The Edward Show

E1221: OpenAI is reportedly building its own Search Console for ChatGPT. The new tool could show businesses how often they're mentioned in ChatGPT answers, how many people click through to their websites, and how their visibility changes over time. Google Search Console doesn't separately report clicks from AI Overviews. OpenAI's new tool could give businesses data that Google currently doesn't provide. I break down a new Search Engine Roundtable report about OpenAI's upcoming business analytics tools, what the leaked screenshots reveal, and what this could mean for SEO. What ChatGPT's new Search Console could do: - Let businesses claim and verify their presence in ChatGPT - Track how often a business appears in ChatGPT responses - Show impressions and clicks on links to business websites - Display daily charts showing changes in visibility - Let businesses add products, services, pricing, and other information - Keep business information accurate and up to date - Give ChatGPT a source of information directly from the business - Allow businesses to verify ownership What the tool reportedly won't show at launch: - The prompts that caused ChatGPT to mention your business - Information about individual ChatGPT users - Rankings or comparisons against competitors - Why your brand mentions or clicks are increasing or decreasing I also discuss how the tool could evolve, including whether OpenAI might eventually add more detailed reporting. Will claiming your business improve your ChatGPT rankings? Being able to describe your business directly to ChatGPT could make its answers about your products and services more accurate. But I don't expect claiming your business to dramatically increase how often ChatGPT recommends you. ChatGPT still searches the web to find information for many of its answers. Your visibility across websites, search results, reviews, and user-generated content will continue to matter. My SEO recommendations: - Target bottom-of-funnel keywords that indicate buying intent - Create landing pages for your products and services - Target pricing and cost keywords - Create pages targeting competitor alternatives - Target comparison and review keywords - Build pages around specific situations your customers want to solve - Organize these landing pages into a hub page - Link to that hub page from your website's footer - Build relevant backlinks to strengthen your website's authority - Make sure your business appears in the sources ChatGPT uses when researching customer questions I also explain how you could use your existing keyword research to describe your business inside ChatGPT's new tools, and why OpenAI might eventually use the information businesses submit to identify spam. The feature is reportedly still in development. There's no confirmed public launch date. ⭐️ OpenAI Working On ChatGPT Tools For Business For Analytics & Citations - https://www.seroundtable.com/chatgpt-tools-for-business-42476.html  ⭐️ Gary Illyes Implies Click Data Not Coming To Google Search Console AI Reporting - https://www.seroundtable.com/click-data-search-console-ai-reporting-42437.html  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Breaking News Drop 00:14 Claim Your Business 01:34 Analytics And Clicks 02:28 Screenshots And Verification 03:06 Limits And Future Features 03:39 Spam Honeypot Theory 04:56 How It Might Work 05:32 Will Visibility Increase 06:20 SEO Advice For Brands 07:07 Wrap Up And Outro The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #generativeengineoptimization #answerengineoptimization #ecommerce

E1220: Can you rank on Google without backlinks? I break down what five SEOs say about ranking a new website without building links, share my own take, and play a clip from SEO expert Kyle Roof explaining his 3-to-1 internal linking rule on this podcast. A new website can rank without backlinks, but the keywords you choose matter. If established websites have strong backlink profiles and dedicated pages targeting the same keywords, competing without links can be difficult. The better opportunity is finding high-intent keywords that other websites aren't targeting with a relevant page. I cover: - What five Reddit commenters say about ranking on Google without backlinks - Why low-competition keywords are easier to rank for, even on brand-new websites - How to find keywords that established websites rank for without specifically targeting them - Why search intent matters more than vague claims about "high-quality content" - How to use long-tail keywords and overlooked search queries to get initial rankings - How to structure supporting pages and internal links to strengthen your most important pages - Kyle Roof's 