Everything (mostly) that a marketer could want to know about podcasting

Mordy Oberstein:

It's the new wave of SEO podcasting. Welcome to SERP's Up. Aloha mahalo for joining the SERP's Up Podcast. We're pushing out some groovy new insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm Mordy Oberstein, the head of SEO brand here at Wix and I'm joined by the very vocal, the audiable, the shout it out to the world and tell them what you think head of SEO communications, Crystal Carter.

Crystal Carter:

Like Beyonce says, "Tell everybody. Tell everybody." She says it a lot in that song, "Tell everybody." And like her partner says, "I got 99 problems, but a podcast ain't one." That's right.

Mordy Oberstein:

I thought you'd say, 99 problems, but talking a lot is not one.

Crystal Carter:

It's not one. It's definitely not one, like when I was at school. No, it was one of those personality tests. They do the Myers-Briggs tests and things, and they're like, "Crystal talks a lot." I'm like, "Like Kelsa Priess said, water is wet. This is not news."

Mordy Oberstein:

I took one on the computer and the computer started to fume.

Crystal Carter:

No.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'm joking.

The SERP's Up Podcast is brought to you by Wix, where you can not only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, search over at wix.com/seo/learn/newsletter. But where you can also use Wix Studio and the templates and the advanced design features to give your podcast a home that you can control across the web. As opposed to just using a podcast hosting platform, you should also have a website for your podcast.

Anyway, today we're doing a podcast about podcasting for marketing growth with marketers who podcast. As we're pulling back the curtain on this very show by looking at what does and doesn't have to go into production for a podcast, how to manage the ins and outs of a podcast, how to use a podcast to gain market traction, and how to leverage your podcast for your and your client's brands.

To show us that it ain't nothing but a podcast thing. Dre is in the house, the host of the SEO Show, Paul Andre De Vera will chat with Crystal in just a few moments. Plus we look at how the podcast landscape is changing with the one only Andi Jarvis. And of course, we have your snappiest of SEO News and who you should be following for more awesomeness on social media. So the next time someone tells you to "Shh and be quiet," you tell them "The world isn't a library, it's a podcast, and I'll talk about whatever I want to talk about whenever I want to talk about it," as we help you find your inner voice. No, not your inner voice, but your microphone voice on this, the 99th episode of the SERP's Up Podcast.

It's our Wayne Gretzky episode, 99 or our Aaron Judge episode if you like baseball.

Crystal Carter:

Okay, that's fine. Also, I think I mentioned this when we chatted to Andi as well, but also Agent 99 from Get Smart.

Mordy Oberstein:

99's a good number.

Crystal Carter:

It's good. It's good. 99 Red Balloons, the classic song.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's classic.

Crystal Carter:

Bump Ba dum bum bum bum, ba dum, bum bum.

Mordy Oberstein:

It also means we're one away from our 100th episode and we have a surprise for you for that.

Crystal Carter:

It's true, it's true. 100 is good innings in cricket because we couldn't cover all the sports, all the sports fall.

Mordy Oberstein:

I don't know, is there anything... I like bowling? Is anything with 99? No.

Crystal Carter:

No.-

Mordy Oberstein:

I was thinking like-

Crystal Carter:

... Except for that's bad score.

Mordy Oberstein:

... the perfect score is a hundred, but it's 300.

Crystal Carter:

Definitely 300.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right.

Crystal Carter:

And to be honest, I'm a mediocre bowler. I'm very happy if I get three digits, if I'm completely honest.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'm a terrible bowler.

Crystal Carter:

My husband was never on a bowling team. I was in a bowling league with my mom and my sister, and my husband has never been in organized bowling of any kind, and yet he always beats me, which makes me upset because he's a non-bowler. It's not fair. It's not okay.

Mordy Oberstein:

I have a hard time. I think we talked about this at one point. The ball bothers me, it bothers my wrist. It just feels awkward in my hand for some reason.

Crystal Carter:

I always start off with a heavier one in the the first game, and then I go lighter for the next game and the game after that.

Mordy Oberstein:

Wow. You really plan out your bowling strategy.

Crystal Carter:

I get tie ties, I get tired and stuff. I tell you what though, my dad is an epic bowler. When I was a kid, he was my hero because he had, it was like 14 pounds or whatever, and when he would bowl, he would throw it halfway down the lane and then when it hit the pins, it was like, clack, clack, clack, clack. And I was like, this is awesome-

Mordy Oberstein:

You know you don't want the ball to spin, you want it to glide. And at the very end it's supposed to spin. I saw a video about this. Anyway, I don't know a lot about bowling, but I know a lot about podcasting.

Crystal Carter:

Yes.

Mordy Oberstein:

I've done a few podcasts in my day. Podcasting, before we get into Dre, I just want to say it is a phenomenal, phenomenal medium for you if you're thinking about doing a variety of different things with your business or your client's businesses, podcasting is fabulous. And I'm not saying that because I'm biased towards podcasting, which I am. First off, it's informal and connected, which I think works in today's ecosystem. Like this podcast in case you haven't figured it out, is not exactly a tuxedo. It's more like a baggy pair of jeans. We have a connection, we talk, we're informal, we're chit-chatting. It's a great way to connect in a real way with your audience and not in a very corporate way with your audience, which I think the world is leaning very much against that whole corporate kind of talk. Podcasting is great. You create actual relationships with your guests.

There have been people who are my best friends at SEO that I met by doing podcasts and having them on a podcast. You make real connections. That first five minutes and last five minutes of an interview are connection gold. And it's fabulous for positioning yourself. Don't always, and we'll talk about this with Andi, don't always worry about the numbers. Podcasting is a great way to position yourself for getting more leads and getting more clients and whatnot. And it's also much easier to produce, which we'll get into with Dre than it is, I don't know, the ultimate guide to whatever, whatever, whatever, to try to get more traffic. It's just easier to produce. And here's the greatest part, it's repurposable. Audiograms, YouTube video. You can turn it into a blog post. And last but not least, the barrier to entry is higher than you think, but it's also not as high as you think at the same time.

Crystal Carter:

Right. And I think that it's one of those things that with marketing, once you get going, it can become a lot more sort of second nature. I think Dre's been doing his podcast and his show for a long time. You've been podcasting for a very long time. And Andi talks about, it was tricky to get it going in the first instance, but now he's really, really gotten through it and he really goes through it regularly. And I think that it becomes a sort of part of your routine that you're going to connect with your audience and share whatever you're sharing.

And I think that one of the other things that I think is great for audiences, and for people who are marketing and who are considering podcasts is that you can make sure that you are connecting with a particular audience at any time. So podcasting is something that can apply to lots of different audiences, whatever your vertical is. And I think that that's something that can be tricky for lots of different verticals. But if you were somebody who was really into pneumatic drills, you can make a podcast and people who are really into that would be really into it. If you were somebody who was really into epidemiology or something, you could do a podcast and then people would be interested in that as well. The numbers on podcasts are incredible across the board, and I think that, like you said, it's not always about numbers, but it is about showing a depth of knowledge. And one of the things that's really... and an interest in knowledge as well.

