Daniel Gniazdo is an SEO and copywriting expert who’s been in charge of content marketing for Bluetooth headset manufacturer Jabra and event ticketing platform Billetto. Now he’s running the SEO Uplift agency and is about to teach a course on SEO content writing for Talent Garden. We talk about SEO, content writing, copywriting, client communication, and whether or not AI will replace human writers anytime soon.

Daniel, we already went through your extensive CV before we pressed the live button, but can you just repeat what you said to me before that?

So you can say my SEO journey starts in Jabra, where I was working full-time.

And I kind of jumped into the topic, not as an SEO expert of any sort, but more as a copywriter.

At the time I started a humor blog and I got into writing a lot and then I thought, wait, we have a blog now on our website and why don't I just apply some of those copywriting skills to the blog and see if I can help educate an audience about what's arguably a bit of a complex product, Bluetooth headsets, what is noise cancellation and then echo cancellation and stuff we were just talking about.

And then all of a sudden I found that we were doing well in terms of purely organic traffic without any extra outreach because we were addressing the pain points that people had.

So then I worked further with that and eventually got hired to do the same for Beretto, Danish ticketing company, or event ticketing, where I was hired as an organic traffic manager or head of content as it was called.

And then I was also working on our landing pages to try and to grow them and eventually started a blog where you are intimately familiar with because you were 1 of the star copywriters on the, on that team, in, in growing our organic presence.

Then Corona hit and, I was no longer with Beliatto after that because Beliatto itself was doing, going through dire straits.

So I used that as an opportunity to not try and look for a full-time job and jump into that.

We have 1 full-time wage earner, which is my wife.

And we have the need to also take care of the kids because it's just not working with Corona and to full timers.

Can I then instead do what I've already thought of doing before and start something freelance where I work for clients, but I manage my own time and decide how much I work or do not work?

So I started the, SEO uplift company that was late 2020.

And since then I've been working with, I would say about a dozen clients off and on, and it's actually been quite a journey because, you, you find out that you can be of value to people even if you don't know the industry intimately as long as you care enough to educate yourself and get out there.

So I've worked with finance and technical companies.

Awesome, and I'd love to, without deviating from the script straight away, but I'd love to get into a bit later because you have some really impressive results you've gotten for Biletto in terms of the numbers, but also I'd love to understand more about your research process when it comes to diving into new industries that you're unfamiliar with, because I've done that myself, but I'm also sure a lot of freelancers are in the same position.

Common belief about your work, and we can either talk about copywriting or SEO or freelancing, but a common belief that people have about that and whether or not you agree or disagree.

It's actually funny that it's, As I read this question, I was also in the middle of preparing an SEO class I'll be teaching.

So I'll be teaching a small online class for a digital marketing course for a company called Talent Garden here in late October.

And I was literally just trying to put my thoughts on paper for that class.

And I have actually what I think is a perfect answer for this.

And that's I feel there is a little bit of a stigma when it comes to SEO.

People think like, oh, yeah, I know what you're doing.

You're just repeating the same freaking keyword and just throwing it everywhere and just trying to hack your way to Google rankings.

So there is still that, if people who are not familiar with it and who don't sit with it on a daily basis, they have that assumption, which obviously was not a wrong assumption if we go back maybe, let's say a decade plus, where Google was a dumb engine at the time, and the only signal they had to go on is, okay, well, is this article mentioning, you know, cheap shoes for sale 20 times?

Well, it's probably about cheap shoes for sale, so let's go ahead and give it first place.

People obviously immediately found out, oh, well, that's how we get the high rank.

I'm just gonna do what we used to call keyword stuffing, right, and just throw those terms out there.

And that was, for a while, possible to have the system.

And then that started the whole cat and mouse game, where Google would start rolling out core updates.

But they said, no, no, no, we want you to actually do valuable stuff.

And then people would go, how do I hack that now?

And honestly, my take on it is you can do that.

1 of them is the 1 that everybody assumes people do, and that's chasing the next trend only.

How do I go and bug Google to give me the exact thing that gets me to the first rank?

Or you could just assume that the reason Google or other search engines, for that matter, exist in the first place is not for the Google's sake, but it's because people have an inherent need to find something That's relevant.

It could be that they're searching to buy, it could be they're searching for entertainment or information, but Google and other search engines would not exist if we, the people, didn't have an inherent need to find stuff.

And if you take that philosophical hat on and say, well, then my job is not to hack the Google search engine.

My job is to actually be relevant to the people.

So put myself in the shoes of the person who is actually typing a certain keyword.

How do I genuinely, honestly, and fully address that to the extent of my abilities?

