The Edward Show

E1135: Matt Hammerton joins me to break down the local SEO system he uses across personal injury law and home services.
Matt has been doing SEO since 2009, manages more than 100 Google Business Profiles, owns stakes in multiple home service companies, and currently works with OneLaw, a law group that did $100 million in the first six months of this year.
We get into the work behind those numbers: Google Business Profiles, reviews, locations, links, press releases, keyword research, AI search, and the systems Matt has built to manage it all at scale.
We cover:
- Why Matt believes reviews are the biggest factor in Google Business Profile rankings and Local SEO
- How removing just four negative reviews caused one law firm location to jump in local rankings
- Why average star rating can matter even when a business already has thousands of reviews
- How often Matt runs local ranking scans and why he checks them every few days instead of once a month
- How he sets up new Google Business Profiles
- How he uses DBAs to put target keywords into legitimate business names
- His approach to categories, service areas, descriptions, city pages, and additional locations
- Why he has seen GBPs rank without even having a website attached
- How he approaches review generation for home service companies and law firms
- Why reviews on Yelp, Facebook, Thumbtack, Avvo, and other third-party sites matter for AI search
- Why 1,000 Google reviews alone may not be enough to win recommendations from LLMs
- How he builds links directly to directory profiles so those profiles rank for branded searches
- How controlling page one for "[brand] reviews" affects both searchers and AI systems
- How Matt uses Google Ads conversion data to decide which SEO keywords are actually worth targeting
- How he combines Search Console data, existing page content, and AI to update pages
- How personal injury SEO can be worth so much more per ranking than home services
- The client journey after someone finds a personal injury lawyer through search
- Why Matt publishes three to five press releases per week for law firms
- How he republishes old wins, settlements, awards, and company news to keep them visible
- How he uses EIN Newswire and why some press releases stay indexed for a year or longer
- Why he puts NAP information in press releases for local SEO
- How he uses Manus to research links, write content, prepare submissions, and check published placements
- Why he still manually reviews AI-generated content before anything goes live
- How he queries multiple LLMs across dozens of keywords to find the directories and sources influencing their recommendations
- Why his biggest advice to SEOs is simple: build the system yourself, implement it, test it, and only then hand it off
This is a detailed look at how an aggressive local SEO operator manages Google Maps, organic search, reputation, links, PR, and AI search across businesses where a single lead can be worth thousands of dollars.
⭐️ Matt Hammerton's Agency - https://www.brainspikemarketing.com/ 
⭐️ Matt Hammerton on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthammertonaktaktion 
⭐️ Matt Hammerton on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MattHammerton/ 
⭐️ Matt Hammerton on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/aktaktion/ 
⭐️ Matt Hammerton on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/OnlyDreamers  
⭐️ Matt Hammerton's Label - https://www.onlydreamersmusic.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 Matt
01:04 100M SEO Impact
01:57 Scaling 100 Plus GBPs
04:02 Why Personal Injury Pays
08:05 GBP Rankings Are Reviews
10:23 Removing Bad Reviews
12:32 Getting More Reviews
14:33 Launching New GBPs
17:02 DBA Keyword Names
22:32 Categories and Setup
25:03 Review Funnel Tactics
27:49 Website vs GBP Power
30:31 Stop Automating Support
32:58 Reviews Drive LLM Rankings
34:07 Rank Directory Listings
35:24 Link Building With AI
36:52 Own Brand Review SERPs
39:53 Keyword Research Workflow
43:06 Conversion Keyword Patterns
44:51 Personal Injury SEO Value
47:09 Client Journey And Reviews
49:50 Press Releases For SEO
54:34 AI Drafting And QA
57:44 Agency Vs Solo SEO
01:00:24 Press Release Indexing
01:01:52 NAP Citations in Releases
01:03:09 AI Written Press Releases
01:04:31 Aggressive SEO
01:05:23 Link Building Sources and Vetting
01:08:08 Anchor Text Balance and Penguin Lessons
01:10:38 Pre AI Spinning and PBN Blasts
01:12:58 Future Updates and Long Term Growth
01:14:50 Music Marketing Success Story
01:21:14 Viral Stunts and SEO Parallels
01:26:08 Reviews and Entity Visibility
01:27:46 LLM Research and Execution Mindset
01:29:51 Wrap Up and Where to Find Him
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#localseo #legalseo #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1133: Most brands don't want to call themselves "cheap."
