Who to hire for your SEO team (and beyond) & when

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 focusing on some groovy insights around what's happening in SEO. I'm already overseeing the SEO brand here at Wix. I'm joined by the ever insightful, the ever sharing the ever joyful, the ever present, the ever lasting. The ever lasting gobstopper. Crystal Carter, head of communications, SEO Communications here at Wix.

Crystal Carter:

Bless you for trying to come up with a list for 104, 100 and whatever, how many?

Mordy Oberstein:

113. 113.

Crystal Carter:

A 113 episodes.

Mordy Oberstein:

We should do a top list. Top list, top ways I describe Crystal Carter. It could be a list-

Crystal Carter:

A supercut of all of them.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah.

Crystal Carter:

And it would be like 10 minutes long. I appreciate you. Thank you. It's very kind of you, be very kind and generous and descriptive, Mordy Oberstein.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, keep going. Don't stop.

This SERP'S Up podcast is brought to you by Wix Studio, where you can only subscribe to our SEO newsletter, Search Light, over at wix.com/SEO/newsletter and take our SEO courses. Or you can also expand your revenue possibilities or revenue sharing program by selling custom templates or by adding custom apps to our app markets. So expand your revenue possibilities with Wix Studio. This, so you can expand your revenue possibilities so that you can grow your team, as today we're covering how digital marketing teams of all kinds can know who to hire and when. How industry changes factor into the hiring process. New hires and getting ahead of the demand curve. And how to know what skills to value in a new hire. We sit down with Menachem Ani to discuss how the hiring process differs from one type of marketing team to another.

And of course we have your snappiest of SEO news and who you should be following on social media for more SEO awesomeness. So get ready to nod and say, "Mm-hmm, aha." And ask questions like what's your biggest weakness? As we help you navigate the hiring process on the 113th episode of the SERP'S Up podcast.

My biggest weakness is that I have none.

Crystal Carter:

One time in an interview they were like, "What's your biggest weakness?" And I hate that question. Why would I tell you that?

Mordy Oberstein:

It's candy, carbs.

Crystal Carter:

No. I said, my biggest weakness is that I'm too awesome. And Lily's like, "What?" I was like, "I'm just too awesome. People really struggle with how awesome I am, and it's a lot to bear." And I did not get hired. But I did finally get to say that, which I'd always wanted to say.

Mordy Oberstein:

That would be amazing if you just list your actual bigness weaknesses.

Crystal Carter:

Oh my God.

Mordy Oberstein:

That'd be like a therapy session.

Crystal Carter:

It's like, "Well, I have a tendency to be attracted to unavailable people. It's something I really struggle... Struggle with that. And one time when I was seven years old, I had a jellyfish, and the jellyfish met a really tragic end and I find that that trauma has stayed with me-

Mordy Oberstein:

A jellyfish?

Crystal Carter:

No, I don't know. I'm just saying things.

Mordy Oberstein:

It was a jellyfish.

Crystal Carter:

I would love to have a jellyfish. It's very relaxing to watch them swim.

Mordy Oberstein:

No, it is. I just don't know if anyone's had a jellyfish.

Crystal Carter:

Listeners of SERP'S Up podcast, if you have a jellyfish or have ever been the caretaker of a jellyfish, please, please share your stories.

Mordy Oberstein:

Before we get into more about jellyfish, which I'm sure we'll come back to the end of this podcast somehow, some way. And before we get to Menachem Ani, who's going to talk about how the hiring process and what you should be looking for and what you should be doing, differs from one kind of marketing team to another kind of marketing team. Let's talk about the general things that all digital marketing teams should be thinking about when trying to hire new employees. I'll start with budget. Yeah, budget's going to be a big one. I'm not sure how yet, but I speculate that somehow budget is going to factor into your hiring process.

