[00:00:00] Introduction: Breaking Down Silos

[00:00:00] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, we don't have to be concerned with the monthly search volume. Like we'll still pull it to give that insight.

But we tell a lot of our junior people, like that's the last thing you pull.

We do intent research first.

We do like our social insights, our buzz about feeds that I talked about earlier. 

And then we'll pull monthly search volume once we already know what pages we're gonna create.

Just to make sure that there is actually some searches there or some intent there.

But yeah, I wouldn't get lost behind monthly search volumes anymore. I'd be focusing on the actual solutions.

[00:00:30] Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO Show

[00:00:30] Crystal Waddell: Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast.

I'm your host, Crystal Waddell, here to bridge the gap between SEO strategy and real world business success.

So grab a coffee or your favorite tea. and let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business.

[00:00:43] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, so like it definitely. Really shouldn't have ever been the case that these silos were in place. I think the main issue is, or one of the bigger, biggest issues.

[00:00:54] The Problem with Separate Meetings

[00:00:54] Ashley (Deviation): We all had separate meetings. And those separate meetings were taking place with the CMO.

The [00:01:00] marketing director., Whatever the senior role is. Where he would have a meeting with the search team. And the search team would focus on a specific set of KPIs or metrics or goals and objectives.

Then he'd have the same chat with the social team who would talk about completely different KPIs and metrics. And then the same chat with a brand team who is again, talking about completely different metrics.

[00:01:21] Unified Metrics for Digital Teams

[00:01:21] Ashley (Deviation): So the first thing in breaking down those silos is instead of your digital team having three sets of different metrics.

Tie their metrics together. Where they can all sort of like interlude and support each other.

If it's the search team and the brand team working together, ensure that the search team has a goal or a KPI of growing brand search.

The same can apply to social search discovery and, and content discovery on social media.

That's the starting point for all brands I think.

[00:01:49] KPIs and Metrics: Where to Start

[00:01:49] Crystal: So let's talk about some of those KPIs and metrics.

Where is the most common place that they overlap? That would be a good place to start?

[00:01:56] Brand Search: The Key to Success

[00:01:56] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, so it's definitely, especially going into 2026 and [00:02:00] beyond, it's definitely the brand search conversation.

I think that as people chat with a chat, GPT, a perplexity. insert name of competitor ai, AI platform here.

They are then going to come back to a Google, at least for the foreseeable future. To take a brand search.

So if the brand team and the PR team and the traditional SEO team can rally behind this idea of, okay, we need to grow the amount of people searching for our brand.

That's a really strong narrative that can connect to digital team.

So that's the first. The second is then, I can't remember the exact phrase, but somebody came up with it Brighton, SEO, and I really liked it.

But it's like, brand plus awareness terms, I think is how they worded it.

And it's your brand plus the conversation you want to own or the topic that's important to you.

So, for example, Sephora Plus like, I don't know mascara.

Sephora plus mascara. 

[00:02:58] Creating Demand Through Social Content

[00:02:58] Ashley (Deviation): If we've created a load of [00:03:00] social media content around the conversation of mascara, for example.

We would then expect to see more people searching for brand plus keyword brand plus key pillar.

So that allows the social team to become involved as well.

Where they're creating the demand and driving demand for these specific products through their social content.

We then support that with search content in terms of PLPs, PDPs and all that good stuff.

And brand making sure that when it's relevant and there is a black beauty is beauty type campaign.

That is the the halo if you like, that combines everything together.

So yeah, for me, brand search is probably the biggest and easiest win. Because I can see how there's all that cross synergy there. Yeah, that's, that's how I would look at it to start off with.

I think that's the easiest win.

[00:03:47] Synonymous Branding: A Personal Story

[00:03:47] Crystal: I'm smiling because what I teach my small group, and I'm creating a course about this as well.

What do you wanna be synonymous with? And so that brand plus awareness to me is better [00:04:00] verbiage.

For myself, I wanted to be synonymous with Senior night.

Because in the States every sports season, People will have a senior night for their graduating athletes.

So it happens in high school it happens in college. And for me it happens three times a year.

So whereas most people make a lot of money black Friday cyber Monday my Christmas season is every end of the fall season, Winter season, and graduation season.

So it's a nice business to be in because I've got some great buying cycles.

But I wanted to be synonymous with Senior night gifts And so I said Hey when somebody searched for senior night gifts I want them to think collage and wood or at least recognize our products.

