Live with Search Engine Land

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Live with Search Engine Land is a series of live discussions, presentations, tutorials and less formal meetups led by the editorial team at Search Engine Land. No matter the format, we want everyone to stay sharp and up-to-date on tactics and best practices. These weekly meetups are about giving great marketers a platform to inform, support and convene our global community.

If you would like to be considered for a guest spot on Live with Search Engine Land, you should have in-depth professional experience in digital marketing and be willing to share knowledge with other marketers. In many cases, that requires a level of expertise that comes with senior- and executive-level experience, but we are always looking for rising stars who have proven tactics to share as well. Creativity is encouraged.

If you are interested in being a panelist, submit a pitch.

Season 1


The SEO gender gap and how to close it

Aired 9/11/20

Across the board, whether by retainer, project or the hour, women are charging and making less than their male counterparts. In this episode, Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin was joined by North Star Inbound’s Nicole DeLeon, Orainti founder Aleyda Solis and Locomotive Agency’s Amanda Jordan to discuss the gender gap, including new research, the experiences of women in SEO and solutions for improving female representation and pay equity in the search industry.

Learn more and watch the video here: The SEO gender gap and how to close it

Live with Search Engine Land season wrap-up—COVID and marketing disruption

Aired 8/14/20

Search Engine Land editors Ginny Marvin, Barry Schwartz, Greg Sterling and George Nguyen reflect on the impacts that the coronavirus, social justice movements and algorithm updates have had on digital marketing. They discuss how marketers have adapted, the direction the industry is heading and takeaways from this period of marketing disruption.

Read the takeaways: Live with Search Engine Land season wrap-up—COVID and marketing disruption

What’s new with the Bing Webmaster Guidelines

Aired 8/11/20

Search Engine Land SEO editor Barry Schwartz speaks with some of the individuals responsible for the updates made to Bing Webmaster Guidelines last month.

Bing first published its webmaster guidelines in 2012 and it’s been a while since they were updated. Barry sums up the changes in the new guidelines, then digs into the thought process behind the updates. There is an entire section just on ranking factors—relevancy, quality, freshness, user engagement, page load time and more. Information around the URL submission API, support of rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”, how Bing indexes JavaScript, the evergreen BingBot is also covered in the updated guidelines.

Read the takeaways:
Bing uses user engagement metrics for ranking websites in search
Bing considers page quality before indexing
A deeper dive into more of the Bing Search ranking factors

Dealing with CCPA and Facebook Ads

Aired 7/22/20

Search Engine Land’s Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin speaks with advertising and data intelligence experts about what advertisers affected by CCPA need to do to keep their Facebook campaigns compliant, how to adjust Facebook campaigns as a result of this change, and the impact marketers are already seeing due to Limited Data Use.

Learn more and watch the video here: CCPA compliance and Facebook Ads


SEO for Developers

In this three-part series, Search Engine Land contributing editor Detlef Johnson hosts educational workshops tackling developer communications and SEO-friendly coding. Watch the videos below, and read some of the takeaways here: Power SEO Friendly Markup With HTML5, CSS3, And Javascript.

Optimizing JavaScript Applications for Google Indexing

Aired 7/24/20

Search Engine Land’s Detlef Johnson is joined by Googlr’s Martin Splitt, who discusses what you should and shouldn’t be worried about when it comes to JavaScript and Google indexing. That will be illustrated by Martin live coding a web app using modern JavaScript effectively showing what’s important by live demonstration. They also cover advanced topics such as routing, bundling, workers, using the latest ECMAScript, and more.

Scripting And Scraping Automation

Aired 7/23/20

Search Engine Land’s Detlef Johnson is joined by John Murch, who discusses how JavaScript developers are able to use headless chrome to do almost anything a browser can do, connect with page information from Google Search Console, scrape links, check canonical tags, and more. You’ll learn the basics of what Puppeteer is, see a code walkthrough of sample open-source JavaScript Puppeteer examples, and get a live demo of a Puppeteer backlink checker using Google Search Console data.

Power Your SEO Friendly Markup With HTML5, CSS3, And JavaScript

Aired 7/22/20

Detlef Johnson hosts Anthony Muller and Kaitlyn Meurin to discuss the marketer and developer relationship and how the two groups can communicate more effectively. Then he is joined by Russ Jeffery to talk about delivering SEO friendly mark-up. Russ discusses the challenge that modern front end libraries like React and Vue present to SEO and why SEOs might want to implement Server-Side Rendering (SSR). Russ then runs through common techniques to implement SSR with React and VueJS and what developers will need to keep in mind to keep the pages speedy and search engine friendly.


The ins and outs of Shopify SEO

Aired 7/21/20

The coronavirus pandemic has shifted shopping behavior online and businesses have adapted by flocking to platforms like Shopify so that they can continue to serve customers. But the surge in e-commerce retailers, however, also means increased competition for organic visibility and shoppers. In this session of Live with Search Engine Land, Editor George Nguyen is joined by Chris Long, SEO Senior Manager at Go Fish Digital, and Ron Diorio, General Manager, The Economist Store & Learning.ly, to discuss what store owners (and the SEOs that work with them) need to know about optimizing their Shopify sites for search.