Crystal Carter:

And it also varies between teams. So agency teams will have different budget considerations from people who are working in-house. People who are working in-house at a private company will have different considerations from people who are working for, say, an NGO or a charity or a local authority or a government organization, and things like that. And I think also the risk that you can take and the cost of that will change as well. So some teams have a really, really long hiring processes and that can be a challenge for people that are looking to get hired. They're like, "I don't have six months to give you. I don't know that it should take six months, but I don't have six, seven meetings to give you in order to potentially get hired in this role." That's something that people sometimes struggle with. But for big teams, that can be the process. It can take weeks and weeks and lots of rounds of interviews.

And part of that is because the cost of hiring will include a recruiter, will include the time of going through all of those CVs and all of that sort of stuff. And people want to hire well so they don't have to do it again because the cost of hiring can be very, very high. And that's even before you get to paying someone. So these things will definitely come into consideration when people are thinking about hiring. And it's certainly something that if you're trying to get a new person on your team, you have to include that in the business case, that it's worth it and that it will yield this ROI and all of that sort of stuff.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah. And it could be a little bit tricky, you're not just dealing with current performance and current ROI, you're trying to hire somebody because you're trying to facilitate potential growth and potential budget. So what your growth is now, what the numbers are now, what would that be if you actually hired that person? I'll give you a horrible example of what I mean by this, but if you want to say a free agent in sports, so how are we going to spend all that money hiring this big name? But yeah, when you think about how many butts are they going to put in the seats, I'll have so much more money.

Crystal Carter:

Right. And how many jerseys are we going to sell?

Mordy Oberstein:

All that kind of stuff, yeah, exactly.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah. And I think that when you're thinking about that growth and you're trying to figure out is this person, is this role valuable? Will it be able to yield the value? You have to think about for an individual person, you can look at their previous track record. If you had a sports person, you say, "Well, they've won this many championships. They'll probably do a good job for us." If you got somebody more in a corporate space, business space, then you can look at their track record, look at people who have worked with them and the kinds of things that they're able to do. And also I think it's important to think about the gaps in your business. So if you look at your team and you do maybe a skills matrix and you say, "In our team, we don't have a PPC person. If we hired a PPC person, we could offer PPC. Currently we cannot. And we keep trying to, and it's hit-and-miss, but if we hired a dedicated PPC expert, then we would be able to offer this PPC service," for instance.

And that growth, you can prospect that. You can say, "We would be able to see a 10% lift in profitability, we'd be able to offer this to this many clients," that sort of thing as well. So that's really important. And I think that when you're thinking about if you're in-house and you're looking to hire in SEO support via an agency or a freelancer, you can also do the same sort of maths where you look at, "Our business doesn't have PPC, for instance, and if we did PPC for this cost, then we'd be able to make this profit." And that's something to think about.

Mordy Oberstein:

Right. And that's where you really have to think about what the problem is you're trying to solve. And really, really understand the problem you're trying to solve. Because then you can go a million different directions. We can make more money by offering PPC. We don't have a PPC person. Great, we'll hire a PPC person. But you might have a situation where you have multiple problems that you need to fill and you need somebody who's able to handle multiple problems. So you might need someone who, I don't know, who can do SEO and create content, or could do PPC and also knows how to do social media, whatever it might be. Sometimes you need more of a generalist, sometimes you need more of a specialist. And you need to better understand what your problems are in order to understand what direction you need to go with the hire.

One thing I do see teams try to do, and I think it's a point of caution, is the generalist seems more cost-effective because they can do multiple things, so I'll hire a generalist. But you're not really thinking long-term like, yes, they might be able to do more things, but can they do better? And can they create better growth? And that one person who is really good at that one thing might be able to fill your problem in such a great way, that they're able to better grow your business. Even though it seems counterintuitive, but it's not.

Crystal Carter:

Whenever I think about furniture or things like that, sometimes they're like, "Oh, this chair also converts into a bed and also converts into a this. And also just-

Mordy Oberstein:

It's uncomfortable. All of them are uncomfortable.

Crystal Carter:

All of them are uncomfortable.

Mordy Oberstein:

All of them are uncomfortable. I know exactly where you're going with that.

