Joel Brooker

When I started out in SEO, I lived in the world of content and links. Storytelling, on-page optimisation, building links, that was my lane. But when I joined TAL Agency I was pretty much thrown into technical delivery and realised pretty quickly how important it really is. Crawlability, indexation, structured data… it was like peeking behind the curtain of SEO and seeing how the magic really happens. Don't get me wrong, I'd always had a basic understanding of tech and the role is played, but I'd always shied away from talking about it, leaving it to the 'experts'. I started asking more technical questions in client meetings, sitting in on dev calls, and getting my hands dirty in site audits. I immersed myself in sitemaps, schema, and server logs. I taught myself how to properly use Screaming Frog and how to break down its recommendations into actionable tickets my clients could implement to drive results. Before long, I no longer identified as a content and link specialist, but a fully fledged SEO all rounder who can talk in-depth about technical issues and what they mean for results. It’s been the most rewarding shift in my career. If you’re in content or PR and curious about technical SEO: start small. Run a crawl. Check out Screaming Frog's in-depth documentation on what the issues mean. Join Women in Tech SEO and ask questions. Ask Chat GPT to break down more complex recommendations so you can fully understand what they mean. It’s not about becoming a developer; it’s about understanding how search engines see your work. It’s changed the way I work, and it might just do the same for you.

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RANK TRACKING IS INCREDIBLY SHORT SIGHTED! Heres why. When you track rankings you are only tracking a TINY fraction of what your website gets served for in search. For example - if you tracked 100 keywords and those were used to report to clients - the client COULD interpret your performance based on those keywords. But the reality is, your domain likely gets served for TENS if not HUNDREDS of thousands of keywords. I've seen people OBSESS over a handful of keywords, completely ignoring the bigger picture. I've seen clients kick off historically because a few keywords showed a slight decline whilst hundreds of new keywords were served. It's insane. Tracking less than 1% of what your domain gets served for is a fallacy. Here's what you should be doing: 👉 1. Use TOTAL SERVED QUERIES for an entire domain - this can be a great indicator of "overall trajectory" Here's how you do it: https://lnkd.in/evHkQWmN 👉 2. Creating "Segments" for your domain and tracking the performance of those (query count, click, impression) Here's how you do it: https://lnkd.in/eDjUXtxA The benefits to shifting your reporting KPIS in this direction: 1. You can see the TRUE trajectory that content is on - we know SEO takes time, some content can take months to rank, query counting allows you to demonstrate the trajectory of what you are doing 2. You can see the TRUE number of queries across position groups and demonstrate growth BEFORE the clicks come - this can make it easier to keep clients engaged - a lot of SEO is deemed to be "fast paced, rank overnight" but that's FAR from reality, good sustainable SEO takes time 3. It's MORE attractive to demonstrate query growth by the thousands than the ranking changes of 10, 20, 50, 100 keywords 4. You can use this model to BETTER UNDERSTAND the relationship between what you are doing whether it's BUILDING LINKS or rewriting content and the impact it has Once you get the process and you can explain / demonstrate it to clients it becomes MUCH easier to demonstrate your progress and maintain client buy in / enthusiasm. It's ESPECIALLY effective if you create segments for KEYWORDS WITH CONVERSION behind them - because then you can report on total query counts and what position groups they are in - when you have data behind to show they have conversion potential. #seo #seotips

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If you're running Facebook ads and want to scale more: Follow where the 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴. A lot of brand owners I speak to think they know who their ICP is. But when I look at which demographics are receiving the most spend on Facebook, it tells 𝗮 𝘄𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆. Facebook is your business partner, and it wants you to make as much money as possible with your ad dollars so that you spend more. Therefore, its algorithm is going to push spend to who it thinks is 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝘂𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗲. In one simple breakdown, you can see exactly which demographics are receiving the 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗱, and who are the 𝗺𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. This should be followed up by in-depth research to find out more (KnoCommerce surveys, customer reviews etc.), but it is great for giving you a high-level overview. And it can help inform your creative strategy moving forward. For example: → You thought your customers were 100% female, but you see males are receiving 25% of spend ↳ Dig deeper into the data, and possibly build ads around a gifting angle targeted at males → You thought that your ICP was 25-35-year-old males, but 55+ males are receiving 39% of spend ↳ Produce ads around winning angles using an older avatar instead of a younger one You can see this breakdown by: 1. Going to the 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻 section on ads manager 2. Selecting 𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 3. Sort by 𝗮𝗺𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘁 Try it your own ad account and I guarantee you'll have some interesting findings.