3-to-1 rule: Three internal links of similar value can equal one external backlink of that value - Why internal linking can reduce the number of backlinks you need to rank - Easy ways to build backlinks through directories, podcast appearances, and journalist requests - Why ranking for a keyword with 137,000 monthly searches doesn't necessarily bring in customers - How to turn informational traffic into something more valuable through internal links - Why targeting bottom-of-funnel keywords can generate more revenue than chasing high search volume I also discuss a business whose article ranked at the top of Google for "apples," a keyword with an estimated 137,000 monthly searches, but generated zero additional business. That example demonstrates the difference between vanity traffic and traffic that brings revenue. However, a popular informational page can still be valuable when you use internal links to direct traffic and ranking strength toward commercial pages. I also examine PDFfiller, a website generating $106 million annually with 860,000 paying customers. Its homepage ranks for keywords it isn't directly optimized for, illustrating what prolonged time building authority and backlinks can accomplish. Whether you're doing SEO for a local business, ecommerce website, SaaS company, or new website, this episode explains when you can rank without backlinks, how to use internal links to strengthen your pages, and why consistently building backlinks can make it easier to rank for more lucrative keywords. ⭐️ The Reddit thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/seogrowth/comments/1xibhdy/can_a_new_website_rank_on_google_without_building/  ⭐️ The Apples X post - https://x.com/roblabonne/status/2118072363057369325  ⭐️ Ep 1218 - How to Build Local Backlinks for Under $500 vs. $5,000 a Month - https://youtu.be/GjbkLBWmDxQ  ⭐️ Ep 1213 - Kyle Roof Ranked Gibberish #1 on Google. Then Google Deindexed 20 of His Sites. - https://youtu.be/LCrW28jb9UM  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Can You Rank Without Links 00:30 Reddit Says Long Tail Wins 01:23 Internal Linking Content Clusters 02:30 What High Quality Means 03:46 Pattern is Low Competition Queries 05:47 My Take is Build Some Links 06:17 Easy Link Building Tactics 07:24 Apples Case Study 08:33 Internal Links Boost Money Pages 10:37 Kyle Roof Internal Links Math 11:56 Wrap Up And Goodbye The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #searchengineoptimization #seo #linkbuilding #digitalmarketing

E1219: In this Microsoft Clarity tutorial, you'll learn how to find out why your SEO traffic isn't converting into leads, bookings, or sales. Josh Silverbauer, Head of Analytics at Intrepid Digital and an early contributor to Microsoft Clarity, shares his screen to show how he investigates conversion problems using Microsoft's free website analytics tool. We walk through heatmaps, session recordings, conversion funnels, and filters you can use to understand what visitors do on your website, including visitors from organic search. You'll learn: - How to use Clarity's dashboard, heatmaps, and session recordings. - How to filter for organic traffic and examine visitors who reached a specific SEO landing page but didn't convert. - How to build funnels that track steps such as landing page → booking page → form submission. - How to watch recordings of visitors who reached a particular step but didn't finish the process. - How to identify rage clicks and distinguish them from dead clicks. - How click heatmaps reveal which links, buttons, and page sections get the most attention. - How first-click and last-click data change your understanding of visitor behavior. - How to use scroll and attention heatmaps to decide which page elements to move higher. - How to compare new and returning visitors, or desktop and mobile visitors, side by side. - How to find where people abandon lead-generation forms and e-commerce checkouts. - How to investigate whether visitors are reading an article, skimming it, or leaving early. - Creating Smart Events, funnels, and saved segments for repeat analysis. - Sending custom data through Google Tag Manager to filter users by role or sign-in status. - Using Clarity alongside Google Analytics 4 to investigate conversion problems. - Prioritizing page changes by potential impact, audience size, and ease of implementation. Josh also shares an example of a shopping-cart recommendation that was displayed more prominently than the product the customer had actually selected, creating confusion at checkout. I share how Clarity showed me that visitors were spending time reading testimonials on my Compact Keywords sales page. I moved those testimonials higher