Crystal Carter:

You know what I'm talking about?

Mordy Oberstein:

Yes, I had that chair.

Crystal Carter:

Or one of them will break.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's like when you buy a futon, don't do it. It's not usable for either.

Crystal Carter:

It's not usable. And then one of the bits will break, and then you have neither a sofa nor-

Mordy Oberstein:

You have a futon mattress on the floor.

Crystal Carter:

Right. You have nothing. And I'm not saying the generalists do this. I'm not saying that at all. However, sometimes you will have a generalist... Generalist people, particularly generalist marketers are very good at trying new things. That's how they became generalists. They're really interested in lots of new things. So they're a great place if you're like, "Hey, let's see if we can do AI stuff. Let's see what can we do to do AI content creation or something like that." Your generalist is a great person to start and get you going on whether or not this is something that fits into lots of things, will work. And then they're used to using lots of tools and they'll be able to see lots of opportunities there. Once they get you going, then you can make a business case for getting a specialist. And your generalist will obviously keep an eye and that sort of thing. But then it's a good time for you to be thinking about getting a specialist. And a specialist will help you to be really laser focused on getting that value.

And when you're thinking about hiring, that's a great thing. When we think about new projects, when we think about getting new support, we very often will do a POC. So we will do a proof of concept, so you're not just flying blind, you're not just making it up as you go. And sometimes with hiring people will get a temp for a little while. And I've had full-time roles where I started as a temp. And I started as a temp, and then they were like, "Oh, this works great. Having this person here to do this works really great." Then you come on full time.

Similarly, you could maybe get, and people think about this for agency stuff as well, so for instance, if you get an agency support, you might have that person come on or that team come on and do a project for you, a small project to see if that's a viable channel for you. Maybe you've never done a link billing campaign before, and so maybe they come on and do a little project for you. And then you're like, "Okay, this is great. We could roll this out across multiple channels or multiple parts of the business." And then you can get into a more long-term situation. But yeah, proof of concept is really valuable.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's great because then you can also really see what kind of person are they. On the CV or when you interview them, you can see like, "I know their skills. I know that they're competent, I know that maybe they're friendly," whatever, you can get some general. But you really want to understand, do they fit into what you actually need, the way that they work and how they operate and how they think, that's very hard, very, very hard to do. I want to hit one more point before we get to Menachem, and that's understand what skills to value. And that can change based upon, you see this right now in the market, what's emerging, what's upcoming, what's happening? If the ecosystem is shifting one way, while you might need that person now, will you still need that person in a year from now or that skill in a year from now? You see that with AI. And what makes it hard, by the way, is A, predicting, and also not getting caught up, like in the AI.

It's hard to predict where it's going to go. And at the same time, it's hard not to get caught up in it. So you might hire, "Oh, we're going to hire a prompt engineer," but maybe you won't need that in a year from now, maybe you're overestimating where AI is going to be at in a year. I don't know, I'm making that up. But it's easy to see that as an example.

Crystal Carter:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that the market changes you need to think about aren't just from the wider market, but also from your team. So I've definitely known folks who were great, brilliant marketers, and they got settled in with a team that maybe was moving at a different pace than they were used to. And so, if you're in a fast-moving consumer goods, if you're in a B2C apparel sort of business, that e-comm timeline, those timelines are quick. Those are quick turnarounds. Whereas if somebody's in more of a lead gen space, then if somebody's used to e-comm pace, they'll be very surprised at the lead gen stuff where it might take three, four or five months to close a deal, for instance, and they'll need different things from marketing. So I think that it's important to get that bit.

I know somebody who recently hired somebody who was great, they were a great AI person, and they were going to help them with their AI things. And in the end, the skills were there, but it wasn't a great fit for the team. And that's something to think about as well, where your team is at in your maturity in terms of having this person there. Do you have the setup to help that person thrive?

Mordy Oberstein:

That's a brilliant point. Yeah.

