[00:00:00] Angela Skane: are we ranking? Are we showing up in LLMs? Are we getting links? Are we doing that? And yes, that's all extremely important.

But impressions don't pay the bills. So I realize that as SEOs sometimes I don't know that we take the responsibility for conversion.

And I do think it is part of our roles, especially in what I do, where our content team is our SEO team. They're not separate entities. 

[00:00:26] Welcome to the Simple and Smart SEO Show

[00:00:26] Crystal: 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. By bringing you insights, stories, and conversations from the SEO community and beyond.

Grab a coffee. Or your favorite tea. And let's dive into Smarter SEO for your business.

[00:00:44] Welcome And SEO Week Win

[00:00:44] Crystal: I'm here with a new Connection that I met via LinkedIn, Angela Skane. Who is here today from Network Solutions.

Angela is someone I met while we were both competing for a spot at SEO Week in New York . And [00:01:00] Angela won!

Woo And I'm so excited! It's like it's so neat to meet people who are doing awesome things. And she was so kind to come onto the podcast today to talk about what she shared.

Angela, thank you for coming on The simple and smart SEO show podcast

[00:01:14] Angela Skane: Yeah. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to get to talk about something I'm very passionate about.

[00:01:19] Why She Entered

[00:01:19] Crystal: Yeah.

When I heard about SEO Week the last year I was like oh man I probably should check that out.

As the conference schedule started to unfold, they announced the speaker competition and I thought you know what, I'm gonna shoot my shot. Like how did you hear about it What was your motivation for going for that speaker spot at SEO week?

[00:01:38] Angela Skane: I have been looking for a speaking opportunity for the last few years.

And COVID made it a little more difficult.

And, you know, being agency side sometimes it's also really hard to get that approval. And I work in-house now and so they were really excited for me, and my. Professional goals to want to speak at these conferences.

So I [00:02:00] went to a few conferences last year. I was also at Brighton SEO. I did SMX Advanced as well in Boston.

And I know Garrett and Mike King just from LinkedIn and being connected throughout the years. And mutual connections. So when I saw them post about it, I was like, I absolutely have to start my year out with this opportunity.

So I was the same way. I had an idea and it wasn't fully what I wanted. And then at the last minute I was like, wait a second. I have an even better idea.

And I put something together and I was like, I don't know what this is gonna be, but I'm gonna do it. So.

[00:02:35] Angela SEO Journey

[00:02:35] Crystal: as soon as you presented I was like oh my gosh I have to ask her to be on the podcast. Because I love it when people make connections across platforms.

But before I jump in with my follow up questions from your presentation... can you give us just a little bit of a background of your history in SEO? And like how you got to your position now? And you know, your evolution as a SEO person.

[00:02:56] Angela Skane: Yes. So I started doing SEO about 10 years [00:03:00] ago and I was doing link building.

I was a content manager for a agency called Fractl, which Kristin Tynski, one of the other contestants in our competition, she was representing Fractl. 

That was actually somebody who hired me 10 years ago. Got me my first job. Gave me my first opportunity, and helped me learn about this.

So I was creating viral content for them for about six years.

And I learned so much about like the emotions behind what makes someone take an action? What makes someone click share? What makes someone wanna write about something?

And that was something that really stuck with me.

And after being there for, I think it was there for about five or six years, I decided I wanted to learn a little bit more about on page SEO.

'cause I felt like I had a really good grasp on like the offsite side and link building.

And I wanted to learn more about, at that time, traditional SEO and and managing blogs and content [00:04:00] on a website.

And I took an opportunity with a Syracuse based agency called Terakeet, and I was there for another five years as a content manager.

And then I eventually went back to my roots for for link building.

And I was helping support their link building efforts there for a little bit.

And also spend some time learning technical SEO. So that was a really awesome opportunity for me to like round out my skills.

And then in 2024, I found New Fold Digital or network solutions and I, I got this opportunity to join their team. And be in-house.

And it was something that was really big difference for me coming from agencies for the last like nine years.

And I got the chance to join their projects, and business.

And I have been able to manage so much more.

And so many more new opportunities for me.

But I've really leaned into content strategy, [00:05:00] and the words that we're using.

Everywhere across our website, our emails, and how do we have a cohesive brand narrative that's gonna resonate with people, but also drive the results that we're we're looking to drive?

