It is about having Ideas, Interview with Jason Barnard
We have done with Jason epic Webinar series #SEOisAEO The concept didn’t fly, but Jason did:) He has established himself and is an authority.
Video and Published by: Anton Shulke. Guest: Jason Barnard. October 28, 2019.
Anton: It is mad, about one year ago, slightly more than that, you were a French SEO. It took me a year to eventually find out that, you know, you’re 100% French but with great English, should I say?
Jason: Yeah, how is it possible? Born to English parents, English sisters, brought up in the UK in Leeds. I moved to Liverpool to do my studies - it’s much cooler to say Liverpool than it is to say Leeds - but ended up living in France after lots of adventures along the way. I wasn’t French at the time, but in fact, now I am.
Anton: So you are more French than English now?
Jason: Oh, that’s a tough one. I think deep down in my soul, because I was born and brought up there, I still remain English. But because of Brexit, I wanted to be French so I could remain European. So it’s not so much that I want to be French; it’s more that I want to remain European and have that freedom to stay in Europe. For me, Europe’s a big kind of family with all my brothers and sisters, and I think that’s really, really, really great. So I’m French because I wanted to stay in Europe, but I’m also French because I’ve been living there for such a long time. My ex-wife is French and my daughter is French-English. I would say 50/50, I think that would be a fair assessment.
Anton: You used to live in the South of France, you had a house… I don’t know, you ended up… and now you are, I don’t want to say homeless, but what happened to you?
Jason: I had a really nice flat I was renting in the South of France with a big garage underneath where we used to have big parties. I used to play gigs down there; we’d get the double bass and the guitar and we’d have a sing-song with 60 or 70 people in the garage. That was brilliant. And then one day - I mean, I separated from my wife, my daughter went off to university - I thought, “Why am I here?” Not, “Why am I here on Earth?” which would be a very big philosophical question that I don’t have the answer to, but “Why am I in this village?”
And the answer is, I was in this village because of the people who needed me to be there at that time. And then all of a sudden, nobody needed me to be there. My clients didn’t need me to be there, my ex-wife had gone, my daughter was off at University, and I thought, “Where do I want to live?” And the answer is, I’ve got absolutely no idea. I didn’t have any particular positive idea of where I wanted to be. So I thought, I’ll pack it all up, stick all my belongings in a storage space, buy a plane ticket, organize some conferences, and set off around the world living in hotel rooms.
Anton: A digital nomad.
Jason: A digital nomad. A lot of people think, yeah, it’s traveling around but you’ve still got a flat somewhere. In this case, it’s traveling around and I don’t have a flat anywhere. So I basically go to conferences, get a hotel room, and travel.
Anton: A year ago you were a French SEO, living in the South of France and doing basically French stuff. What happened? Why all these changes?
Jason: Well, in fact, up until last year, I was working really, really, really hard to pay off a lot of debts for various reasons. So I couldn’t stick my neck out. I had to keep working, keep my clients, make sure I was making the money so that I could sort out my financial situation. And then about a year ago, it kind of cleared up.
At the time, my clients were all French, and that’s still the case today. But the problem with French digital marketing is it isn’t perhaps a bit as advanced as the American or the UK or even the German market. So I kind of thought, I’d like to go out and learn from the best. And the best, unfortunately, aren’t in France. They’re in the US, the UK, Germany, Denmark, even Italy. So actually going out there and speaking in English to people who’ve really, really dug into the topic has been absolutely brilliant.
Anton: So, to learn from others, you created your own epic series of webinars.
Jason: Yeah, 16 webinars, one a week, with three experts each, so altogether around 40-something experts.
Anton: Interesting idea how you learn from people by getting them in your own webinar room.
Jason: Yeah, well, I mean, you Anton gave me the opportunity to do it and said, “you know, we can set this up,” and it was ambitious. And you were brave enough to say, “Yeah, I trust you to get through to the end of these episodes,” and we did get through to the end of it. Craig Campbell and Dawn Anderson were the first people to jump on board and say, “Yeah, we’ll do it.” So that support got the 45 guests over 15 weeks.
Initially, for me, that was really interesting. I was thinking, “I’ve got this great theory about AEO, Answer Engine Optimization, isn’t that brilliant? Aren’t I a genius? I know so much about it I can fill up 15 episodes.” And after the first two episodes, I realized two things. One of which is I don’t know enough to fill up 15 episodes. And all of these experts know loads more than me about a specific subject. It’s pointless me talking about the little I know; it’s much better asking them what they know.