So even if you're not a super, I don't know why I picked pneumatic drilling, but I think I've been thinking about that PN, that silent P in there. Anyway, but if you were interested in that particular topic, and let's say you were a noob, right? Let's say you were just getting started on your journey of becoming, I don't know, an engineer in that field or something, whatever it may be, you can connect with people who are further along in their journey to help you learn about what you're doing and to help your audience learn with you. So it's something where you can come at it from a source of truth and you can use that to both endear yourself to your audience, but also to demonstrate your expertise, whichever audience you're trying to apply to. And that's something that can be really rare. So if you were to start a TikTok channel on the same topic, you would probably have to test that audience and say, is this audience on TikTok? Et cetera, et cetera. But podcasts are something that cut across almost all aspects and almost all demographics.

Mordy Oberstein:

And it's super easy. It's a great way, as you're doing that to position yourself or your client the same way. Because if you're putting out a blog post or you're putting out whatever you're putting out on social media, sometimes it could be hard to let your brand personality come through. It's super easy on a podcast because your personality literally comes through and you can, by the way, that doesn't mean you have to be your actual self. You could be your podcast self on a podcast. I'm this way on this podcast. I can be very different on a different podcast. It's super easy and it's super visible and it's super transparent, or that's not even the word I'm looking for. I can't find the right word. But it's super distinct and it's super obvious, a way to position your brand, I'll say personality, just super upfront. You don't have to over time start creating a notion with our visual language. It comes out instantaneously. When you're podcasting.

Crystal Carter:

It can be really useful to connect with people in a way that is low-key. So one of the things that can happen sometimes is that if you're doing a talk and you say hi, I'm so-and-so, and I also host a podcast. So sometimes if you're presenting to people, if you're talking to people, if you're meeting people, then you might say, oh, I've got this blog, read my blog. And maybe people have time to read your blog, maybe they don't have time to read your blog or watch my videos, maybe they have time to do it, maybe they don't. If you say, download this free guide, think maybe they have time to do that, maybe they don't. However, if you say, oh, I've got a podcast, then maybe at some point when they've got 10 minutes while they're doing their working out or they're going for a walk or they're at the airport or whatever it may be, it's really, really low-key. They can sort of flip through and they can get an idea of who you are before they get involved with some of your other aspects of your business or your persona or whatever it may be. And it's something that can be really accessible for people in lots of different ways.

And I think that for brands, that's something that is super important because you want to be able to have some access there. I think also from a technical point of view, particularly from an SEO point of view, podcasts have incredible distribution networks built in. So if you were thinking of from a brand point of view, when you have a podcast and if you were to search for the SERP's Up Podcast for instance on Google, and then you were to look at some of the places where the SERP's Up Podcast is, and if you were to leave a review, then you would be able to see that ours shows up on IMDB, it shows up on Google's things, it shows up on Apple, it shows up on Spotify, it shows up on Amazon, it shows up on lots of different things, and there are very few mediums that have that built in. It has a built-in distribution network that allows you to connect with lots of different folks both on the SERP and in the lots of other platforms as well.

Mordy Oberstein:

And the last thing that I'll say that it is because that's absolutely true, before we hand it over to you and Dre, it does something that brands should be doing more of by default, and that's putting the people who work at the brands out in front. So you're putting actual people that people can actually connect... I'll tell you a story where... I'm not going to say the company where it was, one company I used to work with, they were like, oh, I'm so glad you're there, because until... I had no idea anyone who worked there and I don't know who to connect to, who to ask questions to, who to chat about, whatever it was. Putting people out in front for your brand, again, especially in today's ecosystem, Lily Ray has put out a tweet about this a couple... By the time this comes out a couple of weeks ago, it's like, brands should do this more often. It's really effective, and she's somebody who does that for her brand.

Putting people out there is a way for other people to connect with other people, while at the same time connecting with your brand. And by default, you're going to need somebody like myself and Crystal to host the podcast. So you by default need to put somebody at your company out there upfront for people to connect with. That's insanely powerful. With that, let's dive into how you actually go about podcasting, running it, what works, what doesn't work, what you should do, when you shouldn't do as Crystal talks with Dre.

Crystal Carter:

Oh, thank you so much for joining us. We are so honored to have you on the show. Mordy and I are both huge fans of everything you do online.

Paul Andre De Vera:

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Crystal. Thank you for having me on again. I mean, it was awesome having you as guests on my own podcast, right? Both you and Mordy were great guests dropping so many knowledge bombs. Great stuff.

Crystal Carter:

I'll be completely honest. You were like, "Do you want to do the podcast?" And I was like, "Absolutely. Just for the montage." If people aren't familiar with the SEO show and the podcast that Paul does, he does these amazing montages that make you look like the most amazing person. I'm like, "oh my gosh, I want to meet that person." I'm like, "oh, wait, no, that's me." And yeah, I think you have so much fun with your podcast, and I think it really, really shows.

Paul Andre De Vera:

That's the number one rule that I follow when it comes to podcasting and having guests, is making sure the guest feels like the hero, the superstar. That's how you get them to open up, feel comfortable, and be able to share knowledge that maybe they maybe scared to share. But one of the things that I love doing is when a lot of podcasters ask, "Hey, introduce yourself." I don't like doing that. You know why? Because that makes the guests kind of feel a little like, they kind of may be shy and scared in sharing some of their awards that they've won, and you as the outsider can do that research for them and make them... Sometimes when I introduce someone myself, one of the guests was like, it was Dixon. Dixon goes, "I didn't even know that I did that stuff. I didn't." You find things about someone that they didn't even know that was out there, right? So going the extra mile and making sure that your guest is the hero of the podcast is something that really, really will make it go really well.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. And I think that that helps you build on the podcast as well, because I think that one of the things I think that you are really, really good at is elevating the art form, as it were. So if people haven't listened to your show, you add in even before the show starts. You've got the montage that's like the show's happening, it's going to be great, and you add in lots of sound effects and you add in lots of great stuff throughout the show. And I think that that element that you're talking about, that adding in that extra element of research and really hosting the show, really guiding that can really take it to a next level. What other things do you try to bring to really make it feel like a podcast experience? Not just like, oh, you're just listening to a podcast, but this is an experience.

Paul Andre De Vera:

Yes, definitely. Because right nowadays, we started the podcast, I started this remotely. And a lot of podcasts started by just going on a Zoom and now eventually started in... sometimes... before we were all stuck at home, people actually in person. There was mics in front of each other and you guys that was a podcast and you would actually record in studio. And now that everyone's going back into these elaborate studios and stuff like that, it's time to up level your game if you're going to do some video podcasts. So this is where you come in on upping your production value, whether it's either... obviously Podcast, you need great sound, you need a great mic. You were talking earlier today, let me get closer to my mic because you know the value of how the quality of the sound is, especially in podcasts, that's something can actually even extend out into video because you can watch a pixelated video and have clear sound. You still get value from it. But if you have muffled sound and clear video, you just watch people doing charades or something.