[00:05:11] What Network Solutions Does

[00:05:11] Crystal: So what does Network solutions do

[00:05:14] Angela Skane: Yes, network Solutions is actually the world's first domain registrar. So we are a domain registrar where people can come, register their domains. And start building their online identity.

We also offer all the things that you need to get started online.

So we offer website, building, hosting, email, security, everything that you need from your.

Original domain identity, you know, building that and claiming that.

To starting your presence with a website and then making sure it stays secure and professional. So we offer all those different products and solutions.

And we are, you know, the original domain registrar, like I said. So they've been in business for I think more than 20 some odd years.

[00:05:56] Crystal: Oh that's really cool.

[00:05:58] SEO Visibility Vs Conversions

[00:05:58] Crystal: okay so let's go back to Your [00:06:00] presentation that you did.

Were talking a lot about how people think that they're doing right But they're not seeing results So what are you seeing right now that tells you that SEO isn't working the way that people expect?

[00:06:14] Angela Skane: Yeah, so it's more about that as SEOs, I think often we focus on the being seen part.

So we're very focused on are we ranking. Are we showing up in LLMs? Are we getting links? Are we doing that? And yes, that's all extremely important.

But impressions don't pay the bills. So I realize that as SEOs sometimes I don't know that we take the responsibility for conversion.

And I do think it is part of our roles, especially in what I do, where our content team is, our SEO team. They're not separate entities.

They are ingrained in that.

So they need to know how to write about something in a way that is going to be picked up and is going to see, be seen and be ranked.

But they also need to write in [00:07:00] a way that's compelling to take a u, make a user take an action.

Whether that's clicking to a next article, downloading an ebook.

Giving us their email to stay informed or making a purchase. Like we need to make them feel something, in order to take an action.

And so for me, that is where I see a big opportunity for SEOs, especially as we start shifting to this world of AI search.

Search experiences are becoming so much more personalized.

It's no longer enough to talk about a topic and use the semantic terms that you need to use.

That you get from, you know, whatever tool might be giving you that or making sure that you have the same headers as your competitors, right?

I'm guilty of this. I've been doing that for for years. But with this shift, you have to figure out how can you personalize your content at scale? Speak directly to the people that you're targeting.

And speak to them in a way that motivates them to take the action that you want to want them to take.

[00:07:59] Crystal: I've [00:08:00] heard a couple SEOs over the last couple years talk about like psychology. And the role of psychology in SEO.

And so I thought oh this is really interesting.

Because it really goes back it goes back to like traditional foundational marketing concepts.

[00:08:14] Angela Skane: Yes.

[00:08:15] TikTok Psychology Lessons

[00:08:15] Crystal: one of my favorite SEOs in the world is Andy Holland. Andrew Holland out of Manchester.

And he's a great follow If you're not following him right now not just you but anybody listening.

But he talks about you know just like traditional marketing Concepts and principles and as they apply to SEO.

But I see the intersection of what you're talking about like especially when you pick it up from TikTok And so I'm wondering like what does TikTok understand about people that traditional SEO ignores?

[00:08:44] Angela Skane: Yeah, so the TikTok connection I think throws people.

And the reason I found it, I feel like is an important backstory.

But I love a good side hustle.

And so I decided that in 2026, I was going to become a TikTok shop affiliate. So if [00:09:00] you use TikTok, even on Instagram, you see this, right? Like people sharing links to an Amazon storefront. Or sharing what they bought, right?

It is a sense of being an influencer, but on TikTok, it's very much like you've gotta make it fit into the platform. Make someone stop a scroll.

And it is a different format. But the concepts that I was seeing, I was like, oh my gosh, like this is human psychology. It's not groundbreaking.

This is a great way to help SEOs, I think, see this concept.

Because I think a lot of us don't see ourselves as marketers, but we are, and some of us don't realize the psychological aspect of what we do. And I'm not technical.

I am not, you know, looking at the way JavaScript is rendering my pages or, you know, if the code is right or scraping things.

Like that is not my skillset. My skillset is the storytelling, the, the content aspect. So with TikTok, I see it broken down in like the coaching that I've [00:10:00] been involved in to try to level up on that platform and my own side hustle.

And it's all about speaking directly to your target audience. Calling them out explicitly by name. So you know, if you've got a product that's gonna help moms.

