Voices of Search // A Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Podcast

Latest Episodes:

The most overrated ecommerce SEO metric today Aug 04, 2026

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Enterprise retailers index only 40-50% of their product pages. Joe Doran, Chief Product Officer at Botify, breaks down why indexation—not content quality or page speed—remains the most overlooked lever for organic revenue in commerce. He covers the compounding cost of JavaScript-heavy PDPs on crawl budget allocation, why LLM confirmation crawls fail to verify unrendered reviews and pricing data, and how serving non-human traffic with the same infrastructure investment as human traffic determines visibility across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google Shopping.

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How AI Search Is Reshaping Retail Media and Discovery Aug 03, 2026

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Enterprise retailers index only 40-50% of their product pages. Joe Doran, Chief Product Officer at Botify, analyzes AI search readiness across retail sites where 9 of 10 products contain three to seven feed errors or missing fields. The conversation covers crawl efficiency and rendering gaps that leave LLM bots seeing just 30-40% of JavaScript-dependent content, structured feed optimization for the Agentic Commerce Protocol and Universal Commerce Protocol, and a shift toward holistic, purchase-anchored attribution over session-based models.

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Is the quality of traffic different today for local businesses? Jul 29, 2026

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Local pack ads grew from 1% to 22% of tracked searches. Joy Hawkins, owner and president of Sterling Sky, brings nearly two decades studying local results and over 1,000 local SEO tests to explain why traffic and lead quality no longer move together. The conversation covers redefining lead qualification through call tracking and duration thresholds, the growing penalty risk of scaled content and link building for small businesses, and building authority through reviews, awards, and social signals rather than links. Hawkins also makes the data-backed case for YouTube over LLM optimization and the physical location requirements behind local pack visibility.

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What data should businesses really be showing on their website? Jul 28, 2026

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Local pack ads jumped from 1% to 22% of tracked searches. Joy Hawkins, owner and president of Sterling Sky, brings nearly two decades of local search expertise and over 1,000 documented ranking tests to explain what actually moves the needle as AI reshapes local visibility. The conversation covers non-link authority signals—social UGC, active YouTube channels, Google reviews, and industry awards—that now feed AI-powered local packs, the escalating penalty risk from scaled content and link building following recent core updates, and lead qualification frameworks built on call tracking, response-time automation, and integrated texting to separate real revenue from vanity metrics.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How Local SEO is Evolving in AI Discovery Jul 27, 2026

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Local pack ads grew from 1% to 22% of tracked searches. Joy Hawkins, owner and president of Sterling Sky, has led over 1,000 local SEO tests across nearly two decades to determine which ranking factors actually drive results for local businesses. This conversation covers why algorithmic domain-wide penalties are now hitting small businesses that scale AI-generated location and model pages, how authority signals for local have shifted toward Google reviews, active social presence, indexed Facebook groups, and third-party awards rather than link building, and why call tracking with recorded calls and integrated texting outperforms traffic metrics for measuring genuine lead quality.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The one thing companies should focus on over the next 12 months Jul 23, 2026

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Most AI initiatives stall in experimentation mode. Dr. Fern Halper, VP and Senior Research Director for Advanced Analytics at TDWI and founder of the AI Foundations Group, explains why companies remain unprepared for meaningful AI adoption. The conversation examines the foundational systems required to move beyond isolated experiments, the difference between testing for failure and building for scale, and how to convert AI pilots into measurable business value over the next 12 months.

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What worries you most about AI adoption right now? Jul 22, 2026

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Most enterprises remain stuck in AI experimentation mode. Dr. Fern Halper, VP and Senior Research Director for Advanced Analytics at TDWI and founder of the AI Foundations Group, explains why companies still aren't ready for scaled AI adoption. She outlines the foundational data and governance systems required to move beyond isolated pilots, the shift from experimentation to operational value, and a 12-month prioritization framework for turning AI experiments into measurable business impact.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The biggest misconception executives have about AI readiness Jul 21, 2026

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Most companies mistake buying AI tools for AI readiness. Dr. Fern Halper, VP and Senior Research Director for Advanced Analytics at TDWI and founder of the AI Foundations Group, explains why AI adoption fails at scale without the right systematic foundations. The conversation covers the organizational systems missing from most AI initiatives, the distinction between deploying tools and building AI as a repeatable capability, and why original thought grows more valuable as AI-generated content saturates the market.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why Many Companies still aren’t Ready for AI Adoption Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Most AI initiatives stall in experimentation mode. Dr. Fern Halper, VP and Senior Research Director for Advanced Analytics at TDWI and founder of the AI Foundations Group, explains why organizations struggle to convert AI pilots into measurable business value. The conversation covers the foundational systems required to operationalize AI beyond experimentation, the organizational readiness gaps that undermine adoption, and how to prioritize a single high-impact focus over the next 12 months to move from testing to results.

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Will storytelling become more important or less important over the next five years? Jul 18, 2026

Show notes

AI content has collapsed the distance between bad and passable. David Ebner, President and founder of Content Workshop and Chatter AI, brings 13 years of enterprise content experience and a classically trained storytelling background to explain why differentiation now determines who wins. The conversation covers a brand story framework that positions the audience as hero rather than the founder, strategic placement of human creativity across the content workflow instead of relegating it to a final QA gate, and a content ideation model that surfaces real-time, relevance-driven topics to build audience trust—particularly in high-scrutiny YMYL verticals like cybersecurity.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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