Britney Muller Answers Your SEO Questions

Britney is the former Senior SEO Scientist at Moz, highlighting it was a “goofy path” finding her way to this position. She says she was unable to find a job after college, and always dreamed of being a ‘“snowboard bum”, so her father drove her to Colorado where she fell in love with Breckenridge ski resort and where she wound up being introduced to SEO through a job down there. “I could not stop thinking about the fact you can figure out how many times a month people have searched for a particular thing,” Britney explains, becoming obsessed with the SEO world. Before joining Moz, Britney had her own agency in Denver for about 5 years and also toured around speaking about SEO practices and their discoveries where she met industry leaders and her future at Moz.

How would you explain SEO to beginners?

Britney explains SEO (Search Engine Optimization) as a way to capitalize on internet searches to create website traffic. She says that she wishes the job title could be re-named to “Search Engine Engineers” because these optimization experts are engineering websites so that they are structured in a way that performs best in search and really solves the searcher intent so that you show up more and higher in search results.

What do you think is more important for SEO, your website structure, or backlinks and offsite?

She says its a bit of a perspective shift. Traditionally, Google before machine learning and intelligent algorithms relied on third party credibility like backlinks to rank sites. Britney says this was very valuable in the past, and still plays a small role, but is not the main factor in ranking in today’s SEO world. Now Google is already housing all of these machine learning systems and sees what is solving searcher's intent, so they can accurately determine if a website's content answers users’ queries, whether than relying on backlinks.

What is BERT?

Traditionally, natural language processing has been used in the SEO field for decades, it comes from the want for computers to understand the text. Although computers are able to store text. Although computers are able to store text, the technology for computers to actually understand words and their intent is extremely difficult to grasp. Now comes the emergence of the field of NLP (natural language processing, the understanding of language) that has created this tool, called BERT, that has the ability to use multiple algorithms like a multi-tool to understand the human language. Storing text, it creates relationships to previous things you've said. Although revolutionary, it still has a long way to go.

How can I find out what SEO tools I should utilize?

First, it comes back to really understanding your target market. What are they searching for? What are the problems they're trying to solve? Knowing what you're trying to tackle in the world of SEO will help you better understand what tools are right for you. For example, if you're focusing on content creation, maybe you need a tool with really strong keyword research like Moz’s keyword explorer.

What should I look for in my reports to know if my SEO consultant is the right fit?

One of the best ways to know if someone is doing quality SEO work for you is to make sure they truly understand your goals and know the important facts about your business. Another important factor is having flexibility with strategies based off of the results every month, and being transparent about what they’re going. Britney says the most important thing is making sure you're working with an SEO expert that you can connect with on a human level and who cares about your business, who has genuine concerns for the goals.

Is there a qualifying certificate you can receive on SEO?

Britney is yet to hear of an SEO certificate out there to industry-standard but says the best “certificate” is a website that you can physically test and play with on their own. She says individuals that are curious and competitive are the ones who are best suited for the job. “You just really have to be relentless in order to rank number one, and passionate and curious to get to the bottom of different things.”

What types of resources do you recommend for beginners?

• Beginners Guide to SEO by Britney Muller
• Because there is a lack of resources because the SEO world is constantly changing, Britney reiterates that you should make your own basic website and play around with it. Just get the fundamentals.
• She mentions that the SEO Twitter community is a great place to go if you have questions and a great way to make connections.

If you’re looking to try out Moz, Britney mentions they have a free trial that walks you through the process of laying out a project and understanding who your search competitors are or keywords you're trying to rank for.

Written by Juliana Bermudez