And if you have that head on, you will never have to, for a second, think about what is the next core update going to mean for my traffic.

Because I know my traffic, or rather my website, is addressing completely and fully and genuinely the needs of the people out there.

And I trust that Google will only get better at ranking me.

So SEO is less about hacking the search engine, but being helpful to people.

So right for the user and not for the algorithm in other words, right?

But then on that point, bonus question, everything you've said, it made perfect sense, but there are still a bunch of SEO tactics and tools out there like ClearScope and Surfer and SEO tools to optimize stuff with keywords.

Then there's the whole off page SEO like back-linking and stuff like that, which people have also tried to hack similar to the keyword stuffing.

Now they just link from a bunch of shitty websites.

But then so how relevant are those factors to ranking content as opposed to just catering to the user's needs?

Okay, so I don't know how controversial, it's not necessarily a controversial point because I know there is 2 different schools of thought here.

And it would be silly for me to say that getting external links doesn't matter because there are correlation studies there.

I mean, it is a ranking factor because Google establishes a domains authority based on how many other reputable domains chose to link to it.

But for me, outreach as a discipline and as a practice has always taken a very low priority.

If you are a massive company and you have maybe a resource to dedicate purely on doing outreach and getting those links, you know, bugging people and being like, hey, we have some good stuff you can link to here.

I say in most cases, you will probably be in a different situation where you need to prioritize.

And I will prioritize putting valuable content on paper any day of the week.

If you, you know, spend 90% of your time doing that, like you mentioned, of course, there is factors that matter for ranking like technical sales.

So you have to have a fast website, You have to have crawlable pages, they have to be cross-linking so Google can find its way through.

You shouldn't have like a too many 404 pages or other things that take people to the wrong place.

But again, those are formally systematically fixable stuff.

You can literally just get a report and be like, okay, here I need to fix the header, here I need to fix the stock, here it's too slow, I need to fix my JavaScript.

So that's also not where the core and the value-added part of SEO lies.

It's a hygiene factor that you need to fix it.

If I write a novel, of course it has to be printed on pages, I have to be able to turn the pages, if I don't nobody is going to see my writing.

It has to have a font that's black on white, and not white on white, because it's all of these things.

But no 1 is going to say that that part is novel writing, right?

No 1 ever says, hey, wow, this is a super cool book.

It has so many pages and they flip so nicely.

That's not why you read a novel or a nonfiction book.

You read it because of the content it provides you.

So, yeah, to go back to those things matter, but please do not prioritize them over actually putting words on paper or content that is relevant to your audience.

I also like the term hygiene in the context of SEO.

But that kind of segues into the next question, I guess, which would be the most important trait that an SEO expert or a content writer has to have.

And that is, again, it's not your skills that help flourish in your languages, because all of that you can learn.

But it is actually putting yourself into the shoes of the reader.

And if you have that at the top of mind, I'm not reading for myself.

I'm not necessarily reading to sell a product, even though in the end of the day, I might want to.

But focus should always be on the person behind the screen who will be reading.

If you can try to get into their head, you have lots of tools that help.

I mean, you can also literally just Google certain things, see what Google currently ranks, you know, the technique, because obviously the top 10 results on the search that are currently there, probably do something right, see if you can get inspired by them, and through that, understand the audience.

If you have more time, get even deeper to, you know, some forums where the audience hangs out, where the audience has had for a while and being able to get under their skin and then say, okay, now I know what they're concerned with.

I know how to talk to them to solve those issues for them.

So that's, if you can do that, you are, I think, 80% there.

Because all of the other stuff, the tweaking and the optimizing, the actual search engine optimization, that's like 20, 10%, you know, that's, you can learn it, it's formulaic.

It does, and also it brings it back to the intro where I was going to ask you about your research method.

And also 1 of the other questions on our list here, which is, which skills help you be successful and how you cultivate them.

So I'd love to know a bit more about like your research process when you dive into new industries, how you became good at it, and if you have any tips you can share.

Well, as I've already touched upon, the easiest thing you can do without using a single tool, people also tend to dive straight into which is the best tool for this thing, which is the best tool for linking, this is the 1 best for keyword research.

Again, even if you have no tools at all, Google actually tells you pretty much everything you need to know if you just bother.

You go in and you, If you will have a topic or a keyword in mind that you want to rank for, you go to Google and you pretend you play the audience, right?

You say, I need to buy this or I need to know about topic X.

And Google will spit out like a treasure cove of inspiration at you because it will say, well, here are the things that I think are relevant.

Here are the related questions and people also ask that are relevant for this topic.