That's exactly why the word can be such a powerful SEO modifier.
I break down an SEO tactic James Dooley shared during our recent three-hour podcast: targeting words like "cheap," "cheapest," "affordable," "low cost," "budget," "inexpensive," and even "free" to stand out in Google and attract searchers who actually care about price.
The opportunity exists because there's a disconnect between how brands want to describe themselves and what customers want.
Brands want to be "premium."
Searchers want something they can afford.
And when almost every competing result is using the same words like "best," adding a price-focused modifier can make your result stand out.
We cover:
- How brands avoid words like "cheap," even when customers search for them
- Why "cheap" can make a Page Title more attractive in the search results
- Alternatives including affordable, inexpensive, low cost, budget, cheapest, and free
- When you should put the modifier at the beginning of your Page Title
- When your primary keyword should still come first
- How search volume changes the way I would structure the page
- How site and page authority affect how aggressively you can change your Page Title
- Why lower-volume, bottom-of-funnel keywords often require far less authority
- How relevance and search intent fit into the strategy
- Why this tactic probably makes no sense for luxury brands
- Examples for service businesses, e-commerce, and SaaS
- How I would target "best web design agencies"
- How I would structure a page targeting "carry-on luggage"
- How I would use "affordable" for residential general contractor software
- How freemium SaaS companies can use "free" as the modifier
- How to combine this strategy with my Page Title formula
The basic idea is simple:
Most companies are fighting over the same obvious wording.
"Best."
"Top."
"Leading."
Meanwhile, customers are thinking:
"How much does this cost?"
"Can I afford it?"
"Is there a cheaper option?"
"Is there a free version?"
That gap creates an SEO opportunity.
I also explain why this gets more nuanced as keywords become more competitive.
Sometimes you need the exact target keyword at the beginning of the Page Title, in the URL slug, in the H1, and prominently on the page. With more authority, you have more freedom to write a title designed primarily to win the click.
And for under-targeted bottom-of-funnel keywords, the strategy becomes much easier.
This episode is a practical breakdown of how I'd actually execute the tactic rather than simply adding the word "cheap" everywhere.
⭐️ Ep 1131 - James Dooley & David Quaid: The SEO "Best Practices" We Ignore - https://youtu.be/jW8hYUn99Uk 
⭐️ Ep 1130 - The $50 Micro-Influencer SEO Strategy Nobody Is Using - https://youtu.be/8jHGa95T0GY 
💎 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 Cheap Keyword Hack
01:13 Synonyms and CTR Boost
02:04 Agency Keyword Nuance
04:07 Authority Volume Intent
05:04 Ecommerce Carry On Example
06:53 Low Volume High Intent
07:54 Page Title Template
11:10 Final Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #onpageseo #digitalmarketing

E1134: Are traditional CMS platforms like WordPress about to become unnecessary for SEO?
TJ Robertson and David Quaid join me to talk about a very different way of building and managing websites: CMS-less sites where bots and AI agents handle publishing, technical fixes, internal links, site updates, analytics, and eventually even parts of optimization themselves.
TJ has already been building websites with Claude Code and believes that for many companies, moving away from WordPress will make sense within the next 6-12 months.
We get into what these websites look like, what they can do today, where the technology still falls short, and what happens when websites no longer need humans making every individual change.
