The Edward Show

E1045: This is what it takes to carry the responsibility of managing 90 SEOs AT THE SAME TIME.
I sit down with Travis Tallent, former Managing Director of AI SEO at Brainlabs, where he led a team of 90 SEOs, CROs, digital PR specialists, and content strategists across enterprise clients like Microsoft and GitHub.
We break down what scales inside a large SEO organization, what quietly breaks, and what most people get wrong about hiring, systems, and AI.
This is not surface-level advice. It's what happens when you grow a team from 15 people to 90 in four and a half years and have to build the infrastructure to support it.
What we cover:
Leadership and scale
- What leading 90 SEOs is really like day to day
- The growing pains of scaling from 15 to 90 people
- Why process matters more than talent at scale
- How to build systems for communication across large teams
- Decision rights, hierarchy, and why clarity prevents chaos
- How to stop teams from getting in each other's way
Hiring and onboarding
- The most underrated skill in SEO hires
- How to screen for real operators, not surface-level knowledge
- The interview question that reveals everything
- What a three-month onboarding program actually looks like
- Why mock calls and repetition build communication skill
- How to design onboarding that produces confident, client-ready SEOs
Digital PR and link building
- Why traditional outreach often fails at enterprise scale
- What actually works in digital PR today
- How to build data-driven linkable assets
- Personalizing outreach without burning your domain reputation
- Creative examples of assets that generate thousands of backlinks
- Why brand investment matters more in the AI era
CRO and conversion strategy
- Why incremental button tests rarely move the needle
- When full funnel redesigns drive major revenue gains
- Common CRO mistakes that hurt SEO
- How poor design damages both traffic and conversions
- Why cross-functional alignment between SEO, paid, design, and CRO is critical
AI, automation, and hype cycles
- The real risks of migrating from .com to .ai
- How executives think about AI branding decisions
- Why most companies are trying to automate too early
- The danger of vibe-coded sites without real strategy
- What AI search actually requires to win
Enterprise SEO lessons
- How to fix cannibalization at scale
- Why internal linking and taxonomy are often overlooked
- What separates plateauing sites from compounding ones
- How to push back on clients using data instead of ego
- The metrics that actually matter when you lead a large SEO team
This conversation is about ownership, discipline, and long-term thinking.
Scaling SEO is not about adding more people. It's about building clarity into hiring, onboarding, communication, and execution.
If you're running an agency, managing a marketing team, or building a SaaS company that depends on search, this episode will give you a more realistic view of what scale actually requires.
⭐️ Travis Tallent on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/travistallent/
⭐️ Out in AI, Travis's LGBTQ+ & ally AI group: https://outinai.com/
⭐️ Travis's company - Daynova - AI Change Management - https://daynova.ai/
🚀 Edward's SEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/
💎 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 Managing 90 SEOs
01:51 Underrated SEO Skills
03:14 Communication Systems
05:31 Mock Calls Training
07:22 Scaling Team Onboarding
11:15 Fastest Way Learn SEO
13:37 First Three SEO Hires
17:23 Digital PR That Works
20:04 Creative Linkable Assets
27:55 Weird SEO Stories
30:42 Com to AI Migration Risks
36:24 Screening SEO Candidates
37:49 SEO Audit Process
41:07 GitHub Content Win
44:46 Preventing Team Mayhem
46:41 CRO Big Wins
48:24 Revamp Funnels Not Buttons
49:46 CRO Mistakes To Avoid
51:48 Design And SEO Alignment
53:28 Clarity Beats Cleverness
55:11 Measuring Team Success
56:25 Systems RACI And Tools
01:00:44 AI Scales Chaos
01:03:50 Pushing Back On Clients
01:05:36 Compounding SEO Investment
01:10:13 Overlooked SEO Tactics
01:11:57 Source SEO For AI Search
01:15:48 AI Impact On SEO Teams
01:17:43 SEO Disaster Story
01:20:09 Becoming Top One Percent
01:22:11 Final Lessons And Wrap
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #marketingagencies #seo #digitalmarketing