Busy moms, like if you're a mom with three kids and you can't find time to get a pedicure, this foot mask is going to give you that spa experience at home.

You've gotta be able to do that in like a few seconds. And that concept of being able to apply that to your written word.

That is exactly where the future of search is going. People are going to be typing into search, not, you know, foot masks or at home pedicures, right? They're going to be typing, I'm a busy mom. I don't have time to go to get a pedicure.

What is an easy at home solution that I can get? And if you are not talking in your content to that audience. Or explaining those benefits and appealing to that emotion that they're searching with. You're not going to be surfaced in the future of of [00:11:00] search. So

[00:11:01] TikTok Affiliate Growth

[00:11:01] Crystal: Okay So I have a quick question and this is like a little rabbit trail pivot here.

But you said you became an affiliate for TikTok Shop.

How many followers did you need to be able to do that?

[00:11:10] Angela Skane: Yes.

[00:11:10] Crystal: how long did it take to scale that side hustle so you could actually become a TikTok affiliate? I know that's a question I've always wanted answered so I'm like let's ask it

[00:11:18] Angela Skane: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So for the TikTok shop to start being able posting like shoppable links in your videos, you first need to get to a thousand followers.

And that gives you a very limited experience, so you can only post so many shop videos per week.

The full like TikTok shop experience is 5,000 followers.

And I had been trying to do that.

Pretty seriously for about like six months. I did have a good friend who was already doing this and I got some tips and tricks and things like that, and I tapped into a very specific niche to get my, my followers. I'm a huge Jonas Brothers fan. So I love the Jonas Brothers, Joe Jonas and [00:12:00] his social media antics over the last like year are always getting tons of engagement.

So I go to a lot of Jonas Brothers concerts. I just started posting very consistently. All my Jonas brothers content, so videos from concerts i'd been to. Pictures, I did some editing, made some funny jokes about Joe Jonas and just started gaining followers that way. And I would say it took me about six months to get to just above 5,000 followers for that full TikTok shop access, if you will.

So I kind of skipped the limited version.

[00:12:33] Why Content Goes Viral

[00:12:33] Crystal: why do you think some pieces of content take off instantly While others don't?

[00:12:38] Angela Skane: It's the concept of human emotion and, and tapping into that, like humans have psychological needs that subconsciously they're triggered by. Like, you don't realize when something is stopping you, that that's what it's doing, I think is. A marketer, I'm a little more sensitive to it, and I'm like, oh, I see what they're doing to me there.

But [00:13:00] other people, when you're, you're scrolling or reading, if you see yourself in that. Or you see something that is completely opposite of what you believe that's gonna stop you. So, you know, they're, they're challenging belief. They're doing something out of the norm. Something unexpected, if you will, but that's what humans crave.

And it kind of goes back to like the emotions behind what makes something viral. If you will. And I think it's, it's more than just being viral, right? Because like I said, impressions don't pay the bills. What is the outcome of that? Because being viral on TikTok, at least for the TikTok shop affiliates usually results in another action.

If their video is getting millions of views, but no one is making a purchase, what is that doing for them? It's not making them money. So you know, if you're getting millions of views. And you're getting hundreds of thousands of conversions and purchases, that's when you've done what you need to do. So for written content, it's the same thing.

Like [00:14:00] content can be shared out, content can be talked about. People can come and land a website and read what you have to say, and they might learn something. But if they're not wanting to stay engaged with your brand or they don't feel connected to your brand, or they don't take the action that you want them to take.

These, those impressions don't always translate to what you need them to.

[00:14:18] Applying TikTok To B2B SEO

[00:14:18] Crystal: do you think that TikTok energy can apply to SEO and like B2B content?

[00:14:25] Angela Skane: Yeah. I think you, you know, the way that you talk to other businesses is gonna. That's completely different than if you're talking to the average consumer, if you're talking to Gen Z, if you're talking to millennials, if you're talking to boomers, right? Like all of that plays a role in how you structure your content.

And it comes down to knowing who your target audience is. And going back to something I had said.

Is that, sometimes as SEOs, I'm guilty of this, is that I'm writing to rank.

And I'm not necessarily thinking about " who is the person on the other side of the screen that's reading this?"

Because [00:15:00] I'm reporting on whether or not I'm ranking on page one, whether we're getting those clicks, like what's going on.

And so that sometimes gets missed for me, and I'm guilty of this.