Crystal Carter:

Right. And I think that it's something that can really tell people that you care, that they're taking the time to listen to your podcast. And in terms of the guests and the quality of the experience, it can help you to get better guests. It can help you to get better segments. Have you found that in your experience?

Paul Andre De Vera:

Oh, yes, yes. When I first started, it was tough getting guests. Getting guests... I got this question all the time, "how do you get your guests on your podcast?" So at first, of course, I connected to my actual network, going out to LinkedIn. People I've actually worked with in the past, SEOs and CEOs of companies that I've actually worked with and being able to tap them first, right?

I'll tell you this, I did get rejected when I first started. You'll get rejected. Maybe they took a look at it and we'll pass, we'll pass. But I'll tell you this, a year or two years later, ask them the same again. I didn't mention anything about it from the past. I'm like, Hey, I still would love... I would say something, "I would still love to have you." It's like, "oh, okay. Of course, totally fine. Totally get it." There's that rule where you don't just want, want, want, want. So sometimes you want give back. And now knowing that the production value's the number one thing that actually people will accept my invitations like, wow, you put so much work into it, they want to be a part of it. So that's something... Having that extra touch of production will get you over the top.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's totally true. And I think also that not expecting to set the world on fire in the first couple of episodes I think is really important for expectations. I think there's a lot of people who sort of start a podcast and then it kind of fades away. This first little while can sometimes be tricky to get through. What is the thing that helps you to push through? What would you say to someone who's on the fence as to whether or not this is a good ROI for their investment either as a team or as an individual?

Paul Andre De Vera:

The best ROI is you're actually investing in yourself by doing this yourself. Obviously there's going to be the whole personal brand aspect and you developing your own personal brand can also uplift a company's brand. But at the same time when you're podcasting, even just for companies, you're really, really having another channel, an avenue where you can actually reach out to. This is something that when they now come on to clients, I'm like, Hey, have you ever thought about podcasting? If it's not something they're doing. Because I'll tell you this, there is some relation when it comes to SEO, right? I mean, you can get your show notes that you can add into that gets ranking. You can distribute your podcast through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, iHeartRadio, and then you get your show notes on there, you get back links back to your site. So there's some SEO value when it comes to podcasting, but at the same time...

So that's one value you can prove like, hey, you want to help boost our rankings, let's start on podcasts. But at the same time, you're creating content. Content is currency nowadays. This is something that you want to have. And that's why I also mentioned to you like, Hey, when you're doing recordings like this, I feel like you add the extra layer of video. That video is going to help you repurpose the audio and repurpose the visuals. And again, you can do more cool things in your production, like how I do all the little magic effects on screen, you heard the little chime, but for those who are listening can see on screen, there was a little graphic that went overlay. So adding the extra touch, again, will help you up level your podcast.

And then when it comes to ROI, it's like, again, I do see it more as more brand awareness and just being able to get out there. But there's also, when it comes to podcasts and video in particular, you can really, really have a call to action towards the end. And these podcasts where if you're an affiliate marketer, I put affiliate links in these show notes, and I've actually gotten income from that. That's something I actually didn't think, but hey, it's another avenue to include your affiliate links if you're promoting something. And that was another great source of income through podcasting.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, I think so. And I think that for businesses who are... because there are a lot of branded podcasts, and this is something that you see across, we are a Wix podcast. We are a podcast for Wix, for instance. HubSpot has a whole podcast network. There are lots of brands who are putting a lot of emphasis and a lot of interest in podcasts. And I think that one of the reasons why they're doing that is for the brand visibility. And I think also for the flexibility. What we find certainly is that we are able to talk about topics that are maybe brand new topics that we're sort of exploring. And we find that that's a really interesting way and that people really engage with those new topics. That this is a sort of cutting edge topic. We're still exploring what it is, and we're having a discussion about it. And the expectation is that it's a discussion rather than necessarily, I know every single thing that there is to know about that.

And I think that big brands are investing in these things for a lot of reasons. Are you finding that you're seeing more brands interested in getting involved with podcasts in your experience?

Paul Andre De Vera:

Oh, yes. Definitely seeing more interest. And if not, I'm the one that's going to bring it up to them. So I'm working with a company, I'm like, Hey, hey, I was able to build a brand, a huge brand that gets tons of sponsorships within just a few years. So this is something where you can really, really develop another asset for your company. If that asset's not just building your brand. You have another source of income where depending on the type of business model you have, your podcast can get sponsors and ads from your Google AdSense, whether it's you post on YouTube. And I really, really feel like, I haven't even looked into this, but I know there's podcasting agencies out there that you can actually get into actually more of the audio type of podcast and get advertising in there. And hopefully...

And I feel like the ROI in there is pretty good because you know why? I feel the podcasters are authentic. We are two people. We know we are having a conversation. What we're talking about is about our experiences, and it really makes us have that authority within our space of what we're talking about right now. Both of us, we both run... both podcasters. Like you right now, you're running the Wix podcast. I'm here running my own podcast, and we're talking about podcasting…

Crystal Carter:

Right!

Paul Andre De Vera:

It's two really experts of what we're doing and we're sharing our experience. There's so much value in that.

Crystal Carter:

Right. Right. And I think it's a super accessible thing as well, because anyone with ears, or whatever can listen to a podcast. And also there's audio transcripts as well for folks who are hearing impaired as well. So there's lots of ways that you can engage in, and I actually very often read podcast transcripts myself. I don't know that there's many other people like me, but I very often I look at podcasts that way and I find it super valuable. It's also a great place for quotes. So a lot of people talk about EEAT and that sort of thing, and I think that we had an episode about experts, and I think that around brand experts, subject matter experts, for instance, it can sometimes be difficult to get subject matter experts to write all what they're talking about, but podcasts are a much easier ask for those kinds of folks. Have you found that in your travels?

Paul Andre De Vera:

Yes, yes. I feel the entry into podcasting. Just getting people to talk is so much easier If you're coming on something like this, instead of me having a thought leader write something down, take exactly what I said, make a thought leadership piece out of it. This is something that we also do with... I'm seeing a lot with companies creating customer case studies as a podcast. They're bringing customers in, and I'm working with a company right now where I'm helping edit their podcast by them just having a conversation with one of their customers, and then I'm repurposing it into... well, there's little vertical shorts or an actual clip of the whole podcast, but then again, we're doing video just again, I'm going to keep pushing this. Do video when you're doing podcasting because there's so much more that you can repurpose, right? There's just that extra layer they can add.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. Yeah. I've not heard this case study example, but I think that's a really great trend. I think people are getting really creative with it as well. And I think interviews are a classic podcast format, but one of the other things I've seen is the people are doing sort of long reads. So for articles that are really, really long for... you start to see the author reading it and then they put it online as a podcast, and it's really engaging actually. It's really, really engaging. It's like a mini audiobook almost, which I find really interesting.