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16 SEO Tips Every Small Business Needs in 2025 SEO isn’t just for big brands with massive budgets. If you’re a small business owner in Australia (or anywhere in the world), the right strategy can help you compete with industry giants and actually win. Here’s the truth 90% of people searching online never scroll past page one of Google. If your business isn’t showing up there, you’re invisible to your customers. That’s why we’ve put together 16 must-know SEO tips to help your business grow this year: ✅ Focus on user intent (answer real customer questions) ✅ Optimize for mobile-first (most searches happen on phones) ✅ Improve page speed (slow sites lose sales) ✅ Create high-quality content consistently ✅ Strengthen local SEO (Google Business Profile is a must!) … and 11 more game-changing strategies. When applied the right way, these tips can: Bring more traffic to your website Build trust and credibility with customers Turn clicks into sales Swipe through, take notes, and start applying these to your business today. Which of these 16 SEO tips will you implement first? - ➕ Follow for more clarity in your SEO game. ♻️ Repost so your future self doesn’t forget this. Follow Dean Gravina for more

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Fab to join the State of Play panel last night on the future of SEO Worried about how AI might affect SEO? Key things we're thinking about right now at eight&four: 1) AI hasn't and will not 'kill' Google The actual big story going on in Search isn't LLM stealing market share, it's expansion & fragmentation of search surfaces... Datos’ Q2 report showed YouTube has tripled YoY, Pinterest search doubled, Reddit search +30%. Meanwhile, LLM prompt growth is modest (and early evidence seems to indicate the more people use the LLM's, the MORE they then use Google...!) So - don't get too focused on AI panic, instead stand back and think about how to build distributed influence across as many search surfaces as possible.. this means SEO teams need to be partnering with social teams, PR teams, paid teams - breaking down these baked in digital siloes internally (it's why we integrated a PR & comms agency into eight&four this year - to drive that integrated thinking for our clients) 2) If an agency is trying to panic you, walk away ESPECIALLY if they're trying to sell you a "GEO Ranking dashboard" 🙄. As always with any AI hype, step back, think critically, trust your professional judgement. Replace GEO theatre with clear roadmaps to assist with LLM inclusion, adapt owned content entities to support answer generation (in LLM's, or new AI features being implemented in Google - AI mode, Overview etc.). And yes, take those traditional SEO techniques (technical, schema, IA) into Reddit, YouTube, TikTok! 3) This is a huge opportunity for "SEO" Any hype cycle brings one clear benefit to marketeers - ATTENTION. Use this window of attention SEO is currently getting to make powerful changes to the way your organisation values and prioritises world class content strategy. Reclaim that consultancy seat. Authoritatively push for more effective content investment. 2026? Let's break down silo'ed digital channels, and work effectively together to drive DISCOVERABILITY for our brands. One integrated team, different specialists, working together to show up for our customers, with the right information, in the right places. Fortune favours the brave - go get it!! 🔥🔥🔥 Big thanks to Jessica R. for the invite, and fellow panellists Andrew Fox Helen Pollitt Jessica Atkinson João Filipe Pereira Mark Evans for a great chat 🙏

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Signals, Tracking and Attribution... what’s the difference? 🤔 In B2B marketing, these three concepts are often used interchangeably. But they’re not the same, and understanding the difference is quite important. 👉 Signals: the raw interactions Signals are the traces buyers leave behind. A website visit, a webinar sign-up, a LinkedIn ad click, or an email open, all of these are signals. They show intent, interest, or activity. But on their own, they don’t tell anything besides something has happened. 👉 Tracking: how we pick up on those traces Tracking is how we capture and organize those signals. With the right setup (whether in HubSpot, Dreamdata, or another stack) we can tie signals to a person, an account, or an activity. Good tracking ensures we don’t just see isolated actions but a more connected journey. This is also when signals become much more interesting and why an increasingly amount of companies are investing in tech that can help sales & marketing pick up relevant signals from ICP fit prospects to hit more great timings and close more deals. 👉 Attribution: making sense of impact (and likely the most misunderstood and complex of the three) Attribution is about assigning credit to the right channels and activities. Did the webinar influence the deal? Was it the LinkedIn ad? Or the sales call? Attribution models help you answer these questions and decide where to invest more resources. Multi-touch attribution is one of the more popular ones and can allow you to attribute more accurately across many different sources, people and activities, and over a longer period of time. So, the next time this is a topic of discussion, make sure to divide the three as they are different from one another. Happy data hunting peeps 🤺 #CertifiedMarketingExpert #b2b #b2bmarketing #b2bsales #data

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Your Google #1 ranking is becoming irrelevant. AI Overviews are stealing your clicks. Billions of searches now end with an AI answer. If it doesn't cite you, you're invisible. This has changed SEO forever. You need a new metric to compete. Introducing Collaborator.pro — PR Distribution Marketplace's new AIO feature. Track any site's visibility in Google AI Overviews. See how many keywords trigger a citation. Build links on domains AI already trusts. Here is how to activate this in 3 steps: 1. Access Your Catalog → Log into your Collaborator Pro account. → Go to the Catalog of websites. 2. Apply the Google AIO Filter → Click the gear icon for settings. → Select "Google AIO" and activate it. 3. Analyze & Select Smarter → See each site's AI Overview score. → Build links on AI-authoritative domains. Brand visibility in AI is the new #1 ranking. Stop building links in the dark. Start building for the AI era. Activate the Google AIO metric today on Collaborator(.)Pro How are you adapting your SEO? #CollaboratorProPartner

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