on the page, and that change made a meaningful difference. The central lesson: Don't make website changes based solely on assumptions. Find where visitors struggle, form a hypothesis, and test the change. Want Josh to review your website on a future episode? We're looking at doing a live Clarity analysis of a listener's site, particularly an SEO page that gets traffic but doesn't convert. Leave a comment with the problem you want diagnosed. ⭐️ Josh on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsilverbauer/  ⭐️ Josh's website - https://joshsilverbauer.com/  ⭐️ Josh's agency (Intrepid Digital) - https://www.gointrepid.com/  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Meet Josh and Clarity 01:36 What Is Microsoft Clarity 03:37 Core Tabs Tour 06:22 Filtering and Funnels 10:39 Finding Friction Fast 17:47 Heatmaps Compare Mode 21:19 Scroll and Attention 25:26 Heatmap Refresh and AI 30:11 Intent and Reading Signals 34:36 Recordings Done Right 41:58 Funnels for Form Dropoff 47:51 Mobile vs Desktop Insights 53:55 Advanced Custom Filters 56:27 Wrap Up and Next Steps The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #microsoftclarity #conversionrateoptimization #searchengineoptimization #seo

E1218: How do you build local backlinks with a $500 monthly budget? What changes when you can spend $5,000? I cover practical local link-building tactics for both budgets, with examples for local companies. Learn how to get backlinks from partners, nonprofits, journalists, directories, and trade associations. LOCAL LINK BUILDING: UNDER $500/MONTH - Business partnerships: Partner with complementary companies. A plumber and electrician who refer customers to each other can link through partner pages, articles, or case studies. - Donate services: Offer free work to local nonprofits, schools, or charities and request a backlink acknowledging your contribution. - Community projects: A landscaping company can clean up a park, document before-and-after results, and invite residents and local press. - Sponsorships: Sponsor a youth sports team, nonprofit, or local event. Ask for a linked logo or listing on the organization's website. - Pitch journalists: Offer useful advice tied to current events. A roofer can explain storm preparation; a locksmith can share home security tips following local burglaries. - Unlinked mentions: Contact organizations you've previously helped and ask them to link existing mentions of your business. - Directories: Find relevant local directories and trade associations. Use Claude deep research to organize opportunities by price. - Social profiles: Set up accounts and publish a few posts to establish an active online presence. LOCAL LINK BUILDING: UNDER $5,000/MONTH - More sponsorships: Sponsor five to eight local nonprofits, youth sports teams, charities, or community events. - Higher-value donations: A South Florida roofer donated a free roof through Habitat for Humanity. The charity linked to his business, local news covered the story, and his Facebook post was shared over 200 times. - Chambers of commerce: Join organizations with member directories and opportunities to contribute articles or participate in events. - Trade associations: Consider more expensive memberships with relevant business listings and backlink opportunities. - Video production: Hire an editor through YTJobs.co to turn footage from jobs into daily videos targeting keywords your website already targets. - Journalist relationships: Share local journalists' work, credit them, and build familiarity before pitching your own stories. MORE SEO LESSONS IN THIS EPISODE - Why links from pages that rank in Google and receive clicks are especially valuable. - Why even nofollow backlinks can pass authority. - How sponsorships can build trust, referrals, and brand recognition. - Why you can build links gradually instead of pursuing every tactic at once. - Why bottom-of-funnel local keywords may be less competitive than you think. - How to use your target keyword in the page title, URL, H1, and opening sentence. ⭐️ Ep 1109 - How Local Businesses Build Powerful Backlinks Through Community Sponsorships - https://youtu.be/RBuVt8mqD7U  ⭐️ Ep 1155 - He Donated a Free Roof and Got Links You Can't Buy - https://youtu.be/0aZi6sdOD-M  ⭐️ Ep 936 - How to Build Local Backlinks That Actually Increase Local Rankings - https://youtu.be/Z0Iq0yG2sIk  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Budget Link Building Plan 00:07 Partner With Businesses 00:44 Nonprofit Service Donations 01:15 Foundational Social Profiles 01:27 Small Local Sponsorships 02:21 Pitch Local Journalists 02:45 Turn Mentions Into Links 03:22 Directories And Associations 03:53 Stay Consistent Weekly 04:11 Scaling Under Five Thousand 04:20 Bigger Sponsorship Portfolio 04:44 Viral Donation Case Study 05:32 Chamber And Trade Groups 05:54 Content To Win Journalists 07:15 What Makes Links Valuable 07:45 Ranking With Few Links 08:25 More Resources And Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #localseo #searchengineoptimization #linkbuilding #seo