We discuss:
- Why TJ is building websites with Claude Code instead of relying entirely on WordPress
- How a client could edit a CMS-less website simply by asking an AI agent to make the change
- Why changing hundreds of pages at once becomes much easier when the site is controlled through code
- TJ's work on a one-button WordPress-to-Claude-Code migration
- Why Shopify may be one of the major exceptions to moving away from traditional platforms
- How to stop AI-built websites from having the same generic "Claude Code" design
- Using Figma with Claude Code to create more customized designs
- Why bot-managed websites could automatically update themselves multiple times per day
- Websites that update content automatically when the underlying product or database changes
- Self-healing websites that detect broken links, broken forms, tracking problems, outdated information, and other issues
- Building an SEO bot trained specifically on your website
- Replacing parts of the traditional Semrush/Screaming Frog → SEO → developer ticket workflow with automation
- Why David thinks there are opportunities to build custom analytics instead of relying entirely on GA4
- Tracking customer journeys and changing pages based on what returning visitors previously viewed
- Why AI-generated content itself is not necessarily the problem
- The difference between useful automation and dumping thousands of low-quality AI pages into Google
- How Google might respond as high-quality automated content becomes possible at massive scale
- Why obvious AI writing patterns are becoming a liability
- AI satellite sites, exact-match domains, and third-party industry sites
- Why having multiple websites could give brands a larger footprint in AI search citations
- How satellite sites can give marketing teams room to experiment without changing the main company website
- Whether you should connect AI satellite sites to the same Google Search Console account as your main domain
- The risks of building third-party sites primarily to promote your own brand
- Why websites may eventually expose structured company data directly to AI systems instead of creating thousands of keyword-variant pages
- David's argument that LLMs are not actually "AI" by themselves
- What SEOs and businesses should start experimenting with right now, even if they have no intention of leaving WordPress yet
TJ makes the case that for roughly $200 per month, you can already have AI doing work that previously required an engineering team, and that we are only beginning to figure out what websites built around that capability will look like.
The question is no longer just whether AI will write SEO content.
It's whether AI will eventually run the website itself.
⭐️ TJ Robertson on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tj-robertson-seo/ 
⭐️ TJ Robertson on 𝕏 - https://x.com/SeoRobertson/ 
⭐️ TJ Robertson on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@TJRobertsonDigital 
⭐️ TJ Robertson on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tjrobertsondigital/ 
⭐️ TJ Robertson on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tjrobertson52 
⭐️ TJ Robertson's Agency - https://tjrobertson.com/ 
⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid 
⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/ 
⭐️ David Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid 
⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.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 CMS-Less Vision
02:11 Building With Claude
03:55 Clients Edit With AI
05:55 Rapid Prototyping Wins
09:24 WordPress Tradeoffs
12:25 EMDs For GEO
18:40 Avoiding Scale Penalties
25:12 Migration Timeline
27:44 Designing Beyond Generic
29:40 Editing Workflow Debate
33:35 Automated Content Quality
42:04 Google Indexing Limits
43:28 LLMs Not AI
45:06 Scale Spam Signals
47:38 Programmatic SEO Line
50:26 AI Search Changes Content
54:08 LLMs Not True AI
59:03 Satellite Sites Risk
01:05:26 Cheap Sites New Innovation
01:11:02 Avoid AI Content Tells
01:13:33 Skills And Knowledge Base
01:23:03 SEO Bots And Automation
01:25:35 Final Takeaways
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #aiseo #seopodcast

E1132: Somebody asked on Reddit: "What are some of the craziest, most interesting SEO stories and tactics you've come across?"
The answers were incredible.
I go through the best stories from the SEO Growth subreddit, including a Danish telco that outranked Apple for the keyword "iPhone" within an hour of a keynote.
We also look at:
- How an article about a random PS5 rumor reached #1 in Google and won the featured snippet
- Why answering controversial or highly debated questions directly can create SEO opportunities
- How to find strange rumors and unanswered questions people are already searching for in your niche
- Why giving a clear answer beats huge publishers, Reddit threads, competitors, and even the manufacturer itself
- How marketplace websites have used vendor badges to generate backlinks from businesses across an entire industry
- Why badge-based link building has worked so well for directories, marketplaces, awards sites, and other businesses
- How some affiliate SEOs have used expired domains and 301 redirects to rapidly increase rankings
- Why expired-domain strategies can produce fast results but also carry serious risk
- Why you don't necessarily need a powerful domain or thousands of backlinks to rank for valuable keywords
- How under-targeted, high-intent keywords can give smaller sites opportunities to compete
- Why pages that directly satisfy search intent can naturally earn backlinks over time
- How deleting thousands of weak, outdated, cannibalizing pages can actually improve a site's SEO performance
- Why content pruning can help sites that have expanded too far beyond their real topical authority
One of my favorite lessons from these stories is the PS5 example.