Paul Andre De Vera:

I love that. I love that. It kind of goes back to something what I'm doing here as well. I do have a podcast, so I do have the video podcast and the SEO Video Show, which I kind of like promoting more as a show, but I do have the Knowledge Bomb Podcast, right? The SEO Knowledge Bomb Podcast. And this is where it's not a complete copy of what I'm doing. I'm pretty much extracting all the knowledge bombs from one of my shows and then reading it out on a podcast with my voice and it becomes a five-minute podcast saying, Hey, SEO Knowledge Bombs of the Week. It's five minute audio clip of me kind of just summing up of what the knowledge bombs were dropped from my past guests from the previous week.

So again, you can really create a podcast out of what you're already doing now. Say, if you want to get inventive, look and see what you're doing now. If you are writing blogs like we mentioned, take your blogs, maybe extract that and read it out and just talk to an audience so people just can hear your voice.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of experimentation that people can do, and I think it's a really interesting landscape. What do you think the future holds for podcasts in the next year or so?

Paul Andre De Vera:

For the next year, again, I want to see more video podcasts. Like I said, I'm going to keep repeating it. I feel like right now you can already see the transition from say something like Spotify now I'm doing some video on there. So these directories are going to... I want to imagine once we see Apple Podcasts, those becoming starting showing videos. And I feel that that's the direction going there as well. But again, podcasting is something, is an easy way to just get into a channel of being able to show off your knowledge and your expertise and be able to reach out to other people. I started my podcast because I was stuck at home and everyone was stuck at home. I was like, I want to network. This is my way of networking and going out to just talk to people, smart people, and learn from them. That's how you were able to just learn by just talking to people, smart people, smart people like you, Crystal.

Crystal Carter:

No, you are smart.

Paul Andre De Vera:

You're smart.

Crystal Carter:

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It is always, always, always a pleasure, and I hope to see you soon at the next SEO conference. Thank you so much for your time today, Paul, and yeah, thanks for joining us.

Paul Andre De Vera:

Of course. Of course. Thank you Crystal, and thank you Mordy.

Mordy Oberstein:

That was super, super insightful chat Crystal. He has so much personality. And again, you see it come through and it builds his own brand, his personal brand, without him even having to say more than 10 words.

Crystal Carter:

It's something that he really, really utilizes really, really well with his channel. So it works really well for his YouTube channel. It works really well for the podcast. Dre's super nice when you meet him in person as well. And also, also, also, Dre is incredibly smart. Dre has a lot of fun with his podcast and stuff, and he has a lot of fun with his show, but I've been on discussions with him where he gets into some of the more technical stuff that he does, and my guy is incredibly astute at Enterprise SEO, and it is an absolute pleasure to hear him speak on that because he's proper nerd levels of really, really right in the weeds in that and so impressive. And I think that people underestimate the ability to be charismatic in certain spaces and assume that just because you're charismatic in one space that you're not necessarily a complete nerd in another space. Dre is absolutely one of those people. He really, really knows his stuff, and it's great to speak to him.

Mordy Oberstein:

He's one of my favorites. I am looking forward to seeing him again at some SEO conference in the near future. He was at Brighton San Diego last year. I'm like, "oh, I didn't know he was coming. I wish I would've been able to spend more time with him 'cause he's so sweet." Speaking of another sweet person, we're going to have a little chat with Andi Jarvis about-

Crystal Carter:

I don't know that anyone's ever called Andi sweet.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, I'm saying... Well, I'm not saying that because he's actually sweet. I'm saying that purely for the sake of the transition.

Crystal Carter:

Which is an important thing that you must master as a podcaster.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes. It's like the kung fu of podcasting, the transition.

Crystal Carter:

Wax on, wax off transition.

Mordy Oberstein:

Paint the fence transition. So Andi, I apologize for calling you sweet, but we're going to talk with Andi now.

Okay, so the podcast game isn't what it used to be, which reminds me of baseball. I always do this. I'm always going to give a baseball reference. So back in the day, you didn't need to be super athletic to be a baseball player. Have you ever seen Babe Ruth? They just showed up after eating an all you can eat buffet down the block.

Crystal Carter:

Smoking cigarettes in the dugout.

Mordy Oberstein:

Smoking cigar... Literally, there is a picture of Keith Hernandez and the Mets smoking a cigarette in the dugout during a game like-

Crystal Carter:

Like spitting out tobacco in the kitchen.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, I'm an athlete. Okay, that was the eighties, and I don't mean the 1880s, like the 1980s.

Andi Jarvis:

Listen, it was the same in football or soccer. There was a great Brazilian footballer called Socrates, one of the greatest Brazilians of all time. Goes under the radar 'cause he doesn't have a name, but an absolute genius of a football player. And footage exists of him in the early to mid-eighties, walking out at halftime after the halftime break, flicking a cigarette into the crowd and running onto the pitch. But this guy was just... he just ambled around the... he was amazing, but it just wouldn't happen these days.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's unbelievable, right? But now you're right. So now you can't. Now even the baseball players, they have weightlifting regimes. They do this and they have that, and they have set nap time now.

Crystal Carter:

They have GPS trackers to monitor their stress rating and what they were doing on the pitch and all that sort of stuff.

Andi Jarvis:

Can I bore you with a really quick story about why that happened as well?

Mordy Oberstein:

Surely.

Andi Jarvis:

Why it happened as well. It's all down to, you remember what? 20, maybe 25 years ago when baseball went on strike and there was a lockout for like a whole month.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, 1994, the Yankees would've won the World Series that year, by the way. So I'm pissed.

Crystal Carter:

But I mean, who's counting though?

Mordy Oberstein:

I am.

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah. Well, okay, so the lockout happened and baseball lost millions of fans. When it came back, TV ratings were through the floor, everything went to (beep), and it's never been proven. But the belief was that when the players came back, the executives of baseball clubs were like, look, we've got to have something to bring the crowds back. The crowds are through the floor, the TV floor. What happened after that lockout, if you remember, was the guy whose name I forget, suddenly went on a home run hitting streak, started hitting the ball-

Mordy Oberstein:

Mark McGwire.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah.

Andi Jarvis:

McGwire, right. And there was somebody else doing it as well.

Mordy Oberstein:

Sammy Sosa.

Crystal Carter:

Sammy Sosa.

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, right. Okay. Now, I don't know if you remember looking at pictures of them pre-lockout and post-lockout, they got significantly bigger.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes.

Andi Jarvis:

And a number of guys in baseball had started juicing. Now, if you start taking steroids and start juicing, you don't just accidentally do that. And the belief was that it was, if not encouraged, the blind eye was turned by the baseball team-

Mordy Oberstein:

The blind eye was a million percent-

Andi Jarvis:

... to allow the guys to bulk up because all they wanted was you start banging the ball out of the stadium and home runs happen, people start coming. But on the back of that, people started realizing maybe we better do it legally, but if I'm bigger and fitter, I can hit the ball further.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's right.

Andi Jarvis:

Oh, and I can throw it further. Oh, okay. So it all spun out the back of that where they realized maybe if you are an athlete, it would help. Just don't do drugs.

Mordy Oberstein:

Nice. Yeah. See, by way, I had a Barry Bonds card and a Sammy Sosa before they did steroids, they don't even look like the same person. By the way, in case you haven't noticed, we have a guest here with us. His name is Andi Jarvis, and that's why like baseball, we're going into the great beyond of the nature of podcasting nowadays.