[00:04:39] Ashley (Deviation): Yes.

[00:04:39] Crystal: I really feel like I created that category.

Like I started this about four years ago. And now I even have three impersonating companies, Chinese owned impersonating companies that

[00:04:50] Ashley (Deviation): Oh.

[00:04:51] Crystal: ads against my name. And senior night gifts. And they actually use my husband holding the products as their advertising creative.

[00:05:00] And I'm just like, what?

And I called a lawyer, I can't do anything about it because they're in a different country.

But it's interesting and it's actually flattering. Hey I was onto something I created something here!

Your company name, plus Brand awareness of what you want to be known for. Is so

[00:05:15] Ashley (Deviation): Literally.

[00:05:16] Crystal: almost like in in the best of situations you can create your own category. To where people are searching that category. But only looking for you because you're like a category of one. Until other people figure it out.

[00:05:29] Ashley (Deviation): So yeah, exactly that. It's that idea of. Every brand would love to be able to create their own category that they own.

And, and are basically synonymous with. And there is no competition.

The example that I used at Brighton, SEO, both UK and us, was Coca-Cola.

So Coca-Cola are, are the go-to. They're the goats when it comes to soft drinks.

And I used an analogy in my deck where half the people, as soon as you say that will be thinking, oh, I could quite like a Coke. And then the other half will be thinking of the Challenger brand that has since [00:06:00] emerged.

Which is Pepsi. And they'll be thinking, no, actually I want, I want my Pepsi.

I want to go and get a Pepsi. 

[00:06:05] Developing Brand Preference

[00:06:05] Ashley (Deviation): We basically summarize that as developing preference.

The goal now for brands needs to become the preferred option within the conversation. So if that's creating a conversation of one, then obviously you are gonna be the preference in that conversation.

But when it is a little bit more competitive, and there are competitors there.

You need to be basically thinking how you can connect, search, brand, and social so that you can facilitate that.

Becoming the preference, becoming the preferred option. Where people will literally search you out over the competitors.

And if you can facilitate that, that's gonna lead to success in this search everywhere future.

[00:06:44] The Role of Paid Media

[00:06:44] Crystal: I would say the place that I've been most deficient in my learning and my teaching is paid media.

And advertisements.

And one one way I'm thinking about solving this particular problem that I have is running ads against my name that say official site or something that really [00:07:00] inspires people to look again wait a second who am I actually buying from here.

But where does paid media fit into this mix of search everywhere?

[00:07:08] Ashley (Deviation): So for us specifically with deviation, we are all about organic discovery. 

But with the paid elements.

What we have been able to do is we've been able to provide some really strong insights on. The conversations where the brand are really popular organically.

And if that means that they're really popular organically, we can either decide to double down on paid because it means that it's another opportunity to own the conversation and have presence. And develop that preference in the space.

We can say, well actually we own this conversation because of the efforts we're doing from brand and from social search and from traditional SEO.

Take that budget and reinvest it elsewhere, move it to somewhere where we're not as preferred over a competitor. So that we can like facilitate that and grow that there.

Another way that we are sort of leveraging paid is when we work with [00:08:00] content creators organically. 

We're essentially testing content assets that could become paid assets.

And we're doing it for free. So while we're. Basically working with a content creator on TikTok, for example.

We will always ask them to approve Spark Ads authorization to the content that we create.

And make that part of the initial contract when we agree deals with content creators.

If a piece of content by them bangs. Or does really well.

We can then say to the brand, this is doing really well organically. You should put some paid behind this, and you should amplify it even further with paid.

So while we are not directly thinking about the role of PPC or paid social at the strategy level.

Mainly because there's people that are way smarter than me that can think about that, because I'm only a little SEO, bless me.

But we will contribute to their strategies and say, look, we are noticing this.

We think it will help you lean on this. And again, for deviation side, I'm sure that that might [00:09:00] mature and change over the years.

And we may decide to actually invest in a paid team.

But for the top level now, I would say the way that paid plays a role with In Search Everywhere is to be the amplification as needed and to get you over the line when your organic isn't. 

But you don't want ever to make paid the be all and end all. So that's where your organic can contribute to the Search Everywhere strategy as well.

[00:09:24] Crystal: I've got another fun little anecdote for you like with something like that.

I also make a birthday Collage gifts so say a person has an 80th birthday.

They'll send me pictures from 80 years of memories, right?

And I'll make that. And on TikTok that is my most viral performing content.