During the peak of the PS5 hype, an SEO noticed people debating whether the console should be positioned vertically or horizontally.
Major media sites, Reddit threads, competitors, and Sony itself were discussing the subject, but nobody was giving searchers a simple, definitive answer.
So he wrote an article targeting the question directly.
Within days, it ranked #1 and captured the featured snippet.
The lesson is simple: pay attention to the questions, rumors, disagreements, and problems people in your market are already discussing.
Then look at the search results.
If everyone ranking is dancing around the question instead of answering it clearly, there may be an opportunity to create the page that actually gives searchers what they came for.
⭐️ Reddit: What are some of the craziest, most interesting SEO stories and tactics you've come across? - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1vhv8si/what_are_some_of_the_craziest_most_interesting/ 
⭐️ Ep 1120 - You Don't Need 1,000 Backlinks to Rank on Google (Here's What Actually Works) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dwPZu9rjt8 
⭐️ Ep 976 - The AI Clickbait King: How One SEO Built 9,000 Websites - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8w4-MOG_0M 
⭐️ Ep 1030 - Keyword Cannibalization: Why Your SEO Pages Compete (And How to Fix It) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jrXrau6kE 
⭐️ Ep 989 - Google's Helpful Content Update DESTROYED the Internet (What Actually Happened) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YLUFjYrIEA 
💎 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 Reddit SEO Stories Intro
00:16 Outranking Apple Fast
01:54 PS5 Rumor Snippet Win
03:18 Turn Rumors Into Pages
04:40 Earn Links Naturally
05:15 Badge Backlink Strategy
06:21 Expired Domains and 301s
07:17 High Intent SEO
08:41 Delete Content to Grow
10:08 Wrap Up and Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #digitalmarketing #growthhacking

E1131: James Dooley and David G Quaid join me for a three-hour discussion about the SEO "best practices" they ignore, the advice they think gets repeated without enough testing, and what they really look at when trying to rank websites.
We start with a simple question: which accepted SEO practices do you not follow?
That turns into a much broader discussion about how Google works, why SEO checklists often fail, and why tactics that work on a large authority site can be useless on a new domain.
James and David agree on a core principle throughout the episode: test what works, understand why it works, and avoid treating SEO advice as universal.
We get into:
- Why James largely ignores standard SEO best practices and relies on in-house testing instead
- Why doing "more SEO" does not necessarily produce better rankings
- How adding more pages can create cannibalization instead of improving topical authority
- Examples of pages ranking with almost no content
- James' story of ranking #1 with a page that was accidentally published before the content was written
- Why a technically poor website with an unnatural links penalty could still rank for extremely competitive terms
- The relationship between authority, relevance, traffic and rankings
- Whether Google actually understands content quality in the way many SEOs assume
- Why "just write good content" is incomplete SEO advice
- EEAT and what James and David believe it does and does not affect
- Why simply adding author bios is unlikely to fix a struggling website
- Google quality raters, RaterHub and manual transparency actions
- When EEAT considerations may matter more for finance, gambling, medical and other high-consequence searches
- Why YMYL may need to be considered at the query level rather than treating an entire industry the same way
- Schema: where it is necessary and where adding more schema probably will not improve rankings
- Why job, flight, hotel and similar structured search features are different from ordinary webpages
- Backlinks, PageRank and why authority still matters
- Why comparing backlink counts alone can give you the wrong conclusion
- Branded search and whether increased branded searches can influence broader rankings
- Using search behavior, autocomplete and suggested searches to strengthen associations between a brand and a topic
- Click-through rate and how James approaches CTR testing
- Why advice from SEOs working on huge brands may not translate to a brand-new website
- Exact-match domains and partial-match domains
- Why both James and David dislike having a single website as the only source of SEO traffic
- Using multiple sites to reduce single points of failure
- How James evaluates aged and expired domains using data from multiple SEO tools instead of relying on DR or DA alone
- Why looking at trends and historical data matters more than blindly trusting a single authority metric
- Contextual bridging and how to move from easier topics into increasingly competitive search terms
- Why topical relevance determines which keywords a website realistically has the authority to target
- How Google Search Console can reveal search demand that traditional keyword tools miss
- Ranking social profiles and videos in Google
- SEO in an AI and LLM-driven search environment
- Why David believes SEO remains one of the best ways to reach someone at the exact moment they are looking for something
A recurring theme in this conversation is that SEO is contextual.
