SEO Success Stories

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Nik Vujic about LLMs and SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Joe Hall about contrarian SEO takes

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Rai Cornell about Psychology driven content SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Brian Shumway about TBC

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Jessica Redman about The Evolving eCommerce SEO Landscape

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Ivan Palii about Parasite SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with JP Garbaccio about Technical SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Alex Galinos about International SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Sam Dunning about B2B SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Peter Rota about Local SEO

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Mike Ciffone about the recent Google Search leak with Mike Ciffone.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Kevin Indig about Google's transition from Search Engine to Marketplace.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Nik Vujic of Veza Digital about 'No Code SEO' and its pro's / con's over traditional SEO.https://www.linkedin.com/in/nik-vujic-seohttps://www.vezadigital.com/

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Matt Harrison of Next Net Media about SEO, AI, and what it means for the digital marketer!https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-harrison-6480536/https://nextnetmedia.com/

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Bob Tripathi of Digital Sparxhttps://digitalsparxmarketing.com/

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Greg Brooks from SearchTideshttps://searchtides.com/

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Gus Pelogia from Indeed.comVisit Gus at: https://www.guspelogia.com/

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Max Roslyakov, former Semrush employee, about his business and adventures into backlink experiments!

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with the guru that is Venkata Pagadala of Apartments.com about his SEO journey, programmatic SEO and more!

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with the ever-wonderful Eli Schwartz of Product Led SEO about Google's SGE and what it means for the industry.Hear more words of wisdom from Eli Schwartz at ProductLedSEO.substack.com.

Listen: as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks Agency to SAAS with Limor Barenholtz of SimilarWeb

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Morgan Flores of Clutch about global SEO and her journey.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Andrew Shotland of LocalSEOGuide.com about how he got his start and eventually mastered the strange world of SEO.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Brett Farmiloe of Terkel as they explore Bretts career and PR Link Building (plus other topics).

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Mike Cliffone of Cliffone Digital about his journey into SEO!

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with Andrew Holland of JBH about his journey from the police force into SEO and marketing!

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks Technical SEO for Enterprise with Serge Bezborodoc of Jet Octopus!

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with show regular Mordy Oberstein about his recent career change and how Wix is becoming more SEO friendly.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with 'Mr SEO' Daniel Foley Carter of SEO Audits

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with the man himself - Kyle Byers from Semrush!

What is the #1 biggest challenge SEOs face in 2023?                  “2023 is all gonna be about AI, like what you saw with ChatGPT. With Bing AI's new chat experience, Google's Bard and other search engines going into the space, I think 2023 is the year of AI and search.”                               Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics and owns RustyBrick, a New York-based web consulting firm. JOIN OUR HOSTS, RUSS MACUMBER IN CONVERSATION WITH BARRY SCHWARTZ ON SEARCH ENGINE NEWS AND THE EVOLVEMENT OF SEO THROUGHOUT THE YEARS. “I feel like it's only in the last 5 or 6 years that SEO has been integrated into the whole marketing strategy, rather than just standing on their own. Based on my experience, an SEO specialist was always associated with someone who sits with headphones on, is buried in code, and refuses to talk to others. Nowadays, SEO specialists are more innovative and work across various areas such as content, product, brand, and more. Your soft skills have become so much more important because SEO does touch on many different aspects of a business.” – Barry Schwartz on the evolution of SEO over the years. The conversation covers:Barry's initial marketing background (2:59)Black hat SEO tactics back in the days (5:54)The early development of Search Engine Land's website (7:51)The purpose of Search Engine Land (8:48)Significant search engine stories that Barry has covered (9:35)The role of Search Engine Land in the SEO community (11:01)The importance of integrating SEO into the whole marketing team (12:55)The future of AI as search engines (23:24)TikTok vs Google (25:57)"I have always wished to make an impact in making people's lives easier, driving the community forward, and thinking about the right things versus trying to take shortcuts. " - Barry Schwartz.In this episode, we're thrilled to have Barry Schwartz, a content editor specializing in search engine related news, share his thoughts on search engines and how they have developed throughout the decades. Barry's interest in the SEO community and the fast-paced evolution of search engines propelled him towards journalism and documenting news related to the search engine industry. This episode will touch on the evolution of search engines and the groundbreaking rise of AI technology.  We hope you enjoyed this episode of our podcast! Please tune in for more SEO success stories by hitting “subscribe.”

