three Mistakes and Fixes
08:52 Find and Target High-Intent Keywords
10:03 Final Outro and Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#bottomoffunnelseo #informationalseo #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1063: If you run a large ecommerce site with hundreds of thousands or millions of product pages, and only a fraction of them are indexed, you are not alone.
David Quaid and I break down why Google indexes only 30-40% of pages on many large sites - and what actually determines whether a product page gets crawled and indexed.
This conversation covers how authority flows through large websites, why crawl budget is often misunderstood, and how URL structure, topical relevance, and internal architecture affect indexation.
If you manage or market a large ecommerce site, this episode will change how you think about SEO.
What we cover:
- Why "discovered, not indexed" is a bigger problem than "crawled, not indexed"
- Why adding more internal links doesn't automatically improve indexation
- How Google's crawl pools actually work
- Why pruning pages rarely fixes indexing issues
- The role of the URL slug in determining whether a page gets crawled
- How topical authority influences whether a product page is worth indexing
- Why homepage backlinks don't help deep product pages as much as you think
- How hub pages can bypass traditional site hierarchy
- When to include keywords in subfolders vs. slugs
- Why some large sites perform well with only 40% of pages indexed
- What happens when authority "tightens" across your site
- How to decide which product pages actually need to rank
- The first three things to check when auditing a 1M+ product site
- The real difference between crawl efficiency and authority shaping
- How blog content can directly support deep product tiers
We also discuss:
- Whether AI-generated product content hurts indexing
- Why XML sitemaps do not solve indexation problems
- The difference between semantic ranking and topical authority
- Why step-by-step traffic decline often signals authority loss, not penalties
If you operate a large ecommerce site, this episode will help you think beyond crawl budget and start focusing on the pages that actually matter.
Drop your questions in the comments. We read them and often turn them into future episodes.
(And congratulations to friend of the podcast, Harpreet Singh, on his baby boy!)
⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid
⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/
⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.com/
🚀 Learn SEO for free - https://freeseoknowledge.com/
💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/
00:00 Indexing Crisis Setup
01:07 Google Tightens Authority
03:36 Crawl Pools Explained
05:03 Why Pruning Fails
06:17 Authority Shaping Model
08:40 Build Traffic Tiers
11:05 Slugs vs Folders SEO
20:07 Saved Search Hub Pages
22:01 Facets Parameters Strategy
22:55 Links to Deep Pages
30:16 Bypass Folder Layers
33:50 Root Pages Folder Names
36:19 URL Hierarchy for SEO
38:30 Redundancy and Slugs
46:48 Clicks and Authority Flow
47:43 Auditing a Massive Site
51:20 Google Authority Tightening
58:49 AI Content and Labels
01:02:33 LLMs and SEO Advice
01:05:24 Indexing Decision and Wrap
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#ecommerce #searchengineoptimization #seo #dropshipping