So I already know immediately that this is what is on top of people's minds as they go through this Google journey of finding it.

And just compiling those and trying to address those to the best of your ability.

That's the skill I think that gets you most of the way there.

And then you can start tweaking and optimizing.

So that's kind of the easy way to explain it.

So you've been in the game for quite a while now.

You're probably a lot better at what you are doing now than you were when you started.

So what's the most important lesson or lessons you've learned along the way?

Yeah, and this again is going to take back because I remember very clearly I came from, I think what, maybe 2 years of writing for Jabra and seeing success within just addressing topics as I'm talking to you now.

And as I was getting hired in Veleto, the growth hacker in the company, who's a brilliant guy and he's done it with the best intentions, but he sent me, I swear to God, he sent me a, I think a 200 page document of the most important Google ranking factors and how the rate is.

I've been writing shit and ranking, but holy crap, I told them I know SEO, but there are all these factors and I need to know them and how they wait and how to prioritize them.

And genuinely, I actually had a panic attack.

This is like, they're expecting crazy things from me and I don't know any of this.

Funnily enough, now it's maybe 7 years after that happened.

And the philosophy actually hasn't changed.

I realized that yes, there are these ranking factors, but again, don't chase them.

Don't start your SEO career with, okay, let me learn everything that Google wants and how they rank stuff.

No, come from a place of honesty and being like, I want to help an audience.

Again, I keep looking back to that, but that's really at the core of it.

And do not overwhelm yourself because honestly, if you're gonna try to do that, because that way madness lies, right?

Things are gonna change tomorrow because some ranking factors might be tweaked a bit.

Google might do something again and you'll be just in that hamster wheel forever.

So scrap all of that, know the basics, know the basics that should be in place.

How to put certain keywords in a certain place in moderation and with reason?

That's it, the rest, focus on telling a story or solving the need that the people have.

And don't overwhelm yourself with all of the bells and whistles and the tools you can pull from the shelf.

So, first of all, I have another question related to that, but I just have to do a quick aside because I'm fascinated by industry buzzwords.

Can you just quickly explain what's a growth hacker?

Honestly, I think it's a fancy word for somebody who is trying to get company on the path to growth.

And they usually are all rounders, right?

They know a little bit of how to debate marketing, a little bit of how to do organic.

They know maybe they try to look for tips and tricks like how do you boost the company trajectory?

It's essentially a mix of marketing plus understanding all the different channels that there are, analytics as well, obviously they need to be able to measure and put some KPIs in place.

So, But beyond that, I don't think it's a term that, yeah, that has a different textbook definition, to be honest.

wanted to see if I missed something because it also sounds like you could be a digital strategist or a marketing strategist.

you can be maybe a digital marketer and still call yourself a growth hacker because marketing is about growth and put that on your CV if that's what makes you happy.

So in terms of the putting yourself in the shoes of the customer or the reader or the target audience, and using Google to kind of try to find out what they're interested in and which questions they're asking.

How would you go about uncovering things that might not be so obvious that all the competition has not written about already, but that could be very valuable to whichever client that you're writing for.

So, I mean, there is a two-pronged answer to that, because 1 of this, of course, if you are going to deep dive into a complex industry, let's say finance, and you have to be genuine, I would say that it becomes a must to embed yourself with the company, really try to go deep to the topic so you can understand the complexities.

I usually try to work on the layman's level.

And if you are on that level, you are your own best source because usually you go, well, if I wanted to know about how derivatives work in the finance industry, and I Google this, and now I'm reading this paper, and I've read it all, and I still have questions like, yes, they address this and this, But as a layman, this doesn't help me.

I still don't know how to do A, B, and C.

Well, there's your pathway, because you go like, okay, now let me see if I can deep dive, search and find those answers, because now I know I can put those in my article or post about that topic.

Because Now I solved a problem that somebody like me had and who is likely, or which is likely to exist also for other people in my shoes.

So I think sometimes you are your own best reference, but of course that is not always true if you go deeper into very complex topics and technical areas where you do require some expert industry knowledge.

Then you consult the people who are probably smarter than you and be humble about it and see what you can uncover, right?

I think we've already talked a bit about them, because obviously the algorithms get updated, tweaked and changed a bit.

But if we move away from SEO a bit, because we've already covered that extensively, common challenges as a freelancer and how you tackle them?

Yeah, well, I'm in a bit of a luxury position because I am not under pressure to have my freelancing replace full-time work.

If I was, I would probably be in a different game.

I would need to know how to grow and market myself and that would probably hit a wall at some point because like I said, I'm not working full time and it works for me but if I wanted, I would have an extra added pressure.