Listen as Russ Macumber talks with Bart Van Der Meer of Leads.io about his SEO journey and key learnings to date in his career.

Listen as Russ Macumber talks with SEO legend Jess Joyce about her journey from band fan-sites to being an SEO superstar.

What is the #1 biggest challenge SEOs face in 2023? "I don't know if this is the true number one, but one thing I've been thinking about recently is just how much information is out there now compared to 10 years ago for SEO for those who want to learn SEO and advance their career. I think as budgets get tighter, a lot of people might be in for a little bit of a rude awakening if they've been a little bit stagnant in their learning. I think if you're a specialist in one area, you should really start to expand your knowledge and make sure you can keep bringing as much value as you can to these companies. As more remote roles open up, I think the SEO industry is gonna grow and get more competitive, and it'll be a little harder to get those in-house roles like it once was 5 or 10 years ago when there weren't really SEO people, all things considered, compared to now. So I just think that's a big thing people should be thinking about moving forward."  Will Waggoner is an SEO strategist who has experience in leading teams to success. From his time at Intuit as an SEO manager, growing and improving their team irrespectively, to his impressive feats at one of the global powerhouse brands Apple, Will brings expertise and leading qualities to everything he does to implement SEO changes for the better. With a love for user experience, Will will do whatever it takes to create a smooth and engaging experience for all users. JOIN OUR HOSTS, RUSS MACUMBER IN CONVERSATION WITH WILL WAGGONER ON H IS SEO CAREER AND IMPACT IN ONE OF THE WORLDS MOST WELL KNOWN BRANDS; APPLE.“One of the biggest things in my role was to convince them (Apple) that we actually should do things in a different way, which was difficult, but I was able to be pretty successful with it over my time there. I started small and worked my way up.” - Will Waggoner on his influence at Apple. The conversation covers:Will's initial journey into SEO (2:46)Does agency experience help or hinder career growth? (7:56)Intuit (11:15)Apple (16:30)Building relationships in Will's first 90 days at Apple (20:17)Similarity in Will's experience between both companies (25:50)Will's proudest moments from Apple (27:28)Will's SEO gains (28:28)Vox Pop (30:40)"It was just funny knowing that I had influenced such a big company that had only done things a certain way for so long." - Will Waggoner.In this episode, we're thrilled to have Will Waggoner, a dynamic and inspiring SEO expert from Apple, share his incredible journey to SEO success. From humble beginnings in SEO at Intuit to leading impactful changes at Apple, Will has created a dynamic change in every one of his positions along his current career. This episode will touch on the importance of relationships in the process of making brand change and just how Will was able to change the mind of one of the most significant leading figures in history (Steve Jobs). Quickfire Vox Pop Q&AWhich previous Google algorithm change still keeps you up at night?None of them. Favorite non-obvious software tool that you use every day to research or execute?There's one I use; it's a chrome extension called twemex. It's for Twitter. I learn a lot from people on Twitter, but there's a lot of people that haven't really posted in a long time or maybe a few years that used to post a lot of good information. It (twemex) basically up levels all of these top posts from forever, so I can see all of the case studies that they're posting so I can learn the most important information about them. It's really helpful for me when I'm trying to find new people on Twitter or look for specific information in other industries that aren't SEO related. That's the number one tool I use daily and in my personal life. Gun to your head… which do you prefer: content or links?Content, for sure. What's the most effective link-building technique you have used?It's actually something I did in my internship .. links doing this. You can't do this anymore, or else things will get in trouble, but we basically reached out to intramural college sports teams that had their own website on the college's domain, and we'd sponsor them and put a widget which would have about two backlinks coming back to our site, so we could get up to three links for each sports team. Is the skyscraper technique still relevant today?Not really as much anymore. What do you love most about SEO?I think I like the detective work of figuring out what's not obvious and really digging into things. That's kind of what helps me get by some of the days that feel a little bit slower. How do you apply SEO principles to your daily life?Not everything is black and white; I've learnt that a lot in SEO. The more I apply that to my daily life and outlook and working with people I think it helps a lot. There's always a lot of gray areas, and nothing is truly as it usually seems. WFH life or Office life or Hybrid life?My preference is hybrid, leaning more toward work from home, but the more I think about it, I definitely do miss the in-person relationships that I built in Into it and my previous roles, which I didn't get at Apple cause I was remote the whole time. SEMrush or Ahrefs?Ahrefs only because that's what I primarily use, but they're both good tools. Agency or In-house or Combo?I think if you do it right, the combination is perfect. I also think it's the perfect combination for an employee having experience in both too. We hope you enjoyed this episode of our podcast! Please tune in for more SEO success stories by hitting “subscribe.”