Crystal Carter:

For instance, if we had... My softball team got, I don't know, name a baseball player, Aaron Jed, is that a baseball player?

Mordy Oberstein:

Aaron Jed's, a baseball player. That's right.

Crystal Carter:

Okay. Yes. Good. So my softball-

Mordy Oberstein:

Doesn't know how to catch well lately, but yeah.

Crystal Carter:

Okay. So this is what I've learned from listening to Mordy for all these months and years. So if my softball team were like, "Hey, let's get a new player." And Aaron Jed was available and somehow he joined my team. Aaron Jed And would be bored and we wouldn't have the facilities, we wouldn't have the trainers, we wouldn't have the things to help this person to thrive and to help us. And so, it's important to make sure that you're set up for both things and that you're set up to be able to grow with this person, with this team, with this resource that you've got as well. So thinking about your maturity and what's the best fit for you right now and how that person might grow with you is super important.

Mordy Oberstein:

Could not answer that better myself. As we alluded to, who you hire and when, depends on the task at hand, but the nature of the task at hand depends at times upon the area of marketing that you're in. So let's compare and contrast who to hire or when to hire for a PPC team versus maybe an SEO team and beyond, as we invite Menachem Ani, founder of JXT Group to join us on a voyage into the funnel frontier.

Welcome to the show, Menachem. How are you?

Menachem Ani:

I'm excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Always fun to chat.

Crystal Carter:

It's always a pleasure to see you. I think the last time I saw you was in San Diego, I think, but we've done work across on the internet since then. But always great to see you and see what you're up to.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah, as you.

Mordy Oberstein:

I have one question for you. How does it feel to be on a podcast where they can pronounce your first name?

Menachem Ani:

It is unusual, I'll tell you that. Most people can't pronounce my first name. I use that as a spam filter on the phone. When the phone rings, if they can't pronounce my name right, I know it's spam.

Mordy Oberstein:

Or the IRS.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

Either/or.

Crystal Carter:

I used to work with someone and his first name... He went by Thomas, not Tom. So if anybody called and they were like, "Is Tom there?" I was like, "No, he's not. You don't know him clearly, so no."

Menachem Ani:

What are you trying to tell me?

Crystal Carter:

Right, exactly. I love it when they're like, "Have you got five minutes?" I'm like, "Have you got a PO? Where can I send this invoice for this five minutes? I'm at work."

Mordy Oberstein:

That's good. I don't answer my phone anymore, so I don't get this problem. I just don't answer.

Crystal Carter:

You don't get calls from spam likely they call me.

Mordy Oberstein:

No, I do, but if I don't know the number. I just don't answer. Usually my kids' teachers, which also works when I don't answer. Anyhoo, enough about that. So hiring PPC versus SEO, or SEO versus content marketing, or PPC versus social media marketing. Is it all the same? What's the difference? Does it matter?

Menachem Ani:

Our focus is paid media, so that's where my experience comes from. I think that for me, a lot of it comes down to attention to detail, personality, things of that nature. Probably lines up well with some of the content stuff.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah, I would imagine the PPC mindset is much more, I don't know, aggressive maybe, then let's say a content writer, let's say, creative writer, I mean.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah, so I think it's a little bit less creative and more analytical, because with paid media, you really have two kinds. You've got the Google stuff and the social stuff. Social does have a creative component to it. You really need to think with your creative brain, but even the analysis and then all of Google Search is primarily around analyzing things. You've got to have a very analytical brain for that.

Crystal Carter:

And I think that there's a lot of folks who have experience. Is experience enough in your opinion? Somebody who's like, "Oh, I've been doing this for this much time." Are you like, "Oh yeah, great, absolutely join the team." Or do you expect to see some of the stuff that they do? Are you more of a show don't tell kind of person?

Menachem Ani:

Yeah, I want to see how their brain works. And I'll do that by having conversations with them or ask them to look over a specific campaign. To me, experience is definitely important, but it's not everything. I think more important than experience is a personality like vibe check, will this person get along with others on the team? Do they have a can-do attitude? Do they want to get this done? Those are really important things. But also communication style. They can be the best at Google Ads, but if they don't answer an email in a timely fashion, it's like, "Okay."

Crystal Carter:

Right. Right. That can be a real sticky point. And I think that people think that the interview is the only part of the interview, but there's a lot more around that. So again, if you email them and it takes them three days to get back to you to say, "Yes, I want to..." That's a little bit tricky, isn't it?

Menachem Ani:

Yeah. I don't know. I might be looking at too much, but I'll look at spelling, grammar. Is the email too long? Is it too short? Are they answering what I really asked them? Are they just kind of fluffing over it? There's a lot of underlying stuff. I want to make sure that someone is thorough, detail-oriented and can get a job done.

Mordy Oberstein:

So you wouldn't hire Barry Schwartz, is what you're saying.

Menachem Ani:

It's not new.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's not grammatically correct. No, I'm just kidding.

Menachem Ani:

Barry's the best. We love Barry.

Mordy Oberstein:

Drill him a little bit. But that's interesting. Yeah, it's a good point. I mean, look, obviously if you're doing something with copy like PPC, where the spelling seriously matters, all right, you got a small grammar mistake in an SEO news article, no one's going to actually care, but in PPC, that's a huge deal, that you have one line to grab their attention.

Menachem Ani:

One line to grab their attention. A, it's got to be spelled right, proper grammar, punctuation, so on. But you really have to grab the user's attention. Your click-through rate is decided by how well that copy resonates with the user. So you got to be able to say complex things in short amount of space and really make it count.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, so then you would hire Barry. Sorry, go ahead Crystal. Sorry.

Crystal Carter:

So I talked to a lot of people who are looking to get started in SEO, looking to get their first job in SEO, people who were looking to get their first job generally. I was chatting to somebody recently and they sent me their CV and it looked like a MySpace page if I'm completely honest. There was lots of colors, there was lots of different fonts and stuff like that. What is your advice? And I was like, "Make it super basic." That was my advice to this person and the person since. But what is your advice to somebody who is new to the industry and wants to get a job in SEO right now or in PPC or at an agency, what would be your top point of advice?

Menachem Ani:

I think you got to start somewhere. Get educated. Google provides a lot of free resources. They have something called Skill Shop. You can take certifications, you can get yourself certified. Obviously there's some nuance there because you're being trained by Google who just, they want you to spend money, but it's the best place to start to understand the fundamentals of it and show that you've got at least a certification. From there, a lot of people start freelance, start small, run a family member or a friend's low-budget campaign. Just get in there. Get some experience so you can kind of play with it. But also there's a lot of great resources on different social media communities on Slack, so there's a lot you can learn and get to know people, just get into the industry.

Crystal Carter:

That's great. And I think that a lot of that is what we, just to shout out our own SEO course, it's one of the things that we put in there, is to make sure that there's lots of things that people can practically do and that people can show that they've been active in their learning process as well. What would be your top tip for somebody who's looking to hire one of these new people that's done all these courses and things?

Menachem Ani:

So honestly, sometimes it might be easier to hire somebody fresh who's just learning because so much has changed in paid search and paid social over the past few years, that a lot of people, their brains are stuck in the old way of thinking and it can hold you back from success. So it might be better. I don't know personally, I like to hire somebody with a couple of years experience and teach them our methodologies, but a fresh mind can grasp things quickly if they've got the right attitude. Hire them, teach them, and help find success together.

Mordy Oberstein:

I used to work for somebody who had a specific thing. He would only hire people who were not really there yet, because he wanted to train them his way and bring them up that way, which is an interesting way to go about it. Probably difficult in the beginning for sure. I mean, I've seen it. It's very difficult in the beginning.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah.

Crystal Carter:

But I think in order to do that, you have to have your processes together. You have to have a solid training foundation.

Menachem Ani:

For sure.

Crystal Carter:

Right. So is that something that you've worked on over the years?