So maybe I'm not the most competent to work to comment on that specific issue.

But the challenges I often face are turning the client's mind from what we just talked about, from we need to tell the world about our stuff, you know, like we're, why are you writing about this topic, but you're not mentioning our products?

I'm like, well, because the thing I'm writing about now helps people understand the whole topic and get into the area.

They're not ready to buy your product anyways, and putting stuff in your product in front of them is disingenuous and it's not going to help you, right?

Because they don't give a flying fuck right now about what you have to sell.

You might want to try to sell it later if you've established yourself.

So trying to get that mindset imparted on clients sometimes is a challenge.

I think it comes with the territory because everybody comes from different levels of experience and it is sort of your role as a freelancer and then maybe a subject matter expert, whether it's SEO or copywriting or anything to help educate your clients, but also to know when to be humble and be like, okay, listen, I also have to respect that they have their own way of thinking about it.

So sometimes swallowing your, you could say ego, is also a, it's necessary.

You just say, listen, they just want me as a copywriter.

They don't care what I have to say about SEO or about their growth prospect.

I threw those issues now, and I just become like an execution part of their other strategy.

So balancing your knowledge versus not having the ego to always force people into agreeing with you

So you would say, if you have, and you've already worked on constant strategies, so you obviously know what you're doing, but if you're then dealing with a client who has their own tunnel vision about how things need to be done, and your opinion is not that highly valued, do you just then provide suggestions and say like, well, according to my experience and expertise, this is the way we should go.

But if you want to go this way and waste your money, then we can do that.

Yeah, that's more or less exactly spot on what I do.

I will always voice my opinion initially because I feel like that's also a part of my service to them.

I'm not there to just be like, hey, what is it, ABC, I need to write that, okay, done.

I'm not just a dumb robot, because they can frankly hire somebody, maybe way cheaper from elsewhere.

So I feel like my benefit to them is also my expertise and being able to tell them, but I will not press the issue.

If I see that the client says, listen, I hear what you're saying, and it kind of makes sense, but we have an agency who tells us otherwise, and we just need you to fill this role within that.

Then I say, you know what, you're the 1 who is paying me.

I've done the best I could to change your mind.

I'm going to take a back seat and just do that.

But I've had examples where I have to talk about, you know, on-page optimization and how many exact keywords there should be.

And I was saying, listen, it's not as important as the thing this solves.

It doesn't matter if I use this term 10 or 12 times.

Like, yeah, but the agency ran a report and it's, you know, it's 2% keyword density and it needs to be

You know what fine, fine I'll put those 2 extra keywords in there if that makes you happy right?

Like I know it's not going to make a difference, it might even be detrimental at some point, but you are the boss.

So again, silencing your ego and silencing your knowledge when it's important is also a skill you need to cultivate.

Now we're going to go way off script because you used the trigger word.

And No, no, but it's going to relate to your relatively newfound interest.

Because we had a conversation recently about AI.

You've started a sub stack where you're playing around with different AI tools, mostly on the visual side of things.

But I know you've also played around with a bit of AI writing tools.

So now that you mentioned you're not just a dumb robot and your skill set goes beyond just writing, what's your opinion on these AI tools and how long before they'll replace us all, basically?

Well, it's very hard to say where AI, will AI eventually get to a point that it can replicate human empathy and the context and all the things we just talked about and the nuance that humans see?

Maybe, And if that happens, then yeah, we're all fine.

Because then AI can probably tell us what to do and tell it better than we do.

We haven't reached anything close to that yet.

We have the GPT-3, which is the best so far performing AI copywriter.

It will be eventually, actually very soon replaced with the GPT-4.

Don't ask me to tell you what the acronym means because I cannot do it now, but it's basically the neural model that can create a competent sounding text, which is very like grammatically corrected.

So they're really good at mimicking humans.

But behind the scenes, they're not humans.

So from working a little bit with these tools, right now I haven't actually found a good way to use them in my workflow, because I feel I sometimes spend more time trying to beat something out of these tools that I need to change anyways.

I've multiple times tried to be like, okay, let's do this.

Let's get the copyright of the AI copyright to write this, and then I'm just going to be the editor.

And there's, we're not quite there yet where they are, for me at least, close to replacing the human touch.

They have to be definitely fact-checked because they can literally pull facts out of their box.

They can write that America is 20 years old based on something they came across.

They're good at competent, you know, a laptop is a computer, but they're not going to tell you a story.

They don't know idioms and humor and analogies.

So it's gonna feel very flat what they write.

See all Words Sounds Visuals transcripts on Youtube

Episode 3 - Daniel Gniazdo