So I think that knowing your target audience, like that is what TikTok Energy is like. These creators who are making, some of them are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in commissions. And it's wild.

Like there's people who've become millionaires off of this platform.

And I think that this conversation isn't about that success or that you need to get on TikTok or sell your product on TikTok, I wanna remove that because it's the formula that these people are following.

The people who are making consistent money, they're consistent for a reason.

And it's because they understand how to speak to the people who will benefit from a product that they are promoting.

And they usually only have like a handful of products, so they're only talking about three to five products on their page. They might sprinkle a couple of things in there for fun to test things out, but really the top performers who [00:16:00] are making consistent sales are using the same products and they know how to market that product.

And so with written content, it's the same thing. Like, yes, we need to use the words that we need to, to semantically, you know, tell the robots what we're talking about and show them they, they know what to expect.

But we also need to do it in the right way for our target audience.

I rather get half the views and double the conversions than get, you know, double the views and you know, less than a 1% conversion. There's a big difference there.

[00:16:33] Personalized Search Future

[00:16:33] Crystal: I'm so glad to hear that because as a Shopify seller. I've I realize I don't just sell like wood numbers and letters like I make stuff like this I cut out and I have an example like I make keepsake type stuff for athletes you know so that's my business and that's what I created But I realized that I was just like I just did I just described my business as I make X Y and Z

But really what I do is my [00:17:00] business is about celebrating milestone moments do that in a variety of ways Sometimes I do it with letters sometimes I do it with photo props Sometimes I do it with number collages.

But that's what I want to be searched for.

When people are searching for: how do I celebrate this milestone moment of ... dot dot you know that's where I want to show up.

I guess my question: do you think a platform like TikTok training AI systems into what good content looks like?

[00:17:23] Angela Skane: I mean, I think all these algorithms are like, whether it's Google, whether it's TikTok, whether it's Instagram. And the easiest way to see it is that like social media is just ahead of this, I think.

On our social media feeds, you're seeing a feed that is unique to you and your interests. What has it learned about you and your habits?

I know it happens to me all the time.

But you talk about something, your phone is in the room, and then within a few hours you're scrolling, you're doing something, and something so niche is, is showing up.

Like, oh, what was it a, a few weeks ago I was joking around with friends with, do you remember [00:18:00] the large mouth bass?

Like Billy, the large mouth bass, the singing fish that was on like a little, platform and it, that's extremely niche.

And now it's gonna show up again because my phone is here in the room. But I started getting ads for the singing fish and Billy, the large mouth bass or whatever his name was. And like it's learning and hearing and listening.

And the future of search in the world that we know it like not on social media, which I also think it's a mistake not to see social media as a search platform. Because it absolutely is. Most people start on social media.

And then they're learning something, and then they need to go to Google to finish or carry on with that.

So. With Google, the way that I am predicting that this algorithm is going to be going is that our search experience is going to be that customized way.

So like no longer will two people be able to search the same query and see the same results.

You are going to see results that are so hyper-specific to you, what you've browsed, what you've clicked, what [00:19:00] you've done in other places.

Whatever it can learn about you and apply it absolutely is, and I mean, we already know this.

Like one of the first rules in SEO is when you do a search for keyword, you go to incognito and you open up your browser and, and that's how you're looking.

You turn your location off.

All of those things. Because Google's already learning and applying that aspect into your, your searches.

So I think that search is becoming. It is becoming personalized. It is personalized and the rise of LLMs is just amplifying that.

Because now people are giving their context. People aren't just going in and typing. You know, for me, I'm thinking about website builders. They're not typing in like best website builder.

They're typing in. I am a small business owner. I'm not very good with technology. I do not know how to code. I'm looking for a website builder that's going to be super easy for me to use. Do you have any recommendations? So. Now, it's no longer about just having an article about like [00:20:00] Best Website Builder.

It's have you marketed through your content that your product or your service is the right fit? Explicitly for people who don't know how to code for small business owners? That it's easy. Can you highlight that? So like that is that personalization coming into play and understanding your audience, their problems and what motivates them.

Applying that in your written word.

[00:20:23] Alex: In the next part of this conversation, we’re going to take this out of theory and into a practical content framework — including psychological levers, emotional data points, and how to make your blog posts, product pages, and landing pages actually connect with the humans reading them.

See you next time for part 2!