A tactic can be useful on one site and pointless on another. Schema can be required for one search feature and irrelevant to another. An author bio can matter in a transparency review without being the reason a normal commercial page ranks. A change that produces huge results across one million pages may have almost no practical value for a small local business.
Instead of building SEO around a checklist, James and David argue for understanding the underlying system: relevance, authority, search behavior, internal relationships between pages, external links and real-world testing.
This is the longest conversation I've recorded, and we had enough time to get past the usual surface-level SEO arguments and into the reasoning behind how both James and David actually approach ranking websites.
⭐️ James Dooley's website - https://jamesdooley.com/ 
⭐️ James Dooley on 𝕏 - https://x.com/james_dooley 
⭐️ James Dooley on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameszdooley/ 
⭐️ James Dooley on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jameszdooley/ 
⭐️ James Dooley on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/james.dooley1/ 
⭐️ James Dooley on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@JamesDooley 
⭐️ David Quaid on 𝕏 - https://x.com/DavidGQuaid 
⭐️ David Quaid on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidquaid/ 
⭐️ David Quaid on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@DavidQuaid 
⭐️ David Quaid's agency - https://primaryposition.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 Best Practices Debate
01:44 Checklist SEO Myths
04:15 Authority Over Quality
06:20 SEO Case Studies
12:02 Content Quality Reality
21:21 EEAT Framework Clash
24:23 Why EEAT Falls Apart
32:25 Branded Search Signals
35:58 Brands Win on CTR
36:53 Autosuggest Brand Seeding
38:06 CTR Manipulation Done Right
39:56 Real Case Study EMD Launch
42:42 EEAT Myths vs Reality
44:02 RaterHub and Transparency Penalties
48:18 When EEAT Applies YMYL
01:01:53 Schema When It Matters
01:08:14 FAQ Schema and PAA Pages
01:12:40 Relevance Times Authority Framework
01:14:32 CTR Weakens Authority
01:15:19 Stop Anthropomorphizing Google
01:16:19 Bad Advice From Big Brands
01:20:07 Tribalism And Schema Wars
01:23:16 Debate Culture And Testing
01:26:47 CDN Fight And Ego
01:30:04 Penalties And Core Updates
01:31:35 Google Engineering Under Hood
01:38:07 Intent Shifts And Traffic Tiers
01:39:48 Listicles And SEO Creativity
01:42:26 LLMs Feed On Lists
01:53:58 AI Mode And Ad Economics
01:56:20 Index Moat And AI Race
02:00:03 Why Google Still Wins
02:00:42 Search Is Not The Real Battle
02:01:43 LLMs Need New Vectors
02:03:28 Best Time For SEO
02:05:09 SEO Demand From CEOs
02:07:36 AI Makes Building Easy
02:10:05 SEO Interest Explodes
02:11:22 Brand Building Myth
02:13:18 Chunking For AI Overviews
02:14:31 Using Every Tool
02:17:55 No Perfect Tool Stack
02:20:35 Data Driven Domain Buying
02:24:20 LLM Citations For Outreach
02:27:58 EMDs To Reduce Risk
02:31:59 Republish And Reuse Content
02:33:18 Steal Winning Slugs
02:35:11 Cheap Keyword Modifier
02:35:46 Search Console Goldmine
02:37:05 Social Linking Risks
02:39:56 Google As Traffic Engine
02:43:34 Tools Cost And Trials
02:47:17 Starting From Zero
02:51:16 Blogspot Ranking Playbook
02:54:16 Topical Bridging Explained
03:00:17 Strategy Over Keywords
03:04:05 Thanks And Wrap
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #seotips #seostrategy