And it took me probably over a year to realize: Wait a second.

That even on my homepage? Is that even findable on my website? And I was like oh my gosh! Like I still have to build out PDPs.

And I think those are product description pages. Is that what [00:10:00] that stands for?

[00:10:00] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, product description pages for the specific product products. And then, top tip. 

Flesh out your PLPs as well.

Which are your product listing pages.

Your collection pages on Shopify again, around that intent that you want to earn. So we work with a supplements brand.

They want to help lads get stronger. Lads get bigger.

So they'll create a intent rich PLP, on muscle growth, for example. They then may create a further nuanced intent rich PLP.

On muscle growth for older men who have naturally less testosterone. So then we're really starting to address the intent issues rather than just having an optimized PDP.

Because as people start to search through chat GPT and ai, LLM. 

They're gonna be asking and prompting in that way. They're gonna be saying, i'm not, but I'm just gonna use this as an example.

I am a 40 plus year old male. Starting to experience deteriorating testosterone levels.

Still want to go to the gym, [00:11:00] still have ambitions to have muscle growth.

What supplementation should I basic be taking?

And if we've optimized an intent rich PLP for that, it's our results that are gonna be likely.

If we achieve the brand mentions. If we achieve the preference and do all the stuff away from site, offsite signals.

Then that are gonna be cited. And then used as part of the answers for chat GPT and other ais.

So yeah, top tip: make sure you've got intent rich PLPs around birthday celebrations or celebrations for older birthdays.

[00:11:28] Optimizing for Long-Tail Keywords

[00:11:28] Crystal: that's where SEOs are so rich in value for their teams, and their companies.

Because you start to realize that people don't search in generalities.

Like we think in generalities like I might think milestone birthdays.

Like somebody might be searching for a milestone birthday but it's a lot different for somebody to be searching for this keepsake for their 1-year-old.

Than this celebration of life for this 80-year-old.

And they're using different long tail And now even like you said these deep [00:12:00] conversational Search queries.

It's so different but it's also so much easier to capture that perfect client.

Because if you know what you provide to them you can make it very easy for them to find you. And so I feel like that's super exciting right now in search.

[00:12:15] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, absolutely. And it, that's not always been the case. I think for a long time, especially in say my early years, like I've been in SEO for decades.

But even when I got into SEO in 2018, up till probably 2020. 

There was a, there was a focus there on short tail keywords. Make sure you go after the terms that have the most search volume.

And it was very, I don't want to say naive, but like, narrow minded is definitely the phrase.

When actually it's okay reaching a thousand people a month, but if only two of them are gonna ever move through and convert. 

Is it actually worth the time of going after that really competitive, short tail query.

Instead, you might actually be better to create these long tail intent rich, [00:13:00] intent focused PLPs that only have 30 searches a month, for example.

But out of that 30, they might have 15 people convert. Because it's exactly what they're looking for.

And that's been a massive shift for me over these last couple of years, is.

Yeah, we don't have to be concerned with the monthly search volume. Like we'll still pull it to give that insight.

But we tell a lot of our junior people, like that's the last thing you pull.

We do intent research first.

We do like our social insights, our buzz about feeds that I talked about earlier. 

And then we'll pull monthly search volume once we already know what pages we're gonna create.

Just to make sure that there is actually some searches there or some intent there.

But yeah, I wouldn't get lost behind monthly search volumes anymore. I'd be focusing on the actual solutions.

[00:13:45] Crystal: Oh that is so great I love that.

Okay so we have just a little bit of time left So I have two last things that I wanted to get your thoughts on.

The first was that spider graph visualization 

[00:13:56] Graph Visualization for Strategy

[00:13:56] Crystal: that you created.

Can you tell us a little bit more [00:14:00] about that? I was like oh, this is a helpful insight into how you're performing and where the gaps are.

Did I read into that right? Or can you just explain a little bit more?

[00:14:07] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, so the spider graph visual is basically, I wanted to visualize other tools more effectively. Or more, more easily.

So exploding topics, Google Trends, glimpse. Which exists on top of Google Trends. They will give you a breakdown called the channel breakdown.

Now, the channel breakdown exists as there's an icon of the platform here.

Then there is a line here, and depending on how full that line is, depends on how over-indexed you are on that platform. For whatever you have searched. So whether that's your brand term or a pillar topic that you want to own.

So it was a cool visual, really cool data.

But. It didn't allow you to effectively compare the, the landscape in a one look.

