The Edward Show

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

E1130: Micro-influencer SEO is one of the most overlooked ways to get your brand mentioned across Google, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and AI search tools.
I break down a simple strategy: instead of paying for generic press releases or chasing influencers with huge audiences, work with tiny creators whose videos are already being indexed and ranked by search engines.
A micro-influencer with only a few hundred or a few thousand followers can still publish content that appears in Google for months or even years.
And in many cases, the cost can be as little as $25 to $50 per creator.
I cover:
- Why micro-influencers can be useful for SEO even if they have a small audience
- How to check whether an influencer's videos are being indexed by Google
- How to test their past content before paying them
- Why follower count is not the most important metric for this strategy
- Using high-intent keywords that competitors are ignoring
- How to structure an influencer's video description around a target keyword
- Why the target keyword should appear near the beginning of the description
- How to coordinate multiple creators around the same keyword and brand
- How to support those creator posts with a page on your own website
- Where to place the keyword in your page title, URL, H1, and opening copy
- Why YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok matter beyond their own platforms
- How video content can continue ranking long after it is published
- Why social platforms are increasingly being used as search engines
- How video descriptions can influence what ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and other AI systems cite
- Why authentic creator content can be more useful than a generic press release
I also walk through a specific example using the keyword "residential general contractor software."
The basic process is:
- Find a micro-influencer in your niche
- Copy the description from one of their recent videos
- Search that exact description in Google
- Check whether the video is indexed
- Look at older videos to see how long their content tends to stay indexed
- Find a high-intent keyword that is not being targeted heavily
- Pay the creator to make a relevant video around your product or company
- Give them an SEO-focused description to use
- Repeat the process with several creators
- Create or optimize a page on your website around the same keyword
The goal is not simply influencer reach.
The goal is to create multiple relevant pieces of content that associate your brand with a specific high-intent search term across platforms that Google and AI systems already crawl and reference.
⭐️ The Gary Vaynerchuk episode - https://youtu.be/EUnV-xaH32k 
💎 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 Micro Influencer SEO Edge
00:56 Find Creators That Rank
01:37 Pitch With Overlooked Keywords
02:04 Write Descriptions For SEO
02:50 Dominate With Multi-Platform Posts
03:44 Social Search Is Exploding
04:08 Benefits And LLM Impact
04:18 Fake Reviews And Citations
05:01 Why This Tactic Wins
05:46 Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #influencermarketing #generativeengineoptimization #seo

E1129: The further a source is from your company's control, the more likely AI systems may be to trust it.
Kaleigh Moore explains her "Source Signal Stack," a four-level framework for understanding how brands earn visibility in ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and other AI search tools.
A company can control its website, blog, and social accounts. It has less control over what employees, independent creators, customers, journalists, and online communities say.
According to Kaleigh, those independent sources can carry more weight because they are harder for a brand to manufacture.
Kaleigh spent 10 years running a content marketing agency and working with companies including Shopify, Stripe, and Amazon Business. After AI changed the content industry, she enrolled in a graduate program at Harvard to study how large language models are built. She now researches AI search visibility, creates content, and publishes the Context Window newsletter.
We cover:
- How AI systems form an impression of a brand across the internet
- The four levels of Kaleigh's Source Signal Stack
- Why company-owned content may be the weakest trust signal
- Why Reddit discussions, podcasts, earned media, and independent mentions matter
- How named experts can help companies become associated with specific subjects
- Why brands should create original frameworks and repeat clear, consistent language
- How LinkedIn articles can reach the top of Google quickly
- How Kaleigh ranked LinkedIn articles at number one within 24 hours
- How short YouTube videos helped her earn citations in Google AI Overviews
- Why creators may become increasingly important for AI search visibility
- What "Creator AEO" means and how companies can work with outside experts
- Why one-off sponsored posts are less useful than long-term creator relationships
- How to check whether an influencer's existing content ranks before paying them
- Why a small creator with ranking content may be more valuable than a large creator
- How long video descriptions can help search engines and AI tools understand content
- Why companies should stop publishing anonymous blog posts
- How scaled AI content can create poor user signals
- Why readers can usually recognize content written entirely by AI
- How Kaleigh uses AI as a research and thinking partner without handing over her voice
- Why conversational writing, personal stories, and unusual details are difficult to copy
- Why founders should publish from personal LinkedIn accounts instead of relying only on company pages
- How six months of daily LinkedIn posting created inbound leads and speaking opportunities
- Why brands need to think and operate more like media companies
- How podcasts can build relationships with bloggers, journalists, and potential customers
- Why offline events can produce online mentions, social posts, and backlinks
- How AI is changing the way businesses research and purchase software
- Why buyers increasingly use AI during long and expensive evaluation processes
- Why citation counts alone may be an unreliable measurement
The central lesson is that AI visibility cannot be created only through changes to your website.
Brands need recognizable experts, useful content, independent discussion, trusted relationships, and evidence that exists seemingly outside their direct control. The companies that understand this are the ones that appear when people ask AI tools what to buy, who to trust, and which solution to choose.