E1044: Most companies use the exact same brand description everywhere online.
Same wording.
Same positioning.
Same messaging.
That is a mistake if you care about SEO.
I break down why offsite messaging should evolve based on the keywords you want to rank for, the audience you are speaking to, and the search intent you are targeting.
I explain how strategic changes to your marketing blurbs can help strengthen topical authority, improve rankings for bottom-of-funnel keywords, and increase click-through rate from backlinks, podcast appearances, public relations, and other offsite placements.
Topics covered:
- Why using the same brand message everywhere can hurt SEO growth
- How offsite messaging influences rankings
- The connection between blurbs, anchor context, and topical authority
- How to adapt messaging around new product features and use cases
- When exact-match keyword phrasing matters
- Why some keywords are easy to rank for and others are not
- How to think about link building beyond just getting links
- Why the best backlinks also send qualified referral traffic
- How audience context should change your messaging strategy
- Examples of SEO-focused messaging using a fictional SaaS company
- How to use blurbs to support rankings for high-intent keywords
- Why partial keyword coverage can still strengthen rankings
- How AI features change the way products should position themselves off-site
🚀 Edward's SEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/
💎 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 Offsite Messaging Matters
00:14 Stop Using One Blurb
00:27 SEO Informs Your Copy
01:34 Meet Fizzle Client
02:02 Targeting High-Intent Keywords
03:16 Rewrite Blurbs For Keywords
04:41 When To Include Keywords
05:44 Match The Audience
06:35 New Features Shift Messaging
07:26 Wrap Up And Next Steps
09:38 Final Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #linkbuilding #publicrelations #seo

E1043: Walking through a brand new study from Ahrefs that tested one of the most repeated claims in SEO: "Add schema to get cited more by AI."
The data does not support that claim.
Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD schema between August 2025 and March 2026. They matched those pages against nearly 4,000 control pages and measured citation changes across:
- Google AI Overviews
- Google AI Mode
- ChatGPT
The result: adding schema did not increase AI citations in any meaningful way.
Here's what the study found:
- No statistically significant citation growth in Google AI Mode
- No statistically significant citation growth in ChatGPT
- A small 4.6% DECLINE in AI Overviews citations (real but small, and not clearly attributable to schema)
- Four separate statistical tests, all pointing to the same conclusion
This matters because for years, SEO advice has claimed that structured data is essential for LLM visibility. The theory sounded logical: machines need machine-readable data, so schema must help AI systems cite your content.
But when you isolate the variable and control for authority, content quality, and existing citation levels, the effect disappears.
We also discuss:
- Why 53% of AI-cited pages have schema (and why that doesn't prove causation)
- How correlation misleads SEOs
- Why technically sophisticated sites tend to have both schema and strong authority signals
- A related experiment showing major AI systems ignore JSON-LD during live retrieval
- What actually moves the needle for AI visibility
If you're:
- Paying an agency for schema to improve AI citations
- Offering schema implementation as an AI visibility service
- Trying to future-proof your SEO strategy for LLM search
This episode is worth your time.
If your goal is more AI citations on pages that are already visible, the current data does not support schema as a growth lever.
My advice remains simple: Focus on relevance, building authority, internal distribution of that authority, and reducing pogo-sticking. Strong content on authoritative, relevant pages is what gets retrieved and cited.
⭐️ We Tracked 1,885 Pages Adding Schema. AI Citations Barely Moved. - https://ahrefs.com/blog/schema-ai-citations/
🚀 How to ACTUALLY get shown in LLMs - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/ai-seo-geo-aeo-get-shown-llms-2026/
💎 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 Breaking Study Shock
00:57 Correlation vs Causation
02:03 Results No Uplift
03:27 AI Overviews Decline
04:29 Methodology Explained
06:09 Four Tests Confirm
07:05 Do LLMs Read Schema?
08:16 Why Cited Pages Use Schema
09:49 Practical Schema Advice
10:55 Focus on Real SEO
11:31 Wrap
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #digitalmarketing