Andi, what's going on, man? Welcome to the show.

Andi Jarvis:

Thank you for having me I hope and thank you for having me.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'm just first off flattered that you regaled us with a baseball story and you're not even American.

Andi Jarvis:

It's my one and only baseball story. I'm sat here in a Canadian, Toronto Raptors T-shirt. I don't even know what sport that is. I've just got family there, so-

Crystal Carter:

It's basketball.

Mordy Oberstein:

It used to be basketball. Now it's just crap. But yeah.

Crystal Carter:

Also in this podcast about podcasting, can I just say that one of the first rules of podcasts is to not stay on topic.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right. Speaking of not staying on topic, Andi, what are you going to pitch us today?

Andi Jarvis:

Storytelling and the Strategy Sessions podcast and my marketing services. No, I'm not pitching all of that, but I'm here to talk podcasting coz I have a podcast which is called the Strategy Session.

Crystal Carter:

And you get some amazing guests on your podcast. I don't know how you convince these people to spend time with you.

Mordy Oberstein:

I really enjoy that episode that you did with that guest that you had, so-and-so.

Crystal Carter:

You get some great folks on your podcast.

Andi Jarvis:

All of them.

So weirdly, this is the one thing if you're doing a guest podcast, which you don't have to do, but I find it easy 'cause you talk and you spark off somebody. But people are like, "how'd you get those guests?" I'm like, "genuinely, most of the time I just ask them." "What do you ask them?" I'm like, "will you come on my podcast and we'll talk about these things?" And you'd be amazed how many people go, "okay." Now some people have questions like, who else has done it and what's the commitment and how does it... Not everybody says yes, but I would say 50% of the people I ask say yes.

And then once you get some good guests coming on, that can snowball, because the ones who do ask and go, "who else has been on?" You go, "oh, Rory Sutherland, Mark Ritson and Seth Godin." And they're like, "oh, right, okay." Now that's not-

Mordy Oberstein:

And you're rolling .

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, and look, I named celebrities in the marketing industry there, but they're probably 15% of the episodes. And yes, they get bigger listening figures, but I don't want to turn it into kind of a celebrity led podcast, that it's more of an interesting stories about marketing podcast and lessons you can learn. But yeah, those people undoubtedly just help. Definitely.

Crystal Carter:

But I think that's one of the really interesting things about a podcast is it's a really good opportunity to connect with folks that you might not connect with in another way. So like you said, you've got people like Mark Ritson, you've got people like Seth Godin, Britney Muller, I love Britney. But then you also have people who are up and coming in their careers, people who have a good following, but maybe it's more niche. And so as well as you say, you ask them, how do you find them? Is there a particular criteria that you're looking for that makes you think this person's going to be great for a podcast?

Andi Jarvis:

Yes. So a lot of the time... I read a lot about marketing, so I sometimes just, I'll read something in Marketing Week, or if I see some awards that look rigorous, 'cause let's be honest, not every awards are rigorous. So if I see some awards that look rigorous, I'll be... sometimes if I've got half an hour, I'm sat at an airport, I'll have a look through who's shortlisted, not necessarily worried about who's won, but who's shortlisted and who's done something that I find really interesting. So sometimes that, look, the big budget thing won, but somebody did this thing that was really interesting and scrappy that nobody else considered. Yeah, that's it. And then just send them a message. LinkedIn's great. Or find their email or just like, Hey, I see you did this thing. Would you be interested in coming on the podcast? Here's a link to the show. Genuinely, we just want to sit and have a chat. And so I do a lot of background research to try and find the right guests. And yeah, that's it really.

Mordy Oberstein:

Not rocket science, but it's hard work.

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, look, it takes time, and I think I pride myself in making things look and seem a little bit off the cuff, and it's all kind of laid back and relaxed, and it's not structured, and that's part of it. But you have to plan to be not structured and you have to put the effort in to find the guest. And some guests are really happy to just go, yeah, look, we're talking about this thing that I know a lot about. Just ask whatever. Other guests are a bit more nervous, and they're like, can you send me the questions?

Now, I don't do that because you can always tell a podcast to me when someone's been sent the questions or when... you'll hear them say... you'll ask someone a question, they'll give this amazing answer and the host will go, oh, that's really interesting. Anyway, so next question, but follow up. They've just told you about this huge thing that they did. They won a gold medal for something or other, and you're like, that's really interesting. So tell us about your childhood. No, tell us about the thing they've just said. So I work with the guests. Some guests need a little bit more work than others. Some are just like, yeah, just shoot me a time and we'll do it.

Crystal Carter:

Can you tell us a little bit about your journey for podcasting? So did you have to learn that skill and is it different now from when you started?

Andi Jarvis:

It's a bit less chaotic now, I would say. I started in 2020 peak lockdown May 2020, and didn't know what I was doing. What I knew was I knew how to talk to people. I knew how to ask questions I found interesting about marketing. So if you think about this, I work on my own anyway. I was then forced on my own or away from all of the marketers because of COVID lockdown, and it just felt quite isolating. But also, I like to learn and I go to conferences to learn and I talk to people to learn, and I just wasn't getting it from virtual events. But talking to people was really interesting. So I was like, right, a podcast is the way to go.

But I was just kind of making it up as I was going along. And there was different segments to the show edited together because one of the things was I had a bit more time, so I wanted to learn how to edit. I was like, right, well, I'm going to learn how to edit different bits into the show. I'm going to have a different guest. I'm going to have different sections, I'm going to do... And what you realize as the world started to reopen again is that that's just a real (beep) ton of work as well. So I streamlined it a little bit and now it's just an interview, minimal editing and get that out. But in terms of the format, and it's still me interviewing someone for 45 minutes to an hour depending on who the guest is, really.

Mordy Oberstein:

Looking back, it was like three, four years ago already, the pandemic. Do you feel like the ecosystem that you started off in and where you are now, it's a different world for your podcast? The world changed around you kind of thing?

Andi Jarvis:

Absolutely. And I think the main driver of that is just the changing listening habits. So back in 2020, any idiot with a microphone, I, started a podcast. A lot of those, let's be honest, a lot of people who start a podcast and a lot of you listening go, I'm going to start a podcast about this thing. If you get five episodes in, you've done really, really well and you're miles in front of most people who start a podcast and do one episode. I feel lucky that I started during lockdown because I committed to doing... and I went out publicly and I said on LinkedIn, and I said, on social, 26 episodes, one every two weeks, I'm going to do it for a year. And there's times where it felt like a little bit of a millstone. I'm like, oh God, what have I done? But you get into the rhythm of just making sure you deliver it and you did. And that kind of got me up and running.

So what's changed though since then is as radio listening figures have changed and as media habits have changed, the media group certainly in the UK have realized the value of podcasting. So Spotify weren't paying people millions to do podcasts. They were just hosting podcasts. In fact, I don't even think Spotify were hosting podcasts when I started. They bought Anchor, and that's how they do their hosting. If you look at the top charts in the UK now, it's all the same company. So radio stations have podcasts now. So every celebrity, it's an extension of the radio's brand, and all they're interested in is keeping the audience so they can sell advertising or in the BBC's case, just keeping their audience. So it's a different world. And what that means for an amateur bedroom podcaster is that you've got to pay a lot of attention to production values.

