MarTech Interview with Kimberley Cole, General Manager of Europe @ Newfold Digital, Leading Yoast

Kimberley Cole, General Manager of Europe at Newfold Digital, Yoast talks about a few top SEO practices that should stay on the mind of every modern marketer in this martech catch-up:

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Tell us about yourself and your role at Yoast.

I am Kimberley Cole, General Manager of Europe for Newfold Digital, leading our Yoast brand. Prior to this, I worked at Reuters in various roles, from product management to sales and marketing, and as Chief Commercial Officer at Lynk, a Hong Kong based knowledge curation platform. I’m an Aussie who has lived and worked all over the world, but Hong Kong was my home for 17 years before moving back to London for my role with Newfold. I have two fabulous and talented daughters and a husband who can often be found sailing.

Leading Yoast has been an amazing opportunity to work with a diverse team of over 100 individuals focused on improving internet functionality and making SEO accessible to everyone. Yoast also aims to positively impact diversity in the industry—that’s why we started the Yoast Diversity fund, which promotes diversity in the WordPress community by chipping away at the financial barriers that limit underrepresented groups in tech. It’s just one of the ways we “live” diversity!

We’d love to hear more about Yoast’s recent AI enhancements.

Yoast has been steadily leveraging AI with the underlying goal of making content creation easier for all users. Our first AI feature, Yoast AI Generate, automatically creates search-optimized titles and meta descriptions, both of which are important for the appearance of search results and social sharing. Being able to create them with a single click is a huge time-saver for content creators.

Our second feature, Yoast AI Optimize, took one of our core features and infused it with AI capabilities. Previously, Yoast would tell users when their text needed better key phrase optimization. Now, it not only shows users what can be improved, but also guides them to fix and optimize key words with the click of a button. What is special about all of our AI features is that we’ve made sure to embed our SEO expertise across all tools, ensuring that the generated texts and suggestions meet SEO criteria. Also, they seamlessly integrate with existing Yoast SEO workflows so that they’re easy to use and efficient.

How is the SEO game changing today and what top tips should modern marketers be keeping in mind?

The SEO game is always changing, especially with new and improved technology around how search results are displayed and filtered. From ChatGPT’s impact on searching to Google’s AI Overviews rolling out (with mixed feedback and results), even experimental tech will eventually be widely adopted.

My recommendation would be to keep the following tips in mind.

Firstly, maintain positive momentum with what has been working already for you and your business goals.

Be cautious with experimentation as well, especially around AI content generation or other forms of large scaling strategy.

Finally, ensure you keep up with schema and structured data as they are more of a reliance than before for LLMs (large language models) to understand structured data.

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Can you dispel a few myths on SEO workflows in this conversation today?

It could actually be beneficial for a business for its leaders to experiment with AI platforms that can assist with day-to-day work such as research, analysis, data interpretation, optimization and more. While some may view AI as an all-or-nothing proposition, due diligence can highlight focused use cases that provide tangible benefits without ceding too much control.

How can marketers today combine SEO initiatives to achieve company growth goals in terms of targeted traffic and eventually marketing and sales leads?

Marketers can combine SEO initiatives to achieve company goals by being more connected with their strategies and tapping into AI tools that can streamline tasks. This augments efficiency and growth, all while saving precious time.

What are some of the biggest mistakes you often see marketers make when it comes to SEO?

A few of the most common SEO mistakes are ignoring site speed, trying to rank for the wrong keywords, neglecting to write substantial content, failing to attract and maintain an audience on your site, and not taking a mobile SEO seriously.

A few thoughts on the future of SEO in marketing?

SEO in 2024 is dynamic and challenging, but also brings exciting opportunities. Maintaining focus on key trends such as AI’s transformative role, the ripple effects of Google’s SGE, the cruciality of E-E-A-T and entity SEO, and the evolving patterns of user behavior will be pivotal for anyone looking to navigate the future of SEO successfully.

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