Business Class Lounge by SearchPilot, hosted by Will Critchlow

Building an AI Fluent Team: A Candid Talk with Wil Reynolds

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 16:53:36 GMT

Will Critchlow and Wil Reynolds cover some interesting and different topics in this episode of The Business Class Lounge. This candid conversation covers what Wil is seeing across hundreds of clients, how he is using AI day-to-day and what it takes to keep a 200+ person agency moving while the ground keeps shifting. Listen up for hard truths from Wil about how staying employable means treating AI learning like a second job, being honest about uncertainty, and building a culture of momentum and accountability.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large ecommerce retailers take SEO from react mode to control mode. Stop trying to predict the future. Experiment to discover it.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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GEO, Fanout, Agents: Mike King’s Take on Where Search Is Really Heading

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 19:36:00 GMT

Will Critchlow catches up with Mike King, founder and CEO at iPullRank to talk about GEO, fanout queries, agents, and what the cutting edge feels like at a top agency. Mike and Will go way back, so this episode covers a lot of ground, from SEO to Mike's view on the place of AI in the production of art.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Inside adidas: How a Global Brand Builds an Insight-First SEO Program with Matthew Morrissey

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 10:08:11 GMT

Will Critchlow is joined by Matthew Morrissey, Organic Search Director EU at adidas to talk about life at the cutting edge of enterprise SEO at a major global brand. Learn about the power of hunting insights, and insight rate over wins and testing cadence, team alignment, and where great ideas come from.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Google Product Grids and AI Mode: The Ecommerce SEO Playbook with Brodie Clark

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 14:41:04 GMT

Will Critchlow is joined by Brodie Clark, independent SEO consultant and ecommerce expert to talk about all the ways that the search result pages are changing, new display features and ranking algorithms, and all the ways these things affect ecommerce businesses in particular when it comes to SEO.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Experimentation lessons from CRO - a conversation with Ryan Lucht

Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:35:55 GMT

Will Critchlow is joined by Ryan Lucht, Senior Technical Advocate at Datadog which he joined as part of the Eppo acquisition earlier this year. Ryan has deep experience and expertise in CRO experimentation, and has great insights to share from that world to help SEO experimentation catch up with CRO in testing maturity.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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SEO vs. GEO: Aleyda Solis on eCommerce Search in an AI-First World

Tue, 14 Oct 2025 18:29:48 GMT

Will Critchlow is joined by Aleyda Solis, founder & international SEO consultant at Orainti. Aleyda is the brains behind the leading SEOFOMO SEO newsletter and is the perfect expert to walk us through the changes she is seeing in search results.

Some resources we mention in the conversation:

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Future-Proofing E-Commerce SEO for 2026 and Beyond with Ross Hudgens

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 14:17:14 GMT

Will Critchlow is joined by Ross Hudgens, founder and CEO at Siege Media. Ross brings a complementary skillset and background to Will's, with a deep focus on content and PR, and together they lay out a blueprint for the future of e-commerce SEO.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Search Isn't Dead - SEO Trends with Rand Fishkin

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 11:21:26 GMT

This is the audio of a live recording. You can watch the video here.

In this episode, Will chats to Rand Fishkin. Will and Rand are old friends going back to their times running Distilled and Moz (actually, SEOmoz!) respectively. They got together to record in person when they were in NYC for SEO Week, and covered a wide range of topics including the perennial question: IS SEO DEAD?

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Smarter search strategies in a world of rising PPC costs

Mon, 11 Aug 2025 15:40:29 GMT

Will Critchlow is joined by Kevin Gibbons, founder of ecommerce specialist agency Re:signal. Their wide-ranging conversation reveals key insights into ecommerce SEO, aligning paid and organic search efforts, and why specialisation matters more now than ever.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Beyond Google - How AIs and LLMs are Changing SEO Forever

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 09:48:25 GMT

Will Critchlow chats with his brother! Tom Critchlow is now the EVP Audience Growth at Raptive, but before that was an independent consultant, a Googler, and (going way back) a colleague at Distilled.