E1042: Breaking down the exact 22 Claude Cowork prompts used by a 40-person SEO agency every day to rank local businesses faster.
Sarvesh Shrivastava joins the show!
Three months ago, he said he could take almost any local service business to $100,000/month in 90 days using Claude. Now, after refining the system across dozens of clients, he says that was an understatement.
This is a walkthrough of the real prompt stack Sarvesh's 40-person agency uses internally, including the outputs, the reasoning behind them, and how business owners can use them without hiring an SEO agency.
We cover:
- How to build a "huge brain" inside Claude so it stops giving generic SEO advice
- The onboarding prompt that feeds Claude everything about your business, competitors, and target keywords
- Google Business Profile category audits and how to identify ranking gaps
- GBP attribute analysis (wheelchair access, LGBTQ-friendly, service tags, etc.)
- Competitor review teardown (velocity, service mentions, response strategy)
- Photo audit and posting frequency analysis
- Keyword gap audits
- Backlink gap analysis using Ahrefs through Claude
- Identifying spam links and understanding DR tiers
- On-page SEO audits that generate full implementation instructions
- Title tag, meta description, and H1 fixes with impact timelines
- Page structure recommendations (H1-H3 hierarchy, FAQs, subtopics)
- NLP entity coverage analysis
- Eight-week Google Business Profile posting plans
- Service section optimization for GBP
- Google Search Console export and analysis
- Fact-checking outputs to reduce hallucinations
- Giving Claude controlled access to WordPress and Chrome
- Risks, safeguards, and how to prevent mistakes
- How prompt refinement evolved over three months
- The difference between Claude Cowork and Claude Code
- How AI is reducing agency timelines from five months to three
We also discuss:
- Whether AI can replace an SEO agency
- Why experience still matters when interpreting outputs
- How to use Claude responsibly with access to email, files, and browser sessions
- How Sarvesh uses Claude for YouTube, 𝕏, and content strategy
- How he built a 280K+ Instagram account using AI-generated videos
- Why eliminating repetitive work improves team performance
If you run a local business, work in SEO, or want to understand how agencies are using AI behind the scenes, this is a detailed breakdown of the system.
⭐️ Sarvesh Shrivastava's Claude Cowork prompts - https://alventramarketing.com/claude-prompts/
⭐️ Sarvesh Shrivastava on 𝕏 - https://x.com/bloggersarvesh
⭐️ Sarvesh Shrivastava on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarvesh-shrivastava-blogger/
⭐️ Sarvesh Shrivastava on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/marketingwithsarvesh/
⭐️ Sarvesh Shrivastava on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@bloggersarvesh
⭐️ Sarvesh Shrivastava's agency, Alventra Marketing - https://alventramarketing.com/
🚀 My AI system for getting local news backlinks - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/articles_ai-system-find-journalists-earn-high-authority-backlinks/
💎 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 Claude Cowork Hype Check
01:31 Prompt Stack Giveaway
03:02 Build a Business Brain
05:13 Project Setup Walkthrough
07:53 GBP Category Audit
13:48 GBP Attributes Research
18:24 Backlink Gap Analysis
24:22 On Page SEO Audit PDF
27:48 Fixing On Page SEO
28:30 WordPress Implementation Tips
31:03 Prompt Pack Overview
32:13 Competitor Reviews Breakdown
33:16 GBP Posting Plan
33:51 Services And Photos Audit
35:19 Search Console Automation
35:48 Results And Team Impact
37:03 Fact Checking AI Output
39:30 Claude Cowork Vs Code
41:16 Safety And Privacy Concerns
43:03 Personal Workflow Wins
45:13 Social Media With Claude
47:51 AI Instagram Growth Story
50:21 Final Thanks And Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #localseo #seo #localmarketing

E1041: Google just officially killed FAQ schema support in Google Search.
But the bigger story is this:
Most SEO advice is still telling people to prioritize FAQ schema anyway.
We break down:
- What Google actually deprecated
- Why this changes almost nothing for most websites
- How schema became overhyped in SEO
- Why ChatGPT still recommends outdated SEO tactics
- How to use critical thinking instead of blindly following SEO advice
- What actually drives rankings and conversions in modern SEO
Topics covered:
- Google removing FAQ rich results
- Why FAQ schema stopped mattering years ago
- How to evaluate schema types yourself
- SERP features vs. actual ranking factors
- Why LLMs don't really need schema
- The difference between relevance and authority
- How to identify better SEO keywords
- A simple 3-question framework for writing SEO content that converts
- Why most SEO content fails search intent
Key takeaway:
If a schema type does not create a visible SERP advantage for your target keyword, it is probably not worth obsessing over.
The fundamentals still matter most:
- Relevant content
- Search intent alignment
- Authority
- Useful pages that satisfy users better than competing results
This episode also includes:
- A real example from a startup I'm funding
- Why relying entirely on ChatGPT for SEO can backfire
- The exact exercise that improved content quality immediately
⭐️ The announcement from Google - https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/faqpage
⭐️ Previous schema types being deprecated - https://www.seroundtable.com/google-drops-support-structured-data-types-40386.html
⭐️ The Reddit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/TechSEO/comments/1t7ccqv/comment/okobz8c/?context=1
⭐️ Lily Ray's post - https://x.com/lilyraynyc/status/2052788585070215286
⭐️ Do LLMs Actually Use Schema? The Duck Test That Broke SEO - Ep 956 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nTqaG3GKLk
🚀 Edward's SEO Articles - https://edwardsturm.com/articles/search-engine-optimization/
💎 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 FAQ Schema Deprecated
00:22 What Google Announced
00:43 Why It Barely Matters
01:51 Schema Keeps Changing
02:12 Pick Schema With SERPs
03:35 LLM Advice Can Mislead
05:22 Focus On Relevance
06:06 Three Question Content Trick
06:22 Real Keyword Targeting Story
08:29 Better Keywords, Better Content, Better Authority
10:45 Final Takeaways And Goodbye
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/
#searchengineoptimization #technicalseo #seo #digitalmarketing