You was, you was essentially looking down these weird lands that, that I didn't like.

So the spider graph actually gives you a view of the full [00:15:00] conversation in a much more easily to digest, easier to digest format where we will do the same channel breakdown.

But we will plan that on a spider graph where it will plot an area. And the idea behind it is you will get to see how your brand, your competitors, or your conversation looks across the search universe.

So if something is overindexing on TikTok, for example.

The line will obviously naturally gravitate massively towards TikTok. And then if there's hardly any mentions or hardly any conversation taking place on x, for example, the line will then come back in and create this nice area graph that I'm sure you can, through the world of editing, put on top of this screen to show people.

But that's that's essentially the goal there is to take the channel breakdown, which exists on these platforms already.

And make it a more effective, more digestible experience for strategists.

And what we can also do is we can overlay topics on top of each other. And [00:16:00] brands and therefore competitors.

So if we have somebody like a. Adidas, for example.

We can say to Adidas, this is your share of the conversation taking place on social search.

Or the, the search universe. And here is Nike. Here is Puma, here is Reebok. And that then opens the eyes of brands where they can see their tiny island or their massive island in.

Comparison to their competitors. That's been a massive eye opener for brands where they thought they were doing really well.

But then they see their competitors and go, well, actually we need to be doing a lot more. Or you can do it at the conversational level with other conversations.

To start to understand where the opportunity is, where the best opportunity is,.

So that if you've decided.

Our next play is going to be TikTok, for example, as a channel. Then we can show you, well, based on your analysis to go for TikTok. These are the best conversations taking place for you on TikTok right now.

Here's where you should go to show up. So yeah. The [00:17:00] idea with it is the closer you are to the edge of the circle, the more indexed you are on that conversation, the more that conversation is taking place.

The smaller or the closer to the center of the circle, the less present you are. And you need to be doing more to grow that, to grow that share. So that's a quick breakdown.

We use them to decide entire strategies, essentially. We'll create, like for brand, we'll create one for the brand. We'll overlay all the competitors to show them the state of their search universe.

And then we will also create 'em for all the relevant conversations so that they can tell us. Where our strategy focus should be.

[00:17:36] Crystal: Ashley that is like, genius!

[00:17:39] Ashley (Deviation): It's, it is good. We're not finished with it. We wanna do a lot more with it. There's a lot we want to start, and we have started to incorporate platform Native data from the likes of TikTok creator Search Insights.

Pinterest.

Obviously Reddit trends has started to develop as well. So we'll all, we'll add all of those to the analysis.

And then the goal will be to create [00:18:00] an AI that can essentially take all of the learnings, take all of the insights.

And then aggregate that into a new spider graph visual that'll be exclusively ours, really.

[00:18:09] Crystal: one of the things that excites me so much about this is that I believe that conversational search and LLMs operate in this 3D model.

And the 3D model is how think some creative brains think.

So if it's not linear, it's okay. Because we understand that people can bounce around different places.

The other thing it reminds me of is like Photoshop layers.

Or like the old school projectors that have the transparencies. One of the biggest challenges is just understanding how all of this data correlates to one another.

And so to be able to put that on top of previous data to see where like you said the gaps are where the coverage is where the intersections are.

To have a holistic picture that is data rich. In order to make the best decisions. I'm like, oh my gosh Ashley's created it! So. Well done.

[00:18:59] Ashley (Deviation): Thank you. [00:19:00] Yeah, it's, that's definitely been the big goal with the agency is it would've been very easy for us to create. Like a typical social agency.

Where you then rely on having the best strategists, who've got the most experience and can just say, we believe. That this idea will work because it worked for X, Y, and Z.

Or something similar worked for this brand, this brand, and this brand.

Instead, what we're trying to do is flip that on its head and say, well, what does the data actually tell us?

Where does the data tell us to go?

Rather than just picking ideas out the sky and hoping one of them gets over.

So yeah, that's, that's definitely been at the core of what we're trying to build.

[00:19:37] Rapid Fire Questions

[00:19:37] Crystal: Okay. That's awesome. The Very last thing I have is just like a few rapid fire questions.

[00:19:42] Ashley (Deviation): Okay.

[00:19:42] Crystal: I'll shoot em off and then you let me know what you think

[00:19:45] Ashley (Deviation): Yeah, yeah. No worries. That's fine.

[00:19:47] Crystal: number one S-E-O-G-E-O-I-D-C or IDK?

