The Edward Show

E1136: Charles Floate has been doing SEO for years, across everything from brand-new sites to companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on backlinks.
In this episode, Charles lays out how he approaches SEO from A to Z: starting a site, building authority, finding keywords, structuring pages, getting links, becoming a topical authority, scaling what works, and changing the strategy as a site gets bigger.
We get into:
- Charles' "zero to 100" strategy for launching a brand-new site
- How he uses entity stacking, citations, directories, social profiles, and reference sites to establish a new brand
- How many backlinks he would build to a 10-page site vs. a 1,000-page site
- Why backlink velocity has to match the size of the site
- What actually makes a backlink valuable
- Why a backlink that never gets indexed may provide no value
- Why Charles doesn't force-index every backlink
- How to find your real SEO competitors instead of just your business competitors
- How to reverse engineer competitors' backlink profiles
- Why Charles looks for referring domains shared across multiple ranking competitors
- How smaller companies can beat larger competitors by doing better link due diligence
- Why he usually targets long-tail, higher-intent keywords before the biggest keyword in a niche
- How he knows when a site has reached topical authority
- How topical authority changes the economics of publishing new pages
- How Charles thinks about page-level relevance
- The weight-loss site that lost most of its revenue after expanding into gardening and composting content
- How to expand into adjacent topics without destroying your existing topical focus
- How Charles would structure categories, URLs, navigation, and core site pages
- His process for building topical maps
- How he uses ranking competitors to expand one keyword set into hundreds of related queries
- How SEO changes between a new site, a growing site, and an enterprise site
- Why enterprise SEO is often easier to rank but harder to execute
- When keyword cannibalization becomes a serious problem
- How Charles approaches "crawled, currently not indexed" pages
- Why refreshing existing content can outperform constantly publishing new content
- How optimizing for traditional Google results differs from optimizing for ChatGPT, Claude, and AI Overviews
- Semantic triples and how machines understand relationships between entities
- Brand mentions, citations, consensus, and AI visibility
- Charles' experiment getting an AI Overview to recognize his SEO awards site
- Parasite SEO and satellite microsites for taking more positions in long-tail SERPs
- What Charles considers the most important ranking factor in traditional Google search
- How user engagement signals matter after you start ranking
- How hidden keyword stuffing in schema and source code can over-optimize a page
- What SEO tactics Charles thinks Google is likely to go after next
This is Charles Floate's SEO process from a site with zero authority and zero rankings all the way through large-scale and enterprise SEO.
⭐️ Charles Floate on 𝕏 - https://x.com/Charles_SEO 
⭐️ Charles Floate on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesfloate/ 
⭐️ Charles Floate on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@CharlesFloate 
⭐️ Charles Floate on Facebook - https://facebook.com/thecharlesfloate 
⭐️ Charles Floate's community - https://seo.stream  
💎 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 SEO Playbook Kickoff
00:40 Meet Charles Floate
01:24 Authority And Links
02:44 Zero To 100 Launch
06:56 Social Profiles Activity
07:48 What Makes A Good Link
10:27 Backlink Indexing Reality
12:24 Reverse Engineer Competitors
18:55 Buying Links And Due Diligence
23:21 Competitor Link Overlap
26:38 Relevance And Topical Focus
31:46 AI SEO And Semantics
35:43 Generic vs Topical Authority
36:43 HubSpot Traffic Drop
38:49 Refresh Content Strategy
40:55 Pivoting Beyond Weight Loss
45:00 Building Topic Bridges
47:50 Site Structure Basics
51:19 Keyword Research Framework
55:52 Topical Maps Explained
57:00 Enterprise vs Small SEO
01:01:10 Indexing Issues Fixes
01:03:55 Content Overlap ROI
01:07:44 CRO Beyond Rankings
01:09:32 Sell Outcomes Not SEO
01:10:43 Auditing Traffic Drops
01:13:42 Common Decline Causes
01:16:20 Quality Score Explained
01:19:16 AI SEO Opportunity
01:22:49 Training Data Tactics
01:25:39 Gaming AI Overviews
01:29:42 Parasite SEO Plays
01:30:48 Ranking Factors Today
01:33:49 Future Updates Focus
01:35:46 Information Gain Framework
01:37:40 Episode Wrap Up
The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/ 
#searchengineoptimization #seo #linkbuilding #seopodcast

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