Working in the same industry as family leads to various chats that roam across a wide range of topics, but for this conversation, we decided to record a discussion about the future of Google - a topic we have both been thinking about a lot.

We cover Google's AI Mode and the curious ways that early versions missed the mark, the future of search queries, and paid search, as well as tactics and business plans for the future of AI powered search.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Product-led SEO in AI times with Eli Schwartz

Thu, 24 Apr 2025 13:36:22 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Eli Schwartz - ex-Survey Monkey and author of the book Product-Led SEO.

Eli and I met during his Survey Monkey days, when he was developing the ideas that he would go on to publish in his book Product-Led SEO. We talk about how to survive the shift to an AI world with product-led thinking.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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An engineer's perspective on SEO with Abishek Rajendra

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 22:03:00 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Abishek Rajendra - VP Organic Growth at Course Hero.

I'm joined today by Abishek Rajendra who came to SEO from an engineering background, and so brings a rare perspective not only on the technical aspects of SEO itself, but also on the mindset of engineers, and the work that we are often asking them to do. He has deep experience with SEO testing, as well as with the more leadership-oriented elements of integrating effective organic growth into your digital marketing plan.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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From evading Matt Cutts to being effective in the corporate world with Todd "Oilman" Friesen

Thu, 12 Dec 2024 14:37:24 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Todd "Oilman" Friesen - ex-Salesforce and Vimeo SEO expert.

I’m joined today by Todd Friesen who OG SEOs will know as Oilman. He was already a huge name in the nascent industry when I got started “some time ago” and we first met at an SMX West conference in 2006 or 2007. The reason I’m particularly excited to talk to Todd is because he’s the best example I know of someone who started his career in the churn and burn world of darker-hat SEO, and then made a journey via agency life and director-level in-house roles to one of those relatively-rare VP of SEO positions.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

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Guessing what Google wants

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:19:07 GMT

Can we guess? Does it matter?

The more Google relies on machine learning and user signals to make searchers happy, the less explainable the results are, and the harder they have to guess.

Does that matter, and what should we do about it?

Join Will as he meanders through these implications in this episode.

Take the quiz here to test your SEO skills: https://searchpilot.scoreapp.com/

Tune in to the full live stream on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Will it make the car go faster?

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 06:59:49 GMT

Frank Williams, of Formula 1 fame, apparently would ask this question in response to almost anything he was asked (org changes, budget requests, etc) and it's been bouncing round my head since I heard that.

This week, Will talks about making the car go faster, as well as some tactical discussions about what it's possible to test from an SEO perspective, and why and how we are working to create the best possible places to do on-site SEO.

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Lessons from paid search: spend, budgets, reporting and more

Tue, 09 Jul 2024 06:32:31 GMT

More data digging into where Google sends clicks after users perform searches, this time vis-a-vis how budget is attributed and how organic traffic fare against paid search. As always, Will brings this back to the importance of setting metrics and budgets to achieve your SEO goals.

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Misconceptions SEOs have about money

Tue, 02 Jul 2024 06:25:15 GMT

How can SEOs understand and start speaking the language of business?

Understand the definitions of these key business terms
Identify what makes a 'large amount' spend for your organization
Develop a dashboard that provides visibility on search's impact on revenue

Fresh off the eTail conference speaking with eCommerce and digital leaders, Will shares his thoughts on why it's so important for SEOs to understand and start speaking the language of business.

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Turning SEO into the channel you always wished it could be SearchPilot 114 subscribers Analytics Edit video

Tue, 25 Jun 2024 07:12:11 GMT

Organic search is the biggest channel for new customer acquisition for most ecommerce sites, but it is frustratingly opaque and often the hardest channel to understand or improve. Are your wishes for SEO is for it to be accountable, transparent, and to drive growth? Then listen on.

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(Part 2) Reflecting on things I've heard about SEO from senior leadership

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 06:44:07 GMT

What does leadership really care about when it comes to SEO?

Will spends a lot of time talking to folks in leadership positions about what they really care about (as well as to the teams who report to them). Some of the themes Will explored are: SEO is confusing. We don't have SEO goals; We want to do things right but faster; We've been stung by SEO before. If any of these resonate with you, then listen to both Part 1 and 2!