So I turned from being this kind of presenter of my ideas who was just trying to get people to agree with me, to a host where I was pulling ideas out of other people. Taking these specialists, bringing the information in, and using that specialist knowledge to make an approach that people can really relate to, that makes sense without digging too deep into all the individual information.
And the other nice thing was, Dawn Anderson, one of the first things she said was, “You know Jason, it’s not Answer Engine Optimization, it’s Assistive Optimization.” I was saying, “You know, lucky it starts with an A because then it’s still AEO.” And she said if it hadn’t been, she would have told me off about it!
Anton: Talking about the concept of Answer Engine Optimization, it didn’t really work, did it? I mean, it worked for you, it put you on the map. Now everyone knows you and everyone respects you, but not because of this concept.
Jason: That’s an interesting point. Answer Engine Optimization hasn’t really taken off as I kind of hoped. I think I was being a bit ambitious and probably naive. Assistive Engine Optimization, for me, makes lots more sense. And I was talking to Jono Alderson a couple of weeks ago, and he was talking about Solution Optimization, and that makes even more sense.
The idea that as digital marketers and as people selling things online, we’re bringing solutions to people. So we’re not having content strategies; we’ve got solution strategies. My content does not have a reason for existing on its own; its reason for existing is to bring a solution to a potential client or a client. So we’re looking at Solution Optimization from our point of view, and Google’s looking to bring those solutions to its users to solve the problems that its users are expressing. And I really like that.
Anton: You call yourself an SEO, doing technical SEO. From my point of view, I think you’re kind of a search engine philosopher.
Jason: You may, and that tickles me! I think that’s great. That’s a really nice way of saying it. I honestly get pretty bored of the nitty-gritty details of it all. I’ve done some technical SEO, I’m reasonably good at it. I don’t think I’m as good as someone like Aleyda Solis or maybe Chris Simmons, and I just get really bored of that kind of repetitive stuff very quickly.
I really like the idea that we need to change our points of view to really get to what we’re doing. And what I’m now doing is consulting, this kind of philosophical consulting maybe, saying here’s a strategy, what elements do you have - what human elements and what practical elements do you have - to actually be able to put this in place? And what can we best leverage? What’s the path of least resistance for you and what’s the most appropriate path for you to bring these solutions to your clients and potential clients?
Anton: You can call yourself a search engine philosopher, but if you want to sell it, you have to use “strategist.”
Jason: Brilliant! Yeah, you see, that’s where my naivety comes to the fore. I would go with “philosopher,” and I would never sell it and not make the money. So you’re right, I’m a search engine strategist, or even a solutions engine strategist.
Anton: So what are you doing right now? I understand it’s not exactly about Answer Engine Optimization. What is it now? Something strange as usual.
Jason: Yeah, well, what I’m doing now… I’m into Assistive Engine Optimization, I’m into Solution Optimization, and I think in particular, knowledge graphs. I love knowledge graphs.
I’ve been getting really into Brand SERPs. I started looking at Brand SERPs for clients, and I was looking at them for myself already. I was trying to control what came up when you search my name, not because I’m completely obsessed by myself, but because I was intrigued at how it would work. And after five years, now when you search my name, even though there are 250 Jason Barnards in the world, I’m the one that comes up because Google is confident it’s understood who I am.
And I’ve got a result that gives across the personal brand message I would like to give across. It informs people about my past life, informs people of my present life with very rich media - videos and images and the knowledge graph - and that is really, really powerful. So I’ve now been applying it to my clients who are getting these rich elements in their SERPs to represent their brand message, but also the positive message they want to give across to make sure that their clients and potential clients get the right message when they search for the brand name.
And you rightly pointed out, I tended to concentrate on potential clients, but an awful lot of these searches are navigational searches from existing clients. And making sure that those existing clients remain convinced that we are professional, that the message remains focused and intelligent, reassures them and makes sure they stick with us. I was talking to somebody the other day who was saying retention is the most important thing. So that brand SERP for customer retention, through a very reassuring brand SERP when they make that navigational search, I think is more important than we realize.
Anton: It would be interesting in a year from now to see what you will be up to. Hopefully, we can do another interview in a year.
Jason: Yeah, we’ll find a new city somewhere in the world where the sun is shining with a different background to do another interview. Yeah, fantastic.
Anton: Thank you very much.
Jason: Thanks a lot, Anton.
