Podcast: SEO Strategies that stand the test of time - Recipe for SEO Success
In August 2022, Kate Toon invited me onto The Recipe for SEO Success, Kate Toon’s famous podcast, to talk about longevity in SEO, why a solid strategy outlasts algorithm updates, and how to resist the pull of constant reactivity. The conversation ran 44 minutes. I'm still giving the same core answers today.
Kate's audience is primarily English-speaking small business owners, solopreneurs, and digital marketing practitioners: people building their own SEO rather than delegating it to an agency. The questions she brought were the right ones, not how to chase rankings, but how to build something that holds.
What came out of the conversation
The philosophy behind search hasn't changed — that's your anchor. Google's core objective has stayed constant since day one: deliver the most useful answer to any given question. Every algorithm update, from Hummingbird to BERT to the Helpful Content rollout, has been an attempt to close the gap between what Google returns and what users actually need. The implication is straightforward: build for the user first, and algorithm changes improve your position over time rather than destabilising it.
SEO doesn't change. It evolves. In the conversation, I described it like a child growing up — you're still the same person you were at seven, but more capable and more complex. The fundamentals of quality, relevance, and authority haven't been replaced. They've been refined. The businesses that treat algorithm updates as disruptions tend to be the ones who were gaming rather than building.
Three to six months is the honest minimum. Anyone promising results faster is selling something. For established sites that are already technically sound, results can take longer because you're in the compounding authority stage rather than making quick gains. The worse the starting point, counterintuitively, the faster some early results arrive — a site loading in 22 seconds that you bring to three will climb almost immediately. But if you're already well-optimised and working on authority, patience is the strategy. This is also why every SEO Strategy Sprint I run starts with an honest assessment of the site's starting point before setting any timeline expectations.
Keyword strategy needs two review triggers, not one. The first is business change: a new product line, a pivot, a new audience segment, any shift in what you offer should prompt a keyword audit. The second is calendar-based: every six to twelve months, open the spreadsheet and check it against Google Search Console. See if your users' actual searches still match your keyword assumptions. Often they don't, and the gap is where you're losing traffic you should be winning.
When a competitor climbs above you, do nothing immediately. Google sometimes rewards newness as a temporary experiment. A site with little authority and thin content can spike and fall back within weeks. The reactive move — changing your own strategy in response to a blip — is often the wrong one. Watch the competitor for two to three months before treating the shift as permanent.
A featured snippet today might win you a client in a year. SEO outcomes and business outcomes operate on different clocks. A ranking position doesn't convert immediately; it builds visibility over time, and the actual business impact arrives later. The businesses that stop before the flywheel gets going are the ones that never see the return on what they already invested.
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“I highly recommend that you follow Alizée. She just approaches SEO with a real enthusiasm, positivity, and a human touch, which I think is very much aligned with how I approach it.”
Huge thanks to Kate for inviting me on the podcast! 🥰 I had a great time!
The episode is from July 2022. Kate Toon is one of Australia's most respected SEO educators and the host of The Recipe for SEO Success podcast, which she has run since 2016.