This is Part 2. You should be able to find Part 1's audio in the show's library.

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(Part 1) Reflecting on things I've heard about SEO from senior leadership

Tue, 18 Jun 2024 06:42:14 GMT

What does leadership really care about when it comes to SEO?

Will spends a lot of time talking to folks in leadership positions about what they really care about (as well as to the teams who report to them).

This is Part 1 before Will accidentally pressed the wrong button and took himself out of the live stream. Thankfully, the YouTube and LinkedIn live streams continued, but the audio file recording was split into two parts. Hence, Part 2's audio upload follows next.

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"Not paying attention" - does the Google leak change anything?

Tue, 11 Jun 2024 06:54:10 GMT

There's only one thing in the news this week as it relates to Google - and that's the leak of internal engineering documentation regarding how organic search works. First reported and analysed by Rand Fishkin and Michael King, it's a treasure trove of rabbit holes (to mix my metaphors) for those of us who geek out on this stuff. But what does it change? What should we be doing differently as a result? Rand said that if you aren't changing things as a result (and didn't have omniscient knowledge of Google's inner workings already) then "you're not paying attention". I disagree. Tune in to find out why. Tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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SEO experimentation for ecommerce

Wed, 29 May 2024 11:31:51 GMT

In a week where we are celebrating the announcement that SearchPilot is working with M&S to bring SEO into their experimentation program, it seemed like a good time to revisit testing in ecommerce generally, how experimentation programs work, and what good looks like! Tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Is Google getting less serious?

Tue, 21 May 2024 06:47:53 GMT

Taking on the biggest announcement from Google (so far), AI Overview, Will sifts through published articles and posts to get to the core points of how this can affect marketing and the search world. He also shares ways on how we, as marketers and SEO professionals, can do better amidst all these changes. One clear way of doing better is by running more SEO A/B tests as it's going to get harder to predict which pages will perform better. He concludes with an optimistic point of view on all these changes. Tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Some mysteries explained - Is Google saving costs?

Tue, 07 May 2024 06:40:51 GMT

In this live stream, Will shares his thoughts on whether Google is saving costs and provides an explanation to uncover a few recent mysteries. He breaks down the answer referencing revenue reports and data-based research. Also featured in this week's talk is the presentation he gave at the recent BrightonSEO conference. You can tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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What does Google uncertainty mean?

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 07:24:01 GMT

Google is feeling the pressure, from regulators, from the media, and from customers. Are they really under pressure? What are they likely to do about it? This week, Will want to dive into some of the sources of uncertainty and instability and what they mean for marketers and leaders of companies that rely heavily on search visibility. Here's one of the articles (The Man Who Killed Google Search) he referenced in his talk. You can tune in to the full live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Google subscription, anyone?

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 07:05:24 GMT

In this week's live stream, Will covers a whole bunch of articles and thoughts on whether a Google subscription works or not. He also talks briefly about the effect of your (UK) social status on your work pay and promotion. He shares podcast episodes and channels that he's listened to and following. Two of them are from Lenny's Podcast where Jason Lemkin talks about building world-class sales organizations and Dharmesh Shah on productivity framework for leaders. You can tune in to the whole live stream recording on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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SearchPilot Live - early Googlebot and Search Console lessons for SEO testing

Tue, 09 Apr 2024 07:21:33 GMT

Learn about a goal-setting model for your experimentation program, early lessons for SEO A/B testing from Googlebot and GSC, and Will's insights on being a 'sustainable' founder. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Why experiments are valuable to make meaningful decisions

Tue, 02 Apr 2024 07:46:53 GMT

This week's talk centers around the value of experimentation to help you make meaningful decisions. Will also shares some research paper and trend lines on statistics and ecommerce growth. All that to point to the importance of testing for both CRO and SEO with an example of a CRO positive change that was a -25% effect on SEO. Head over to our YouTube channel to see some live whiteboarding to have a sneak peek of Will's new 2x2 quadrant. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Disentangling internal linking - the SEO element you can control

Mon, 25 Mar 2024 08:25:23 GMT

Will Critchlow pull out the threads on a common SEO element that is within your full control: internal linking? How can you influence this element more? How to set up SEO A/B tests for internal links? Plus Google's new Head of Search and Apple and Google Gemini's strategic partnership. And some sneak peek and news alerts from SearchPilot. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Google is huge

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 11:53:16 GMT

This new research proves that search is still the biggest channel and offers you your biggest opportunity for growth. Not only that but the data staggeringly shows that Google dominates the search stream. Will goes through this latest research from Rand Fishkin. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - Build or Buy to support your experimentation program? (6 March 2024)

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 08:29:53 GMT

When you have experimentation ingrained in your organization's culture, it's important to have the right tool to match this practice and discipline. More often, we come across this question: Build or Buy? Will discusses this big ol' question referencing Ryan Lucht's presentation deck on experimentation and from Ronny Kohavi's deck. Find out what set of questions to use to determine whether build or buy suits you. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - Downtime, Fiction, and the customer benefits of bootstrapping (27 Feb 2024)

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 15:44:17 GMT

After a week's break, Will is back with some thoughts on his experience bootstrapping while building his business. He also shares some of his holiday reading list. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - Googlebot, Gemini (formerly Bard), Googlebot crawling for SEO testing (14 Feb 2024)

Tue, 05 Mar 2024 15:55:19 GMT

In this episode, we are taking the SEO geek path as Will talks about Googlebot, Gemini (formerly Bard), Google's large language model, and how tracking works for SEO testing. Also, did you know that our platform has a new feature that shows you if your test pages are also crawled by Googlebot (you can see how this works on our YouTube channel). Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - Is Google getting worse? Is the web getting worse? (02 Feb 2024)

Tue, 13 Feb 2024 08:30:37 GMT

This week's livestream focuses on different research papers and articles on the discussion of whether Google is getting worse or if the web is getting worse. Will's opinion is that irrelevant content makes the site bad, especially with more AI-generated content. He makes a case for SEO testing and how this can help turn your website 'not bad' and shows what kinds of insights you can gain from SearchPilot's customer dashboard. Listen in or tune in on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - SEO isn't dead, search statistics should be part of company public reports (wild), and Google's SGE (23 Jan 2024)

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 17:07:46 GMT

Will uncovers why SEO is as important as ever, how scalable sites are fueling the world's organic search traffic, and why companies should bring search statistics as part of their reporting. Plus, he talks about the ins and outs of producing search-performing content with generative AI and Google's new announcement on their Search Generative Experience (SGE). Tune in to this replay of the live stream on 23 Jan 2024. Join him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - SEO Testing Pains: Seasonality, Sophistication, Statistics, and Other Compounding Effects (16 Jan 2024)

Fri, 19 Jan 2024 12:27:16 GMT

Will does a candid talk on the different challenges that DIY SEO testing analysis can bring out: seasonality, statistics, the sophistication of the data and test set-up, and other compounding effects that are often outside of our control. There's a way to overcome these 'pains': listen in or tune in to YouTube to see some of the insights presented via screen sharing. Also, check out the podcast show recommendations on history, current affairs, politics, and how to write better....maybe even basketball. Join him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesdays). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - CRO and SEO: Testing metrics that you care about (10 Jan 2024)

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 11:12:31 GMT

In this week's live stream, Will advocates for good experimentation program and what that looks like. He also shares ways on how to coordinate CRO and SEO testing to gain better metrics that you care most about which is revenue. Plus, things he learned from 'On Writing' by Stephen King and how to avoid 'death by a thousand cuts' part way reading through the 'Challenger Customer' book. Tune in to this replay and join him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every week (mostly Tuesday). If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - Back to Basics (3 Jan 2024)

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 16:02:18 GMT

Could SEO be your biggest opportunity in 2024? Will goes back to what SEO is, what it brings to your business and how you can make it your biggest growth opportunity for this year. He also shares thoughts from his holiday reads that included titles like: Walter Isaacson's biography of Elon Musk and Michael Lewis' book about Sam Bankman-Fried. Tune in to the replay and join him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every Tuesday. If you want to see how SearchPilot can help you run more SEO A/B tests and make SEO your biggest growth opportunity, then let us know here.