Listen as Russ Macumber talks with Nathan Gotch about his journey to starting the Gotch SEO Academy.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with the wonderful Nick LeRoy about how he got started in the industry, transitioning into a 'consultant for hire' and some not so common tools that he uses in his role.

Listen as Impressive's Russ Macumber talks with podcast alum - the ever-wonderful Fery Kaszoni! Fery is back to talk PR link building and SEO experiments.

Listen as Russ Macumber of Impressive talks to Ryan McReady of Reforge

Listen as Russ Macumber talks Travel SEO with Brennen Bliss of Propellic

Listen as Russ Macumber talks with the amazing Jakub Rudnik of Scribe about his journey to being the Head of Content Marketing at Scribe.

Listen as Russ Macumber talks with Patrick Stox of Ahrefs about lesser known features of the tool that are amazingly useful.

What is the #1 biggest challenge SEOs face in 2022? “Every niche is becoming more competitive. We need to be more aggressive and relentless with our strategies. SEO is much more expensive than it was 10 years ago. Today a successful SEO approach takes more time, money, content, links, and other technical implementations. The algorithm is better at understanding user intent these days.”Fery Kaszoni is currently the managing director of Search Intelligence, a PR link-building agency that focuses on acquiring high-tier backlinks on reputable and trusted online publications, using research-based insights and PR stories that journalists love. Fery's first encounter with SEO was unintended, but it sparked his interest in the beneficial alliance between public relations techniques and SEO backlink-building approaches.JOIN RUSS MACUMBER IN CONVERSATION WITH FERY KASZONI ON CREATING NEWSWORTHY CONTENT FOR A SUCCESSFUL SEO BACKLINK STRATEGY.Fery started dabbling in digital marketing around 2008 by experimenting with blogs, XML, and JavaScript. When media outlets were booming with news about water found on the moon, Fery wrote and published an article about the trending topic. Much to his surprise, he gained over 20,000 visitors to his post in less than a day, and his article ranked number one on Google. With a focus on PR link building, Russ Macumber chats with Fery about understanding the media landscape and creating a mutually beneficial exchange with journalists to develop valuable content that produces successful results for the clients. “We don't care about the client's product. We need to create a story that interests the journalist and the audience.” - Fery Kaszoni, on creating backlink content that benefits the client and the journalist. Click play to get started!The conversation covers:Fery's first encounter with SEO (4:09)Fery's career beginnings (5:55) Fery's learning process (7:47) The pivotal moment that led Fery to PR link building (9:54) Important learning points (12:04)Client's involvement in the process (13:28) Coming up with a relevant topic (14:10)Framing content from a unique angle (14:53) How to define a link quality (16:40)The importance of storytelling-focused content (17:36) Building a contact list of journalists (18:49) Industries and niches that suit Fery's working style and approach (22:01)The structure of the story provided to journalists (23:26)3 key steps to a successful PR link-building experiment (24:42)Quickfire Vox Pop Q&AWhich previous Google algorithm change still keeps you up at night?I started a website in February 2020 and created hundreds of thousands of pages about coronavirus cases for every city and location in the world. I was ranking on page 1 for “Coronavirus Paris” and “Coronavirus London, and I was making many thousands of pounds every month in just passive income. However, a Google update came in May 2022, which turned everything upside down - I lost all the traffic from Google Analytics. Gun to your head… which do you prefer: content or links?Content What's the most effective link-building technique you have used?PR link building is the most effective technique, but I'm not dismissing other approaches. What do you love most about SEO?The fact that you can be a nobody and in 6 months, you can dominate a certain aspect of a niche. It's endless opportunities. How do you apply SEO principles to your daily life?If things go wrong, just pick up and go. Things always go wrong with SEO - whether it's a Google update or the competitors. So pick up, move on, and try different things. WFH life or Office life or Hybrid life?HybridSEMrush or Ahrefs?AhrefsAgency or In-house or Combo?Agency. Agencies are cool. We hope you enjoyed this episode of our podcast! Please tune in for more SEO success stories by hitting “subscribe.”