Read the takeaways:
The ins and outs of Shopify SEO
Shopify tradeoffs: What to consider before selecting your next e-commerce platform
Common Shopify SEO pitfalls and how to avoid them
4 ways to speed up your Shopify site

CCPA enforcement has arrived. Here’s what marketers need to know

Session #18: Aired 6/23/20

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) passed in 2018 and formal enforcement begins on July 1. But there’s still confusion about its application and compliance. Search Engine Land Contributing Editor Greg Sterling sits down with Lisa Rapp, VP Data Ethics, LiveRamp; Abby Matchett, Enterprise Analytics Lead, Bounteous; and Katelyn Ringrose, attorney, Future of Privacy Forum to discuss what marketers need to know now that the stakes are raised.

Learn more and watch the video here:
CCPA enforcement is here. What marketers need to know

Live with Search Engine Land @ SMX Next

The following five presentations were hosted as part of SMX Next, a virtual event programmed by Search Engine Land on future-forward search marketing.

What SEO practitioners can do to make sites ‘algorithm-proof’

Session #17: Aired 6/23/20 at SMX Next

Search Engine Land SEO editor Barry Schwartz talks with SEO practitioners on what we’ve learned from past algorithm updates to position ourselves, and our sites, to stay ahead of a constantly evolving SEO environment. He is joined by Eric Wu, VP of Product Growth, Honey Science; Carolyn Shelby, Manager, SEO, ESPN; and Todd Friesen, Director of Digital Strategy and SEO at Salesforce.

Learn more and watch the video here:
What SEO practitioners can do to make sites ‘algorithm-proof’

Future-prep your skills to advance your marketing career

Session #16: Aired 6/23/20 at SMX Next

Search Engine Land’s Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin; Natalie Berreda, Senior Manager of Media at T-Mobile; and Mike Henderson, Chief Marketing Officer at Surety Bonds, expose the skills that have proven to be critical to their own professional development in digital marketing … and the skills they believe will be in-demand in the marketplace.

Learn more and watch the video here:
How to future-prep your skills to advance your marketing career

How to find (and foster) relationships with content creators

Session #15: Aired 6/24/20 at SMX Next

The right content writer can speak your audiences’ language and provide them with solutions that strengthen their connection to your brand. In this session, George Nguyen, editor, Search Engine Land, is joined by Mel Carson, Founder & CEO, Delightful Communications; Carol Tice, Owner, TiceWrites; Jessica Foster, SEO Content Strategist, Keys&Copy; and Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks.

Read the takeaways:
How to find (and foster) relationships with content writers
4 common pitfalls to avoid when working with freelance writers [Video]
How to source and vet content writers [Video]
Writer onboarding and brand guidelines: The unsung heroes of content marketing success [Video]

Making diversity and inclusion a priority

Session #14: Aired 6/24/20 at SMX Next

Despite loads of research on the business benefits of diverse teams, there’s been talk but little action for years to increase Black and minority representation in the marketing industry. In this Live with Search Engine Land panel discussion with C.J. Bland, CEO of Minority Professional Network; Zenia Johnson, account lead at 3Q Digital; and Jackie Leung, director of talent acquisition at Wpromote, we talk about how to accomplish change in your organization with those who are already working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Read the takeaways:
What does commitment to diversity look like in an organization?
Addressing diversity, recruitment and retainment in agencies and marketing teams

Local search secrets, lies and hacks

Session #13: Aired 6/24/20 at SMX Next

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling gets deeply tactical with veteran local SEOs Mike Blumenthal of GatherUp, Joy Hawkins of SterlingSky, and Andrew Shotland of LocalSEOGuide. They bust some myths and discuss optimizations that make a difference and opportunities you’re probably missing out on.


To AMP or not to AMP

Session #12: Aired 6/22/20

Search Engine Land Editor George Nguyen talks with Matt Dorville, SEO manager at BuzzFeed about what the implications of Google’s reversal on AMP are.

Read the takeaways:
What publishers need to consider before dropping AMP [Video]
When AMP and other Google initiatives go to the grave, are your SEO efforts going with it?
What will publishers do when Google lifts the AMP restriction on Top Stories? [Video]

The Page Experience Update

Session #11: Aired 6/15/20

Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz is joined by Marty Weintraub of Aimclear, Michael King of iPullRank and Aja Frost of Hubspot to discuss how next year’s big update may, or may not, affect search marketers.

Read the takeaways: Top SEOs on Google’s Page Experience update and what you need to know

Google Shopping

Location data

Session #9 – Aired 5/17/20

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling leads a discussion with Foursquare CEO David Shim and PlaceIQ CEO Duncan McCall.