⭐️ Kaleigh Moore's newsletter, Context Window - https://kaleigh-moore.beehiiv.com/ 
⭐️ Kaleigh Moore on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaleighmoore/ 
⭐️ Kaleigh Moore on 𝕏 - https://x.com/kaleighf 
⭐️ Kaleigh Moore on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@aisearchlady 
⭐️ The Source Signal Stack - https://www.kaleighmoore.com/blog/2026/4/22/the-source-signal-stack 
💎 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 Kaylee Background Pivot
01:54 AI Changes Marketing
04:25 LinkedIn UGC SEO Hack
06:00 Repurposing Content Systems
11:51 Source Signal Stack
17:26 Future of Blogging Audio
23:30 Human Authors Beat Slop
27:17 Using AI Without Losing Voice
36:06 Creator AEO Partnerships
39:01 Long Cut Consistency
40:48 LinkedIn Daily Reps
41:29 X vs LinkedIn Posting
42:36 Which Platform Pays
43:09 Journalism Links Debate
47:30 SEO Needs Media Company
48:24 Podcasting For Backlinks
51:50 Offline SEO Flywheel
55:02 Ecommerce Community Lessons
57:48 Time Compression Burnout
58:53 AI Search Newsletter Workflow
01:02:19 Winning AI Evaluations
01:04:14 Micro Influencers Parasite SEO
01:09:21 Growing On X
01:12:49 Lightning Round Wrap
01:17:00 Final Thanks And Outro
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#contentmarketing #generativeengineoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1128: Local SEO is changing as Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other AI systems influence how people find and evaluate local businesses.
I'm joined by Joy Hawkins and Caleb Ulku for a detailed discussion about what is working in local SEO now, which common tactics are becoming less effective, and how businesses should prepare for AI-powered local search.
Joy and Caleb compare what they are seeing across client accounts, ranking tests, Google Business Profiles, local packs, AI-generated recommendations, website content, reviews, links, and conversion rates.
Topics covered:
- How large language models evaluate local businesses and decide which companies to cite
- Why local businesses may need content that clearly explains pricing, processes, outcomes, and service details
- How awards and industry-specific directories can influence AI recommendations
- Why winning an award is not enough unless the business also promotes it clearly on its website
- How AI-powered local packs may reduce the importance of Google review volume and frequency
- Why Yelp, Facebook, Reddit, and other third-party platforms are becoming more important for local visibility
- How AI systems read the actual language inside reviews instead of only looking at star ratings
- Why businesses should encourage customers to describe their experience and outcome in their reviews
- The risks of asking for, buying, or incentivizing reviews on different platforms
- Why fake listings, fake reviews, rank-and-rent listings, and other forms of Google Business Profile spam continue to create problems for legitimate businesses
- How business hours can affect local rankings and why Google's written guidelines do not always match what works in practice
- Whether keyword-stuffed Google Business Profile names will continue working as AI local results become more common
- Why improving a local business website's design can increase leads without rebuilding the entire website
- How AI tools can help businesses improve landing pages, buttons, coupons, images, page layouts, and conversion rates
- How Joy and Caleb use AI to produce content without publishing generic rewrites of competing pages
- Why original interviews, customer stories, project details, pricing information, measurements, timelines, and outcomes make content more useful
- Why publishing dozens or hundreds of similar AI-generated pages can become a liability
- How to approach location pages, service-area pages, and multi-location business websites
- When separate location pages compete against each other and when combining locations may produce better results
- Why press releases appear to have lost much of their previous influence on rankings and AI citations
- Why exact-match anchor text, scaled link building, and guest posting have become increasingly risky
- Which local link-building methods still work, including sponsorships, charities, community organizations, events, youth sports, and relevant award sites
- What to examine when a website's organic traffic has been declining for several years
- How excessive informational content, weak search intent, and expansion beyond a site's authority can damage performance
- Why some websites need content consolidation, pruning, restructuring, or partial rebuilding
- How local rank maps and Google Search Console data can reveal missing topical and geographic relevance
- How Google Business Profile categories and services can guide website structure and internal linking
- Where Joy and Caleb disagree about URLs, internal links, location pages, and duplicate content
- Why CTR manipulation and driving-direction manipulation may work temporarily but can create serious long-term risks
- Why tactics that stop working as soon as you stop paying for them are difficult to build a reliable business around
This conversation is for local business owners, SEO consultants, agency owners, marketers, lawyers, home-service companies, and anyone trying to understand how local search is changing.