What is the #1 biggest challenge SEOs face in 2022?                                                                         “It's really keeping up with the way that SEO is changing, and it's not just algorithms but integrating SEO with everything else that we're doing in marketing.” “It's another thing to develop authority. This really goes beyond backlinks and has to do with a 360 degree of authority for your campaign.” - Dale BertrandDale Bertrand is a technologist-turned-marketer currently running Fire&Spark, a digital agency in Boston that ignites organic search traffic for a range of industries. With 15 years of experience in engineering and AI systems, Dale has helped develop search marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies and venture-backed startups to analytically solve marketing problems with highly combustible SEO strategies. When he's not busy with his success agency, you can find him attending a handful of marketing conferences as a Keynote speaker, helping to train marketing professionals from TripAdvisor, HubSpot and many more globally renowned brands. JOIN RUSS MACUMBER AS HE SPEAKS WITH DALE BERTRAND ON EVERYTHING PR LINK BUILDING AND HOW TO CREATE A UNIQUE CAMPAIGN THAT SHOWS WHO YOUR BRAND IS. “We're really starting with what are we gonna do that's remarkable in the space and how are we gonna be a community around that.”- Dale Bertrand.Join us as we hear of Dale Bertrand's journey to help grow a charitable coffee brand, Fire House, to help support injured firefighters and their families across America. Taking a digital PR link-building focus, we chat with him about this campaign's beginnings and his tips on how to convey your brand's remarkableness in your campaign. The conversation covers:What drew Dale into SEO (3:50)Early experiences of SEO (6:52)Dale's framework/mindset towards SEO (8:42)Firehouse Coffee journey (11:26)Dale's view on SEO and Digital PR (17: 44)Initial SEO resources for Fire House Coffee (21:10)First 90 days with Fire House coffee (21:33)Planning process for Fire House campaign (25:22)Major hurdles for Fire House (26:47)Winning stories from the campaign (28:36)Key to continue to grow authority (30:48)Quickfire Vox Pop Q&AWhich previous Google algorithm change still keeps you up at night?All of them. I live in fear that there's another one coming. Gun to your head… which do you prefer: content or links?Backlinks and authority. What's the most effective link-building technique you have used?PR-related tactics are gonna get you the best links. It's about questioning what you find remarkable about your brand and what you are doing that's remarkable about your brand in the marketplace. Is the skyscraper technique still relevant today?I believe so. It's not exactly what we do anymore, but certainly, if you're in a position where it's an opportunity, I'd definitely look into it. What do you love most about SEO?The interdisciplinary aspect such as technical, non-technical, related to marketing/PR, content and, AI etc. But even more than that, I love the folks I get to meet. I get to have conversations with people who do every different facet of marketing and try to understand how their expertise could benefit an SEO campaign. How do you apply SEO principles to your daily life?Most of the grounds on efficient execution and project management, especially when organizing the kids. WFH life or Office life or Hybrid life?I'm an introvert at heart, so a solo office life. SEMrush or Ahrefs?Both organizations have been good to me, and I use both on a daily basis. They're always coming out with interesting tools, so you can't choose. They've also both got some amazing tools in the near future that I'd want to be aware of. Agency or In-house or Combo?I've been both, but I prefer agency life because I want to learn really quickly. We hope you enjoyed this episode of our podcast! Please tune in for more SEO success stories by hitting “subscribe.”