Menachem Ani:

Definitely. I mean, we typically do hire people with some experience because that training process can be cumbersome if you're hiring somebody straight out of school or with very minimal experience. So I like to bring in people with a few years experience at least, and teach them our methodologies. But one of the things I look for in those initial conversations is, how do they like to set things up? Are they open-minded to the future forward way of thinking? Because shifting drastically, and if you're stuck in that old way, you can get lost.

Mordy Oberstein:

How has it changed? I'm curious. How has what you're looking for changed?

Menachem Ani:

Yeah, I mean, the old way of Google Ads was very manual, very granular. The new way is relying a lot more on algorithms and smart bidding. And you have to have an open mind to use broad match keywords where it's appropriate, and use smart bidding where it's appropriate, use newer campaign types that are more automated where it's appropriate. And a lot of people get stuck in like, "Oh, I would never do that." And it might be what's best for their clients, but they've never really tried it or they've tried it with a mindset that it's going to fail, and so it has.

Mordy Oberstein:

When you interview someone, you have a can of Mountain Dew, and if they're open to trying it, you're like, "Oh, okay, I'll hire them. They're open mind." If they're like, "Oh, that is disgusting. I'm not going anywhere near this," then no.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah, sometimes it's something like that.

Mordy Oberstein:

Not to bounce all over Mountain Dew, which is disgusting.

Menachem Ani:

I mean, I used to drink Mountain Dew every day, but I kind of gave it up.

Mordy Oberstein:

You will feel 30 years younger.

Crystal Carter:

Thank goodness.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah.

Mordy Oberstein:

I don't know where to go to next after that.

Crystal Carter:

I don't know, someplace very refreshing.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, nice. What's the most refreshing interview experience you've ever had with an interviewee?

Menachem Ani:

Cool question. I think when they make me think, it feels refreshing. Because a lot of people just go along with industry standards, but for me it's like I want to learn something new every day. And if somebody can make me think that's refreshing. I know that this person wants to learn.

Mordy Oberstein:

Do you ever worry that person will leave, because they're super smart, super, I don't know, creative, on the ball, on the money, you know they're going to succeed in three or four years from now, but what happens in three or four years from now?

Menachem Ani:

Listen, it's on me to create a work environment that people want to stay in. So if they want to leave, I got to do something different there.

Mordy Oberstein:

Pay them more?

Menachem Ani:

Maybe. I don't know if it's just about that. It's about-

Mordy Oberstein:

No, it's not about that always.

Menachem Ani:

At the end of the day, we all want to enjoy what we do every day. Feel the challenge, feel rewarding in the work we do. When it gets boring or we work with clients that are not fun or the team that's not fun or a boss that's not fun, I think that's really where it starts to fall apart.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's all about fun.

Menachem Ani:

Have some Mountain Dew.

Crystal Carter:

But I think that the hiring process, I mean, Mordy mentioned people leaving. When you're thinking about hiring, you said that it's up to you to keep them engaged. When you're thinking about hiring folks, are you planning for them to be there a long term? I know that a lot of jobs these days, people jump around after a couple of years. Are you expecting them to be there for a long term? And does it change depending on the post, depending on the position?

Menachem Ani:

Yeah, I mean for us, we don't hire a ton. We're a small team. We want to try to bring people on who want to grow in the long term, give them a place to grow. So my hope is they'll stick around for a while. Therefore it's even more important to get the decision right, get that right person, because you want them to stick around for a while. Thankfully, we don't have a lot of turnover. We definitely do have some, but the goal is to do it in a way where people stay for a while.

Mordy Oberstein:

Yeah. There's no other way to really build a culture and to really build a system if you're constantly changing people over, it's impossible. But it is harder now. I mean, if you looked at LinkedIn, people was like... I remember back in the day when you wrote on your CV or your resume, you were there for a year, the next job, you were there for a year, the next job you were there for a year. Oh, that looks bad. That's a red flag. A known red flag. That is literally LinkedIn now.

Menachem Ani:

Yeah.