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Live with Will - ISO27001, GDPR, and Steering committees (20 Dec 2023)

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 14:20:35 GMT

Will went live pre-festive season to cover how we keep our security and compliances in check to confidently deploy our software server-side and how to get important things done for a small business via a steering committee. Listen to the replay of this live stream to find out more about his insights as a business founder and CEO. Be sure to join him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube every Tuesday. If you want to see the SearchPilot features he mentioned in this episode, let us know here.

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Live with Will - Search Console, The Bear and New Features in SearchPilot (12 Dec 2023)

Mon, 18 Dec 2023 08:30:25 GMT

Will Critchlow shares what's on his reading and watch list. Have you seen The Bear? He also shares upcoming features of the SearchPilot platform, including how users can track Googlebot crawl data for the SEO tests they are running. He also talks about how Google Search Console data affects SEO testing and an upcoming beta feature to be added to the SearchPilot platform. Listen to this replay to hear more about this and his favourite episode of The Bear. Be sure to join him every Tuesday on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

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Live with Will - Usage data as ranking factor (5 Dec 2023)

Thu, 14 Dec 2023 14:12:27 GMT

Will Critchlow explores the complex relationship between user behaviour and Google's ranking algorithm. He also discusses the implications of this for SEO strategies and the importance of focusing on user experience. Listen to the replay of this live stream to find out more about his insights on ranking factors. Be sure to join him every Tuesday on LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube.

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Building growth teams at rocket ship startups with Brian Hale (VP at DoorDash and ex-VP at Facebook)

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 06:16:53 GMT

My guest for this episode is Brian Hale.

Brian is currently VP of Growth at DoorDash. We met over a decade ago when he was in the growth team at Facebook, and we got to work together on some SEO initiatives. In the intervening decade, he rose up the ranks ultimately to lead a large team as VP of Product Growth across Meta (as Facebook had become by then). He's been responsible for as much growth and innovation as anyone I know, and his work has affected an incredible number of people. As you'll hear though, he's also an empathetic and effective leader, and I'm looking forward to quizzing him about growth challenges.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Etsy and Glossier to Fractional CMO for startups with Stephanie Chang

Wed, 12 Apr 2023 06:16:20 GMT

In this episode of the Business Class Lounge, Will interviews Stephanie Chang, a Fractional CMO and Growth Advisor.

Stephanie is a neuroscience major turned growth marketer. We first met over a decade ago when she joined the New York office of my agency, Distilled. Since then, she's built her career leading growth and strategy at Etsy and Glossier before starting her own fractional CMO business in 2020.

Over the past three years, she's helped startup CEOs work through their most difficult growth and go-to-market challenges. She's driven, intelligent and inspirational, and I think we're all going to learn a ton from her.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Smart B2B Campaigns to Babylon with Adam Monago

Tue, 28 Mar 2023 06:29:07 GMT

In this episode, Will Critchlow interviews Adam Monago, the VP of Global Digital Marketing at Adec Innovations.

Adam is an award-winning digital marketing expert who I met when he was the VP of Global Head of Digital Marketing and Strategy at ThoughtWorks a couple of years ago. He transformed the digital brand and space of ThoughtWorks, including creating the highly popular Technology Radar. He has always been a proponent and driver for modern digital experiences so that B2B businesses will have higher relevance and better impact. Adam is responsible for some of the smartest B2B campaigns I've seen, and I can't wait to quiz him about how he works.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lessons from having been a marketer at startups and big enterprises with positioning expert April Dunford

Tue, 14 Mar 2023 07:22:17 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews April Dunford - positioning expert and author of Obviously Awesome

April is most well-known for her positioning work and her excellent book Obviously Awesome. Our conversation built on that and her experience in more general marketing roles at startups and in the enterprise. She’s done a million interviews about positioning, so I wanted to pick her brains about some different things. April is funny, incisive and engaging - if you like her advice, we highly recommend picking up a copy of her book.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The hardest and most exciting job in search? SVP & GM, Search at Yahoo! Brian Provost shares his plans

Tue, 28 Feb 2023 07:33:21 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Brian Provost - SVP and GM, Search at Yahoo.

