Thom Craver (@thomcraver) invited me to his NYC office at CBS Interactive, so this was special, doing a vlog at a real TV network. Thom is the Lead SEO Analyst at CBS Interactive, specifically within the CBS News division. He works with the editors of the network for all the content that goes up online and on the air.
He started in SEO over two-decades ago and did everything from running his own agency to working in-house as an SEO. He has worked with many well-known SEOs including Jim Boykin at Internet Marketing Ninjas, Mike Grehan at Acronym, and with Lee Odden at TopRank Marketing. He said working with these individuals has helped him learn so much. We spent a bit of time talking about the past, which I enjoyed, I am not sure if you all did.
Thom explained how he finds it somewhat interesting that he knows how targeting, ads, personalization and all of that works. So when it comes to people reading news, seeing political ads, being targeted with specific video content and so on - he knows how to think when he sees it. We SEOs and marketers should understand that and help educate our families about how to really look at this type of content and ads. This is not just about Google search, there is Google News and Google Discover that really customizes what you see. He said some people blame him because he works at a news agency.
Schema is his favorite child right now in SEO. He said it is about Google understanding words on a page and what concepts those relate to. Google understands mostly of what searchers are looking for and if Google can understand your content better, Google will reward you he said. Thom said that with schema, he said everyone really wins with implementing schema. I then brought up those who might argue with that and we had a good conversation on that topic.
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Forum discussion at YouTube.