People would just like, it's a podcast, it's just a guy on his own. If the sound quality went a bit wobbly or your mic starts to kick up, it didn't really matter. But now people are like, every podcast you listen to has professional level audio. So if you are not delivering something similar, people are just like, "this is awful." And just turn off. So you've really got to pay attention to the stuff that you never really bothered with before and get into that side of it a bit more. But look, I still enjoy it and mine's still entirely self-produced 'cause I enjoy that bit of it.

Mordy Oberstein:

By the way, that point on the radio station, so for example, I listen to a sports podcast every day, it's ESPN's New York Radio Station, one of their shows, they're just repurposing it for podcast form and they lose out to the other New York's radio station in the actual ratings, but they beat them out on the podcast numbers, and the podcast numbers are so significant. They pour a ton of production effort into the podcast, whereas the other radio station completely ignores the podcast. So if you don't think to your point that big players are paying attention to their podcasts, they 100% most definitely are because another channel for them to beat other competitors.

Andi Jarvis:

Absolutely. And you look at the other thing as well is that celebrities have decided that podcasting now is an extension of their social brand. Now, whether this is what I would call pointless celebrities who are famous for being famous, I'm not a fan of that (beep), or whether it's movie stars or actors or sports people or politicians or whatever, they've realized that declining social audiences and organic reach is a problem. But if you build an audience in a podcast, you have this deeper longer conversation with them.

So people are like, "who do you want to hear talking about marketing?" "Andi Jarvis." "Who's that guy? I've never heard of him." Or some idiot who used to do social media because they were on a TV program. Oh, they must know what they're talking about. Not that mine's a social media podcast, but if you want to do a social media podcast, there's probably some idiot who's been on a TV show doing a social media podcast, and you're like, what are you going to learn from them? They literally had 8 million people watching them for 15 nights. That's why they've got a big social media following, not going to help your small business mate. It really isn't.

Crystal Carter:

When I talk to people who are running smaller podcasts who aren't Joe Rogan, not that I'm chatting to Joe, but people who are running smaller podcasts, they say that their expectations are different. So think the expected outcomes that they plan to get, the ROI that they plan to get from the podcasts are different. Would you agree with that? Would you agree that maybe it's not about getting a million listeners?

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, and look, let's be honest, anyone who tells you they don't want a million listeners is lying.

Crystal Carter:

Right. Okay, I'll take it.

Andi Jarvis:

But a win is not a million listeners. And I can tell you the top performing, so "performing" in air quotes episodes of my podcast, they're the ones with the celebrity guests on, the Seth Godins, Rory Sutherlands, Mark Ritsons. They are the top three. Yeah, they're the top three.

Now, I can also tell you, and that's success apparently, but I podcast because I run a small business. Success to me is my business keeping going and winning more business. I don't think I've ever landed any business because of either any of those episodes. Now, I can point you to many other episodes where people have reached out and got in touch, and went, "I heard you speak to this person. Can we talk about this thing that you talked about?" So the listener figures aren't there, but the money in my bank account tells me they are there. So it's about what is success and being hyper clear on that.

But one thing I would say is that there's a real fine line, and there are lots and lots of podcasts in marketing, and I've never bothered to count them, but I was going to say bajillions of podcasts in marketing that are set up by consultants and agencies that are sales podcasts. That are, oh, hi. Who are my ideal clients? Mordy and Crystal, how do I get in front of them? Let's invite them on a podcast. And then they sit on that podcast and sell to them. Let me tell you Crystal about this amazing thing I once did that sort of is right in your sector. And when you're listening to them, you can feel the pitch.

And it's like, now, I would say to anyone, I think, I don't how many episodes I've got, I must be nearly 70 episodes now in total, because every season we start the numbering. Must be at 70 episodes now. And if you can hear me sell more than... Sorry, I've sold like I'm going to conferences or I'm doing this event, which unashamedly sell that, but if you listen to me interviewing a guest, point to somewhere you can hear me selling to that person. I don't have people on who I want to sell to. And this to me is top of funnel awareness and getting me out there and having people going, Eximo Marketing, Andi Jarvis, this guy knows his stuff, he understands this thing. That's what this is doing. It's not bottom of the funnel sales.

Mordy Oberstein:

I always feel that a podcast is really, outside of maybe the Joe Rogans of the world, it's a brand play.

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's a brand positioning play, you're having a constant conversation, you're reinforcing messaging, you're reinforcing that you're an expert, you're reinforcing this and that. It's not necessarily about the numbers, but people do really think it's about the numbers. I was saying before we record, I was at my kid's kindergarten graduation and some neighbor of mine said, "Hey, I heard you do a podcast. I want to get in and do a podcast 'cause I heard it's really easy to get in and do a podcast." I'm like, "yeah, it's pretty easy to do a podcast. You need basically some kind of recorder and you need a voice and you need to talk and you need to record that voice. And then you put it out there, SoundCloud or whatever you want to put it, fine, really easy. But it's not as easy as you think it is to get traction now because it's so saturated. Unless you're talking about some random, random topic, there's so many people doing the same thing that you're doing. You need to find an angle to differentiate yourself."

Like this Break the Fourth Wall, this podcast, how do we differentiate this podcast? One is we started doing segments. Most SEO podcasts don't really do segments, and we also pitched it in a way or not pitched it. We positioned it in a way where, hey, if you're really advanced in SEO, you've been doing SEO for a long time, you'll get X value out of it. And if you are looking to break into the SEO world or digital marketing world, you also get y value out of it at the same time. And that's unique. That's a really cool way of positioning a podcast. You need to find some kind of angle because at the end of the day, if it's a branding play, if you don't position it in a unique way, you've lost the value of it.

Andi Jarvis:

Absolutely. And I think one of the things with that positioning is if I look back early on, it was too broad, but I didn't know what I was doing. I was just making it up. And the next series, series five, which will start in September, will probably be the most narrowly focused of the episodes in the series of them. Not every single episode, because there's a few that I have academics on as well 'cause I think there's a lot you can learn from academics, and so I probably won't be trying to get really niche with them. I actually want to explore the breadth of what they talk about. But one of the key things is maybe narrowing the focus of what we talk about and going a bit deeper on some of the episodes 'cause I think that that's right, is that it goes back to this concept of you needing a hundred fans or whatever it is. I can't remember, is it a thousand fans or a hundred fans, whatever.

But if you are niche enough and talking about the right stuff, you don't need a million people listening to it. In fact, you've probably failed if you get a million people listening to it because you are mass market at that point. What you really want is a hundred or 500 or a thousand people who are here to hear what you have to say because they are in that particular sector. That's what you really need to get to. So if you are just talking to the right people, talk to your audience, understand your customers. Marketing basics, who are you talking and why do they care? And make a podcast about that, then you don't need to worry about the listening numbers. You just need to keep delivering that value and delivering that content.