Brian has as deep an understanding of news and media SEO as anyone in the world, worked at Define Media Group with many of the largest media properties globally and then ran search strategy at CBS interactive and ViacomCBS. Since May 2022, he’s GM for all of search and SEO at Yahoo which is a huge job, but if anyone can do it, he can. The work’s exciting, but as you’ll hear, there are a few areas where I believe Brian is head and shoulders above pretty much everyone I’ve met and I’m excited to find out how he does them.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How to use finance as a marketing superpower with Ringier Group CMO Jes Scholz

Tue, 14 Feb 2023 07:25:38 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Jes Scholz, Group CMO at Ringier.

Jes has one of the most complicated CMO jobs I know off, with responsibilities spanning verticals, brands and markets. I’ll let her describe it because I don’t even know the full extent of it all.

She has an extremely strong SEO background, and has worked her way up to the group leadership level in a large organization. I have learned a lot from her writing and conference talks on SEO (including sharing a stage with her at SearchLove), but I’ve never had the chance to quiz her on leadership and management topics so it was a real pleasure to be able to do that.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From internet marketer to CMO via eBay, The Guardian, Secret Escapes and now Wise.com - with Cian Weeresinghe

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 07:28:43 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Cian Weeresinghe, Chief Marketing Officer at Wise.

I’ve actually known Cian since college, but it took us a little while to realise we had both ended up in internet marketing. Cian first got into digital at eBay - as one of a cohort of incredibly talented folks in the UK digital industry. That cohort are now scattered doing interesting things around the UK startup scene.

More recently, he ran growth at the Guardian after their massive domain migration in 2013, was CMO at cool travel company Secret Escapes, and is now CMO at Wise - formerly known as TransferWise - I guess he just can’t avoid being suckered in by big domain moves. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Cian.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Defining the mission of a dictionary - with former Merriam Webster Chief Digital Officer Lisa Schneider

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 09:28:16 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Lisa Schneider, award-winning Chief Product Officer and co-founder at Cingo, which is working to close the gap between estate planning and execution.

Lisa and I first worked together when she was Chief Digital Officer at Merriam Webster. She is a visionary leader who has proven unusually capable of defining and capturing missions that inspire and direct teams and products. At Merriam Webster, that included considering the question "what's the mission of a dictionary?" and coming up with answer that worked in the digital age. I always love catching up with Lisa and I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation and our discussion of our shared love of the English language as much as we enjoyed having it.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing leadership lessons from a decade at HubSpot with Kieran Flanagan

Tue, 13 Dec 2022 11:10:35 GMT

Will Critchlow interviews Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing at HubSpot.

Kieran started out in SEO, and has deep channel expertise. At HubSpot he has done many things including being part of founding HubSpot’s international business and at times leading 200-person strong team. He’s now the Senior Vice President of marketing and he’s exactly the kind of person we want to be bringing on this podcast because he has everything from detailed hands-on experience to stories of executive leadership and the understanding of what it takes to report right to the top of a large and successful organisation.

This episode is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Trailer: Business Class Lounge by SearchPilot

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:07:21 GMT

Hear from Will Critchlow, the host of the Business Class Lounge, about his vision for the show, what he wants to learn from interviewing marketing leaders, and why he's starting a podcast. Listen to snippets of the first couple of interviews with Kieran Flanagan, SVP Marketing at HubSpot, and Lisa Schneider, CPO at Cingo and former Chief Digital Officer at Merriam Webster.

This trailer is produced by Mark Cotton and hosted by Will Critchlow - you can follow Will on Twitter: @willcritchlow.

The Business Class Lounge is a podcast from SearchPilot. SearchPilot helps large websites prove the value of SEO by making SEO tests easier, faster, and more accurate.

If you like the sound of the podcast, add the feed to your podcast app if you haven't already, and if you know anyone who you think would enjoy the conversations, please do recommend it to them.

You can email us at podcast@searchpilot.com to discuss anything you hear on the show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.