Crystal Carter:

I am thrilled to announce. I'm thrilled to announce.

Mordy Oberstein:

Everyone congratulations.

Crystal Carter:

Right. Wow.

Mordy Oberstein:

Amazing, the amount of comments.

Crystal Carter:

Right. Right, right, right.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's good stuff. All right. So before we duly the part, what's your outlook on where the hiring market for PPC is going? Is it going to get more complicated? Is it going to get harder for you? Or is it hard to find people? Will it get harder to find people?

Menachem Ani:

It's definitely hard to find people because there's a lot of people who do paid media, but I think to find the ones that care, that will do good work, that will pay attention to all the little details. A lot of those people can find success on their own. Some of them would rather work in an agency environment because they get to interact with more people. But it's definitely getting harder, and as long as somebody stands out and does good work, they can always find a good home.

Mordy Oberstein:

That's great advice. Sure. Thank you. That is great advice. And with that, make sure you check out JXT Consulting. Don't click when you search for it on Google, don't click on the ad. Click on the organic result. Don't charge them money. And look for Menachem on social media. Where are you active these days? You're on X, you're still on X, you're on LinkedIn, no LinkedIn?

Crystal Carter:

He's on the Wix SEO Learning Hub. Go read his articles.

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, yeah. I always do that. I always forget.

Menachem Ani:

Wix SEO Learning Hub for sure. LinkedIn, Twitter, X as you call it. I'm still calling it Twitter. Sorry.

Mordy Oberstein:

I just started calling it X, because everyone else is. I'm like, "However." I've held out for so long.

Crystal Carter:

He's also on a YouTube recording of a webinar that we did on automation earlier in the year. And Menachem shares some fantastic resources for automation and tools that he uses at his own agency.

Mordy Oberstein:

To all those places, you'll be there.

Menachem Ani:

All those places.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, thanks for being our guest and good luck with your hiring.

Menachem Ani:

Thank you.

Mordy Oberstein:

Once again, thank you, Menachem, for coming on. Really make sure to give him a follow, read his articles on the SEO Hub. And he writes for Search Engine Land a lot as well. You know who also writes a lot for Search Engine Land?

Crystal Carter:

Who's that?

Mordy Oberstein:

Danny Goodwin. But you know who also writes a lot for Search Engine Land?

Crystal Carter:

Anu Adegbola?

Mordy Oberstein:

I was just going to say that. You stole my thunder. But you know who also writes a little bit here and there for Search Engine Land?

Crystal Carter:

Don't know.

Mordy Oberstein:

Me neither, we'll find out.

Crystal Carter:

Can't think of anyone.

Mordy Oberstein:

Nah, Gary, Gary Bartz? Barry Schwartz. Barry Schwartz. But we usually quote him from Search Engine Roundtable anyway. So here's the Snappy News courtesy of probably SE Roundtable.

Snappy news. Snappy news. Snappy News. Two for you this week. First up from Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land. Google Search Console recommendations now fully live. If you follow, it's new, our Daily SEO News series, which you can check out each and every day except for Friday. We don't do Friday. Monday through Thursday. You'll know we've seen the test where Google is testing recommendations inside of Search Console. These recommendations are things like, "Hey, a page recently got fewer clicks than usual," or "A page got more clicks than usual" or "Recommendation display your three products on the shopping tab." Anyway, Google said that they are now live for all. Now, that doesn't mean you're actually going to see them, if Google has no recommendations, they're not going to show anything.

By the way, if you're a Wix Studio user, you do have insights that are similar to this already built into your SEO dashboard if you connect to Google Search Console, so check them out there. Okay, onto Search Engine Journal. This from Matt Southern. Google Search sees UK decline. Users expressed low trust in AI. The decline was pretty small. This is according to Ofcom's Online Nation report. It went from user dropping from 86% to 83%. All right, to me, that's not like whatever. The interesting thing to me about this study, and I'll read to you what it says in the study, is the amount of trust. And again, these surveys are all, I would take them all with a grain of salt. It all depends how you ask the question, the result you get. I'm just pointing it out. I think it's interesting. I think it might be aligned to reality. That's why I'm reporting it, I guess.