[00:19:53] Ashley (Deviation): Everywhere.

No search everywhere. No one else is allowed to use it though 'cause I've got the trademark. But yeah, search everywhere.

[00:19:58] Crystal: I used to call it Search [00:20:00] Everywhere optimization which is so funny. But I won't anymore cause I won't violate that copyright.

Okay so second question: SEO is dying Yes or no?

[00:20:07] Ashley (Deviation): SEO is evolving.

[00:20:08] Crystal: Gemini Perplexity Claude Chat GPT or something else?

[00:20:13] Ashley (Deviation): Maybe not Gemini, but Google.

[00:20:16] Crystal: Best use case for AI in SEO?

[00:20:19] Ashley (Deviation): Ooh. Streamlining processes,

[00:20:21] Crystal: agents: Hype or breakthrough?

[00:20:24] Ashley (Deviation): Breakthrough. Caveat that I could talk about that at the end. Yeah. Breakthrough. Yeah.

[00:20:28] Crystal: Google AI overviews good bad or ugly

[00:20:31] Ashley (Deviation): I'm starting to go towards good.

[00:20:33] Crystal: Jobs in SEO AI is most likely to take in 2026?

[00:20:37] Ashley (Deviation): Pains me to say, but the, the most junior roles in agency and brands, I think. I would be very scared if I was junior.

[00:20:46] Crystal: Jobs least likely to be taken?

[00:20:47] Ashley (Deviation): Strategists, anybody involved in strategy.

[00:20:50] Crystal: And then best AI powered app for SEO that no one knows about?

[00:20:54] Ashley (Deviation): Buzzabout AI.

[00:20:56] Crystal: What was that?

[00:20:56] Ashley (Deviation): Buzz about, so BU double Z, about [00:21:00] ai. That's the whole accent killing me.

But yeah, buzz about AI is essentially, it allows you to go and analyze and investigate conversations that are taking place on reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram.

I'm pretty sure that X is on there. And LinkedIn as well for the B2B folks.

And then you can use that as a massive like audience insight tool to decide where your strategy is gonna go. It is our secret weapon. But I don't gate keep stuff, so yeah, I don't gate keep things, so it's fine.

[00:21:29] Crystal: real quickly what was your comment about AI agents: breakthrough or hype?

[00:21:33] Ashley (Deviation): So at the moment. They are hype.

Because I don't actually think that we have all of the tech needed to make sure that those tools are efficient or as effective as they need to be.

And I think that we have to be really careful if you are the person that decides which tools to buy at brand or agency.

There is gonna be a load of like chat, GPT based or NAN based wrapper businesses, wrapper tools that set up.

That promise to be this AI [00:22:00] agent for SEO agencies. That probably aren't gonna last that long and are probably hype. However.

The likes of SEMrush developing an MCP, Ahrefs doing the same. And all of these established tools that have been around for a long time.

Then going and generating an AI agent, that's where it's breakthrough, I think. The ability to brief a SEMrush agent in a Slack channel to go and do keyword research for me on a brand or keyword research for a query is very, very attractive to me.

So that's where I think it'll be a breakthrough. Just be aware of the hype side of the conversation as well.

'cause there's definitely elements of it that are hype.

[00:22:38] Conclusion and Contact Information

[00:22:38] Crystal: Awesome. Ashley thank you so much for being here today.

If there's somebody's listening and you could help them identify themselves as a potential partner to work with you.

Who is that business owner and how can they reach you

[00:22:51] Ashley (Deviation): So the reaching us is really easy.

Just head to we are deviation co uk.

In terms of the brands that we are looking to work with, it's definitely. [00:23:00] At the moment, more B2C than B2B.

It would've to be the right B2B business, SaaS tools would probably be fit within that.

And then the industries are fashion, fitness, finance, FMCG, and because it had to start with an f, travel.

So sorry for swearing, but it had to start with an F so that I can remember it.

[00:23:19] Crystal: Okay thank you so much for joining me today.

This was so fun I knew it was gonna be fun.

I wish we had three more hours cause I know that I could learn so much from you.

But I'll definitely drop all those links in the show notes.

And thank you so much for joining me today on the Simple and smart SEO show podcast

[00:23:36] Ashley (Deviation): No, worries at all.

I really appreciate the time and it was awesome to meet you in person in San Diego too.

[00:23:40] Crystal: see you again next year

[00:23:41] Ashley (Deviation): Absolutely. Absolutely. 

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