Read the takeaways:
How local marketers can prepare for the ‘great reset’ [Video]
Combine location data and external trends to build diverse audience strategies [Video]
How location data can drive your marketing strategy during COVID [Video]

Google’s developer/SEO

Session #8 – Aired 5/10/2020

Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz will hosts a discussion with Martin Splitt, Google Search Developer Relations, on the technical side of how the search engine works.

Read the takeaways:
Common JavaScript errors that can harm your SEO [Video]
Why the evergreen Googlebot is such a big deal [Video]
SEOs and developers: Why they’re better together [Video]
Common oversights that can impede Google from crawling your content [Video]
How Google crawls and indexes: a non-technical explanation [Video]

Brand marketing

Session #7 – Aired 5/01/20

In this discussion on brand vs. performance marketing during COVID-19, Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling and Chris Kelly, CEO of Survata, Amy Bishop, Owner of Cultivative, and Michelle Morgan, Director of Client Services at Clix Marketing debate whether marketers should be focusing more on top-of-funnel awareness campaigns and less on the bottom-of-the-funnel during this tumultuous period.

Read the takeaways:
What’s the right messaging when customers are divided about reopening? [Video]
Marketing during COVID means ongoing experimentation [Video]

COVID-era content marketing

Session #6- Aired 4/24/20

In this discussion led by Search Engine Land’s George Nguyen, experts Amanda Milligan, marketing director at Fractl, Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Marketing, and Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of marketing at HubSpot, dive into what brands should be communicating, how engagement is changing and whether sticking to the traditional KPIs or identifying new success indicators is necessary to measure campaigns during the pandemic.

Read the takeaways:
4 takeaways for content marketers in the time of COVID-19
How to evaluate content marketing opportunities during COVID [Video]
Empathetic content marketing falls flat without authenticity [Video]
How to measure content KPIs during COVID [Video]

Digital commerce marketing

Session #5 – Aired 4/17/20

Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin is joined by PPC experts and Kaitlin McGrew, SEM strategist at PMG; Bryant Garvin, CMO of Groove Life; Anthony Verre vice president of e-commerce at The Integer Group, to discusses digital commerce marketing in the time of COVID-19 and how commerce marketers’ channel strategies are evolving in the face of shifting consumer behavior and supply chain challenges.

Read the takeaways:
Why digital commerce marketers shouldn’t ‘go dark’ during COVID [Video]
The old marketing playbook isn’t enough during COVID [Video]
Emotional ROI should be one of your key performance indicators during COVID [Video]

COVID-19 SERP disruption

Session #4 – Aired 4/7/20

Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz lead a discussion with search consultant Marie Haynes, Olga Andrienko of SEMRush, Mordy Oberstein of Rank Ranger and Peter Meyers from Moz, to discuss the recent volatility of Google search results since the global coronavirus pandemic broke out.

Read the takeaways:
Is it an algorithm update or is Google adapting to new search intent? [Video]
Your sidebar featured snippet’s ranking didn’t change because of COVID [Video]
What SEOs can learn from COVID rankings volatility [Video]

PPC tips during COVID-19

Session #3 – Aired 4/2/20

Search Engine Land Editor-in-Chief Ginny Marvin hosts a discussion with Brad Geddes, co-founder of AdAlysis, Matt Van Wagner, president of Find Me Faster, and Michelle Morgan, director of client services at Clix Marketing, on B2B advertising during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the takeaways:
Why businesses that prioritized martech, data and organization are faring better during COVID [Video]
How working from home has thrown a wrench in campaign targeting [Video]
Why updating your messaging is the best strategy right now [Video]
From the bottom to the top of the funnel, COVID-19 is flipping B2B strategies [Video]
COVID-19 upheaval is actually speeding up some PPC campaigns [Video]

Google my Business updates

Session #2 – Aired 3/30/20

Search Engine Land’s Greg Sterling hosts ta chat on changes and problems with Google my Business tied to COVID-19 and what local marketers should be doing right now during this time of uncertainty. Greg is joined by: Adam Dorfman, Reputation.com. Mary Bowling, SterlingSky. Krystal Taing, RIO SEO. Niki Mosier, Two Octobers.

SEO work under quarantine

Session #1 – Aired 3/23/20

Search Engine Land’s Barry Schwartz hosts a video hangout with Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate at Google, Pedro Dias, Managing Partner at APIs3; Lily Ray, Director of SEO at Path Interactive, and Alexis Sanders, Senior SEO Manager at Merkle, to discuss how SEOs are dealing with the new day-to-day during the COVID-19 crisis.

Read the takeaways:
16-straight days of rankings volatility: SEOs dig into the COVID-19 effects on search
What Google’s Search Relations team has been doing in response to COVID-19 [Video]
Google shouldn’t pause algorithm updates during the pandemic, expert SEOs say [Video]
How SEOs are approaching traffic and budget disruptions [Video]

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