Crystal Carter:

There's a couple of things that strike me from what you've just said. First of all, you were saying, oh, I'm talking to academics. I find them really interesting. You're like, I read a lot of marketing books, and you've got a lot of authors on your section. You're like, oh, I really want to drill down one of the things that I've read when somebody was like, how should you start a podcast? Or, which topic should you think about? And one of the things, I can't remember where I read it, I wish I could reference it, I'm sorry. But they said that. If it's not a topic that you could talk about a hundred times, like a hundred episodes, then it's probably not a good topic for you. So I know, Andi, that you are a marketing nerd because I know, I've seen your bookshelf, I'm sure behind you is full of all the marketing books.

Andi Jarvis:

Oh, yeah, I'm a bore. You say nerd, I'm a bore, right? I am. I'm boring in public.

Crystal Carter:

And I think that that's awesome. I think we get people on the podcast like yourself, other folks where I'm just like, I'm so excited. I cannot believe we got this guest to join us to talk about whatever the topic is. We have people on the podcast to talk about stuff that we wish we knew more about. And it's an incredible opportunity, an incredible privilege to be able to speak to them about that topic. And I think that that is another piece of value that you can add to your listening audience. If they're a niche audience and they're with you and they've been with you for that time, you can also help them to learn about this new thing. You can also help them explore that. You can also go on that journey. And in terms of long tail keywords, it's another great way to explore a long tail topic, like a really niche topic like you were saying, drilling down. It's a really good opportunity for that.

Andi Jarvis:

When I was 11 years old in school, one of my teachers, Mrs. Colling, what she was called, had a sign on her door, which she used to point to a lot. It said something like, "it's better to remain silent and be thought of a fool than to open your mouth and to remove all doubt." Now to someone who never shut up, she used to point, she'd be like, "Andrew." The reason I bring that up is that, the point you make about can you talk about it for a hundred episodes. If you are not an expert in something, you can probably bluff your way through a blog by reading enough blogs and copying the best bits and rewriting it with a little bit of your tone of voice. Not saying that's how all travel blogs are written, but you've not been to all those places you're writing about. But you can kind of do that.

If you have to talk for 30 minutes on a subject and you don't know that subject, you will quite quickly have opened your mouth and be found to be a fool. And if you want to release 10 episodes about that subject, that's 300 minutes. That's five hours of talking about a subject. Can you do that? Now, I would say if someone gave me a microphone and went, listen, we just need to fill this 10 hours of silence. Can you talk about one subject? It would either be boring sports stories or marketing. Either of those two things I could probably talk about at length for about 10 days without stopping. I might even take breath-

Mordy Oberstein:

And we've covered both of them?

Andi Jarvis:

... every now and again. Yeah, listen, I could put both of those two things together. I really could.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's a great podcast right there, by the way.

Crystal Carter:

You're speaking Mordy's language here. Could I just say.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah. Boring sports stories and marketing with Andi Jarvis?

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah. Like that baseball story I told at the beginning. Now that means the editor has to leave it in on lobby. A boring story I told at the beginning, I love stuff like that. And I could fill time forever, but marketing, people are like, oh, I'm sorry we didn't have time to prepare for this. I was like, I've been preparing my whole life for this. You need me to talk about marketing, pass me that microphone. I am your guy. So have a passion for it and have a knowledge about it. The only caveat to that I would say is if you're going to do something out of passion, so say you, I don't know, you love Crocs or you love, it might be theater, it might be musicals, it might be Taylor Swift, whatever. If you're doing it out of passion, I think the passion carries you, not necessarily the knowledge. But if you're doing it for business, you have to show you're an expert in that field 'cause if you don't show you're an expert in that field, you're going to harm your brand.

Mordy Oberstein:

Speaking of your brand as time ebbs away on us, where can people find your brand and yourself?

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, great segue, Mordy. Great segue. So, Andi Jarvis. I spell Andi with an I. so if you just put my name into Google, I appear everywhere. LinkedIn and Instagram and Threads are the places to find me. Unfortunately, I now stay away from Twitter since the Lunatic took over the asylum and don't really use it anymore. But yeah, so you find me. The company's called Eximo Marketing, E-X-I-M-O. So have a look for either of those and you'll find me. I'm also sure there's a link to the Strategy Sessions in the show notes. Is that correct?

Mordy Oberstein:

Heck yes.

Andi Jarvis:

Have a listen. I would say, if I can pitch this, so last year for the first time, so season four, I decided to do two mini seasons within the season. I did a Black History Month mini season, which in the UK is October, not February, and I did a Women's History Month, which is built around International Women's Day, so I did that as well. So I did, there was five Tuesdays in October, so I did five episodes with five guests and I did four for Women's History Month. I'm really proud of those miniseries. I'm proud of those nine episodes. They took us into slightly different conversations about different things. Now, I didn't just talk to black marketers about being black. They were just great at what they did and they happened to be black. That's the way the conversations went. But some of those episodes in those two miniseries are my favorites. You can't pick a favorite podcast, right? 'Cause It's like picking your favorite child, but some of those episodes are some of my top three, top five ever that I recorded and just really insightful deep conversations with really, really interesting people.

People who I probably wouldn't have met before, some of them you might never have heard of either. If you're just thinking, where do I start listening to this Idiot's podcast? I would go back start of the Black History Month miniseries, started with an episode with a woman called Sherice Anibaba and you could probably see if you watch the video of me just sitting there going and just blown away by every word she says, I'm just hanging on it. Genuinely, she's genuinely amazing, so just start there. If you're going to start somewhere. I know you'll probably start with Seth Gordon, right? But if you're going to start somewhere, I'd got Black History.

Mordy Oberstein:

I like that by the way, not just a page, but where to start. That's unique.

Andi Jarvis:

I mean, you can go back to episode one if you like. It might take you, see if you're awake 12 hours a day, I give you

... you a whole week of your entire life doing nothing else other than listening to me on a podcast, which don't do that.

Mordy Oberstein:

Podcast listening tip, never start with episode one. It's usually those first few episodes. You got to really work out the kinks. I would start at episode 20 or whatever it is.

Andi Jarvis:

Yeah, definitely.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, thanks Andi. Thanks for coming on and

Crystal Carter:

Thank you so much for joining us.

Andi Jarvis:

Thank you for having me. It's been a ride as always and lovely to see you both.

Mordy Oberstein:

Talk to you soon.

From one sweet person to another sweet person to Barry, it's time for us to delve into the Snappy News.

Snappy News, Snappy News, Snappy News. Starting off with not news from Barry Schwartz, but from Anu Adegbola over on Search Engine Land, running about, Perplexity launches ad revenue sharing program for publishers. If you might recall, Perplexity got into a little bit of a snafu with various publishers about their content or about the publisher's content being shown in Perplexity without any real attribution and basically saying, "Hey, you took our content you just posted as your own and that's not cool." This seems like it might be atonement for that. There's a new pilot program where if you select publishers like Time, Der Spiegel and Fortune are included, that when their URLs appear within a Perplexity search and there's an ad on that search as well, those publishers will get some of the ad revenue from that ad.