⭐️ Joy Hawkin's Agency - Sterling Sky: https://www.sterlingsky.ca/ 
⭐️ Joy Hawkin's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/SterlingSkyInc 
⭐️ Joy Hawkin's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joyhawkins/ 
⭐️ Local Search Forum - https://localsearchforum.com/ 
⭐️ Caleb Ulku on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@calebulku 
⭐️ Caleb Ulku - https://calebulku.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 the Local SEO Pros
00:34 Getting Recognized IRL
02:02 Local SEO in the LLM Era
04:31 Awards as AI Signals
07:52 Paying for Credibility
12:34 Reviews Beyond Google
15:47 Yelp and Reddit Trust
18:50 Spam and Fake Listings
23:40 Loopholes That May Die
25:50 Big Missed Opportunities
31:35 AI Content That Ranks
36:38 AI Content Scaling Trap
37:12 Unique Content vs Relevance
38:24 Citygate Pages Risk
39:53 Multiple Locations Strategy
41:14 Press Releases Decline
43:08 Anchor Text Crackdown
43:55 Local Link Building Wins
48:46 Traffic Drops and Audits
55:22 GBP Landing Page Fixes
58:03 Citations and CTR Hype
01:02:27 Fake Reviews and Takedowns
01:05:44 Site Structure and URLs
01:10:00 30 Day Action Plan
01:11:25 Wrap Up and Thanks
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#localseo #localsearchengineoptimization #localmarketing #seo

E1127: Google's biggest SEO leak gave marketers more information about how search works than almost any event in the industry's history.
But according to Mike King, most SEO strategies, tools, and reporting systems barely changed after the leak.
Mike explains what the leaked Google API documentation confirmed, what it revealed about links and ranking systems, and why the SEO industry has failed to act on some of its most important findings.
We break down Google's different index tiers, why a backlink's value may depend on where the linking page sits in the index, and why common third-party metrics such as Domain Authority and Domain Rating may not tell you what Google actually values.
Mike also explains how Google uses vector embeddings to understand pages, passages, websites, authors, brands, and entities. This changes how marketers should think about relevance, authority, mentions, links, and content creation.
We also go deep into AI search and how platforms such as ChatGPT retrieve and evaluate information.
Topics covered include:
- What Google's API leak confirmed about ranking systems
- Why Mike believes the SEO industry failed to adapt
- How Google separates content into different index tiers
- Why links from pages with rankings and traffic may carry more value
- Why Domain Authority and Domain Rating can be misleading
- How vector embeddings help Google understand relevance
- Why brand mentions can sometimes matter more than backlinks
- The difference between optimizing for prompts and query fan-outs
- How ChatGPT breaks a prompt into multiple search queries
- Why comprehensive content can create more chances to appear in AI answers
- How to inspect the searches ChatGPT performs behind the scenes
- Why AI search should not be treated as another version of traditional SEO
- How brands should measure AI visibility, citations, accuracy, and performance
- Why Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, earned media, and your website all matter
- How content format affects whether AI systems select your page or video
- Why starting your own subreddit may help protect your brand's position
- The biggest mistake companies make with AI-generated content
- Why publishing an article from a single prompt often produces weak results
- How human review, original sources, structured prompts, and subject experts improve AI content
- Why Google may rely more on user behavior than unreliable AI-content detection
- Which older SEO tactics are returning because of AI search
- What "relevance engineering" means
- Why future marketing teams may need SEO, PR, UX, content, data, and engineering skills
- Why SEOs should learn to build tools and test AI platforms directly
Mike also shares a specific AI search case study involving 499 response codes.
His team found that ChatGPT was abandoning page requests because the client's website took too long to respond. After identifying the problem in the site's log files and improving response speed, the client's AI search visibility increased by roughly 300% over three months.
Mike's practical recommendation is simple:
Check your server logs for 499 errors. Identify the affected URLs. Improve page speed, especially time to first byte. According to Mike, fixing this problem can improve AI search performance in 30 days or less.
This conversation is for SEOs, founders, content teams, PR professionals, and marketing leaders trying to understand how discovery is changing across Google, ChatGPT, Claude, Bing, YouTube, Reddit, and other search surfaces.
⭐️ Mike King's agency, iPullRank - https://ipullrank.com 
⭐️ Mike King's music - https://verywellversed.com 
⭐️ Mike King on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkingphilly/ 
⭐️ Mike King on 𝕏 - https://x.com/iPullRankAgency 
💎 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 Welcome and Setup
00:17 Google Leak Takeaways
05:44 Index Buckets Explained
07:50 Embeddings and Entities
09:19 Mentions vs Links
11:51 Earning Mentions Tactics
14:27 Black Mirror Launch
16:05 Seeding Clips and Ads
19:15 Leak Frenzy and Twiddlers
22:14 Optimizing for AI Search
23:50 Inspecting Query Fanout
26:18 Fanouts vs Keywords Strategy
30:01 C-Suite Measurement Framework
31:05 Input Metrics That Matter
31:43 Why It Is Not Just SEO
33:01 Tooling For Measurement
33:38 Query Fan Out Research
34:54 RAG Pipeline Visibility Gaps
37:06 Who Should Lead GEO
38:46 Pilot Win Fixing 499s
42:09 Getting Into Training Data
44:22 Relevance Engineering Explained
48:04 Content Formats For AI Search
49:29 Using Reddit Without Astroturfing
51:58 AI Content Mistakes To Avoid
54:10 How Google Judges AI Content
57:09 Future Of Niche Publishing
59:01 Unpopular SEO Take And Skills
01:02:44 One Action For 90 Days
01:03:04 Wrap Up And Where To Follow
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#seo #searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization