What is the #1 biggest challenge SEOs face in 2023?
“Projecting what Google is gonna do next is gonna be the biggest challenge. I feel like they’ve been tweaking the algorithm every single week. It’s been great for Reforge because we produce high quality content, but a lot of SEO strategies are struggling because of all the tricks and hacks they’ve done in the past aren’t as fruitful as they should be.”
Ryan McReady is currently working as a managing editor in Reforge – a career development platform for professionals in the tech industry. Ryan kickstarted his journey in digital marketing by building his own tech review site a year out of college. While participating in the initial development of a software development company Venngage, Ryan adapted the right skills and attitude to excel in the fast-paced world of SEO and content marketing. Today, Ryan is a reputable practitioner in the digital marketing landscape.
JOIN OUR HOST RUSS MACUMBER IN CONVERSATION WITH RYAN MCREADY ON UTILIZING THE RIGHT SKILLS AND APPROACHES TO SUCCEED IN DIGITAL MARKETING.
With a focus on writing quality content and applying thought leadership skills to generate successful results, Russ Macumber chats with Ryan about developing hands-on content and SEO approaches that would be especially useful in fast-paced environments.
“Being happy jumping into the unknown and just figuring out things as you go. It’s a whole new growth kind of path. Figuring out how things work, fixing them, and building processes, and then doing it again in another whole sector.” – Ryan McReady, on applying the right framework when working in a startup environment.
The conversation covers:
- AI generated content vs human generated content (3:23)
- Ryan’s first marketing gig (4:44)
- Starting out a career after graduation (7:13)
- Experience working as a new starter in a startup company (7:45)
- Responsibilities at Venngage (9:33)
- Tips on recruiting the right candidate for your company (10:06)
- Building relationships with people in the community (10:49)
- Developing personal branding as a professional (11:55)
- The role model that inspired Ryan in content writing and SEO (13:02)
- The pivotal moment that led Ryan to content writing (13:20)
- Acquiring the right leadership skills (14:49)
- Coming up with original content (16:52)
- AI, Voice Search, and Bots (18:03)
- Experimenting with AI (18:39)
- The initial SEO situations at Reforge (19:26)
- The first SEO strategy implementation (21:15)
- The content production and planning process (22:20)
- An overview of Reforge (23:15)
- How to learn from a program framework (24:32)
- Experimenting with high quality content production (27:23)
- Building a hybrid content strategy (30:22)
- Optimizing less exciting links to generate results (31:26)
- The process of launching a new site (32:17)
Quickfire Vox Pop Q&A
Which previous Google algorithm change still keeps you up at night?
Everything that has happened in the last months. It’s been very chaotic!
Gun to your head… which do you prefer: content or links?
Content, because great content drives links.
What’s your favourite non-obvious software tool that you use everyday for research or execution?
A lot of my ideas came from just seeing something weird happened on the internet.
What’s the most effective link-building technique you have used?
Write great content.
Is the skyscraper technique still relevant today?
It’s been outdated for five years now!
What do you love most about SEO?
Love the real practitioners in the industry. SEO helps build something new to fix what wasn’t working by identifying new techniques.
How do you apply SEO principles to your daily life?
Being very okay with ambiguity for a while. You gotta invest for a while before you see massive results.
WFH life or Office life or Hybrid life?
I’ve been working remotely for 9-10 years now. But I do wish we had an office to engage with other co-workers.
SEMrush or Ahrefs?
Ahrefs.
Agency or In-house or Combo?
Combo is good when you have an internal team that can manage the agency. Agencies can be great superpowers because they can do the heavy lifting of researching, auditing, building out dashboards, and everything that hasn’t been prioritized because you have 100 other things to do.
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