Anyway, the study says, "Although finding information or content is the most popular reason for using a generative AI tool, only a minority believe the information provided is reliable. The most popular reason for using a generative AI tool in the past was to find information on content report by 48% of internet users age 16 plus. And 13% of British online, eight to 15 year olds. Despite this, only 18% of those aged 16 or older said they thought the information from generative AI was reliable." That's interesting. I don't know if that lands for you. It lands for me. It's interesting. So I'm bringing it up here on this, the snappy news.

I mentioned this a few weeks ago. I want to know is there actual roundtable? And if not, why already being lied to?

Crystal Carter:

I don't think he has a roundtable. I think he has an L-shaped table. I've seen it in his office.

Mordy Oberstein:

Maybe he has another table at a camera shot and it's a roundtable.

Crystal Carter:

No, I don't think so.

Mordy Oberstein:

Maybe he has a dollhouse. In the Dollhouse is the SEO roundtable.

Crystal Carter:

It's a tiny little SEO dollhouse.

Mordy Oberstein:

SEO is picking tea.

Crystal Carter:

Right. And it's just lots of tiny little... There's a little tiny John Mueller and there's a little tiny, tiny Barry Schwartz, and there's a little tiny Mordy Oberstein, and there's lots of little tiny people talking about SEO.

Mordy Oberstein:

Is that like... Well, I guess you could probably say that in reality there's a lot of little tiny people talking about SEO, but we're not going to go there. What we are going to go to is our follow of the week who is not a tiny person. He's a giant of the industry, Will Reynolds.

Crystal Carter:

A titan, if you will.

Mordy Oberstein:

A Titan, yes. Will Reynolds give him a follow over on, probably LinkedIn is probably the best place now. His content on LinkedIn is fabulous, by the way.

Crystal Carter:

Yes.

Mordy Oberstein:

Really intriguing questions. Love your content, Will, on LinkedIn.

Crystal Carter:

Will's fantastic, very frank. And he's been running his agency for years. And they are super inventive and super on the pulse of what's going on. And he's got some great insights on teams, on managing content, on AI, on lots of different things. So yeah, shout-out to Will Reynolds. Also previous contributor to the SERP'S Up SEO podcast, so-

Mordy Oberstein:

Oh, that's right. That's right.

Crystal Carter:

... go check in the archives and check out some of those insights there as well. But big shout-out to Will, great follow.

Mordy Oberstein:

Absolutely. But you mentioned, by the way, from Sierra Interactive, that's Will's agency. We should have mentioned that earlier in his bio, but we didn't. This is the kind of people who have jellyfish as pets. I told you we'd get back to it.

Crystal Carter:

I would love to have a jellyfish as a pet potential or maybe a Portuguese man-of-war, which is not a jellyfish, it's actually a colony.

Mordy Oberstein:

Nothing about that sounds peaceful.

Crystal Carter:

Dude, the Portuguese man-of-war are fascinating, because they're like the borg. It's a bunch of clones that do different things. It's an amazing creature.

Mordy Oberstein:

It's what I've always wanted for a pet.

Crystal Carter:

I'd love one. I don't think I'd have a fish tank big enough.

Mordy Oberstein:

We should do it.

Crystal Carter:

One can hope.

Mordy Oberstein:

Well, on that happy note. Thank you for joining us on this SERP'S Up podcast. Are you going to miss us? Not to worry, we're back next week at the new episode as we dive into how to know what your audience is actually looking for. Look for wherever you consume on your podcast or on the Wix SEO Learning Hub over at wix.com/SEO/learn. Looking to learn more about SEO, check out all the great content and webinars over on the Wix Studio, SEO Learning about, you guessed it, wix.com/SEO/learn. Don't forget to give us a review on iTunes or a rating on Spotify. Until next time, peace, love an SEO.