Russ Macumber from SEO Success Stories speaks with Kevin Indig from Shopify about his journey and experience in SEO. Kevin shares his insights with us.

“I think one of the biggest challenges [facing SEOs in 2022] is one of the biggest opportunities as well: organic marketing has a real opportunity to push for and get buy-in for further investment.”Lindsay Sakraida is currently the Director of Content Marketing at Yotpo, a cloud-based content marketing platform for e-commerce businesses that allows users to collect user-generated content and use that content to build a brand.But don't call Yotpo a ‘unicorn' - the company prefers to be referred to as a ‘flamingo:' a real animal, because Yotpo provides real value. Join Russ Macumber as he talks with Lindsay Sakraida about her journey in content marketing and copywriting.Russ Macumber talks with Lindsay, who comes from a writing and content marketing background, about her SEO journey. As a growth marketer with a strong background in content production, SEO best practices, and media outreach, Lindsay has extensive experience generating content campaigns to support acquisition, retention, and business development goals. Learn about her experience here“Not all traffic is good traffic.”Click play to get started!The conversation covers:How Lindsay started her SEO career (4:03)What does “just write good content” mean? (9:44)The importance of review recency (11:00)Progression from DealNews to WeWork (11:50)About the Yotpo platform (13:48)Lindsay's experience at Yotpo (17:32)The content marketing structure at Yotpo (19:02)Moving the needle in Lindsay's first 90 days at Yotpo (20:30)Lindsay's SEO role models (22:12)Forecasting Yotpo's direction and success (24:19)Barriers at Yotpo (25:55)Secret software tools: revealed! (30:01)Quickfire Vox Pop Q&AWhich previous Google algorithm change still keeps you up at night?Panda. Duplicate content was a real problem at the timeGun to your head… which do you prefer: content or links?Content, but that's pretty obviousWhat's the most effective link-building technique you have used?I think partnering with PR and media outreach (it's so much more authentic)Is the skyscraper technique still relevant today?I do…What do you love most about SEO?I really love learning what people are searching for. Sometimes you stumble on the funniest things.How do you apply SEO principles to your daily life?I guess just always thinking about “what do people really want?”WFH life or Office life or Hybrid life?Hybrid-life.SEMrush or Ahrefs or Moz?I like SEMrushAgency or In-house or Combo?I think a combo can be really great, especially depending on where your  strengths lie and what your goals are.We hope you enjoyed this episode of our podcast! Please tune in for more SEO success stories by hitting “subscribe.”

Listen as show host Russ Macumber talks with the guru Tom Critchlow about his experience as a consultant working with senior leaders, and his journey to starting The SEO MBA program.

Friend of the show, Steve Wiideman, returns for another episode to give us an update on what he has been doing and his experience working with International House of Pancakes (IHOP).

Listen as show hosts Russ Macumber & Gabriel Grossman talks with Eli Schwartz - Growth Advisor, SEO Strategic Consultant, Author and much much more - about his journey and top tips for mastering your SEO quest.

Listen as show hosts Russ Macumber & Gabriel Grossman talks with author, podcast host and SEO teacher Kate Toon about how she got into the industry and what tips she has for budding SEO ninjas.

Listen as show host Russ Macumber talks with Leanne Follis of JLL about what got her interested in SEO and how she used her passion for learning to turn it into a career.

Listen as show host Gabriel Grossman talks with Mordy Oberstein of Semrush about his SEO journey.