E1217: Craig Campbell has spent 25 years testing what works in SEO, including tactics Google says shouldn't work. In this interview, he explains how SEOs manipulate Google rankings and ChatGPT answers, which older link-building methods still have uses, and why he now avoids many of those tactics on businesses he wants to keep for years. We discuss real tests, specific tools, and the difference between a tactic that gets results for a few months and a strategy that can support a business long-term. In this episode: - How a Chinese restaurant website can rank for online casino searches through canonical abuse, and why Craig won't reveal the full process. - How an expired French aquapony domain was used to convince ChatGPT and other AI tools that Craig coached an Olympic aquapony team. - Why press releases and mentions on trusted publications can influence what ChatGPT says about a business. - Craig's preferred press release services, including The News Guy, Magic PR, and Press Advantage, and how Yahoo Finance placements matter to him. - Why he uses Scrapebox, blog comments, and automated links to try to keep press releases and other pages in Google's index. - What separates a useful private blog network (PBN) from one with obvious footprints, including hosting, IP addresses, content quality, and outbound links. - How Backrefs automates lower-tier link building, and what Craig says those links can and cannot accomplish. - How Craig bought an affiliate website for £10,000, spent another £4,000 improving it, and sold it for £48,000 four months later. - The experiment where Craig published 1,200 unedited AI articles, watched traffic rise, then saw the site lose its rankings after about six months. He says replacing the content did not restore the site. - How he used an expired domain from a bankrupt hotel chain to create a new affiliate site. - Why he wouldn't use many of those tactics on a long-term business today, even when he thinks they might work. - How Craig uses interviews with football players to develop news stories, pitch journalists, and earn links to his own website. - Why a podcast can become a way to build relationships with bloggers, journalists, and future link partners. - How he's building a sports trading card business using live streams, marketplaces, and SEO rather than relying on Google alone. - Why Craig believes brand searches matter and says he wouldn't trust AI to run SEO tasks without human review. - What 25 years in SEO changed about how much Craig trusts Google's public guidance. Craig also shares why his priorities have moved from finding every possible ranking loophole to building businesses that generate revenue without depending on one search algorithm. ⭐️ Craig Campbell's website - https://craigcampbellseo.com/  ⭐️ Craig Campbell on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@CraigcampbellseoUk  ⭐️ Craig Campbell on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/craigcampbellseo  ⭐️ Craig Campbell on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@craigcampbellseo  ⭐️ Craig Campbell on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigcampbell0302  ⭐️ Craig Campbell on 𝕏 - https://x.com/craigcampbell03  ⭐️ Craig Campbell on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/craigcampbellseo03  💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/  00:00 Craig Campbell Joins 00:24 Google Lies And Tactics 02:40 Canonical Abuse 06:10 LLM Manipulation Tactics 10:27 SEO Testing Competitions 17:11 Aquapony LLM Prank 22:40 Press Releases For ChatGPT 25:55 Indexing With Spam Links 30:49 Nofollow Links Still Work 33:36 Kyle Roof Lorem Ipsum 35:25 Building Undetectable PBNs 38:09 PBN Upkeep Reality 40:22 Modern PBN Tools 41:51 White Hat Wins 44:32 Clean Niches Strategy 46:00 Programmatic Cards SEO 53:12 Marketplaces vs Search 58:36 PR Link Building Playbook 01:07:54 Automated Tiered Links 01:12:43 Affiliate Site Flip Lessons 01:17:22 Seasonal Site Flip 01:19:24 AI Slop Penalty 01:22:35 Churn and Burn Debate 01:23:04 Expired Domain Leverage 01:27:47 Diversify Traffic Sources 01:30:56 Agency Advice Reality 01:35:40 Journalist Connections 01:38:27 AI Needs Supervision 01:40:51 Google Trust Shift 01:45:45 Quiet Life Wrap Up The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/  #blackhatseo #searchengineoptimization #privateblognetwork #seo