Doesn't seem like there's a ton of details about how exactly the program works and what the exact figures are and who exactly is in there. Also, the initial partners. And if this will expand or not expand. But it is really interesting 'cause I guess it's kind of the first real revenue sharing program we've seen, definitely on these AI search engine things, but across the board. There's no revenue sharing program with Google, for example, which I guess is a sore point for publishers, but that's a whole different topic for a whole different podcast.

Anyway, on to Barry Schwartz on Search Engine Round Table. This was an interesting one, Barry writes, "Google 'hidden gem stores' search feature." What about it Barry? What Barry is saying is Google's testing a hidden gem store search feature that was spotted by Brody Clark where he was searching for sneakers and there was a little section on the mobile search for Hidden Gem stores, which is not, by the way, part of the Hidden Gems algorithm thing. That's a totally different thing. If you're not familiar with that, you don't need to know about that right now. If you are, just know this is not that.

It was basically a little section on the mobile surface that says, Hey, hidden Gem Stores, which seems to imply these might be more niche stores or maybe local stores or whatever where you can buy said sneakers. In this case, it was New Balance, On and Running Warehouse US and Zappos, which are not really hidden gems. I mean, I've heard of New Balance before. And I’ve heard of Zappos before. On, I've heard of them too. Those are nice shoes. It's a really, really cool feature, if Google can refine this and actually get some hidden Gem stores in there. It's just a test, so who knows what it'll be, but if Google can do that or they can get the smaller niche stores in there, that'd be awesome.

Okay. Also, from Barry Schwartz, also from Search Engine Roundtable. Google Search ranking volatility bursting at the seams. Barry getting real emotional with the headlines there. There's been an enormous amount of rank volatility being picked up by the various SEO weather tools for a good while now, I don't know, a good over a week, I'm going to say no more than a week, I don't know, 10 days. By the time you listen to this, it might be a full two weeks of high volatility. There's speculation, the speculation coming from me. I'm speculating that this is the storm before the other storm, so Google's Danny Sullivan said relatively recently that there's a core update coming soon, which we don't know what soon means. We covered this in the news a couple of weeks ago. Soon can mean tomorrow, soon can mean three weeks from now, soon can be a month from now. Who knows when soon actually is?

But there is a tendency when Google, before Google releases a core algorithm update, two or three weeks before there's generally a period of intense ring volatility. I personally think combining the ring volatility we're seeing here and Danny's statement that maybe this is that ring volatility before the update, which would mean most likely if I'm right, which who knows if I am or not, after this set of ring volatility is completed, figured there's going to be a core algorithm update two or three weeks afterwards on its new our daily new series, which you can find over on the SEO hub and on Barry Schwartz's RustyBrick YouTube channel, Barry, Greg Finn and I have a pool on when Google will launch the next core update. I think I have August 17th, Barry has August 6th and Greg has August 12th. Share your date for when you think Google is going to release a core update 'cause that's fun. I guess one way of dealing with anxiety. Anyway, that's this week's Snappy News.

Okay. That's not to say Barry's not sweet 'cause the truth is he's one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet, even though he does not, again, does not want you to know this, but Barry is a very good sweet person.

Crystal Carter:

Barry's the best. Big shout-out to Barry.

Mordy Oberstein:

In my category of people who are sweet but don't want to be known as sweet. We've covered two edits that how many on this podcast already?

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people who are nice and grumpy at the same time, which they're some of my favorite people. I used to know a shopkeeper and I would bother them all the time asking for boxes, asking if I could use their dolly because I needed to move something heavy and things like that, and they would always help me, but they were always grumpy about it. They were like, "yeah, it's in the back. Yeah, you're welcome."

Mordy Oberstein:

For the audio listener, I was pointing to myself the entire time. You know who is sweet and I don't think she would mind being called sweet would be Kristine Schachinger our follow of the week. Kristine is an SEO OG. Would be one for sure. But she's also a podcaster, she hosts the Webcology podcast. Wow. So much Podcasting and SEO. Barry also by the way, has technically a podcast. I should have mentioned that before. The video recaps that he does are also in podcast form, so technically Barry's also a podcaster.

Crystal Carter:

Everybody's at it. You got to get in there.

Mordy Oberstein:

Everyone's at it. But Kristine hosts the Webcology podcast. She's spoken at all the SEO conferences. She puts out a lot of great conversation and a lot of great insights about all things SEO over on X. Might it be on other social media platforms also?

Crystal Carter:

I don't know.

Mordy Oberstein:

But you should definitely give her a follow on X.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, absolutely, and she can get really, really technical. She's got some really great insights and she has a really, really actionable approach to dealing with algorithm updates that I find really interesting. I think there's a lot of theoretical discussions around algorithm updates, which are great, and I think it's interesting to hear from somebody from a more sort of, she takes a very tactical approach as well. I followed it, and it's really interesting.

Mordy Oberstein:

Very tactical. Yeah. I find her conversations really, really interesting and she is an absolute sweet person. Who we're looking forward to seeing at brightonSEO San Diego in November. So she's @-S-C-H-A-C-H-I-N on X. We'll link to it in the show notes. And it's hard to believe this, but I'm all out of words. I got nothing else to say.

Crystal Carter:

I don't believe that at all.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, it's a lie because I got a million other things, but we eventually have to end the podcast at some point.

Crystal Carter:

Well, but we're just going to keep-

Mordy Oberstein:

Or not.

Crystal Carter:

... we're just going to make another podcast.

Mordy Oberstein:

We can have an Infinite loop of podcasts that just goes on and on and on and on and on.

Crystal Carter:

This is the pod that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend. You know what I'm saying?

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah. We just started singing it, but everybody-

Crystal Carter:

Not knowing what it was.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah.

Crystal Carter:

And they'll continue singing it forever just because it's the pod that never... yeah, sorry.

Mordy Oberstein:

There's no greater possible way to end a podcast other than with us singing. It's like, it's like Sonny and Cher.

Crystal Carter:

Basically. That's exactly what people are thinking. People were like, oh, was that Sonny and Cher? No, no, it was Mordy Crystal. Oh, really? I'm so surprised. I'm so surprised.

Mordy Oberstein:

I'm going to shave my beard and grow one of those seventies mustaches now.

Crystal Carter:

Yes, yes, totally.

Mordy Oberstein:

I should totally do that.

Crystal Carter:

Definitely worth doing. You could totally do the handlebar thing.

Mordy Oberstein:

I think I'd freak myself out. Anyway, thank you for joining us on the SERP's Up Podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week with a new episode. No, we're back next week with a very special episode, our 100th episode. Look for it not just wherever you consume your podcasts, but look for in other special places. Check out our social media feeds to see where. Too much or not enough? Not enough. Look up Crystal and I on LinkedIn or X and see about the hundredth episode.

Looking to learn more about SEO. Check out all the other great content and webinars on the Wix SEO learning Hub over at wix.com/seo/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify, please. Until next time, peace, love, and SEO.